The New Criterion Rests?

I guess we'll have to wait until April 1st to find out. This morning I received an email about the upcoming New Criterion edition for April, along with a PDF link, which they call First Delivery. I signed up for this, for free, some time ago when they had an article I was interested in.

The journal ignited a storm of criticism in February over its obnoxious treatment of Ayn Rand by Anthony Daniels. It added commentary in the March issue, in which it tried to justify the obnoxiousness and provide a philosophical justification on a couple of points. It failed both times.

The entire affair was like Whittaker Chambers all over again: critics who are supposed to be bastions of culture expressing ignorance and contempt for Ayn Rand, one of the few modern American thinkers who have really understood what is right about this country, and spent their life defending it. Rand developed a radiantly rational system of ideas for living on earth, and critics at the journal failed to identify her ideas correctly, and instead portrayed her as a tragic and twisted monster, their claims to have listed her virtues notwithstanding.

This month, the PDF edition is missing the section titled "Notes & Comments", the same section where they posted their follow-up commentary last month. I wonder why? Have they written a second follow-up commentary on Rand? I hope not, and they have learned their lesson, because they are extremely bad at it. The full online edition is released on April 1st, when we will find out if they wish to play the fools again.

I should mention that I have an extremely tenuous personal connection to the journal. When I was a grad student at Brooklyn College in Fine Arts, I approached Peter Tatistcheff, the founder of a prestigious gallery on 52nd Street in New York City, and he chose a painting of mine for a summer group exhibition. I was thrilled, and ended up selling the painting to a collector before the show even opened. The notice for the group exhibition appeared in The New Criterion, and although no artist was mentioned by name, I still have a copy as a memento. I'll have to dig up some pictures of the paintings some time and post them. We're talking pre-digital age here, so it will involve converting from hard copies such transparencies or prints to JPG.

I ended up passing on the art career (no regrets, really!). I was not able to secure a teaching job upon graduation, which was a common career path for gallery artists, and I was not interested in enduring poverty and/or the peripatetic life of an associate professor. With up to 400 applicants per position, even though I made it to the top 10 at three schools, it was a tough job market and I just didn't make it. It then became necessary to get a job to pay bills, and I started on a path that led to my current career as a software engineer.

It's an interesting job, with a lot of the same problem-solving as art, believe it or not. It's constantly changing, I am always learning, and the pay is good.

Photography currently satisfies the former artistic itch, so to speak, and also allows me to enjoy other outdoor pastimes at the same time; a nice synergy! Plus, I'm not sure how I'd carry an oil painting easel on my back while running ;) But, never say never!

Update: corrected spelling of "obnxious". Don't know how that one made it through spell check.