“You know, I’ve got my own opinions about your reader comments,” I said to Professor Fendrich as she was transferring her leatherbound copy of Lessing’s Laocoön from her old, waterproof canvas book bag into a sleek little Marc Jacobs tote (or, as I suspect, a Canal Street rip-off of one). She was saying something about vanity and ambition requiring certain accoutrements, and preparing to leave to go to some sort of rally against Outcomes Assessment or something. And she was in so much of a hurry that she hadn’t had a chance to scribble her usual batch of Post-Its that I’m supposed to use to mind-read her probable responses to readers’ comments. That’s when I said what I said. And—you could’ve knocked me over with her answer—“O.K., Ms. Smartypants, go ahead and try your little memo-blistered hand at it.” And herewith (ahem), I will.

Vanity and the Greater Good

Jesse: NObama is just talking like Dubya and taking advantage of the country’s collective anti-feminist, if not in fact misogynistic, sentiment, a sentiment that allows men more latitude when it comes both to vanity as well as to a desire for fame than it allows women…I am somewhat disappointed that Prof. Fendrich fails to appreciate this in her blog conflating, as does NObama, vanity and a desire for fame.

Professor Fendrich would probably be a little kinder to this reply than I’m about to be because she’s, well, a professor. Me, I usually don’t even bother to reply when people use insulting nicknames (“NObama”) that they think are so clever. Just so you know, I don’t think anti-Hillary people who want to raise the specters of a “co-Presidency,” Whitewater, and Hillary’s work for Wal-Mart by calling her “Billary Rob’em Clinton” are clever, either.

Of course, vanity, a desire for fame, and ambition aren’t the same (that’s why they’re different words), but they are related, and Senator Obama merely remarked upon the presence of vanity and ambition in politics. What this has to do with “taking advantage of the country’s collective anti-feminist, if not in fact misogynistic, sentiment” is beyond me, although I have the suspicion that for Jesse just about everything in life except a bean sprout sandwich has to do with perceived misogyny.

Undercover Dealer

S. Britchky: Painters and agents — according to this little piece — nudge, flatter, and cajole deep-thinking millionaires out of their spendthrift wages…Paint the poet, Laurie, or he’s gone.

What is it about the fact that artists exist within an economy that drives poetic types so bonkers? It’s always been some fatuous rich person—some cutthroat Italian duke, some King Looey, or some robber baron—who’s put food on an artist’s table and a roof on his studio. If nowadays it’s some Upper East Side surgery queen, so what?

The Interface of Art and Humanity

Jax Chachitz: [ I] find it somewhat insulting that you think abstraction is old fashioned.

I don’t know much about art, but the one thing I do know is that abstraction is old-fashioned. Maybe at Ye Olde Gallerie in the Barn on Route 5, where paintings of horses romping in the high grass dominate, abstraction is considered…what does Professor Fendrich say?…oh yes, cutting edge. But in the art world that she hangs around in, it’s “Been there, Bauhaus; done that, Jackson” for half a century. Not an insult, just a fact.

The Art World Stands Up for Porn

Benjamin Smollet: Why must a gloss on a painter like John Currin (even a gloss as glib and off-the-cuff as this) come to rest on his politics, which are “the truly very silly part” of him—which is to say, the essence of the person and of the work?

Because, bluntly put, Professor Fendrich doesn’t believe Currin’s stuff about fighting the Taliban with porn paintings. Neither do I, and neither does anyone else, except maybe Mr. Tompkins, and I have my doubts about him, too. (I think maybe he’s just giving Mr. Currin enough rope to hang himself, so to speak.) All that “political” stuff is just a bunch of—pardon my French—bullpucky that tries to add some after-the-fact nobility to high-end sleaze.

Contemporary Art, Nesting Birds, and Drilling for Oil

Linda Wahlig: Before we spend time and energy on the Spiral Jetty, let’s resolve the issue of the oil companies destroying the Mississippi delta – a glorious work of “art” that affects all living things.

And before we spend time and energy on the Mississippi delta, let’s resolve the issue of the melting Polar ice caps. And before we spend time and energy on the ice caps, let’s resolve the issue of malnutrition in sub-Saharan Africa. And before we…oh, you get the point: there’s always a bigger problem.

John Merryman: The snide reference to the Christos displays total ignorance of what they do and how their works relate to the environment.

That was sloppy writing on Professor Fendrich’s part, not snidery. And that was one of the few posts Prof. Fendrich typed herself, instead of letting me do it. I would have tweaked the passage to: “Yes, an artist like Christo may still be wrapping buildings, or hanging a bunch of orange flags in Central Park. But those are urban works. In the already battered natural world, we’ve developed a general resistance to permitting even well-intentioned artists to impose their visions on it.” Still, that wouldn’t get Christo entirely off the hook for that “curtain” in Colorado, or the fatal Japan/California “umbrellas” piece (a person was killed installing that, you know), or the potential ecological harm in his proposal to put awnings over a river. Look, I’m just the secretary, so maybe I’m off base here. But all these big-scale projects make me more than a little angry. I mean, why do artists have to add to the world’s problems?

Yet Another Holiday

J.: Once [it’s] recognized and controlled for (in terms of finding other balancing evaluative measures for teaching effectiveness) then we can do something about grade inflation. Until we acknowledge the connection, we can piously wring our hands all we want but nothing will change. How many untenured, junior, lowly paid or adjunct faculty members are going to “do something about grade inflation” when the payback will be lower to no pay raises and possible denial of tenure? It’s easy to pontificate about “courage” when you have tenure.

I happen to know for a fact that Professor Fendrich gets among the most favorable student evaluations in the department and is one of the hardest graders in the department. It was this way with her, too, before she got tenure. (I’ve known her a long time, and from the time she got on a tenure track, to the granting of tenure, she always mouthed off about things—got her into some trouble, I might add, although that’s another story). If what she says about grade inflation is “pontificating,” then you should become a Catholic, so to speak. Anyway, J., as I see it, you’ve got three choices vis-à-vis grade inflation and student evaluations: 1) keep caving in to pressure to give undeservedly high grades and wait until you’ve got tenure to give a C+ grade to a C+ student and start “do[ing] something about grade inflation” (at which point, of course, your untenured colleagues will make to you the exact arguments you’re making now), 2) embark on a campaign to force administrators and tenure committees to de-emphasize student evaluations (curtailing student opinion—that’ll go over real big in the 21st century!), or 3) start calling ‘em like you really see ‘em and brave the consequences.