The Bookish Redhead

1941- The Lost Year of Calder

2011-10-18T12:17:00.000-07:00

There was a fascinating article in the New York Times today about great sculptor/artist Alexander Calder and the year of his career that is least known to scholars of his work.

A series of photographs taken by his friend Hearbert Matter show Calder in his Roxburry, Connecticut warehouse studio surrounded by mountains of metal and walls of glass. The photgraphs, taken in 1941 showcase many works that have rarely been seen since they went into private collections.

The year 1941 would be the last year Calder would have access to all the aluminum sheet-metal he could wish for-Pearl Harbor and the beginning of WWII would see to that. After that year Calder began working in wood and bronze. Much like his attitude to his own work, he never looked back- giant aluminum and steel monstrositys were well...behind him.

New York Times writer Randy Kennedy speaks about a particular structure called "Tree," that almost dissapeared for good when it failed to sell and Calder took it apart and gave the base to a iron worker friend. Fortunately, for Calder fans, it was rescued. Many years ago, the presdient of the Calder Foundation, Mr. Alexander Rower (Calder's Grandson) found the hanging portion of the sculpture packaged neatly in a shoebox. Reunited at last, the piece glimmers with red shards of car tail-lights and stands tall with its base that looks like a cross between a resting bird and a graceful childs drawing of a dinosaur.

I was shocked to read that during the 1930s and 40s-even as his acclaim was growing, his works were not highly sought after. A ledger in the foundation's files shows that only a few pieces in the 1941 show were sold-one in particular to Solomon R. Guggenheim for just $233.34 (around $3500 in today's money). It's worth noting that The Museum of Modern Art bought its first Calder in 1934 for just $60 after talking Calder down from $100.

If you happen to be in New York this weekend, you can see several pieces from this important period of his career at Pace Gallery's uptown branch.

Fisherman's Daughter by Breton Goes Home

2011-10-13T20:18:00.001-07:00

After 90 years, master painter Jules Breton's painting titled "Fisherman's Daughter" has finally gotten home-and a chapter in the history of art theft can finally be closed.

Stolen from the Douai Beaux Art Museum in North France by German troops during the First World War, the story of "Fisherman's Daughter" has long been one of the greatest mysteries in the art world.

In 2011 there was a break in the case which had long been cold. Interpol was alerted that the painting had been imported into New York by an art dealer. But was it the real painting? Or just a masterful fake? Valued at over $150K in todays market, celebrations on its recovery had to be withheld until the experts could establish its pedigree.

Art experts, curators and historians from France and the United States were called in to examine the painting and investigate its long and clandestine history. After a close examination of records and documentation, both in the United States and in France, and visits to museums and key witnesses, the story of the painting emerged.

But where had it been? What had happened to it for nearly a century? Investigators discovered that during the German occupation of the northern part of the country. German troops confiscated artwork from the Douai Beaux Art Museum and sent the artwork to Mons, Belgium, and then to Brussels.

In 1919, the Belgian government organized the return of the French collection to France, but the painting was not part of the cache. It's believed that before the Belgan government could repatriate the pieces that Breton's painting was stolen once again.

There's where the case goes cold. No one knows what happened to the painting, other than the fact that the painting was professionally restored since it was stolen from Douai Beaux Art Museum. The painting was apparently in private hands recently, then turned up being imported to an art dealer in New York last year.

Today, U.S. officials returned the masterpiece to the French people at a ceremony in Washington attended by the French ambassador, ending the nearly century-long art mystery.

Shift to the Left

2011-10-11T06:34:00.000-07:00

No gigantic cause for alarm- yet - but Big Ben is leaning to the left!

The 315-foot (96-meter) tower is leaning in the northwest direction at an angle of 0.26 degrees, according to a report from 2009 that was recently obtained by the Sunday Telegraph through a Freedom of Information request.

The clock tower — colloquially known as Big Ben after its massive bell — has been slightly off center since it was erected in the mid-19th century. Like many old buildings, its position has been shifting imperceptibly for years due to environmental factors such as seasonal temperature and moisture level changes.

The level of movement northward has been less than 1 millimeter a year since experts began measuring it in the 1970s, Burland said. In the 1990s, the construction of a London Underground line affected the clock tower's foundations and added a small amount of movement to that natural shift, he said.

According to Parliament's website, foundations for the clock tower were first laid in 1843 and the project was completed in 1859, several years behind schedule.

How Has It Been So Long?

2011-10-10T11:26:00.000-07:00

It's like I found a twenty dollar bill underneath my bed, or crammed into a pants pocket. It's been EIGHT months since I posted a new blog posting to this blog. I have no idea if anyone out there reads this, but if you do-I'm sorry to have been gone away so long. I will get back to writing-right away.

I'm off to find something worth commenting on that's not the Occupy Wall Street movement. There's quite enough about that on the web without my 2 cents.

Must Have Been Some Good Drugs

2011-02-24T13:08:00.001-08:00

In the "did ya know" category, here's one for coctail banter. Did you know that there are two bullet holes in Andy Warhol's 1972 screenprint of Chairmain Mao?

There are-and it didn’t deter a collector from buying it for $302,500 — 10 times the high presale estimate of $30,000 — at Christie’s in New York last month.

The reason the piece was coveted has to do with the shooter as much as it has to do with the artist and subject matter. During a wild night in the 1970s, Dennis Hopper got spooked by the picture and shot it twice. Warhol loved the results and annotated the holes with circles and the words “warning shot” and “bullet hole,” which made the work an unplanned collaboration.

Must have been some good drugs Dennis.

The Best "Clear Out" of All Time

2010-11-12T11:08:00.000-08:00

A British mother and son were having a "clear out" or what I affectionately call "a feng shui fit" (definition: when I can't stand the clutter in my house any longer and start sorting through things for Goodwill) recently when they stumbled upon a vase on a shelf. I probably would have given the vase to Goodwill or Age Concern out of complete ignorance. This wise pair took their "what is this" to Bainbridges in London.

Smart move.

Today the Chinese vase sold for $68 million dollars.

That's one hell of a knick-nack.

