Death House Letters

Robert Warshow on the Rosenbergs (1953):

On July 4, 1951, Julius clipped a copy of the Declaration of Independence from the New York Times and taped it to the wall of his cell. "It is interesting," he writes to Ethel, "to read these words concerning free speech, freedom of the press and of religion in this setting. These rights our country's patriots died for can't be taken from the people even by Congress or the courts." Does it matter that the Declaration of Independence says nothing about free speech, freedom of the press, or freedom of religion, and that Julius therefore could not have found it "interesting" to read "these words" in that particular document? It does not matter. Julius knew that America is supposed to have freedom of expression and that the Declaration of Independence "stands for" America. Since, therefore, he already "knew" the Declaration, there was no need for him to actually read it in order to find it "interesting," and it could not have occurred to him that he was being untruthful in implying that he had just been reading it when he had not. He could "see himself" reading it, so to speak, and this dramatic image became reality: he did not know that he had not read it.

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Cristóbal Ruiz Pulido

After several years of searching, I finally learned the name of the painter and the title of the work I noticed in The Limits of Control . Very little is available in English on Cristóbal Ruiz Pulido, but it was his painting, a portrait of his daughter in a hallway, that triggered a need to know more about his work. A substantial article in Spanish can be found here . Cristóbal Ruiz Pulido, painter and poet, was born in 1881 in Villacarrillo, a city in the south-central province Jaén in Spain. He studied at the School of Fine Arts, Cordoba with Rafael Romero Barros and then in San Fernando in Madrid with Alejandro Ferrant. From 1902 to 1914 he lived in France, Belgium and Holland, studying under Jean-Paul Laurens at the Académie Julian in Paris. In 1910 he participated in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts. In 1917 he won third prize, and in 1920 Tierras de labor won second prize. In 1925 he participated in the exhibition and in the manifesto of the Iberian Artists Hall, ...

Meaningless Work

Meaningless work is obviously the most important and significant art form today. The aesthetic feeling given by meaningless work can not be described exactly because it varies with each individual doing the work. Meaningless work is honest. Meaningless work will be enjoyed and hated by intellectuals - though they should understand it. Meaningless work can not be sold in art galleries or win prizes in museums - though old fasion records of meaningless work (most all paintings) do partake in these indignities. Like ordinary work, meaningless work can make you sweat if you do it long enough. By meaningless work I simply mean work which does not make money or accomplish a conventional purpose. For instance putting wooden blocks from one box to another, then putting them back to the original box, back and forth, back and forth etc., is a fine example of meaningless work. Or digging a hole, then covering it is another example. Filing letters in a filing cabinet could be considered meanin...

Au rendez-vous de la mort joyeuse

Of the many movies on my very long yet-to-see list, I was able to shorten it by one on an evening that, as I would soon learn after a quick internet search, was only several weeks after its director, Juan Luis Buñuel, had passed away. While he will not enter into the horror pantheon with the likes of Tobe Hooper or George Romero, who sadly both passed away in 2017, Juan Louis Buñuel nevertheless made a meaningful contribution to, and arguably left an influence on, horror film in the form of Au rendez-vous de la mort joyeuse (1973), aka At the Meeting with Joyous Death, or Expulsion of the Devil in the US. The film is certainly more than a mere footnote in Gérard Depardieu’s acting career or simply interesting for no better reason than having been made by the son of the great Luis Buñuel. In fact, I think Au rendez-vous de la mort joyeuse was recycled into countless horror movies that followed. It’s a safe assumption that Au rendez-vous de la mort joyeuse wa...

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