El Lissitzky for Pesach

We all have images in our mind of the work of the Russian artist El Lissitzky: formal modernism, geometric constructions, typographic abstractions. This image was enlarged when I encountered the wonderful illustrations from an early book of his at Nextbook.org. As Sara Ivry notes in her commentary,"The late Tsarist and early Revolutionary years were marked by pogroms that destroyed Jewish communities throughout Russia and Ukraine. Lissitzky, then in Kiev, used a Yiddish translation of the original Aramaic verses to turn folkoric concatenation into political allegory."

It seems that Lissitzky, before he became a avant-garde Constructivist under the influence of Kazimir Malevich, was focused on graphically illustrating works of Jewish heritage, including this medieval Passover song...

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The Lying Game No. 2 (Or Vietnam Redux)

New York City - (AP Photo/Shawn Baldwin)

In America, we are experiencing the most polarized populace since Vietnam. Millions of people may have disapproved of Bill Clinton's immoral behavior, but even at the height of his impeachment trial there was none of the vigor of disdain we are experiencing today.

The reason is simple: millions of people have come to believe that Bush is not stupid (as he has been naively painted by journalists), but that he is actually evil. Whatever good will America has maintained in the world thus far has suddenly been replaced by hatred, much of it deeply felt...

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