"Joseph Frank Keaton spent his youth in his parents’ knockabout vaudeville act; by the time he was eight, it basically consisted of his father, Joe, picking him up and throwing him..."

"... against the set wall. Joe would announce, 'It just breaks a father’s heart to be rough,' and he’d hurl Buster—already called this because of his stoicism—across the stage. 'Once, during a matinee performance... he innocently slammed the boy into scenery that had a brick wall directly behind it.' That 'innocently' is doing a lot of work, but all this brutality certainly conveyed a basic tenet of comedy: treating raw physical acts, like a kick in the pants, in a cerebral way is funny. 'I wait five seconds—count up to ten slow—grab the seat of my pants, holler bloody murder, and the audience is rolling in the aisles,' Keaton later recalled. 'It was The Slow Thinker. Audiences love The Slow Thinker.' A quick mind impersonating the Slow Thinker: that was key to his comic invention. The slowness was a sign of a cautious, calculating inner life. Detachment in the face of disorder remained his touchstone.... It was only when Joe started drinking too hard and got sloppy onstage that, in 1917, the fastidious Buster left him and went out on his own. It was the abuse of the art form that seemed to offend him."

From "What Made Buster Keaton’s Comedy So Modern?/Whereas Chaplin’s vision was essentially theatrical, Keaton’s was specific to the screen—he moved like the moving pictures" by Adam Gopnik (The New Yorker).

"But his themes are part of the inheritance of modernity, ones that he merely adapted with a peculiar, self-pitying edge and then took to their nightmarish conclusion..."

"... the glory of war over peace; disgust with the messy bargaining and limited successes of reformist, parliamentary democracy and, with that disgust, contempt for the political class as permanently compromised; the certainty that all military setbacks are the results of civilian sabotage and a lack of will; the faith in a strong man; the love of the exceptional character of one nation above all others; the selection of a helpless group to be hated, who can be blamed for feelings of national humiliation. He didn’t invent these arguments. He adapted them, and then later showed where in the real world they led, if taken to their logical outcome by someone possessed, for a time, of absolute power. Resisting those arguments is still our struggle, and so they are, however unsettling, still worth reading, even in their creepiest form."

From "Does 'Mein Kampf' Remain a Dangerous Book?" by Adam Gopnik (The New Yorker).

In this short article, Gopnik uses variations on the word "creepy" 5 times: "not so much diabolical or sinister as creepy.... The creepiness extends toward his fanatical fear of impurity.... Creepy and miserable and uninspiring as the book seems to readers now.... Putting aside the book’s singularly creepy tone.... it contains little argumentation that wasn’t already commonplace still worth reading, even in their creepiest form."

That suggests that, if we readi the book, we will feel an instinctive revulsion against the writer, even as the writer was endeavoring to inspire revulsion against designated others. Is it good to rely on this instinct to deliver us from evil?

Painting murals gives students empowering role in protest movement

I'm reading "Painting murals gives students empowering role in protest movement" (Wisconsin State Journal):

For Madison-area youths such as Nelson Lashley, who just turned 10, participating in the Black Lives Matter protest movement by painting murals on boards covering Downtown businesses was empowering.

“I’ve been feeling good that I am in the protest,” said Nelson, who will be a fifth-grader at Lowell Elementary School. “It’s kind of beautiful how you can show what you’re doing through a peaceful form like art.”

The murals were painted on plywood put up after windows were broken during protests following the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody. Many still stand.

Nelson painted with his father, Yorel Lashley, who said the opportunity aligned with the messages he tries to instill through his Drum Power company, which teaches drumming but also strives to develop the whole person.

As a musician, Lashley liked the idea of trying something in the visual arts. The project also was personal.
 

Ask the schoolchildren to paint the murals "Black Life Matters" for downtown Madison.

 

     As murals were being painted at the end of the school year, SJ Hemmerich, art teacher at Randall Elementary School, created a slide presentation of them. Hemmerich then presented it to students and as a last assignment asked , “If you could design your own mural for (Black Lives Matter), what would it be?” Then Hemmerich got the idea of why not do it for real.

    Hemmerich, like other teachers, reached out to “Black and brown students” to get involved. Hemmerich got permission to work on one large mural and five panels located near each other. ... Hemmerich also sent an email out to art teachers in the Madison School District to recruit more help beyond Randall and wound up with more than 135 students and some staff members.

    “I am really passionate about social justice work,” Hemmerich said. “I thought it would be a really good way to get students involved.”...

    Monique Karlen, art teacher at La Follette High School, said she started by recruiting some of her students and then got other help from students from Middleton and East high schools...

The only mention of parents in the article is about one student who said that her parents worry about her participation in the protests, so the mural-painting is a good, safe alternative. But I don't think teachers should be recruiting children to engage in political activism — even if it's artistic — without first involving the parents and getting their consent. I don't think adults should put any sort of pressure on children to take a political position and to do political work — even if it's artwork. Teachers should not be exploiting their access to children for any political purpose. They are given access to our children for the purpose of education, and it is a solemn trust that should never be violated. 

 

"One of the ironies of the moment is that, where it’s been the usual path, in modern times, to find small, incremental measures having big effects..."

"... on public problems, in this case, big, seemingly outsize measures—cancelling public activities, closing schools and offices—are necessary to create the small changes in vectors that can at least manage the pandemic. This novelty perhaps explains why it is so hard to wrap our minds around the changes: it turns out that it is possible for something to be at once a huge public-health crisis while creating, so far, a minimal number of visible, obvious cases of illness. The sane thing right now is not to hope for a miracle cure but to accept that maximal measures might have usefully minimal effects."

From "The Coronavirus, and Why Humans Feel a Need to Moralize Epidemics" by Adam Gopnik (in The New Yorker).