Brothers Judd Blog

If two New Hampshire men aren't a match for the Devil, we might as well give the country back to the Indians. -Stephen Vincent Benet (1898-1943)

Culture

Sex

FREAKY FARM WIVES:

Is the Tradwife just a kink? Don’t underestimate the happy housewife’s power (Poppy Sowerby, December 30, 2024, UnHerd)

The “traditional-wife” lifestyle has recently become a cultural juggernaut. Born of the reactionary idea that women must stay at home to care for children and the household, it teenaged into an aspirational trend which involved everything the dream Fifties stay-at-home mum did plus a soupçon of farmgirl hardiness (the most viral tradwives are those who run homesteads, muddy, ruddy and graceful). In 2024, she came of age, with Mormon model Nara Smith becoming one of TikTok’s top influencers by baking in exquisite ballgowns, baby perennially on the hip. Hannah Neeleman (or “Ballerina Farm” on Instagram), then broke the internet in July. An article in The Sunday Times profiling this “queen of the tradwives” crystallised the fantasy. It kept X busy for at least two weeks, as commentators argued over whether the newspaper had unfairly implied that Neeleman was oppressed. For part of the fascination these women hold is the conviction that beneath their mild and milky exterior, torment and frustration must surely lurk. As a result, the article focused heavily on Neeleman’s pre-trad career as a ballerina at Juilliard; look what you could have been, the piece seemed to say — and you packed it all in… for this? Feminists have, after all, been trained by Betty Draper, Mrs Robinson and the Stepford wives to spy the Prozac-popping crackpot beneath the painted-on smile; exposing the tradwife’s purgatorial “real life” has become a favourite pastime of internet curtain-twitchers — not out of concern, but prurience.

But speculation that these influencers are trapped by male fantasies is all part of the grift: it is no coincidence that Neeleman wore the infamous milkmaid dress on the cover of Evie last month, with the headline “The New American Dream”. Flirting with the aesthetics of Simone de Beauvoir’s archetypal housewife — a woman condemned to “immanence”, a passive and internal state of drudgery — is a deliberate provocation by influencers like Neeleman: dressing like a milkmaid transfigures the common-or-garden microcelebrity into both a sex symbol and a challenge to modern feminism. This is the secret to their success.

Inevitably, then, pulling off the “homesteader” vibe has become the focus of a multimillion-dollar industry, with blogs and books springing up left, right and centre — well, mostly on the Right. But the guides betray an irony of this trend: the real tradwives aren’t just about frilly dresses — there is a serious and sober set of moral values at the core of trad ideology, one shot through with puritanical and paranoid beliefs about the state, Big Pharma, the food industry and so on interfering with the closed, controlled unit of the family. This, after all, is why Nara Smith spends four hours making her kids cinnamon-toast-crunch cereal from scratch. Being this evangelical takes dedication. So the delusion that young mums can dip into this aesthetic without engaging with the conservatism at its foundations is worth a lot of money.

There’s a reason that the tradwife’s appeal has endured — it has, let’s remember, been a trend for a decade or more. It’s partly because the media adores the whiff of oppression that clings to her, hence the Ballerina Farm hysteria. She is also an ideal foil for feminism — beautiful, natural and meek, she is everything conservative men love, and everything radfems hate: perfectly poised for virality. And that’s because her role as a lifestyle guru means that her actual values — though generally Mormon, conservative and modest — are mysterious and therefore intriguing. Her fans are not looking for direct precepts; being told that abortion is wrong, or that premarital sex makes you worthless, would not be appealing. Instead, they want to cosplay a nebulously traditional woman by baking rye bread in a long dress.

Food

BRINE BUSHES:

‘One of the most amazing things in terms of food in this country’ — How a tower of thorns makes salt (Ben Lerwill, February 27, 2024, Country Life)

On the west coast of Scotland, facing out across the Firth of Clyde towards the Isle of Arran, there stands a wall of thorns. It is manmade, but otherworldly, like a vision from a Gothic fairy tale. Its dark tangle of barbs reaches up to a height of 30ft and stretches more than 100ft across. Is it an art installation? A giant instrument of torture on the outskirts of Ayr? The correct answer is far simpler: it makes salt.

The history of salt production in Scotland dates back almost a millennium. Before the arrival of refrigeration, the mineral gave a vital means of preserving meat and other foodstuffs. Sea salt was, therefore, harvested along both coasts of the country — using salt pans, shallow containers in which seawater could be heated by fire and evaporated — and, by the end of the 18th century, the commodity had become Scotland’s third most valuable export, behind only wool and fish. Then came a steep decline, as demand waned and the market was overtaken by cheaper rock salt. The last Scottish salt-pan works was closed in 1959.

Back to the present-day Ayrshire coast, where Gregorie and Whirly Marshall are quietly changing the narrative.

