The New York Autumn Sales

Reports indicate that recent sales at Sotheby's and Christie's in New York are a sign of returning buyers in the art market. Sotheby's skyrocketed past its original estimate of $67.9 million to bring in $134.4 million at its autumn contemporary art auction on Wednesday evening. Christie's did less well at its Tuesday night sale, but still managed to sell $74.1 million.

The Wall Street Journal has some good analysis as to what appears to be happening in the market at present. Though we are nowhere near the record sales of Autumn 2007, when the two houses brought in a combined $1.6 billion at their contemporary art sales, and this November's figures are still lower than last year's combined $729 million, the fact that there are still buyers in the market in these difficult economic times is usually a bellwether of where the market is heading. If the well-to-do are still buying Picassos and Giacomettis, then the rest of the disposable income market cannot be too far behind in helping spur economic recovery.

The Journal also has an interesting slideshow of what sold, and what had to be withdrawn from sale. Admittedly, much of this is either not to my taste or is, frankly, garbage. However it does tend to paint a picture - for lack of a better term - of what art buyers tend to look for in a recession. What further sociological conclusions one can draw from this, I will leave up to those more informed than I with respect to such things.

One thing which readers should keep in mind is that the art market is not populated exclusively by people who understand and can appreciate the art for sale. In many cases, art connoisseurs cannot afford to purchase the art they admire. Rather, a decent percentage of the buyers are not in fact very knowledegable about the art they purchase.

Instead art, in these particular corners of the market, is viewed as an easily transferable investment, like gold or diamonds, that can be kept and admired (or stored in a vault), and later sold either for ready cash or for a profit. Much of this depends on making a sound decision in the choice of artwork, and this is where the billionaire with a good eye for Wall Street needs the bookworm with a good eye for artistic technique. Indeed, investment banks like Citigroup actually have an art investment advisory department, for their clients seeking to diversify and manage their risk. Despite the falling dollar and rising unemployment, the uncertainties of budget deficits, healthcare reform, and the like, clearly some of those institutions are still advising their clients to buy.

The Play's the Thing

Last evening I spent an enjoyable time in good company at the L2 Lounge in Georgetown playing backgammon, a game I have not played in years. Back when I first moved to London during grad school, I lived at International Students House, a royal institution which provided reasonably-priced accommodation in Central London to graduate students from around the world. Our then-President of the Student Body, who was a Greek Cypriot, happened to be my neighbor. He eventually became both a good friend and a highly competent backgammon instructor.

If you are going to learn to play backgammon from anyone, going Greek is a very good way to go, indeed. We would sit in the hallway chain-smoking until the wee hours of the morning, Coutsi graciously instructing me on how I could improve my play - e.g. "You could do that, but it might be better for you if you did this..." The following year I was elected President of the Student Body myself, and perhaps the backgammon tutelage had something to do with it.

Backgammon is a very ancient game, far older than chess, and some historians believe it is related to the Royal Game of Ur. My siblings and I, in fact, had a modern edition of the Royal Game of Ur issued by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was given to us by some well-meaning, nerdy relative. Despite our perceived stylishness to those who have met us, we Newton-Cornets were quite geeky children in some respects.

As my sister recently reminded me, when we were small we would sometimes sit on the couch in the music room, leafing through my father's copy of the monumental tome, "A History of World Sculpture", by the great French art historian and Louvre curator Germain Bazin, playing a game called "Pick Your Favorite on Every Page". The object of the game (if one can call it that) was to turn a page in the lavishly illustrated book, which featured several sculptural pieces on each page, and then...well, pick our respective favorite on every page. This would normally engender discussion among those playing as to what we thought of the selected or rejected pieces. And truthfully, that was it: there were no prizes or points to be won.

The Royal Game of Ur is available from Amazon and other retailers, and for those seeking an interesting - if admittedly somewhat pedantic - game to set on the coffee table at the next cocktail party, it is a fine choice. I always wanted a carved, hardwood version, since the one we had was the standard cardboard and pressed-woodchip style more friendly to being banged about and for sticky childrens' fingers. However, given my newly-rediscovered appreciation for the game first taught me by my presidential predecessor, I may have to seek out a good backgammon set first.

