Joris Weighs In on the New York Times

I was taught growing up that it's polite to wait until someone's New York Times obituary is out before you publicly recall what they wrote about the 'paper of record.' A Syria-related chat from April 2017:

I.K. (in response to a Uri Avnery column): "The Syrians didn’t suddenly submit to a dictatorship in the 80s. ??? The Assads took over in 1970. Like Egypt, which it was previously unified with, fair elections have resulted and would result in leaders wanting to do something concrete for the Palestinians so the US won’t allow them, evidenced by several coups. The Assads moderated Syria’s position towards Israel and the US compared to their predecessors, but Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and the US want them out, largely to reduce the influence of Russia and Iran.

"I agree with Uri tho that there’s zero evidence of Assad’s fingerprints on the chemical attack and that he’s way too smart to alienate the West a few days after Trump said he wouldn’t intervene in the war. Someone didn’t like the news that Trump wouldn’t intervene and did something, but it’s unlikely Assad was that person. Reportedly the Trump administration warned Assad and Putin about the attacks, which would mean they’re playing to US politics, less dangerously in this respect than the Hillary crowd would have.

“What does that say about the American people, and about humanity in general?” I agree that they watch too much TV and still take the NY Times seriously, but increasingly less so."

+ "Intended to mention that all UN statements (one, by former Swiss AG Carla De Ponte) about the various 2013 chemical attacks implicated the rebels, and the UN has made no statement suggesting any evidence of Assad’s culpability." 

P.J.: "Thanks, Ian, useful comments as usual! & good to remind one that the NYT, which, given the circus, one nearly went back to take seriously again, is profoundly enmeshed with the enemies. Note that its opinion pages just acquired the services of one Bret Stephens, well-known climate change denier!"

 

Pierre Joris 1946-2025

When a person has died the men bring their little drums

Mothers of Monga yo yo pray for Monga

War has crushed him how did war crush him?

Cry my gullet, mother of Monga yo yo pray for Monga

War has crushed him O how did war crush him?

When they have finished crying they dance and sing all day long.

 

                        (P.J. translation of Tristan Tzara's translation of Mourning Song of the Ba- Totela, Batatela (Zaire)) 

 

 

 

it looks like this outside tonight only the sky is white (snow and 99% waxing gibbous)

 

René Magritte, L'Empire des lumières, 1954, Oil on canvas and gouache on paper

 

Update: The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow, Gave a lustre of midday to objects below, When what to my wondering eyes did appear, But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer, With a little old driver so lively and quick, I knew in a moment he must be Coach Nick. Rapidly the Eagles his starters they came, And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name: "Now, Cooper! now, Quinyon! now Zach Baun and Jalen! On, Saquon! on, Johnson! on, AJ and Jalen! To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall! Now beat the Rams! Beat the Chiefs! Beat them all!"

 

 at the two minute mark:

 

..or in the remake...

 

 

Moreover, Śāriputra, this buddha-land continuously produces heavenly music, and the ground is kelly green. In the six periods of the day and night, the heavens rain down māndārava flowers. In this land throughout the early morning, due to the precepts, all sentient beings have an abundant multitude of exquisite flowers.

(Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra)

Susan Alcorn 1953-2025

"... each musician interpreting Alcorn's suggestion of a lone village woman raising the alarm before an encroaching military incursion ..."

Fire, 2025

Painter and Altadena resident Hayv Kahraman has set up a GoFundMe for her relocation. “Fortunately, Hayv and her family made it out and their home remains standing BUT it will be UNINHABITABLE for the next year as it goes through the necessary steps to get decontaminated, which means they are homeless and uncertain at this time. 

“Nearly everything they had in the house will have to be removed because of smoke damage and they will be moving into a temporary apartment in the coming weeks, hopefully.” 

Kahraman grew up in Baghdad during the Iran-Iraq war and the Persian Gulf War: "I would look out my bedroom window and see a rain of air-raid bombs. They looked like fireworks. (The air-raid sirens) are so loud and when they happen, you know that you might actually die any minute. It shakes you to the core." Her family attempted to leave for Iran when she was eleven and was struck in traffic for eleven days before finding the border closed, hiring a smuggler the following year to get to Sweden and then Florence where she copied Fra Angelico and Giotto. “People talk about (the Altadena fire) looking like a war zone and they are right. I can tell you that it does. The loss is so vast and encompassing. The rubble. The air. The color of the sky. I felt transported to that time. I had begun building a life here. A home where I was slowly shedding my survivor mode that I’ve carried in my body since the Iraq war.” 

“I am concerned with the multitude not the self," she said in a 2016 interview. "This is not only my story. It can be the story of more than 5 million people within the Iraqi diaspora or any diaspora.” Kahraman was a signatory to the October 19, 2023 ArtForum letter supporting “Palestinian liberation.. an end to the killing and harming of all civilians, an immediate ceasefire, the passage of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and the end of the complicity of our governing bodies in grave human rights violations and war crimes.. that the institutional silence around the ongoing humanitarian crisis that 2.3 million Palestinians are facing in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip be broken immediately” which led to the firing of its Editor-in-Chief David Velasco. 

Recent works are up at Seattle's Frye Museum til February 2nd.

House in Kathemiya, 2013, oil on modular panel, 124 in. x 105 in.

Kachakchi, 2015, oil on linen, 200 x 274 cm

The Audience, 2018, Oil on linen, 97 x 73"

Neurobust no 6, 2022, Oil on linen, 60.96 x 60.96 cm

 

Love Me Love Me Not (detail), 2023; Oil and acrylic on linen, 80 x 100 in.

Syria before al-Qaeda
1994 Giorgio Armani, ancient city of Palmyra pic.twitter.com/nNiAKtQso9

— OstensibleOyster (@Ostensiblay) January 21, 2025

 

 (filmed in Palmyra, Syria)

 

Martha Rosler, Invasion, 2008