The elaborately decorated 16 inch (40 cm) ceramic vase, which dates from the mid-18th century Qianlong period, was bought by a private buyer from mainland China on Thursday in Bainbridges, a small west London-based auction house.

After the addition of the 20 percent fees on its hammer price the final bill for the buyer was £53,105,000 ($85,176,578).

According to CNN souces, it is thought to be the highest price ever paid for any Chinese artwork say Bainbridges, who auctioned the vase on behalf of a mother and son.

The pair, who want to remain anonymous, were clearing out a house in Pinner, a leafy suburb of north-west London, when they came across the dusty vase on a shelf.

They had no idea what it was says Helen Porter, a researcher at Bainbridges.

Luan Grocholski, a Bainbridges' valuer and specialist in oriental antiquities, told CNN: "When I saw it for the first time I thought it was a wonderful piece, I wasn't sure if it was real. But, after some research and examination we decided that it was real.

"It is indeed a world record in ceramics, definitely the most expensive piece of oriental art sold at auction", he added

Porter said: "They were hopeful but they didn't dare believe until the hammer went down. When it did, the sister had to go out of the room and have a breath of fresh air."

The vase was believed to have been acquired by an English family during the 1930s although how it came to reside on a shelf in Pinner is not known says Porter.

The vase was made in the mid to late-18th century during the reign of the fourth emperor in the Qing dynasty, Qianlong. It would have resided in the Chinese Royal Palace and was almost certainly fired in the imperial kilns, say Bainbridges.

The vase is reticulated and double-walled -- there is an inner vase that can be viewed through the perforations of the main body.

Peter Bainbridge, the owner Bainbridges, said "It helps balance the books rather more easily but it also means jolly good bonuses for the staff".

Pardon me, I'm off to check out my knick-nacks.

Art That Survived Hate

2010-11-11T13:32:00.001-08:00

In 1937 the Nazi's launched two major shows that toured cities across Hitler's Germany- one was called the "Degenerative Art" Show and featured dozens of sculptures, pictures and bronzes that the party deemed innaprorpriate. The point of the show was to illustrate to people what and why these pieces stood against all that was truly German and good.

Part of the collection, thought to be completely destroyed by bombing and fire during the war, have been excavated in Berlin by a group digging to build a new rail line. These pieces have not seen the light of day, much less the light in the eyes of onlookers in over 70 years. They now stand again-but proudly- as cornerstones of classical modernism.

There was a wonderful article on cnn today about the find that showcases several of the works.

How moving that this should come out on Veterans Day, and how amazing that these lost works have been found again. It goes to show that art can survive hate.

Farewell Leo- What Will Happen to the New Yorker

2010-10-26T11:03:00.000-07:00

I have a love/hate relationship with my weekly issue of the New Yorker. I love it because it is full of wonderful articles, it has all the museum and theater information that I could need about a city that I don't live in. The last part of that sentence is also the part of the New Yorker that causes the hate part of the relationship. If I had a dollar for every time I rushed to the Internet to find a cheap flight to make it to some wonderful showing or event in New York City that I'd read about in the New Yorker I'd never have to worry about paying for another subscription.

Part of the wonderfulness of the New Yorker has been the little cartoons that sprinkle through it. I love the last page that asks you to create the tagline to an image. Turns out I have a nice man from New Jersey to thank. Sadly, he passed away this week. I'm not sure how my New Yorker will manage to move on.

One of my "bucket list" items of life accomplishments is to have my obituary in the New York Times. It's obituaries like this one to Leo Cullum that make that a wish that I hope someday (a long time from now) comes true.

Leo Cullum, a cartoonist whose blustering businessmen, clueless doctors, venal lawyers and all-too-human dogs and cats amused readers of The New Yorker for the past 33 years, died on Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 68 and lived in Malibu, Calif.

The cause was cancer, said his brother, Thomas.

Mr. Cullum, a TWA pilot for more than 30 years, was a classic gag cartoonist whose visual absurdities were underlined, in most cases, by a caption reeled in from deep left field. “I love the convenience, but the roaming charges are killing me,” a buffalo says, holding a cellphone up to its ear. “Your red and white blood cells are normal,” a doctor tells his patient. “I’m worried about your rosé cells.”

Mr. Cullum seemed to have a particular affinity for the animal kingdom. His comic sympathies extended well beyond dogs, cats and mice to embrace birds — “When I first met your mother, she was bathed in moonlight,” a father owl tells his children — and even extended to the humbler representatives of the fish family. “Some will love you, son, and some will hate you,” an anchovy tells his child. “It’s always been that way with anchovies.”

“There are many ways for a cartoon to be great, not the least of which is to be funny, and Leo was one of the most consistently funny cartoonists we ever had,” said Robert Mankoff, the cartoon editor of The New Yorker. “He was certainly one of the most popular — some of his cartoons were reprinted thousands of times.”

In all, Mr. Cullum published 819 cartoons in The New Yorker, the most recent in the issue for Oct. 25. Many of them were gathered in the collections “Scotch & Toilet Water?,” a book of dog cartoons; “Cockatiels for Two” (cats); “Tequila Mockingbird” (various species) and “Suture Self” (doctors).

Leo Aloysius Cullum was born on Jan. 11, 1942, in Newark and grew up in North Bergen, N.J. He attended the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., where he earned a degree in English in 1963. On graduating, he entered the Marine Corps as a second lieutenant and underwent flight training in Pensacola, Fla.

In 1966 he was sent to Vietnam, where he flew 200 missions, most in support of ground-troop operations, but at one point he flew secret bombing runs over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos. “Who these were secret from I’m still not sure,” Mr. Cullum told Holy Cross magazine in 2006. “The North Vietnamese certainly knew it wasn’t the Swiss bombing them.”

He went straight from Vietnam to employment with TWA, flying international and domestic flights. He retired at 60 from American Airlines, which merged with TWA in 2001.

During layovers he rekindled a childhood interest in drawing and decided to become a cartoonist. “It looked like something I could do,” he told Holy Cross magazine. “I bought some instructional books which explained the format, and I began studying the work of various cartoonists.”