King and Lady playing backgammon,

from the Luttrell Psalter circa 1325-35

The Lost Best-Seller

In preparation for a 1950's-themed party I am attending this weekend, I was doing some research on popular figures of that era. Some of them happen to be more obvious than others. For example, Marilyn Monroe is an obvious choice of a 50's icon, but many younger people forget that Queen Elizabeth II, who is still going strong, was crowned to enormous fanfare and celebration in 1953. The event was celebrated in all of the popular magazines and broadcast to international audiences via the still-new medium of television.

Among the lists of best-selling books of the era, I found several references to Frances Parkinson Keyes. According to Publisher's Weekly, the primary trade journal for the publishing industry in the U.S., between 1950 and 1959, she had four novels make the top ten list of best-selling fiction books in a given year. The most popular of the four, "Joy Street", reached number one on the New York Times best-seller list in 1951.

Despite this documentary evidence of considerable popularity, I suspect that you, my dear readers, have never heard of this writer nor read any of her work - though probably your grandmothers were very familiar with her. This is indeed a great shame, and so I wanted to do my tiny part to hopefully revive interest in this very talented and interesting woman. In particular, some of my regular readers with a Romish persuasion may be interested to learn that she was a convert to the Catholic Church, and that Catholic themes run through very many of her books.

Frances Parkinson was born in Charlottesville, Virginia in 1903, to transplanted New Englander parents. Her father was the head of the Greek Department at the University of Virginia, back when the study of Greek was de rigueur for a young gentleman's education. After her father's early death her mother remarried, and the family moved back to New England, spending part of the year in Boston and part at the family's ancestral Federal-era farm in Vermont.

Frances later married a Harvard man named Henry W. Keyes, and together they had three sons. Her husband, a powerful member of the Republican Party, served in both houses of the New Hampshire legislature, was elected Governor of New Hampshire in 1916, was subsequently elected to the U.S. Senate in 1919, and served there until his retirement in 1937. Mrs. Parkinson Keyes, as she became known, was popular in Washington society, and wrote regular pieces for ladies' magazines and newspapers about her experiences and travels as a prominent Senator's wife.

Mrs. Parkinson Keyes' first novel, "The Old Gray Homestead", was published in 1919, and it marked the beginning of what by any measure would be considered a profoundly prolific writing career, spanning six decades. In all, not including magazine articles and shorter pieces, she published around 60 books, including novels, memoirs, biographies, and travelogues. She became particularly popular for her novels about life in Louisiana, after she purchased a home in the French Quarter of New Orleans in the 1950's, which is now a museum dedicated to her.

During her extensive travels Mrs. Parkinson Keyes happened to find herself in Rome attending the Beatification of St. Therese de Lisieux in 1923, and became fascinated by her autobiography. She later spent a summer with the Benedictines at Lisieux researching what eventually became a biography of the Little Flower. Mrs. Parkinson Keyes was received into the Church in 1939, and continued to write biographies of saints, travel journals about pilgrimages, and other Catholic material for the rest of her life.

I first came across Mrs. Parkinson Keyes' work when I was about ten or eleven years old. At a charity book sale I spied a book entitled "I, The King", a novel about the life of Philip IV of Spain, the great patron of Velázquez. This was one of Mrs. Parkinson Keyes' last works, published in 1966. Being interested in the subject matter, and at the cost of 25 cents, I decided to give it a try.

I ended up inhaling the book, re-reading it several times over, as it brought the court of this interesting but flawed monarch to life in a way which gave further depth to those magnificent, dark paintings collected in The Prado. For those who are not yet familiar with her style, Mrs. Parkinson Keyes is decidedly a detail-oriented writer. The amount of historical research that she performed for just one of her novels, long before the age of the internet and while suffering from increasingly ill health, is simply outstanding. Everything from architecture to food, costume to manners and forms of address, are painstakingly researched and documented for accuracy.

From there, I went on a Frances Parkinson Keyes "kick" for awhile, picking up any novels and non-fiction of hers that I could come across in second-hand bookshops and garage sales. I would estimate that I read probably a dozen of her novels and at least several travelogue/non-fiction pieces. Like any such interest however, I eventually reached a point of saturation, and moved on to other things, but the better for the experience. Seeing her name appear on those 50's best-seller lists brought back fond memories of spending long evenings of summer vacation wrapped up in tales of old steamboat gothic plantations in the Deep South and French chateaux in Normandy.

