Et cetera Glendon to Beijing Western civ saved again Doyle also does good Bring back Mapplethorpe Give us that old-time vulgarity
ET CETERA GLEHDON TO BEIJING - We were delighted on hearing that Mary Ann Glendon would head the Vatican delegation to the UN Conference on Women in Beijing. Glendon has published in these...
...Those were the days...
...As it stands, it's for the birdies...
...The Vatican's opposition to the language of reproductive rights is often poorly presented and inadequately represented...
...Glendon still goes to Mass every Sunday...
...WESTERN CIV SAVED AGAIN - No sooner had John Leo (also a contributer to these pages and former associate editor) found a new series of Calvin Klein ads looking much like "opening scenes from a porn movie" (U.S...
...The artist explained his work: "It's about sex and death...
...Since I didn't see the stage production of Bye Bye Birdie, I shall not attempt to compare it to the movie, but surely this popular musical comedy couldn't have been as vulgar as the film version...
...Philip T. Hartung reviews the movie Bye Bye Birdie (April 19,1963) in a critical but unflappable fashion...
...This time the cows will be preserved in formaldehyde...
...How did Leo miss that...
...We do love little old men in black suits, but we're putting our money on Glendon's ability to receive a fair hearing at the conference and from most of the media...
...What about that pesky health code...
...But our favorite comment (of the do-you-still-beat-your-wife-school) came from reporter Fox Butterfield: "Ms...
...Her appointment is an honor well earned and a choice well made...
...What Bye Bye Birdie needs is a little more taste and some light touches to offset its materialism...
...The SoHo gallery owner, commenting on a plan to install a new Hirst exhibit in March of 1996, said, "I didn't want to deflect attention from the fact that Damien is a serious artist...
...As conservative as the pope...
...Glendon has published in these pages-and is professor of law at Harvard, married and the mother of three daughters, author of several important works in comparative law, most notably for general readers, Abortion and Divorce in Western Law (Harvard...
...Besides, Damien needs to spend some time on a farm...
...but the film camera, with its insistence on close-ups and a certain amount of realism, has brought this kidding down to a low level and seems to be pandering to the audience it hopes to kid...
...Ruins the whole concept...
...GIVE US THAT OLD-TINE VULGARITY - What was Commonweal's approach to the emerging youth and popular culture of thirty-plus years ago...
...BRING BACK MAPPLETHORPE - If you are a New Yorker with a strong yen to gaze upon an art work featuring four dead and decaying cows positioned to look as though they were copulating-well, sorry, not now, maybe next year...
...Bet he, too, still goes to Mass every Sunday...
...In covering Glendon's appointment, the New York Times turned twice to its own counter-pope, Frances Kissling of Catholics for a Free Choice, for comments, and she twice spoke infallibly, declaring Professor Glendon more conservative than the pope (August 25 and 29...
...His London dealer gave a different exegesis of this and other Hirst works: "These pieces represent the dark side of humanity...
...The serious artist told the Times what will replace "Absolute Corruption" next March: "Right now I'm working on a piece called 'Physics of Immortality,' which shows cows cut vertically and copulating from behind...
...News & World Report, August 28-September 4) than the ads were withdrawn because the advertising "has been misunderstood by some...
...Fortunately he is on the same side of the issue as the New York Times (against), and reporter Jan Hoffman (August 31) found him pugnacious and charming...
...The idea of kidding teen-agers, their speech, their dress, their persistent telephoning, and their fanatic adoration of a current idol is amusing enough...
...The work, conceived by the artist Damien Hirst and titled "No Sense of Absolute Corruption," was to have opened the season at a SoHo gallery, but ran up against the health codes of staid old New York City, even though, according to an account in the Times [August 4], the cows "were to have been hermetically sealed in a case of steel and glass, with tubes connected to carbon filters eliminating the smell of decay...
...DOYLE ALSO DOES GOOD - Kevin Doyle, once a Commonweal intern and an occasional contributor to these pages, is acting head of New York's Capital Defender Office, established to represent indigent defendants sentenced under the state's new death penalty law...
...According to the company the teenage models in various states of undress and suggestive repose were actually meant to show "the spirit, independence, and inner worth of today's young people...
...Where does she find the time...
...We won't go...
...Doyle previously worked in Alabama defending those convicted in capital cases...
...As the cows continue to decay, the meat becomes visually attractive and very colorful, which I like...
...Most of the movie is rather old-fashioned stuff concerned with the tiresome devotion of swooning high school girls for Conrad Birdie, who looks even worse than you'd expect in a tight, gold lame suit...
...An artistic compromise...
Vol. 122 • September 1995 • No. 16