Inevitably, he set his sights on The New Yorker. The magazine rejected his early submissions but bought some of his ideas, turning them over to Charles Addams to illustrate. The first one resulted in a captionless Addams cartoon from 1975 of an elderly couple canoeing on a peaceful lake. Their reflection in the water, depicting the husband’s actual state of mind, shows him, in a homicidal rage, attacking his wife with his paddle.

After Mr. Addams encouraged him to strike out on his own, Mr. Cullum sold his first magazine cartoon to Air Line Pilot Magazine and soon placed his work with True, Argosy, Saturday Review and Sports Afield.

Before long he cracked The New Yorker. On Jan. 3, 1977, the magazine published his first cartoon, which showed a bathrobed businessman drinking coffee at his desk, surrounded by chickens and speaking into a telephone. The caption read: “No, you’re not disturbing me, Herb. I’m up with the chickens this morning.”

Mr. Cullum quickly became a regular. By the 1980s he was one of the magazine’s most prolific and beloved contributors. “Starting around the mid-1990s, no one was published in The New Yorker more than Leo,” Mr. Mankoff said. He also contributed regularly to The Harvard Business Review and Barron’s.

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Mr. Cullum managed the delicate feat of finding humor when the prevailing national mood was black. The issue of The New Yorker that came out immediately after the attacks carried no cartoons, but Mr. Cullum’s was the first cartoon that the magazine’s readers saw the following week, on Page 6 under the list of contributors. A woman, turning to the man next to her at a bar, says: “I thought I’d never laugh again. Then I saw your jacket.”

His most popular cartoon, from 1998, showed a man addressing the family cat, which is sitting next to the litterbox. “Never, ever, think outside the box,” he says.

He is survived by his wife, Kathy; a brother, Thomas, of Reston, Va.; and two daughters, the former child actresses Kimberly Berry and Kaitlin Cullum, both of Los Angeles.

In 2006 Mr. Cullum’s work appeared in “The Rejection Collection,” a book of cartoons rejected by The New Yorker. Asked to complete the sentence “When I’m not cartooning, I ...,” he wrote, “am wrestling, then showering, with my demons.”

Farewell Leo- you will be greatly missed.

Zen and the Art of Pencil Carving

2010-09-07T11:11:00.001-07:00

Years ago I went with some friends to a Zen Buddist meditation group. We were in our early-thirties: bright-eyed, looking for inner peace and enlightenment while balancing ladder-climbing careers, hangovers and unhealthy relationships with the opposite gender. Basically your run-of-the-mill Atlanta artists-cum-career girls. This sounds like the beginning of a bad New York Times bestseller right?

Anywhoo- we went to the two hour meditation group shepherded by a boneless, sanguine hippy lady who looked like she could have been blown down by a slight breeze, but was also clearly as strong as a giant Redwood tree. She looked at about halfway through the meditation and I could practically see her thinking "Not Buddists".

In my experience there is a calm pond, quiet breeze sort of aura or air about those who practice Zen Buddism. I don't have it. Wish I did. I don't.

The Zen sand garden drives me nuts.
Moving a mountain of rice one piece at a time across a room. I'd go insane.

I'm working on it-trust me. But not there yet.

Where am I going with this? Patience. No, not you, me. I don't have an endless supply. My glass is half empty. But, a friend of mine sent me an article about an artist named Dalton Ghetti who makes sculptures out of pencils- specifically the lead of pencils. These things are teeny, itty-bitty, Borrower size sculptures that must take forever to create. They are an example of how in simplicity can be found perfection.

In an article from 2007 in the New York Times, Ghetti talks about a piece that he's working on in reaction to the 9/11 bombings. There will be a single rice-grain-sized teardrop for every soul claimed by the attacks. From a distance it will look like a giant tear, but up close you'll see its made of tiny little ones. He tries to carve one tear a day and expects the project to take about 10 years before it's completed.

That's patience.

He has carved the entire alphabet, letter by letter into the tip of a pencil (that project took two and a half years). There's a bust of Elvis, a heart in the center of a pencil, a boot, and a beautiful 24 link chain made out of a single pencil lead.

They're magnificent, and I just wanted to share them with you.
They make me want to work harder to find my inner Zen Buddist.
Or at least, if nothing else they've given me a new appreciation of the beauty that can be found inside something as simple as an everyday pencil.

Save the Words One Sentence at a Time

2010-08-18T09:22:00.000-07:00

If I ever really worried that the bookish part of bookishredhead was fading with age I was disabused of that this morning when I was introduced to the Oxford English Dictionary's Save the Words website.

DELICOUS!!! And, what a fantastic idea. The premise of the site is to invite people to adopt and use an old word as much as possible so that it will boot out those silly, fakey words like "unfriend" and "staycation" that pop up so often these days.

Much like the old "Save a Child" tv commercials with Sally Struthers you can sponsor a word (BUT ITS FREE) by promising to use it at least once a day in a sentence. BONUS- if you like you can create and buy a tshirt with your adopted word on it for all to see and repeat.

Oh, how this appeals to the tamped-down literatti in me. It makes me want to run through my vepricose, senticous garden tussicating from all the pollen but still bravely singing the prasies of these long forgotten words. Save them. Save them all!

I think it might be difficult to find appropriate uses for words like avunculize and recineration, but I'll work on it.

Now if I could just find a use for this scandiscope.

Art With the Simplest of Elements

2010-08-16T09:12:00.000-07:00

If you had told me that a woman making images with sand on a light table with some music in the background would practically bring me to tears (and did bring a large Ukranian audience to tears-not an easy task) I would have given you the crooked eyebrow and carried on with my day. But, it's true. Another interesting offshoot of "Britain's Got Talent" is "Ukraine's Got Talent- and quite remarklble talent it has.

Check out Kseniya Simonova's piece. Of course, it also doesn't hurt that she's stunning.

Rest Well Chacha Roux

2010-07-25T20:03:00.001-07:00

Natacha, you will always be remembered. You lived your life so well.

Lunacy's Back...and she's fine.

Who Says Graffiti Can't Be Art?

