Immigration

“The destruction of America’s bedrock, its welcome to immigrants, has created labor shortages for industries including hospitality, agriculture, and building. It has deprived American corporations and universities of the world’s best talent. It has devastated local communities, harming local businesses and real estate markets. It has deprived Treasury of billions in taxes. It has cost taxpayers billions directly, as private contractors cage human beings to rack up per diem payments, to say nothing about the overpaid undertrained goons snatching grannies from the street.”

emptywheel, April 21, 2026

Like Baltimore

(Thanks to Marilyn, who sent me this post, suggesting similarities to WMV). From “The Center Will Hold”, Joey Lico on Substack:

“Artists working in places like Baltimore are not waiting for systems to correct themselves. They are building something parallel — small, temporary structures where different ways of living and thinking can take hold. [Derrick] Adams mentioned something a professor once told him: Artists are magicians. It sounded casual in the moment. But it stayed with me. Because what artists actually do — at their best — is not just make objects. They make conditions. They create temporary worlds where different rules apply. Where conversation shifts. Where people encounter each other differently. Most of these worlds are small. Many disappear. But some don’t.”

I ran across another quotation, from Alan Elrod, along similar lines:

“I think organizing and winning the elections are great. I think doing things in your community is more important. This is a generational fight. And beating Trump and beating MAGA at the polls is great. But if you don’t get out there and know your neighbors, if you don’t get out there and try to fix the social capital problem we have—a book club, start a movie night club, do something like that—if you don’t do those things and engage in those kinds of face-to-face interactions that really revive civic life around you, where you are, then I don’t think that this is a problem that we’re going to get out of anytime soon. That’s my hopeful message, actually, because I am hopeful about it. But winning an election is actually the short-term fix. Doing this stuff is the long-term.”

Neighborhood Recognition

The Long Branch-Sligo Community Association newsletter has featured our events! Thanks to Laura Nelson and Jim Della-Giacoma.

Lincoln on No Kings

Facsimile of Lincoln’s letter to William Herndon

From “The King’s Congress” by William Kristol, in the Bulwark

From Lincoln’s letter to Herndon:

But to return to your position: Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, is to and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose– and you allow him to make war at pleasure– Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose– If, to-day, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, "I see no probability of the British invading us" but he will say to you "be silent; I see it, if you dont"–

The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons—Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object– This, our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us– But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where Kings have always stood– Write soon again–

Yours truly, A Lincoln

Money and Art

Money and art do not mix well. I once offered loans of M’s paintings to my colleagues at work, who eagerly chose pieces for their offices, and in some cases their homes. After a year or so, I asked for them back, unless they wished to purchase them. No one wanted to return the paintings, but neither did anyone want to pay for them. It took a surprising amount of effort to get them back.

On the other hand, I have made deals to pay some musicians in art credits, and this has worked out quite well. The deal is this: I pay either $125 per service in cash, or $250 in art credits. If they choose art credits, these mount up pretty fast. One concert plus three rehearsals is already $1000 in art credits. Five concerts could be more than $6000. The musician picks the art, and I pay the artist what I would have paid the musician in cash, i.e., half the value of the art credits. This is a good deal for all of us (if the musician loves the art). An art gallery would take 50%, so the artist is not really taking a loss. I view this as a kind of alternate economy. Now, one musician has taken this a step further, and has made the art available to her friends and relations. They are encouraged to select pieces, which they can receive as Christmas presents, as she accumulates credits. At least 20 paintings have been placed in this way.

What is a painting worth? To the IRS it is very simple: for deduction purposes, it is worth the value of the canvas and the paint applied (no hourly labor costs allowed), i.e., about $25. For taxation purposes, it is worth whatever the last purchaser of a similar item paid for it. If a painting sold for $4000 and you have an unsold inventory of 300 in your storage unit, they will assess your estate at $1.2 million. Not fair? Duh!

An art lover who covets a piece asks, how much is it? Well, the frame was $150, and the artist can’t bear to get less than $250 for herself, so the minimum price would be $400. Ouch, the collector says, $400 is too much for my budget! She offers $300, and the artist says OK, because the collector clearly loves the piece, and it will have a good home.

We purchase art, which is a very good discipline, if you expect other people to do it. We have purchased several pieces for $900-$1500, and have had no regrets. We have purchased many pieces for between $60 and $500, that are displayed all over our house. The only regrets are for the pieces we did not buy from artists who later passed away and their work disappeared, or from artists who became so famous that their work is now unaffordable.

Liz Vail, oil on canvas, 36”x36”; the artists mother and daughter on the farm. collection of Marilyn & Carl Banner

Some of the artists whose works we have purchased (along with a few gifts and trades): Schroeder Cherry, Lisa Rosenstein, Bob Henry, Alonzo Davis, Michael David, Lori Anne Boocks, Alice Sims, Mei Mei Chang, Travis Childers, Julee Dickerson-Thompson, Mary McCoy, Howard McCoy, Paul Volker, Margaret Paris, Roberta Staat, Ellen Hart, Francy Caprino, Carol Hamoy, Marvin Bileck, Liz Vail, Donna Coleman, Celeste Wiser, Barbara Bickley, Ruth Bauer-Neustadter, Debra Claffey, Michael Billie, Elizabeth Vismans, Jill Lion, Dominie Nash, Lisa Pressman, Catherine Cummings, Sandy Lupton, Alvin Thomas, Amdy Adje, Matt Sesow, Dana Ellyn, Carol MacDonald, Tania Kravath, Megan Hinton, Joyce Weinstein, Pat Blakemore, Charlie Buehler, Jane Rosser, and a young Salvadoran-American artist whose signature is illegible.

