Saturday, July 25, 2020

Cognitively There


This week is all about Trump's unearned pride in 'acing' a dementia test, and his challenge that Joe Biden also take one. Like those creativity exercises taken during job interviews, I believe the nation would be better served by a 'common sense' presidential candidate test. We offer a container of bleach and an assortment of hoses, and a prompt to design a counter-measure to the coronavirus: would you design a system to clean furniture or to inject disinfectant?
It’s actually not that easy, but for me it was easy. That’s not an easy question. In other words, they ask it to you, they give you five names and you have to repeat ’em and that’s okay. If you repeat ’em out of order, it’s okay, but you know, it’s not as good. But then when you go back about 20, 25 minutes later and they say go back to that question — they don’t tell you this — go back to that question and repeat them. Can you do it? And you go, ‘Person, woman, man, camera, TV.’ They say that’s amazing. How did you do that? I do it because I have, like, a good memory. Because I’m cognitively there.
Are those the words of a man free from dementia? or a man desperately holding onto his consciousness? He's in my head; he's 'cognitively there'.

As we were walking through the National Tile Museum on Friday (see below), I could not separate the imagery on the walls from the Montreal Cognitive Assessment test forms that have been in the news: elephants and camels, horses and tigers. diagrams and geometric shapes. As I scanned the ancient artwork, all I could see and hear was President Trump, naming all the animals and tracing all the swirly designs with his pencil.


It is very-very hard to understand how anyone might support him for another term, because he exclusively talks about himself instead of the country. There are so many recent instances of his 'cognitively there' leadership. For example, his unilateral use of federal police in Portland is not only terrifying, but would seem to alienate people who would prefer a smaller and less powerful federal government. His blaming black and brown people for recent surges in COVID, would alienate minority voters just when he should be cultivating them. And, of course, his zig-zagging 'leadership' during the pandemic, which has caused an enormous drop in his poll numbers – this week highlighted by his insistence that schools re-open in the fall without any guidance from epidemiological data.

He has lost the 'not-demented' demographic. How is this still a race?

Taiwan

Two recent articles remind me of Taiwan's success. Last we checked, on May 18, Taiwan had four hundred and forty cases and seven deaths. More than two months later, Taiwan has added just eighteen more cases (458) and has suffered no further deaths (7). The first article, on SF Gate, is about Taiwan's economic response, that is, by squashing the outbreak and aggressively following health guidelines, Taiwan's economy was, generally, able to keep running. Taiwan expects to see only a two percent drop in GDP for 2020; the US GDP has dropped five percent just in the first quarter. The second article comes from Wired, and features some of the innovative work done by Taiwan's 'digital minister', Audrey Tang, using data and software to help people find PPE. Meanwhile, the Trump White House has decreed that hospitals may no longer send their COVID-19 data to the CDC.

Georgia

Our Georgia comparison starts its fourth month and has crossed several startling metrics: Georgia's total cases are triple Portugal's (161,401 vs 49,692) and deaths are double (3,442 vs 1,712). The US has passed four million cases and will cross one hundred and fifty thousand deaths in a day or two. The world has reached sixteen million cases, and six hundred and forty thousand deaths.

As for the seven-day averages, Georgia's cases are increasing at 3745.4 cases per day, and deaths are increasing at 44.3 per day. Portugal's cases are 230.7 per day (a sixteenth of Georgia's) and deaths are 4.3 per day (a tenth of Georgia's).

For convenience and to celebrate three months done, I went back and anchor-tagged all the comparison graphs with rolling averages (GA vs PT, 7-day ave. unless indicated) in parentheses. Again, note that Georgia and Portugal have about the same size population and that both places recorded their first cases of COVID-19 on the same day (March 2). Georgia mandated a stay-at-home order about about a week later than Portugal (March 20 vs March 12), and opened up about a week earlier (April 24 vs May 2). It's clear what those few days now mean.

For a baseline, on April 7, seven-day averages in Georgia and Portugal were about the same in terms of both cases and deaths (GA: 719.9 / 31.9 vs PT: 714.1 / 26.4). Accounting for the two-week incubation of COVID-19, this shows how closing earlier and re-opening later has benefitted Portugal. Also when outbreaks did occur, Portugal went back to local lockdowns; Georgia has not done this. Today's data points are illustrative of this (GA: 3745.4 / 44.3 vs PT: 230.7 / 4.3).
     cases: 16,005,319 global • 4,252,490 USA • 49,955 Portugal
    deaths: 643,872 global • 148,541 USA • 1,716 Portugal
    FRIDAY: Another 'return visit', this time to the Museu Nacional do Azulejo (National Tile Museum), which is at the far-eastern side of Lisbon's river-front, in the old Convento da Madre de Deus. My memories of the Tile Museum are of vast panels filled with small and unique characters, and some scenes of violent martyrdom. As we have spent quite a lot more time in Portugal now, and gotten acclimated to the tiles, I am curious to see if a deeper sense of them comes through. 

     

     

    The main historical galleries are arranged around the claustro of the convent. This also gives the visitors a chance to consider how the tiles are made, how they are installed, and how they developed. The low cases are excellent for letting us get up close and see the detail; the spot-lighting is less helpful on the shiny and reflective ceramics. Interesting to see how a cartoon of the tile is drawn on the back so the masons can organize them as they are installed. We can appreciate how some borders are shaped in molds and others applied on the surface pattern.