2010-07-08T06:43:00.001-07:00

For the last few years I've been watching the work of Blu. I know comparatively nothing about him/her, but the work is breathtaking and clearly quite time consuming. This isn't just your average spray can tagging on the wall-this is ART. Check out the latest piece called Big Bang Big Boom- a sort of evolution of life and what might happen to it.

http://vimeo.com/13085676

Life Advice from John Waters

2010-06-02T09:04:00.000-07:00

John Waters (father of fantastic films like Pink Flamingo) has published a wonderful book called Role Models. Among many wonderful things between the covers are ten pieces of life advice. Life advice from John Waters, yes, on the surface it might seem unorthodox, but hey, this is a guy who's made a career out of being well..a freak. I place these at your feet for review. I particularly stand by #3.

1. “If someone is racist and really cute, could you still have sex with him? I have to admit the answer is yes. I have. You just change the subject or shout, ‘La la la la la la la,’ covering your ears when he speaks nonsense. If all else fails, stick something in his mouth to shut him up.”

2. “You should never just read for ‘enjoyment.’ Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt to understand your friends’ insane behavior; or better yet, your own. Pick ‘hard books.’ Ones you have to concentrate on while reading. And for God’s sake, don’t let me ever hear you say, ‘I can’t read fiction. I only have time for the truth.’ Fiction is the truth, fool! Ever hear of ‘literature’? That means fiction, too, stupid.”

3. “If you’re not sure you could love your children, please don’t have them, because they might grow up and kill us.”

4. “[F]or all the neurotics who may have felt a little blue one day and were unfairly diagnosed and overly medicated before they could even try to talk out their problems, I have some advice. It’s appropriate to be depressed sometimes. Who wants to be ‘even’ day after day? If you just killed three people in a DWI accident, you should feel bad. If your whole family molested you in a giant basket on Easter morning, you have a right to be grumpy every once in a while. But feeling down can make you feel up if you’re the creative type. The emotional damage may have already been done to you, but stop whining. Use your insanity to get ahead.”

5. “Everybody knows you need young blood in your house. The way to build a great [art] collection is not to have a lot of money and buy established artists; it’s to go to all the galleries once a month and find a brand-new artist you like in a gallery whose stable seems to be up your alley. Go back to the artist’s second show and buy something for around $5,000. It really means a lot to the artist at this stage of the game, and even though you should never buy art just so you can later sell it for a profit, it does perk up looking through the auction results when you see your gamble go sky-high once in a while.”

6. “Parents should understand that their young kids are not like them and need to have the privacy to fantasize both their good and bad desires. What you may find shocking about the perverse behavior of your child may not even be remembered by your offspring later in life. But what you may pooh-pooh as their silly young fears can be more debilitating to your children than you will ever imagine.”

7. “Everybody has his or her ‘love map,’ as the late, great, sadly discredited Baltimore sexologist John Money once called our predetermined sexual types. And we can never really change our love maps, but we can learn to see them coming. A healthy neurotic knows his type can and probably will bring emotional trouble combined with a powerful sexual wallop. But we can see, through effective therapy, that we have a choice. Yes, our love maps may be bad for us, but WOW! I won’t find this kind of sex in a healthy relationship. So is it worth it? If it is, yes, you are fucked-up, but as long as you choose it, you are also neurotically happy.”

8. “Nobody has to meet Tennessee Williams; all you have to do is reread his work. Listening to what he has to say could save your life, too.”

9. “I’m a fascist about my work habits and I expect you to be, too. Never have a spontaneous moment in your life again. If you’re going to have a hangover, it should be scheduled on your calendar months in advance. Rigid enjoyment of planning can get you high. Militant time-management will enable you to ignore how maladjusted you would be if you had the time to notice it in the first place. Discipline is not anal compulsion; it’s a lifestyle that breeds power.”

10. “You don’t need fashion designers when you are young. Have faith in your own bad taste. Buy the cheapest thing in your local thrift shop — the clothes that are freshly out of style with even the hippest people a few years older than you. Get on the fashion nerves of your peers, not your parents — that is the key to fashion leadership. Ill-fitting is always stylish. But be more creative — wear your clothes inside out, backward, upside down. Throw bleach in a load of colored laundry. Follow the exact opposite of the dry cleaning instructions inside the clothes that cost the most in your thrift shop. Don’t wear jewelry — stick Band-Aids on your wrists or make a necklace out of them. Wear Scotch tape on the side of your face like a bad face-life attempt. Mismatch your shoes. Best yet, do as Mink Stole used to do: go to the thrift store the day after Halloween, when the children’s trick-or-treat costumes are on sale, buy one, and wear it as your uniform of defiance.”

The Lovely Laura Marling

2010-05-19T13:19:00.000-07:00

I don't imagine that this little blog of mine is a cornerstone of cultural information- that it's highbrow and full of things that most normal Philistine's would never dane to contemplate. It's just my chatter about things I find interesting. I don't even know if anyone reads this blog.

So, from time to time I reserve the right to be silly and fluffy and twee. Today I'm going to talk about a show I saw last night. Laura Marling. Good GOD almighty what a talented woman. I admit it- I have a soft spot in my heart for folk music and using real instruments. I'm a sucker for an acoustic guitar backed up by a cello. Throw a banjo in there every once in a while and you've got me at hello. Last year I stumbled upon Laura Marling while reading a music blog. She had done some work with a few other British bands that I like and I immediately enjoyed her work.

I am officially a big fan. Big. Like how I feel about Andrew Bird. Walking into the club last night I realized she was standing about 2 feet away from me and I got jibbery and kerfoffled like a teenager. It's just that she has such a beautiful voice and her music is open and honest and REAL. I gobbled up the first album and have spent an embarassingly long time on You Tube tracking down odd little tracks (see below).

She's come out with her second album now, entitled "I Speak Because I Can" and it's leaps, bounds, mountains ahead of her first album which was damn impressive in itself. If you're a fan of poetic lyrics and striking vocals Laura Marling is the girl for you.

