The Monsters Are Due on Mapplethorpe Street

There's a term from Nazi Germany --"degenerate art" -- that I'm sure most of you know.  For those that are unfamiliar, this from Wikipedia:

Degenerate art (German: Entartete Kunst) was a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party in Germany to describe modern art. During the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler, German modernist art, including many works of internationally renowned artists, was removed from state-owned museums and banned in Nazi Germany on the grounds that such art was an "insult to German feeling", un-German, Freemasonic, Jewish, or Communist in nature. Those identified as degenerate artists were subjected to sanctions that included being dismissed from teaching positions, being forbidden to exhibit or to sell their art, and in some cases being forbidden to produce art.

 

Degenerate Art also was the title of a 1937 exhibition held by the Nazis in Munich, consisting of 650 modernist artworks that the Nazis had taken from museums, that were poorly hung alongside graffiti and text labels mocking the art and the artists.[1] Designed to inflame public opinion against modernism, the exhibition subsequently traveled to several other cities in Germany and Austria.

While modern styles of art were prohibited, the Nazis promoted paintings and sculptures that were traditional in manner and that exalted the "blood and soil" values of racial purity, militarism, and obedience.

Well, here it comes again, Murrican style!  From The Atlantic:

Trump Takes Over the Kennedy Center

The president intends to replace members of the institution’s board as he adopts a more aggressive approach toward the arts.

Artists embarrassed Donald Trump when he first came to Washington. Now that Trump is back in power, he is determined not to let that happen again.

Trump plans to announce the dismissal of multiple members of the Kennedy Center board as soon as today, a group likely to include recent appointees of former President Joe Biden; among those on the current board are the Democratic political strategist Mike Donilon, former White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and Democratic National Committee finance chair Chris Korge. 

The White House has also had discussions about having Trump himself installed as chair of the board, according to two people familiar with the purge, who requested anonymity to describe plans that are not yet public.

This is, of course, disgraceful.  But it could have been done slowly and quietly, without the sounding brass of Donald Trump bellowing to the world that this was straight-up, fascist degenerate art.  But that would have defeated Trump's agenda of loud, public demonstrations of authoritarian domination and humiliation.  And so

...Trump confirmed the news, writing on Truth Social that he planned to make the Kennedy Center “GREAT AGAIN” by terminating “multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.” He wrote that he planned to announce a “new Board, with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!” adding, “The Kennedy Center is an American Jewel, and must reflect the brightest STARS on its stage from all across our Nation. For the Kennedy Center, THE BEST IS YET TO COME!”

So get ready to enjoy all the soaring, heroic "art", personally approved by Il Douche.  

Burn The Lifeboats

Dear Wonkette, You Suck at Photoshop

Seriously, I love you and your carbolic acid snark and witheringly clever commentors and all, but Jesus Sponge Tool Christ you suck at Photoshop.

And the thing is, this tragedy need not continue another day because there are really good graphic artists out there who would be glad to help you out.

Consider, for example, the case of Mr. Charles P. Pierce of Esquire magazine.  When Charlie decided to commandeer the David Brooks beat, he too started off with sucky graphics because not everyone can be good at everything.  Eventually, though, Mr. Pierce got someone to match well-crafted graphics with his writing and so by the time Mr. Pierce decided to commandeer the Sunday Morning beat, he had learned his lesson and started with some decent visual art right off the bat.

You have sterling and hard-won reputation for sparkling verbal brutality, Wonkette, so why do you keep poo-dipping it with graphics that look like 

a visual ransom note hastily assembled in the back seat of a speeding car with blown shocks by someone with safety scissors, a pot of glue and a very severe case of DTs? 

First, why choose this photo at all?  Outside of the circles you run in, Liz Cheney is virtually unknown and her face contains no obvious visual cues as to her identity, so why choose a photo of her that says nothing about who she is other than 


"I am a blonde lady standing in front of a brick wall and possibly moving my extensive Holly Hobby doll collection into my new office"?

Second, really?  Your just gonna take Dick Cheney's face, crop it with a pair of lawn shears and bolt it to some (as far as we know) anonymous blonde lady's profile?  Really?

Liz is nothing but her horrible daddy's horrible little cipher -- 

HORRIBLE DRAGON LADY LIZ CHENEY THINKS CZECHOSLOVAKIA IS STILL A THING 

Before repeatedly using his deal with Satan to cheat death, former Vice President and It’s A Wonderful Life villain Dick Cheney brought spawn into the world and it immediately began saying horrible things that are false and stupid...

-- so why not take another minute or two to think about what you want your pic to convey?  Why not look around Teh Internet for raw materials that tell the story you want to tell?

Here, for example, are my own efforts that I created as an instructional aid just for this post.  



It took me about 15 minutes to locate the pics I wanted and another 40 minutes to build the thing.  I worked it up on my creaky 7-year-old laptop with its creaky 7-year-old version of Photoshop and jittery mouse, and I would have gotten it posted lot faster had I not gotten enamored of these two photos first





and burned 45 minutes trying to make them work (the end result was, in my modest opinion, several hundred times better than what you posted but still wasn't up to my standards so I pitched it.)

The first step to getting better, Wonkette, is admitting you are powerless over sucking at Photoshop.

Counselors are standing by.

The Mighty Tony Fitzpatrick

Is interviewed in the Sun-Times today.

I'll give you a little taste, 'cause you've been pretty good.

It's got a bit of foreign policy:

I just got back from Istanbul, which is 98 percent Muslim, and found people who basically want the same s--- we do: a dignified standard of living, a decent life for their family and to be left the f--- alone.

Some sober market truths:

The visual art world here in Chicago is run by pigmies, midgets and Chihuahuas. It's clannish. Access is denied. It's about rich people.

Local folk wisdom:

Ever hear of Chicago Alzheimer's? It's when you forget everything except the grudges.

And like that.

You should go read it.

Because like Riverview Amusement Park

or the distant echos of the 18-RPM stroke-victim/jingle-jingle version of "Smoke on the Water" that tells you the ice cream man is near, if you wait to make sure your tie is straight or your lipstick is geometrically perfect and don't run over there nownownow, it might be gone by the time you get around to it.