Mrs. Parkinson Keyes is not what one would consider to be a "high-brow" writer of the first part of the 20th century. She is definitely writing from the perspective of a respectable, well-off lady of a certain background and experience. Being therefore too ladylike for such company, she does not sit well on the bookshelf next to tortured scribblers like Céline or Hesse. Her enormous cast of characters and detailed observations of life speak more to the 19th than the 20th century, and in that respect she is more analogous to Trollope than to Dickens: a good storyteller, writing primarily to a bourgeois audience, but not particularly challenging to the reader. One of her novels is a perfect accompaniment to a rainy afternoon or evening in front of the fireplace, but it is not a challenge to one's world view.

That being said, her skills and charm as a writer are very much needed in a society which has forgotten grace and civility, almost to the point of no return. Tastes have changed, affecting her popularity, but she has also suffered a decline in public awareness of her work as a result of a long copyright dispute between her estate and her publishers subsequent to her death in 1970. As a result, her books fell out of print, and a search on Amazon will reveal only second-hand copies of a handful of her works for sale. And what a loss for the film industry, when so many interesting novels of hers are simply in need of a good director to be made into engaging historical films.

Should one of my readers find themselves at a charity book shop in the near future, I highly recommend seeking out Mrs. Parkinson Keyes' novels. They are becoming increasingly difficult to find, as old paper disintegrates and new editions fail to print. However, for the enjoyment of a good story with interesting historical detail and a solid, Catholic moral foundation, and for the rescue of lost esteem for a deserving author's work, they are well-worth the investment.

It's Not the End of the World

Early last week, having dropped my mobile on the way home and smashed it into several pieces, I was displeased to discover that, like Humpty Dumpty, I could not put it back together again. This calamity necessitated a visit to my local mobile phone service spot, and waiting for a part to arrive, leaving me without mobile communication for a couple of days. Still having a landline as a back-up, I was not completely incommunicado, but then I hardly use my landline anymore as it is.

Then sometime on Thursday of this past week, as the mobile returned, the high speed internet connection at Casa Courtier went out. The connection subsequently came back to life sua sponte on Thursday evening, but on Friday morning it went out again, and remained unavailable until last evening. The technician was able to repair it remotely, or at least so it appeared. Then this morning, the connection decided to go out again, which will involve another round of 30 telephone calls to who knows how many individuals in order to restore service.

We have become so technologically dependent, as a society, that these annoyances can take on the scale of monumental tragedies, at times. What time does that shop open on Sundays? What is the exact address of that restaurant? Did anyone respond to my (in my mind) clever and pithy comment on that blog post of so-and-so's? If I unplug and reboot the modem AND the router several times, when oh when will I get service again?

None of these things are so important as to herald the advent of the Four Horsemen, of course. For most of us, if we come down to brass tacks, they are conveniences, and their absence constitutes an inconvenience and little else. Yet we find ourselves feeling strangely vulnerable, even trapped, when these electronic things go wrong. Having taken and bitten into the apple of technology, we find ourselves unable to stop nibbling at it, even for an interval, and our addiction becomes all the more apparent when the fruit is snatched, even momentarily, from our grasp.

Perhaps the lesson to be learned here, dare I speculate that I will quickly forget this moment of reflection on the subject, is that technology and electronic connectivity is a good thing, but it is not something that engenders actual connections between human beings. Do I *need* to be logged into GChat all the time? Do I really have to listen to my iPod every evening? Why should I leave my mobile turned on 24-7?

For some, certainly those who work in the digital world and in communications, the answer to these questions is probably, "Yes." For those of us who can more easily compartmentalize our lives, if we truly want to, the answer is surely, "No." The real question for those in the latter category is whether we are brave enough to shut our devices off voluntarily, even if only from time to time, and make an effort to either enjoy the quiet, or to take the initiative to initiate an actual connection in real time.

Review: Rachel Getting Married

Let us not go against the grain merely for the sake of doing so, being a contrarian when it comes to cinematic criticism. When a movie receives not only multiple film festival nominations and awards, is referred to with glowing terms such as a "triumph of ambiance", and appears on dozens' of critics lists as one of the best films of 2008, it at least deserves a bit of one's attention. In the case of "Rachel Getting Married", featuring Anne Hathaway's Oscar-nominated turn as a recovering drug addict, it would be understandable if one were simply swept away on a wave of breathless enthusiasm like everyone else. Yet as my gentle reader knows, I am hardly like everyone else.