I was absolutely thrilled and stunned to see the announcement that she would be coming to East Atlanta's venue The Earl, and snapped up tickets immediately. One generally thinks that when they stumble on a little band that they can't possibly be the only one who knows about it, but from the size of the crowd last night I guess maybe that many people don't know about the 20 year old Hampshire, England girl. I am not generally one of those people who yells out from the crowd at a show, but last night asked for "The Wrote & the Writ" and she seemed surprised that anyone remembered it. Remebered it- hell, I tracked it down on ye olde Internet and had it in the CD player for several weeks. Her lack of acknowledgement in the U.S. clearly has more to do with a lack of PR rather than a lack of talent.

Don't say you haven't been told now. Don't walk, run and buy her music.

Here are some samples of her work:
From "I Speak Because I Can"
What He Wrote
I Speak Because I Can
Blackberry Stone

From "Alas I Cannot Swim"
My Manic and I
New Romantic
Alas I Cannot Swim

And, not on her albums but also favorites:
The Wrote & the Writ
Travel Light
Needle and the Damage Done

It was a no photography show, but I'm sorry- I snuck a photo. (see above)
Sorry Laura.

Oh. She doesn't do encores. But you won't care. You'll just be glad you were able to experience the music. Trust me.

Inside the Mind and Letters of Magritte

2010-05-18T13:32:00.001-07:00

Clearly I need to win the lottery sooner than later. In a little less than a month Sotheby's in New York will be auctioning a series of over 40 letters and poscards from the Surrealist master Rene Magritte to Paul Colinet.

The correspondence forms an extraordinary record of the artist’s creative process in addition to revealing the literary and artistic influences on his work during the most productive period of his career. Complete with drawings and sketches, many of which are variations on the artist’s well-known canvases. The letters and postcards last appeared on the auction market at Sotheby’s London in 1987, where it was offered in a sale of artifacts from the artist’s studio consigned by his widow. No other significant group of Magritte letters has appeared on the market since.

In 1933, Magritte met the Belgian Surrealist poet Paul Colinet, and the two became close friends rapidly. At the time, Magritte’s personal connections with Surrealism were strained – he had left Paris in disgust and returned home to Brussels – although ironically his artwork remained clearly Surrealist in style. The collection of letters cover a wide range of topics – artistic, literary and surreal – and reveals a remarkable influence Colinet wielded on Magritte and his oeuvre.

In numerous letters Magritte discusses the question of appropriate titles for his paintings. Having acknowledged that Colinet has a rare talent for finding the most suitable title for his paintings, Magritte frequently asks his advice, with a sketch of the picture included. On the verso of an undated letter Magritte pens a landscape, a derivative no doubt of the artist’s iconic L’Empire des Lumières, and writes beneath it, “un titre plaese! (prononcer un ‘titre plisse’).” In another letter Magritte gives his definition of the art of painting, and in yet another, sets out to tackle the question “What does this picture represent?”

A peek inside the mind of the Surrealist genius is presented by a letter in which Magritte digressed on the significance of the number 9 and his prose becomes a bit surreal: “vous avez déjà remarqué que le chiffre 18 compose de 1 et de 8, soit 1 + 8 =9 . . . le chiffre 9, multiplié par lui-même donc 81, soit 8 = 1 = 9 . . .”

The correspondence with Colinet also reveals Magritte’s opinion of various works of literature, at one point expressing disgust with André Breton’s L’art magique and stating he cannot share Colinet’s enthusiasm for the work of Jorge Luis Borges. He goes on to note that he has just received books by Paul Morand, Joseph-Arthur, comte de Gobineau and Martin Heidegger.

*more information can be found at Art Daily

'A Day in the Life' for Sale

2010-05-04T11:56:00.000-07:00

When they say that not everything can be bought, it appears that the list of items included in "everything" is growing smaller. I'm not judging, if I was in a bad financial pinch there are not many physical possessions that I call my own that I wouldn't not willingly divest. But I'm not sure I could part with this little jewel.

The final song on "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" titled "A Day in the Life" is up on the auction block. The single piece of paper penned by John Lennon will go under the gavel on June 18th at Sotheby's and are expected to bring between a half a million and $700k pounds.

Inspired by real-life events, including a newspaper artlce about numerous potholes in Blackburn, Lancashire, the song is one of the Fab Four's most recognizable tunes. Strangely enough, the original lyrics do not contain the mildly controversal "I'd love to turn you on," line which jangled many a teenage parents nerves in the early 1960s.

I hope whomever buys it will display it for we plebians to view. John would like that, yep, John would want it.

Beauvoir- On Beauty and Frumpiness

2010-04-29T12:59:00.000-07:00

God knows I love the New York times.
Lord knows Simone de Beauvoir's “The Second Sex” is one of the most important feminist tomes in the history of feminist tomes.

So, when Knopf released a new translation of Second Sex this week you might think that the Times would have rushed to press with tasty tidbits previously mistranslated or left wadded on the editing room floor by the original publisher. You'd be wrong. The Times decided to write about of all things, Ms. Beauvoir's looks. Oh sweet irony.

Frankly, it was an interesting article (you can read it here in full) and a nice glimpse into the life and fashion thoughts of an icon. I've always thought Beauvoir was a natural beauty that had the kind of wit and vivacity that would still make her a force to be recconed with if she were still with us today.

At least the Times acknowledged it was being reductionist and superficial. (grin)

I don't know about you, but I'm going to pick up the new version and reaqaint myself with The Second Sex. It's been more than a few years since I've studied the tome and now seems like a good a time as any.

Happy Reading All!!!

Think You Know Picasso?

2010-04-22T12:19:00.000-07:00

I thought I knew my fair share about the great master. I know the names of his many wives and lovers, have a fair idea of the amount of work he generated in his lifetime (around 50K pieces) and even the name of his dog (Lump). But, I didn't know his whole name.

Get ready for this one and be glad you don't have to monogram it on any shirt cuffs.

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso.

Whew.

With a big name like that its no wonder he had such a gigantic ego.

Hotel Normandie- Where it's 420 Every Day

2010-04-21T09:34:00.001-07:00

During a recent hotel stay my partner expressed his complete frustration that it is so difficult for anyone who smokes to find a hotel where they can smoke in the room. To smoke a cigarette requires getting dressed, scrabbling under the bed for shoes, schleping to the elevator and finding a dingy corner to light up.