     

     

     

    Almost all the tiles and groupings on this lower level are from the sixteenth century. The first big show piece is the Retábulo de Nossa Senhora da Vida (Altarpiece of Our Lady of Life, c.1580), from the Igreja de Santo André. It features a tremendous, architecturally-framed triptych, in false-perspective, with vines wrapping the Corinthian columns. São João (with the eagle) and São Lucas (with the ox) are witnessing and scribing. The central scenes is the Nativity, where a local farmer may be offering a basket of eggs (not sure if that's mentioned in the Gospel of John or Luke). Above, a lunette with an Annunciation scene, Gabriel and the Virgin apparently separated by a missing window. Adding that extra touch of holiness, are the angels and the dove beaming through the clouds above the scenes– note that the missing windows would stream in light in a similar fashion.


    Other smaller panels in the adjoining spaces are full of enigmatic characters and symbols. I am happy to see the double-headed eagle holding the sun and moon as we saw at the Igreja da Graça. These smaller assemblages bring us to an altar-like installation made of two panels within an alcove. The Upper section is the Alegoria Eucarística (in Latin, Sacramento (?), c.1660), from the Convento de Sant'Ana. The lower counter is properly trimmed with tassels, suggesting a draped cloth, and includes more earthly delights, especially along the lower border: deer, rabbits, ducks. A nearby console with a heraldic cross also has animals on parade: elephants, deer, and maybe, hedgehogs (? – see detail above).

     

     

     

    The last room before ascending to the next level, is a small chapel, the Capela da Rainha Dona Leonor – it's more part of the Igreja than the Museu. There are plaster tondos of the four evangelists and a large, chaotic city-scape painting (Panorama de Jerusalém). The tiles here are in the floor and ceiling, wonderfully formed, colored, and scaled to fit the space, with shapes and patterns that are now familiar.

    The Capítulo Casa (chapter house) and the Igreja are not accessible during this visit (they were during our last visit).

    Before the stairs and we pause at the claustrim, a small double-height courtyard filled with dazzling tiles. On the wall opposite is a 'three-headed' basin. The fittings, shaped like winged animals, are in the mouths, and the faucets handles are small brass dolphins. The ceiling is a vaulted braid, edged with rope and intricate, basket-like spring blocks.

     

     

     

    Upstairs the panels turn into the graphic novels I remember. We are particularly taken by the Casamento da Galinha (Chicken's Wedding, c.1665), in the upper level of the claustrim. On this level, the walls are not fully covered, rather, there is a tile wainscot and panels are positioned on the walls. Larger arrangements are shown in the galleries attached to the courtyard.

     

     

     

     

    To re-enter the larger claustro, we must go through the Capela de Santo Antônio, a long room with two four-sided reading stands, and a ceiling with painted panels. At the far end is an alcove filled with figurines – a creche. The other walls are covered with large tile murals depicting moments in the life of Santo Antônio.

    The Capela is connected to the Coro Alto (upper choir) for the church. Above the stiff rows of wooden seats, are cases filled with relics – old bones and bits from priests and saints dead and (almost) gone. Like the Capela, the ceiling in the Coro Alto is a series of painted panels, several of them appear to be Last Suppers, but these are framed in all-gold as opposed to painted white. A larger Last Supper appears on the rear wall. At the far end, above the balcony opening, is a super-highly ornamented thing; it appears to be a super-special relic, but it is hard to see inside the case (kinda looks like ET might be in there).

    At the opposite end of this long room is an open view to the Igreja, with a glorious Assumption of the Virgin painting in lunette before the crossing. The light enters from deep-set window alcoves with azulejos tiles in the cheeks, which I remember from my last visit, offsetting the dark, gold-framed artworks with a cool bluish illumination.

     

     


    As we are finishing the galleries around the claustro, the guard tells us the Museu is closing in fifteen minutes for lunch. We assume this is because of the pandemic, the staff is short and so on. We pop upstairs to see the immense mural showing Lisbon before the earthquake of 1755. It is an astonishing, horizontal sweep of tiles, with annotations for special sites. We are out of time, and I am only able to brush over the information – I will return and write this up on another trip.

     

    We head back to Santo Apolónia for lunch, passing the Chafariz D'El Rei, a large fountain structure and part of the old distribution system we were told about when we visited the Mãe d'Água last summer. It is a two-story fortress for water, topped with stone urns and flower boxes. Above that, someone has built a jazzy, river-side palazzo and tower.

    The other local building I've been interested to see is the Casa dos Bicos (House of the Beaks), one of the Museu de Lisboa buildings we learned of when we visited the Palácio Pimenta a few months ago. Mostly I want to see the 'studded' facade, like a goth-leather wrapper interpreted in stone and scaled to a building. Inside there are actually Roman excavations of an old fish-processing facility (salted fish, of course). The interior is all crazy diagonals and unexpected openings in the floor; it's disorienting and fun. Upstairs is the Fundação José Saramago, which requires an entrance fee – another thing to add to our return trip list.

    Like the other sites we've visited, there's not another person in the place; just a woman at reception and a man guarding the exit. In the fascinating video reconstruction of the Roman buildings, the camera swoops up the banks of the Tejo. Matching the exhibition's angles, the TV is masked-off in a parallelogram. Wait: person, woman, man, camera, TV – how'd he do that?

     

     

     

     
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