Director Jonathan Demme's "Rachel Getting Married" is a disastrous, boring, orgy of multi-cultural film-flam that resembles nothing so much as a 2-hour-long Benetton advert. I believe I can pinpoint my saturation and overflow point from this towering pitcher of dreck at the moment when the Brazilian samba band arrived at the reception to the Hindi wedding (performed by a Rabbi with no mention of God) of the Jewish psychiatry student and the black jazz musician to jam with the electronica DJ/metal band/Palestinian violinist. Spending a good part of the time fast-forwarding through scene after scene of the type of Globe Trekker "aren't weirdos and third world customs wonderful" perspective held by the middle class East Coast liberal intelligentsia is never a good sign of the strength of a film.

What did I hope for, you might very well ask. Truthfully, based on the premise of the film, I was hoping for something a bit more revelatory and bitter about long-standing disagreements between family members - perhaps not as histrionic as the towering "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", but something more like Bergman's "Höstsonaten". I find it difficult to believe I find myself writing this, the sisterly relationship explored by Toni Collette and Cameron Diaz in the chick-flick "In Her Shoes" is far more compellingly bitter and well-managed than this utter mess.

Hathaway does her best to broaden her range as an actress, and she does not fail in this regard - though truthfully Debra Winger should have been nominated for an Oscar, if anyone in this film. There is a spectacularly unexpected confrontational scene between these two actresses where they come to blows that is one of the best sequences in the film. Unfortunately there are so few good sequences, so many lost opportunities, and so much time lavishly wasted on the details of the wedding, that the film takes the reader through a grinder coarser than any grist mill. The resolution - if indeed one can call it that - is so unbelievable after everything that has occurred, that it feels tacked on; it cheapens the (few) moments of meaningful dialogue that have taken place during the course of the film.

While I have no doubt that Ms. Hathaway will have more films to explore in her future, and certainly her moments on screen in this one prove that she is more than a comedic actress, this film does not showcase her abilities in the way that I had expected. It is not an Oscar-worthy performance, merely a good performance. Perhaps if the director had focused more on the story and less on the enormous cast of disposable characters seen through a shaky, Soderbergh-type lens, I might have seen something other than what I did, and something far more worthy of accolade.

The Public Spectacle

Yesterday local news covered the case of a man who was denied an upgrade to first class on a flight because he was wearing a track suit. The man claimed that he was "humiliated and embarrassed" - not for wearing a track suit to the airport, but because of his being denied a first-class seat for being improperly dressed. Perhaps United Airlines should have handled the situation better, but I applaud them for at least attempting to hold on to some standards.

Some months ago I attended André Previn's birthday concert at the Kennedy Center, with Sir André conducting the National Symphony Orchestra and the great Anne-Sophie Mutter performing. As I arrived I worried that I was underdressed for the occasion, wearing a dark business suit rather than evening dress. From my box seat near the stage, I was stunned at the number of sweatshirts, jeans, and fanny packs I saw scattered in the orchestra section below me.

Meantime, environmental talks have been going on in my home-away-from-home of Barcelona, and where such things occur naturally there are plenty of acts of showmanship from Greenpeace. Earlier they hoisted banners at a crane at the Sagrada Familia, and later at the Sagrada Familia itself. Today a group of Greenpeacers held watch at the base of the Monument to Columbus, in the city harbor, while two others climbed the monument to draw attention to their issue.

The Courtier is certainly in favor of comfort in dress, when appropriate. The Courtier is also in favor of peaceful protest and the airing of different points of view. However the loss of decorum and standards in society appears nowadays to know no bounds.

There is a time to wear a track suit, and that time is when one is on the track or at the gym. There is also a time to climb public structures or monuments, and that time is when one is a maintenance or construction worker performing one's appointed task. Have we really fallen so far as a society into self-obsessive narcissism that we no longer perceive these important rules of decorum?

There is much to be said for a greater casualness and friendliness in certain aspects of contemporary life, removing restrictions on individual freedoms that were silly at best. Sometimes those who deplore a lack of graciousness and manners simply go too far backward toward something approaching costume rather than dress, or affectedness rather than politeness. However, there is also a tipping point of casualness beyond which we must not be too careful to go. Ultimately a lack of respect for our fellow citizens in the way we dress or behave when going out in public is really a manifestation of selfishness, and should be avoided.