I'm pretty sure the Normandie Midtown Hostel in Los Angeles wouldn't blink if I lit up a Marlboro. This new boutique hotel is the first marajuana friendly establishment in the United States. Dennis Peron, a long-time marijuana dispensary owner and medicinal marijuana advocate, is currently remodeling Los Angeles' Hotel Normandie with plans to turn its 106 rooms into a haven for smokers around the world.

When did the hotel open? On 4/20 of course! Peron's ultimate vision for the hotel is of a "hippie rustic" theme with a rooftop deck where users could light up, framed by the hotel's vintage neon sign.

"We have a motto now," Eastman said. "Forget Amsterdam. Meet me at 6th and Normandie. You won't need a passport to come to the Normandie Hotel. You won't need a plane ticket to come to the Normandie Hotel. All roads lead to the Normandie. On the Metro, the bus, the taxis, we're centrally located in the middle of the center of the universe right here."

Eastman grandly bills the hotel as the United Nations of marijuana, and has been polishing some one-liners, which Peron gamely puts in his own words.

Eastman: "You won't need a towel at the bottom of the door. "

Peron: "Yeah, you don't have to put towels down there."

Eastman: "And there are some no-smoking hotels. We're definitely not one of them."

Peron: "We're definitely not. There are some no-smoking hotels. We're not no-smoking."

The Normandie began as a dignified residence hotel in the 1920s. It touted a $1 turkey dinner prepared by Mrs. H.F. Bruner and was a luncheon spot for women's clubs. In 1938 and 1939, it was briefly home to British author Malcolm Lowry, who was reworking his masterpiece, "Under the Volcano." In 1957, rooms cost $4, and in 1970, they were only $7. In the 1980s, the hotel was a retirement center.

Most recently, with rooms advertised on banners at $49.99, it catered to budget travelers, long-term tenants and Korean-speaking visitors. Its nightclub and restaurant, with their fanciful and outdated decor, are abandoned. Its lobby houses an odd assemblage of furniture and vending machines. Its rooms are decorated in a palette of flesh tones. It is comfortable but worn.

Very little marijuana is evident. But Eastman says the hotel has had some pot-smoking visitors. And Peron and some friends have established an outpost on the fourth floor.

On a recent day, Caroline Lewis had a blunt wedged into a notch in an ashtray beside her bed. She said she smokes pot for back pain from the epidurals she had during four C-sections. She moved in about three months ago and loves the vibe. "Oh, God, it is so freaking terrific," she said. "It'll give medical patients a safe environment where they aren't hassled by the police."

She lives with Dennis Carpenter, who says he has been smoking marijuana to relieve stress. He works for Evangelista and was helping refurbish the rooms. "I was envisioning it to be like a green hotel," he said. "I was expecting it to be a lifelong project."

Dude....

Oh George- Return Your Library Books

2010-04-20T07:23:00.000-07:00

I've been more than a little guilty of keeping library books out entirely too long. I lost one once- in the back of a taxi, and it was returned to the library nearly a year later. I had already paid for the book in full, but liked to think of it being passed hand to hand, taxi ride to taxi ride across Atlanta.

I digress...

There was an interesting little snippet in the news today about our first President and his overdue library books. Apparently, in going through his papers a historian found two books and a chit for their return date from the New York Society Library. If Mr. Washington was around today to sheepishly return them to the library he would owe about $4,500. Not too bad considering they're over 220 years overdue. I can't imagine what kind of penalties the IRS would slap on you if you were that late paying back taxes.

The New York library, a subscription library that was New York's first library open to the public, has known about the missing books since the 1930s. The matter came up again recently because the library is capturing the ledgers in digital form to preserve the records.

Library officials cross-checked the books mentioned in the ledger with the ones in their collection. "Volume 12 (of "Common Debates") was still missing," as was the other book, Goldstein said. The library is not so concerned about the fine as it is about each book.

Monet Found After 10 Years

2010-01-13T08:46:00.000-08:00

Ten years ago, a theif walked into a small museum in western Poland and quietly, un-noticed by guards or cameras, swapped out Monet's "Beach in Pourville" with a copy, painted on cardboard and strolled away.

Today, in Warsaw, Poland police say that they have found that painting in the possesion of a 41 year-old man in the southern city of Olkusz. Fingerprints and other traces left at the site helped identify the suspect, but police weren't able to locate him until recently. The man has confessed to the robbery, but no other details have been released.

The National Museum in Poznan is currently examining the painting to ensure its provenance. The painting, which shows the sea lapping against a beach is valued at $1 million dollars. Needless to say, the museum owners consider it to be pricess. And, can you blame them?

Been Gone So Long

2010-01-13T08:45:00.000-08:00

Sorry I've been away for so long. Hopefully I'll be better about updating my blog this decade. :)

As true today as it was then..

2009-11-18T05:57:00.000-08:00

A friend sent this to me today, and listening to it I was struck by the fact that it's just as relevant today as it was when Howard Beale ranted in 1976...33 years ago.

The Passing of Irvin Penn

2009-10-07T14:03:00.000-07:00

There are artist who aren't household names, but whose work you would recognize in a second. People who's work has been part of your life and you didn't even know it. People who's work has influenced the way that the very world around you is seen.

Irving Penn was one of those people.

One of the 20th century's most influential and prolific photographers, Penn influenced photography in a way that may not be fully realized until later in this century.

One of the 20th century’s most prolific and influential photographers of fashion and the famous, whose signature blend of classical elegance and cool minimalism was recognizable to magazine readers and museumgoers worldwide, died Wednesday morning at his home in Manhattan. He was 92.

Umberto Eco Thinks Your Handwriting Is Ugly

2009-09-23T13:22:00.000-07:00

...and he's right.
Seriously, when was the last time you really looked at the scrawl you put on a check or a birthday card? When was the last time you sat down and wrote a long letter to someone- with a pen - on paper?

I write letters all the time. Yes, sometimes my handwriting is less than desirable. I wish I had the skill of the 1920s generation to crank out beautiful copperplate script like a printers devil on deadline. But, alas, by the time I started elementary school in the 70's the fine artistry of handwriting was already going to hell in a handbasket.

