Recent issues of the Monthly have included articles that frankly seem like indulgences on the part of the editors--and "Spanish
Disquisition" takes the prize, an inordinately silly piece that makes pompous statements such as "French is a lovely, but preening language--judgmental but insincere." (The author then proceeds to characterize her relation to Spanish as an "amour fou" ...
More central to the essence of Egidio's homiletic activity, and to his effectiveness as a religious leader, is the more elusive question of how he could join an abstract geometric
disquisition on the divine nature with the immediate problem of papal economics.
"Thus, petitioner's
disquisition that respondent Judge Alameda acted with inordinate haste in issuing the assailed orders or that he did not conduct a personal evaluation of the evidence presented, is at best, a conjecture without empirical basis."
INTRODUCING MICHAEL HARDT AND ANTONIO NEGRI'S newest publication, Commonwealth--two extended selections from which make their debut in this issue--curator Okwui Enwezor looks back at the cultural context surrounding the arrival of the theorists' earlier philosophical
disquisition Empire and recalls that volume's (and the day's) somewhat paradoxical quality.
Earlier this year, The New Republic carried a cover story by the normally sane environmental writer Gregg Easterbrook, bearing the understated title "Axle of Evil: America's Twisted Love Affair With Sociopathic Cars." It begins with Easterbrook contemplating the lines of SUVs outside his daughter's public school one morning, observing how SUV drivers supposedly bully their way past cars as they drop off their kids, and soon turns into a
disquisition on modern automotive life, with some national security implications thrown in.
The play's divorcee narrator, Haley, opens with a
disquisition on her expansive shoe collection, a subject picked clean of humorous potential by the vastly wittier Carrie Bradshaw on "Sex and the City." The matter arises since Haley is addressing us from her pastel-colored bedroom (impeccably realized by Derek McLane), trying on outfits in preparation for her first date in several years.
Is an understanding of the Shoah best achieved by highbrow
disquisition or by silent reflection?
In Untitled (Grid and Keys), 2007, a scattering of irregular rectangles of white against a dark background is a
disquisition on the way paintings are physically constructed; these are the shapes of the wooden keys used to keep a stretched canvas's corners tight and at right angles.
After a brief
disquisition on the topic, All G has a follow-up: "What is illegal?" Thornburgh does his best with that but is unprepared for the third query: "What is barely legal?" The surreal exchange ends with Ali G recommending a movie that might elucidate the matter.
However, this is a minor objection, almost entirely eclipsed by the admirable erudition, subtlety, and critico-theoretical range of Hughes's
disquisition into the role played by gender, sexuality and difference in the life-writings of Simone de Beauvoir, Marie Cardinal, Serge Doubrovsky, Marguerite Duras, Herve Guibert, Violette Leduc, and Jean-Paul Sartre.
La mort de Brune is almost a
disquisition on time, from the layered periods of Labenche's history to the measured beat of the narrator's piano lesson to the sudden transformation, from one term to the next, of little girls into lanky adolescents.
Here we have some material for a
disquisition on the symbolism of noblewomen's earrings.
These include a 1930s
disquisition on the possible collapse of capitalism; his 1933 views on the planning of London; an analysis of his friend, Alan Pryce-Jones's character which exemplifies how intimately he understood all those admitted to his friendship; some esoteric details about the Agapemonite sect; and, most important, the avowal of his strong attachment to the Church of England made to his wife in 1946 when she became a Roman Catholic.
The term conscience has found light in this
disquisition. Little hairs at the back of my nape stand up, warning that this "peace" is flawed.
