Readers are to forgive us for once again laxing into laziness of the first order. The offices have been all aflutter with summer boisterousness, not at all conducive to generating proper Clinomania criticism.
But back we are, and so into the fray once more. For a while, one might have been upset, and with good cause, over the scarce postings between Sept. 3 and Sept. 7. Which begs the following question: Jack of course is well aware of the bored and easily distracted nature of his readership; indeed, in "Because It Makes People So Very Happy," he mentions their "chronically underemployed" character. What obligations, then, does the artist have to his audience? What can fairly be expected of Jack, in terms of production, and can he be held accountable for failing to oblige? If so, by whom? And under what criteria? We don't expect this debate to be resolved immediately, perhaps, but it's a puzzler one might tickle over while walking to the movie theater to see Vanity Fair by oneself, for example.
Jack's enthusiastic postings of today surely let him "off the hook" for the time being, in any case. "The Spiritual Exercises" is a most worthy subject, often bringing out the best in our correspondent. [Perhaps, we daresay, he has here a subject worthy of a book? one wonders.] The critic of course can't help but be reminded of some parts of Joyce's "Portrait of An Artist As a Young Man," which one was required to read in college in between popcorn chicken eating episodes, and which also included some frenzies of overzealous Catholicism.
Let's consider for a moment Jack's dream - the babe Jesus holding dominion over all of Manhattan. What a remarkable vision indeed, and yet Jack swiftly cuts down its epic nature with his apologia for cliche. Truly, Jack's genius lies here: in matching the epic to the human, the sublime to the mundane. Consider Jack's rants against the stinky nature of a particular subway station. He reminds the reader of the amazing power of subterranean transport, but only by pointing out how shit smelly it is. Build, and demolish, build and demolish are his watchwords.