There's a wonderful article in the Guardian today where Umberto Eco (one of the greatest living author's) opines the death of the art of handwriting. It's well worth a read, and I'm sure that in the next letter I write, I'll be writing about it.

Music from the Birds

2009-09-14T10:55:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine sent this around to me today and I thought it was brilliant. As a kid my Mom used to tell us that the birds sat on the wires because they got a little buzz in their toes- and who wouldn't like that?

http://vimeo.com/6428069

I Don't Even Like Clowns, But...

2009-08-21T11:20:00.001-07:00

I'm not a fan of clowns. Even one's in need. They creep me out. Mostly because of Stephen King, and John Wayne Gacey. Also. I don't like audience participation and they always want you to participate. I'm an INFJ. Stop judging me clowns!

But, I was reading the New Yorker this week and stumbled across this poem and it stuck with me enough that I tracked it down on their website and am bringing it to you.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please take your seats for -

If a Clown
by Stephen Dunn

If a clown came out of the woods,
a standard-looking clown with oversized
polka-dot clothes, floppy shoes,
a red, bulbous nose, and you saw him
on the edge of your property,
there’d be nothing funny about that,
would there? A bear might be preferable,
especially if black and berry-driven.

And if this clown began waving his hands
with those big white gloves
that clowns wear, and you realized
he wanted your attention, had something
apparently urgent to tell you,
would you pivot and run from him,
or stay put, as my friend did, who seemed
to understand here was a clown
who didn’t know where he was,
a clown without a context?

What could be sadder, my friend thought,
than a clown in need of a context?

If then the clown said to you
that he was on his way to a kid’s
birthday party, his car had broken down,
and he needed a ride, would you give
him one? Or would the connection
between the comic and the appalling,
as it pertained to clowns, be suddenly so clear
that you’d be paralyzed by it?

And if you were the clown, and my friend
hesitated, as he did, would you make
a sad face, and with an enormous finger
wipe away an imaginary tear? How far
would you trust your art?

I can tell you it worked.

Most of the guests had gone
when my friend and the clown drove up,
and the family was angry. But the clown
twisted a balloon into the shape of a bird
and gave it to the kid, who smiled,
let it rise to the ceiling.

If you were the kid,
the birthday boy, what from then on
would be your relationship with disappointment?
With joy? Whom would you blame or extoll?

A Short Song from Ms. Parker

2009-08-17T06:56:00.000-07:00

Because it's Monday. Because it's been too long since I've featured Ms. Parker here, because...just because.

A Very Short Song

Once, when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad-
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.

Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.

- Dorothy Parker

Mug Taken to Mona Lisa's Mug

2009-08-11T13:11:00.000-07:00

In the category of art news that made me giggle comes this story.

From CNN.com

Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece the "Mona Lisa" was attacked with a mug earlier this month, but the world's most famous painting -- protected by thick glass -- emerged with its enigmatic smile undimmed.

The "Mona Lisa" sits behind bulletproof glass in the Louvre gallery.

French police say a woman "not in her senses" lobbed the mug at the 500-year-old painting, which hangs in the Louvre gallery in Paris.

The woman, a tourist, was later transferred from police custody to a psychiatric unit, a police spokesman told CNN. The spokesman declined to be identified, and did not say where the woman was from.

Of course, now I have the Nat King Cole version of "Mona Lisa" stuck in my head. Dangit.

In Memory of Patch - the Last Tommy

2009-08-10T06:26:00.000-07:00

This past week England buried a hero. Harry Patch, aged 111, was the last living soldier who had fought in WWI. He survived the famous battle of Passchendaele in 1917. Many have been moved to write and pay tribute to Patch through the years, but the latest tribute, in this writers humble opinion, is one of the most moving. Another British darling, the band Radiohead, premiered their tribute to the late soldier on BBC Radio 4 last Thursday.

"Harry Patch (in memory of)" is absolutely heartbreaking. Its combination of strings, orchestrated by Johnny Greenwood and the soul stirring voice of Radiohead lead singer Thom Yorke strike a similar chord of the soundtrack from Schindler's List. It's music that stays with you for days after you hear it. If the music wasn't enough to haunt you, the lyrics will. Excerpted from the interview that inspired the song, they bring vivid mental pictures of what Harry Patch must have experienced during those muddy, bloody days in 1917.

Here are the lyrics to the song:

I am the only one that got through
The others died where ever they fell
It was an ambush
They came up from all sides
Give your leaders each a gun and then let them fight it out themselves
I've seen devils coming up from the ground
I've seen hell upon this earth
The next will be chemical but they will never learn

So many of us will have had fathers, grandfathers or great-grandfathers who fought in the First World War; but it is easy to forget. Of course we mustn’t and with this moving, modern tribute, we have a chance to stop and remember.

You can download the song from Radiohead’s official website for £1. All proceeds from the track will be donated to the Royal British Legion.
To hear the full version of the song go to the BBC website.

His obituary was absolutely lovely. Please check it out here.

Rest in Peace Patch.

Clowns Kick KKK Asses- My Favorite Story This Year

2009-07-30T09:08:00.000-07:00

Most anyone who knows me knows that there is one thing that can move me to want to commit violence- and that's white supremacy. Odd, because that is exactly what they would like to evoke- violence. I get so frustrated by the stupidity and the utter useless hate and energy that goes into thinking that one race is better, or more entitled than another.

Growing up in north Florida the place was chock full of "skinheads" - a term I put in quotes because honestly-they were just thugs who needed an excuse to hate people and honestly-it wasnt just blacks or hispanics, they pretty much just hated anybody and were always looking for a fight. If you were a woman, homosexual, old, fat, skinny, smart, religious, different, BREATHING, they would find a way to try and start a fight. Strangely enough, most of them were named Christian-which I always also thought was ironic to the extreme.

A friend sent me this link today and all I can say is BRAVO!!! Sign me up! When and where do you meet. I'd be glad to dance amongst these clowns.

Clowns Kicked KKK Asses

Here’s an excellent example of pwnage: when the white supremacist group VNN Vanguard Nazi/KKK tried to host a hate rally in Knoxville, Tennessee, they were foiled by … clowns!

