Author: Andrew Taggart

• February 2, 2012

  Bernini’s Pluto and Proserpina: Beauty, death, and eros

  The image you are looking at was not taken by a camera. Nor were the fingers pressed into the underside of the woman’s thigh. Nor the index finger–his left index finger–hooked onto her lower rib, marking it. Nor the veins on her butt beginning at the the top of her hip. Nor was the birthmark…
• February 1, 2012

  On 2 metaphysical comportments: nay-saying and yea-saying

  Nay-saying If a way of life begins with a “no” to life, then it seeks to ask first, “How do we protect those around us from being harmed?” Out of this “no” to life springs forth law, rights, the minimal abstentionist state, and the idea of national security. If the point of the primordial “no”…
• January 31, 2012

  On education as ‘going along with the flow’; on choice as the offspring of distrust

  1 One of my fondest college memories is of proving Euclidean theorems all the way up to the precipice: the Parallel Postulate. Until one arrives at the Parallel Postulate, one can derive Euclidean geometry from 5 scintillatingly simple axioms. Each theorem can be clearly formulated, each proof can be neatly arranged according to the steps…
• January 30, 2012

  Meow

  The following is an excerpt from an email exchange that took place between one conversation partner–I guess I’ve renamed her “S.”–and me from this past weekend. I pick up the thread about education in Tuesday’s post. Till then, A. — Dear S., There’s a rock on my desk. (A fine opening line!). It’s black. Away…
• January 28, 2012

  On making amends: Scenes from Forster’s A Room with a View

  The following are two excerpts from E.M. Forster’s novel A Room with a View (1908). Midway through the novel Cecil asks Lucy if she will marry him. She says yes. In the first scene, Cecil and Lucy, recently engaged, are walking home through the woods; they come upon the Sacred Lake. In the second scene, Lucy is…