12 May 2007

Nuh, Uh

The New York Times writes about Leonard Nimoy's (yes, that Leonard Nimoy) latest show of photographs at the R Michaelson Gallery in Northampton. Nimoy's last show was of women posing sensually with Judaica, his new show is of fat nudes. In the course of the article, the owner of the gallery
"I am actually amazed at how little negative reaction there has been," said Mr. Michelson. "I attribute this in part to the gallery setting, and the fact that Northampton, Massachusetts, is perhaps the most liberal city in the most liberal state in the nation."
That isn't even close to true. California, Hawaii, Vermont and Wisconsin are probably more liberal than Massachusetts and Amherst and Cambridge are definitely more liberal than Northampton. People are fooled by the fact that Smith is here and that we have a considerable lesbian population. (Boy, that last phrase was a trap. I had to work my way through "large," "big" and "hefty" before I found considerable in the thesaurus.)

By the way, the most interesting thing in the article is that Nimoy designed the Vulcan handsign to mean, symbolically, G-d.

5 comments:

Harry Eagar said...

Hawaii has a liberal Democratic state government -- less and less liberal as its representatives become more entrenched and interested in protecting their entrenchments -- but it is not very liberal socially.

The Mormon, Catholic and Assembly of God component dominates.

joe shropshire said...

less and less liberal as its representatives become more entrenched and interested in protecting their entrenchments

Not sure how that follows exactly, particularly in light of the fact that this is a post about Massachussetts. Whatever else he might be, Ted Kennedy's a big liberal, and he's got no problem at all protecting his entrenched view from Nantucket. Liberalism is what liberals do, just as Christianity is what Christians do, or capitalism is what capitalists do, or Mormonism is what Mormons do. Either that or you've just been pulling our leg all these years.

Harry Eagar said...

David listed Hawaii among 'liberal' places. Depends how you mean it.

Massachusetts (I have never been to Northampton) is liberal in the sense that it voted for Dukakis, illiberal in the sense of the racism in Southie or, perhaps, that it voted for Romney.

What does it mean that two 'liberal' states elected Republican governors? That Republicans are liberals?

Besides, what is a 'liberal' position on, say, burqas? Sarkozy's?

Harry Eagar said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

I would agree that California is far more liberal than Massachusetts, having lived both places. The Democrats in Massachusetts are more corrupt moderates than leftist ideologues.