Ceija Stojka at the Drawing Center in NY

“Auschwitz is only sleeping.”

Untitled, 2005

We spent several hours at the Ceija Stojka exhibit at the Drawing Center in NY. I left in tears.

“The Beautiful Women of Auschwitz”, 1997

New York Opening

Opening party at M. David & Co. Gallery at ArtCake in Industry City, Brooklyn, in front of Michael David’s new painting/construction.

This little girl liked the art!

Marilyn in front of Michael David’s work.

Marilyn is part of Michael David’s “Yellow Chair” Symposia seminar series.

We own a small piece.

Art by Michael David, in the collection of Marilyn & Carl Banner

Rant #355

AI and Spotify have forced real music underground. Real music is imperfect; it is not auto-tuned, pieced together, studio edited, speeded up, over-dubbed, or ‘enhanced’ by selective amplification. Wrong notes, false entrances, memory lapses, coughs, and interruptions are all part of the deal, if you do not want to be just entertained by an f_ing machine.

Josquiniana

WMV has commissioned a new work from composer Stephen M. Cormier. Cormier is a music theorist who has developed a harmonic system based on modal music, like the music of Josquin, Ockeghem, Machaut, and other compositional giants of the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. We asked him to compose a work based on the music of Josquin des Prez (ca. 1450-1521). After about a year, he sent us a 50 page score for flugelhorn and piano, “Josquiniana”. It is about a 23 minute work in several sections, and at first listening seems to be both wildly contemporary and very Josquin. Dr. Guericke Christopher Royal and I are planning to premiere the work in September 2026 (it will take me that long to master the piano part!).

Bill Robinson's Birthday Suit

Our friend composer Bill Robinson turned 71, and has written this wonderful little piece in his own honor: “Happy Birthday to Me”

Extortion as Governance (from Lawfare)

From Lawfare:

“And so the gangster tactics migrate into the Fed.

Expensive renovation you got going on there, Chairman Powell. A lot of taxpayer money at issue. And you made that building pretty fancy, didn’t you? You gave some congressional testimony about it too. And spoken words in a congressional hearing—there are so many ways to slip up and get a fact wrong. And you know, even if you don’t slip up, words can be interpreted as erroneous, anyway. And you never know what an investigation is going to find about your intent, do you? And juries just don’t love people who build themselves fancy offices with taxpayer money, do they? And even if you never face charges, an investigation is a long and ugly process. The kind of thing that ruins an economist’s reputation. Kind of thing that sucks up a lot of time and ends up high up in a man’s obituary. That would be a shame.

And you know, Mr. Powell, that all you have to do to make this go away is lower interest rates.

Extortion is a matter of habit. Like lying. Do it a few times, and it becomes easier. Do it a few more times, and it becomes a way of life. 

And thus does criminal investigation become an instrument of monetary policy.

Or perhaps we should say thus does criminal investigation become also an instrument of monetary policy.”

Social Media

I have been off social media for a couple of years now, and I forget that that is how people communicate with each other. I am astonished that my emails are ignored for days, whereas Marilyn informs me that the recipient has been posting extensively in the meantime. I feel so isolated - duh! It is as if I have stepped outside society in some fundamental way. Neighbors barely acknowledge each other on the street and then go home and tell intimate details of their lives to strangers.

Roz Chast - New Years Resolutions

I love Roz Chast!

The Trump-Kennedy Center programming

Since there seem to be some cancellations there, maybe they should consider booking the J6 Choir?

Music that makes me cry

Sometimes I think the only music that interests me now is music that makes me cry.

Close to Home

Things are beginning to hit close to home. Chuck Redd is being sued by the Trump administration for a million dollars. He is a local jazz musician, strictly working class, who has done nothing but refuse a gig at the “Trump-Kennedy Center”. Chuck is a local guy, a long-standing pillar of the jazz community here. I spoke to him once, long ago, when I needed a drummer, but his fee was a little higher than I could afford at the time: $400.

I woke up this morning thinking about my philosopher friend, who moved to Canada. He wrote a year ago that he was concerned about visiting his grandchildren in the states because of the political situation. Now, if I were he, I would not dare to cross the border. He is an eminent Marxist philosopher in his 80’s - he could die in ICE custody, though a US citizen.

To See Like An Artist

Under the bridge

One of my great pleasures in life is to go places with Marilyn and see through her eyes - not always easy! She will stop to look at something, and I will have no idea what it is, unless she photographs it, or later draws or paints it. Recently we walked along Sligo Creek under the Carroll Ave bridge, and she photographed this magnificent scene of shadows and buffed graffiti.

Nearby, in the creek, there was this painted rock, looking like a laughing dinosaur.

Yiddish Lesson

“Qvetch”: to complain loudly about the normal human condition (as if it applies only to oneself). (I am very good at it!)

Bots from "China"

Lately almost all my web traffic is from bots from “China”. I looked it up - apparently these are “content-scraping” website bots, that “spoof” China as a source, and download gigabytes of everything on your website. What do they want with my “content”? This makes me a little nervous - they go everywhere, as interested in music, as in images, politics, biography, humor, family history, philosophy. Are they looking for sources of blackmail? Something they can sell? It would appear to be a kind of brake on free speech. Duh. Maybe they contribute to the pseudo-authoritative voice of AI: “some people say…”, “sources suggest…”