Christmas

A REAL CHILL DUDE:

‘Look out! Look out! Jack Frost is about!’ (Deborah Nicholls-Lee, December 21, 2024, Country Life)

Depictions of Jack Frost might vary, but all evoke the wonder of the mysterious crystalline carpet that appears overnight on our lawns and sugarcoats our trees and shrubs. This glittery covering is simply ice crystals formed by water vapour coming into contact with a surface that’s below freezing, but its sudden arrival can feel otherworldly and curious legends have been attached to it.

Some believe that Jack Frost may originate from a character, also called Father Frost, in the Russian fairy tale Morozko. He rescues a young girl abandoned by her wicked stepmother and cuts a benign, elderly figure with a cloak and a long, soft beard. Others look to Norse mythology, where fantastical frost giants roam an icy realm and Kari, a wind god, sires sons named Jokul and Frosti.

In other folklore, Frost is closely connected with autumn. In a 1922 drawing by American cartoonist John T. McCutcheon, he perches on a maple branch painting autumn leaves with a palette of warm shades. It’s a depiction that echoes Birdie and his Fairy Friends (1889), by Margaret Canby. In ‘The Frost Fairies’ chapter, set in ‘a cold country far to the North’, the clumsy fairies spill colourful jewels belonging to the king, Jack Frost, all over the trees. An initially angry Frost is soon taken with the effect and determines, once a year, to paint the trees ‘with the brightest layer of gold and rubies’.

Books Religion

THE FISH DOES NOT KNOW IT’S WET:

Death at Yuletude: T.S. Eliot and “The Journey of the Magi” (Nayeli Riano, 12/14/24, Voegelin View)

Art, after all, is the way we cope with the world. It is not faith whole, even if art does, in the best times, impart the undeniable need for Christianity without proselytizing. Art can either hand us a little piece of light that lingers in our minds or hearts for some time, or it can be completely devoid of joy or hope, leaving us empty and seeking something more. But this is only the opinion of someone for whom excessively devotional pieces miss the necessary mark of suffering that makes for the best art, be it musical, visual, or literary. The great canon of Western literature is, for the most part, an ongoing conversation that is agnostic at best about hope or salvation despite it being rooted in Christianity; herein lies the paradox about Western civilization that, I believe, has rendered it the legacy that it is. What we inherit is the quality of conversation through art and philosophy that allows us to doubt and to interpret pain and suffering in ways that turn out to be, no matter how hard we try to shake it, hopeful, and beautiful—as though God’s grace is never really gone from our efforts to create meaning and to understand the world.

Art

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS QUALITY:

Despite Creative Hubris, Artists Are Quietly Embracing A.I. in Their Work (Aaron Mok • 12/05/24, Observer)


Artists across the entertainment, art and design industries are biting their nails over the rise of generative A.I. Many argue the technology violates intellectual property, devalues creative labor and flattens creativity. But as A.I. image and video generators advance, a growing minority of artists are embracing the tools with open arms. Creative professionals ranging from art directors to filmmakers say using A.I. saves time, boosts creativity and leads to new opportunities.

Books

LEAVE WELL ENOUGH ALONE:

Is Oedipus Rex the Mother of All Drama? (Thom Delapa, 12/01/24, The Collector)

It is keenly ironic and tragic that Oedipus’s steely, admirable determination to solve this mystery and save his people sows the seeds of his own undoing. Throughout the play, Sophocles provides instance after instance of his protagonist making pledges and oaths that, in retrospect, not only prove to be wrong but serve to implicate him in the “cold case” of Laius’s homicide. But perhaps the greatest irony in Oedipus Rex is that its hero undertakes a noble and indeed universal human quest—to discover his true origins, that is, find out who he is—but the answer itself spells his own doom.

Christmas

TOUGH BEAT FOR RENE GIRARD:

The First Christmas Tree (Henry Van Dyke)

“None of these things will please the god. More costly is the offering that shall cleanse your sin, more precious the crimson dew that shall send new life into this holy tree of blood. Thor claims your dearest and your noblest gift.”


Hunrad moved nearer to the group of children who stood watching the fire and the swarms of spark-serpents darting upward. They had heeded none of the priest’s words, and did not notice now that he approached them, so eager were they to see which fiery snake would go highest among the oak branches. Foremost among them, and most intent on the pretty game, was a boy like a sunbeam, slender and quick, with blithe brown eyes and laughing lips. The priest’s hand was laid upon his shoulder. The boy turned and looked up in his face.


“Here,” said the old man, with his voice vibrating as when a thick rope is strained by a ship swinging from her moorings, “here is the chosen one, the eldest son of the Chief, the darling of the people. Hearken, Bernhard, wilt thou go to Valhalla, where the heroes dwell with the gods, to bear a message to Thor?”


The boy answered, swift and clear:

“Yes, priest, I will go if my father bids me. Is it far away? Shall I run quickly? Must I take my bow and arrows for the wolves?”

