{"id":145,"date":"2005-02-23T16:04:07","date_gmt":"2005-02-24T00:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2005\/02\/a_bubble_of_participatory_narcissism_that_it_will_be_pitiable_to_have_missed.html"},"modified":"2005-02-23T16:04:07","modified_gmt":"2005-02-24T00:04:07","slug":"a_bubble_of_par","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2005\/02\/a_bubble_of_par.html","title":{"rendered":"A Bubble of Participatory Narcissism That It Will Be Pitiable to Have Missed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The New Yorker&#8217;s Peter Schjeldahl <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/talk\/content\/index.ssf?050228ta_talk_schjeldahl\">weighs in on The Gates<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>Those who deplore \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Gates\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as ugly aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t wrong, just poor sports. The work\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s charm-free, synthetic orange hue\u00e2\u20ac\u201dsaffron? no way\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis something you would wear only in the woods during deer season, in order to avoid being shot. The nylon fabric is sullen to the touch. The proportions of the arches are graceless, and dogs alone esteem the clunky bases. As for the sometimes heard praise of the work for framing and, in the process, revealing unsuspected lovelinesses of the Park\u00e2\u20ac\u201dC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122mon, people! You don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need artificial aids to notice things. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Gates\u00e2\u20ac\u009d does trigger beauty when, as on the aforementioned Sunday afternoon, a low sun backlights the fluttering fabric, which combusts like stained glass in a molten state. This effect lasts all of about two seconds\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthe time span suggested in the observation of the art historian Kenneth Clark that we can enjoy a purely aesthetic sensation for only as long as we can keenly savor the smell of a fresh-cut orange. (Yes, he said an orange.) \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Gates\u00e2\u20ac\u009d succeeds precisely by being, on the whole, a big nothing. Comprehended at a glance, it lets us get right down to being crazy about ourselves, in a bubble of participatory narcissism that it will be pitiable to have missed.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I don&#8217;t have a problem with that reading of it!<\/p>\n<p>Administrative Note: Remember &#8220;A bubble of participatory narcissism that it will be pitiable to have missed&#8221; for future reference!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The New Yorker&#8217;s Peter Schjeldahl weighs in on The Gates: Those who deplore \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Gates\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as ugly aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t wrong, just poor sports. The work\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s charm-free, synthetic orange hue\u00e2\u20ac\u201dsaffron? no way\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis something you would wear only in the woods during deer season, in order to avoid being shot. The nylon fabric is sullen to the touch. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,18,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts_entertainment","category-bridge_and_tunnel_club_shorthand","category-manhattan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}