Eartha Kitt, Micheál Mac Liammhóir, Orson Welles and friend,

at a sidewalk cafe in Frankfurt, August 6, 1950

Remember, Remember

Today is a regrettable anniversary for Catholics in England, marking the 405th anniversary of actions which led to the crushing of Catholicism in the British Isles for several centuries. On November 5, 1605, Yorkshire Catholic Restorationist Guy Fawkes was arrested as he was leaving Parliament, after hiding barrels of gunpowder in the cellars. This was part of a terrorist plot to blow up the building during the State Opening of Parliament, once King James I had arrived. The resulting blast would probably have killed most of the royal family, aristocracy, and other leaders in attendance, Catholics and Protestants alike.

Fawkes was subsequently tortured and scheduled for execution for his actions, and the 5th of November ever since has been marked by public bonfires marking the King's escape from assassination, leading to its being known alternately as "Guy Fawkes Day" or "Bonfire Night", depending on your point of view. Unfortunately, it also became an occasion to celebrate England's particularly rampant strain of anti-Catholicism. While certainly abated since the 17th century, the mindset still persists in some quarters to this day, particularly in the town of Lewes, in Sussex, where Pope Paul V is burned in effigy every year. Scholars remain divided as to how much Paul V actually knew about the "Gunpowder Plot", as it came to be known.

While the modern mind finds it impossible to consider the Gunpowder Plot a reasonable action in defense of either Catholicism or religious liberty, it is also easy to sit back in one's comfy chair and not realize how life-threatening it was to be a Catholic during these times. At the same time, however, Catholic contemporaries of those who engaged in the Gunpowder Plot were appalled at the stupidity and sinfulness of their actions. Among these was one of my ancestors, The Rev. John Gerard, S.J.

Father Gerard was one of the Jesuits secretly ministering to Catholics in England under Elizabeth I and James I, along with his friend St. Edmund Campion and others. For years he had moved about the English countryside, staying with Catholics and celebrating the sacraments, and by his personal charisma and bluestocking background bringing members of the gentry back into the Church. Father Gerard was the only one of the priests arrested by Elizabeth to escape from imprisonment in the Tower of London. During his interrogation by the Queen's Attorney General, he defended his actions to re-convert the English without hesitation:

If I could fulfill all that I wish and desire, I would want the whole of England to return to Rome and the Catholic faith: the Queen, her Council, and yourselves also, and all the magistrates of the realm; yet so, my Lords, that neither the Queen, nor you, nor any officer of state forfeit the honour or right he now enjoys; so that not a single hair of your head perish; but simply that you may be happy both in this present life and in the life to come.

After his amazing escape, chronicled in his "Autobiography", Father Gerard spent the next several years continuing to minister in secret, and bringing more people back into the Church. By 1604, he became suspicious that some of those whom he had helped to cross the Tiber were plotting something, and warned them that they could not attempt to bring about the conversion of England by violent means. These men, particularly Sir Everard Digby, kept Father Gerard out of the loop with respect to their plans, knowing full well that he would try to talk them out of any violence.

Unfortunately, once Fawkes had been arrested and the investigation proceeded, Father Gerard and several other Jesuits known or believed to have been operating in the country were denounced by Parliament, and he had to flee England forever, spending the rest of his life in Rome. In his book on the Gunpowder Plot, written some years later, Father Gerard makes it very clear that, however frustrated his flock was, their actions did not jibe with their faith. "Thus you may see how good desires may be followed by unfit means," he writes, "and how much a man may be deceived when he doth follow but his own ways, how good or great soever the motives be or the wished effect of that he goeth about, for "non est faciendum malum ut inde eveniat bonum" [We must not do evil that good may come.]

The setback to the restoration of Catholicism in England as a result of the Gunpowder Plot was significant. Certainly it caused a loss of sympathy for Catholics among Protestants of all stripes, not just the virulently Anti-Papist sort. The clampdown which followed caused many to flee or give up the faith entirely. Not until the Catholic Relief Act of 1829, which helped fuel the Oxford Movement and, thereby, Cardinal Newman's efforts, did the situation finally begin to improve. Thus, while Guy Fawkes Day or Bonfire Night, as it is also known, is not a day Catholics should celebrate, at the same time we can only hope that as a motive for acts of Anti-Catholicism its influence will continue to diminish.

"No Popery" in Cliffe, apparently.