Today in History, February 17

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

“Probably we err in treating most of these pictures seriously. It is likely that many of them represent in the painters the astute appreciation of the powers to make folly lucrative which the late P.T. Barnum showed with his faked mermaid. There are thousands of people who will pay small sums to look at a faked mermaid; and now and then one of this kind with enough money will buy a Cubist picture, or a picture of a misshapen nude woman, repellent from every standpoint.”—Theodore Roosevelt, “A Layman’s Views of an Art Exhibition”

The New York Armory show of 1913 opened on this date that year. It had nothing to do with the National Guard, but the International Exhibition of Modern Art organized that year by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors needed a huge space, so the 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington Avenue was secured. More than 1300 works by about 300 artists were featured.

The exhibition introduced the American public to paintings by Matisse and Picasso and Derain and sculpture by Duchamp. The public was scandalized, having seen very little avant garde art before. Former President Theodore Roosevelt wrote a review for Outlook magazine in which he praised the American, realistic, paintings seen in the show, but said of the European works, “That’s not art!”
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Where Have I Been?

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

There is a phrase one hears in recovery circles: “Pulling a geographic.” While sharing their stories about the past and the inebriated life, many addicts and alcoholics learn that they have done similar things, like move across the country because they thought that a change would do them good.

One of the things that many of us did, many times, when we were trying to exert control over life was run from it. Move. Sometimes across town and sometimes cross-country. There was nothing so bad it couldn’t be fixed without filling out a change-of-address card.
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Take My Advice—I’m Not Using It

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

“Take my advice—I’m not using it.” I can tell you to keep calm. At my worst, I might insist that you keep calm. But as someone who can introduce stress into the least stressful, sweetly innocuous, and even some of the more pleasant experiences in life, when I am confronted with the parts of life that others find truly stressful, I hunker down and find the effort deep inside myself to make them yet more stressful.

In one of my lesser achievements in the field of stress management, I gave myself a black eye while tying my shoes. These were boots with leather laces (I am not a cowboy) and such laces take a little effort to yank into position. While securing my “half-knot” on my right shoe, the length of lace in my left hand broke and I clocked myself in the right eye. At the time, I was 34 years old, not 11.
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