"Someone out to tell them [Americans] how to behave in a museum." (Charles Dantzig)

"Someone out to tell them [Americans] how to behave in a museum.  They talk as if they were at home..."

Charles Dantzig quoted in "Objectif Lune," in Harper's magazine, May 2009.
from Encyclopédie capricieuse du tout et du rien.

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I am almost always disarmed by the near whisper--or so it appears to American ears--and discretion of  the French when they visit a museum in our country, as much as I am by the "openness" and lack of artifice of so many Americans wherever they be.

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Sometimes either (1) when one stops yammering to one's fellow museum-goer about what one bought at Macy's the other day, or (2) stops for a few moments clicking on one's cell-phone, one might actually see something (as in "looking without seeing").

There's always, too, a time and place to rock to the beat of Lady Gaga or Prince.

Sometimes a little intellectual effort--and tuning down the noise inside (and outside) our minds--yields surprising results.  Which might be a tall order for most Americans (and increasingly so for Europeans).

Michaelangelo Merisi in a Vermeer-esque mood.

"You're either for us, or against us" -George W. Bush. The Stranger rechannels...

This infamous phrase was pronounced, as most Americans recall, by George W. Bush not long after he launched his "War Against Terrorism."

Through time, I believe that this phrase has been adopted, in spirit, by my hometown's alternative weekly The Stranger.

"You're either for us, or against us."

Either you are a blue-state or a red-state.  A liberal or a fascist.

Doesn't leave much choice if you ARE a liberal but disagree fundamentally with the tenor and positions of The Stranger--and its brethren--on certain hot-button issues.

You have become, by their subtle logic, the enemy.  A crazy, a liar, idiot, Republican, racist, etc.

To call someone a racist today is not so different from what would have been calling someone a commie in the '50's, a kick in the groin, so to speak.

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I only gradually became aware, over the years, of the simple-mindedness and bullying tactics employed by The Stranger.

For the staff of The Stranger, the musical "Hairspray" is the photo-perfect picture of the civil rights era of the '60's.  No deviation possible.

For Jen Graves, Charles Mudede, Eli Saunders:  James Paroline, Dinh Huynh, Kris Kime, Melwani Malesh, the four Lakewood cops, and the others never existed. Nor did the color of the skin of their murderers.

None of the above dead defended themselves before they were killed.  George Zimmerman did and he is alive today.

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And if certain people of color become second-class citizens for The Stranger,  big deal. Throw them on the side a racist taunt/slur if they protest.

No favoritism, even if they have their favorites.

One has to scratch one's head and turn over and over in one's mind the logic or meaning of The Stranger having African-Americans grace one-third or more of their front covers.

Only after considerable mind-blowing mental gyrations does one realize that it is genius at work.