The boy’s father, the Chieftain Gundhar, standing among his bearded warriors, drew his breath deep, and leaned so heavily on the handle of his spear that the wood cracked. And his wife, Irma, bending forward from the ranks of women, pushed the golden hair from her forehead with one hand. The other dragged at the silver chain about her neck until the rough links pierced her flesh, and the red drops fell unheeded on her breast.
A sigh passed through the crowd, like the murmur of the forest before the storm breaks. Yet no one spoke save Hunrad:
“Yes, my Prince, both bow and spear shalt thou have, for the way is long, and thou art a brave huntsman. But in darkness thou must journey for a little space, and with eyes blindfolded. Fearest thou?”


“Naught fear I,” said the boy, “neither darkness, nor the great bear, nor the were-wolf. For I am Gundhar’s son, and the defender of my folk.”

Then the priest led the child in his raiment of lamb’s-wool to a broad stone in front of the fire. He gave him his little bow tipped with silver, and his spear with shining head of steel. He bound the child’s eyes with a white cloth, and bade him kneel beside the stone with his face to the cast. Unconsciously the wide arc of spectators drew inward toward the centre, as the ends of the bow draw together when the cord is stretched. Winfried moved noiselessly until he stood close behind the priest.

The old man stooped to lift a black hammer of stone from the ground,–the sacred hammer of the god Thor. Summoning all the strength of his withered arms, he swung it high in the air. It poised for an instant above the child’s fair head–then turned to fall.
One keen cry shrilled out from where the women stood: “Me! take me! not Bernhard!”
The flight of the mother toward her child was swift as the falcon’s swoop. But swifter still was the hand of the deliverer.

Music

CLASSICIST:

Requiem for a Punster: Leonard Slatkin Pays Tribute to P.D.Q. Bach (and Peter Schickele) (Chris King, November 22, 2024. Common Reader)

Leonard Slatkin: Peter Schickele was a composer, first and foremost. He played the bassoon and the piano as well. He had written, among other things, the music for a show back in the early sixties called O Calcutta that was a little bit like Hair, and these other sort of hippie-inspired things where it was very short, momentary flash of full nudity onstage, very shocking back in the early sixties. He wrote the music for a film called Silent Running with Bruce Dern, which was about the impact of pollution on the environment and outer space. He was part of a group called The Open Window, that combined classical music with pop genres of the time.

The success of that concert at Town Hall really put him on the map. He would appear on The Today Show; he would be on late-night chat shows. This invention of the last and least of J.S. Bach’s children was giving a kind of comedic bent to the stuffy world of classical music. Even if you didn’t know anything about classical music, you could come to these concerts and you would be rolling on the floor, because all of the references he would make to different music. At the same time he would invent instruments, all these things that were crazy. But it was very funny, and it really caught on—the public really embraced it.

When I came to St. Louis in 1968, we had this idea to do a concert at the Zoo, and we commissioned Peter to write a piece which was called A Zoo Called Earth, and at the end of the piece there was a march where many animals came out. The piece has become almost a staple of children’s concerts these days. It was also one of the first classical music pieces to deal with the environment because it had to do with an alien who comes to visit and thinks, well, if you’ll take better care of your planet, maybe we will come back and visit again.

I commissioned a symphony from Peter which we premiered in Washington. Then I would conduct for P.D.Q. Bach concerts that Peter would do around the country and many of them here. Peter would usually arrive late for the concerts, and he might come in swinging on a rope from the balcony, Tarzan-style, and then crawl his way to the stage. With this most disheveled-looking manner you could possibly imagine, he would then proceed just to totally entertain the audience.

He also had a fantastic radio show called The Schickele Mix, which, in a way, was an inspiration for me when I started doing The Slatkin Shuffle. It is based on the idea that you don’t need to categorize music. You just need to find ways to juxtapose it in both ways that work and ways that don’t. And Peter was really good at that as well.

So, this marvelous person, terrific composer, we decided, since he passed, to do a concert to honor him.

Music

SURVIVOR:

How György Ligeti soundtracked 2001, inspired Radiohead and composed music like ‘a knife through Stalin’s heart’ (Gillian Moore,7/03/23, The Guardian)

With Ligeti, however, tragedy is never far away. In his Poème Symphonique (Symphonic Poem) from 1962, 100 mechanical metronomes are set out on the stage in the formation of a symphony orchestra, each one solemnly wound up and set in motion at different speeds by a performer wearing formal evening dress. Ligeti was inspired at the time by the Fluxus movement and it is often billed as a “fun” piece. When the metronomes are let loose, the aural effect of this weird, mechanical orchestra is like rain on a roof or swarms of loud insects. As they gradually wind down, intriguing patterns, rhythms and ticking melodies emerge. By the end, there are only three, then two and then just one solitary metronome – the survivor – ticking away on the stage until it too falls silent. I always find it devastating.

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