Unfortunately for [VNN] the 100th ARA (Anti Racist Action) clown block came and handed them their asses by making them appear like the asses they were.

Alex Linder the founder of VNN and the lead organizer of the rally kicked off events by rushing the clowns in a fit of rage, and was promptly arrested by 4 Knoxville police officers who dropped him to the ground when he resisted and dragged him off past the red shiny shoes of the clowns. http://www.volunteertv.com/home/headlines/7704982.html

“White Power!” the Nazi’s shouted, “White Flour?” the clowns yelled back running in circles throwing flour in the air and raising separate letters which spelt “White Flour”.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s angrily shouted once more, “White flowers?” the clowns cheers and threw white flowers in the air and danced about merrily.

“White Power!” the Nazi’s tried once again in a doomed and somewhat funny attempt to clarify their message, “ohhhhhh!” the clowns yelled “Tight Shower!” and held a solar shower in the air and all tried to crowd under to get clean as per the Klan’s directions.

At this point several of the Nazi’s and Klan members began clutching their hearts as if they were about to have a heart attack. Their beady eyes bulged, and the veins in their tiny narrow foreheads beat in rage. One last time they screamed “White Power!”

The clown women thought they finally understood what the Klan was trying to say. “Ohhhhh…” the women clowns said. “Now we understand…”, “WIFE POWER!” they lifted the letters up in the air, grabbed the nearest male clowns and lifted them in their arms and ran about merrily chanting “WIFE POWER! WIFE POWER! WIFE POWER!”

*This makes me so happy I could clap my hands like a little kid at a birthday party.
Thank you ladies and gentlemen of Knoxville, TN. I applaud you!!!

Iz the Wiz- Grafitti Great Dies

2009-06-30T13:02:00.000-07:00

When I think of New York in the 70s and 80s I think of the dirty city filled with the homeless, trash blowing in the breeze and grafitti everywhere. Grafitti was a major part of what formed the perception of New York in those decades. The city that had been the gleaming jewel of the country since the Roaring 20s became the truly rough, tourist-not-welcome example of city life in America. If you look at movies from the era you'll see it in the backgrounds- be it a Woody Allen or a Martin Scorcese film, be it uptown or downtown, there is usually a tag somewhere to be found.

One of the greats of the genre was "Iz the Wiz", considered by most as the "longest-reigning all-city king in N.Y.C history." At one time or another Iz put his tag on subway cars running on every line in the NYC subway system more times than any other known artist.

Michael Martin — Iz the Wiz — died on June 17 in Spring Hill, Fla., where he had moved a few years ago. He was 50. The cause was a heart attack, said Ed Walker, who is working on a biography and documentary of Iz the Wiz. Mike was born in Manhattan and lived in a succession of foster homes after his mother was imprisoned for burglary. He did not know his father. He grew up in Ozone Park, Queens, and as a teenager lived in Covenant House on the Lower East Side.

Mike withdrew from the scene in the mid-1980s. He managed a grocery store briefly, then began using drugs heavily. A marriage in the late 1980s ended in divorce. He is survived by a brother, Peter Poston of Spring Hill, and a sister, Evelyn Poston of East Stroudsburg, Pa.

Mr. Martin learned he had kidney failure in 1996, which he assumed was a result of working with aerosol paint, and for the rest of his life he was on dialysis. His financial situation was dire. “He never made the connections he needed to make to be appreciated in the art world,” Mr. Sar said.

Martin started tagging walls at the young age of 14, using Scat or FCN (French Canadian National-even though he wasn't Canadian). He graduated to subway cars early in his "career" specializing in the A line-the longest in the subway system.

In 1975, in the 68th Street Station of the Lexington Avenue line, Mike saw a poster for the Broadway play “The Wiz” with the slogan, “The Wiz Is a Wow.” It had a certain ring. “He said, ‘If the Wiz is a Wow, why can’t Iz be the Wiz?’ ” his friend and fellow graffiti artist SAR (real name, Charles Sar) recalled.

With the graffiti artist Vinny, Mr. Martin mounted an intensive throw-up campaign on the A line. In the late 1970s he branched out to other lines, spray-painting top-to-bottoms (graffiti displays extending from the top of a train to the bottom), burners (complicated works intended to dazzle the competition) and fully realized scenes, like his homage to John Lennon, painted after Lennon was shot to death in 1980. It was a two-car scene with a portrait of Lennon and a graveyard filled with tombstones.

“He was an artist, but also a bomber, recognized as a person who made himself seen by everybody,” said the photographer Henry Chalfant, using the graffiti term for a prolific artist. “At the same time he appreciated the aesthetic side of it. He didn’t do wild style” — complex, interlocking letters — “he had a simple, readable style with great color and interesting forms within the lettering itself.”

Iz's work enjoyed surprising longevity in the days before the Metropolitan Transportation Authority began cracking down on graffiti. Elaborately painted cars could run for months or even years. Artists would often gather at certain stations to watch their work and keep an eye on the competition, much like their counterparts did in 15th-century Florence.

After a respite from his work Iz jumped back into graffiti in the 90s, painting cars, but also taking part in the legal graffiti movement, expressing himself on walls set aside for the purpose. He was one of the first artists to work on the Phun Phactory, a 200,000-square-foot industrial building in Long Island City, Queens, that artists began covering with graffiti in 1993. It is now known as the 5 Pointz Aerosol Art Center, or the Institute of Higher Burnin’.

Iz the Wiz sought fame, and found it, but not on gallery walls. His work appeared on the old dusty brown subway cars known as coal mines, and their replacements, called ding dongs for the bell tone that chimes when the doors close. Painting one of those, end to end, Mr. Martin once said, “was like sex in a can.”

*the majority of this blog entry was excerpted from a New York Times piece, published 6/30/09 - thanks to William Grimes*

Coolest Use of a Segway

2009-06-19T10:50:00.000-07:00

Hands down this is the coolest use of a Segway I've ever seen.

Herb & Dorothy Vogel- Eyes that See

2009-06-18T11:14:00.000-07:00

I can't claim to be an art collector. Yes, I have a couple things that I am terribly proud of, and adore, but when it gets into "collecting" I just can't run with even the small dogs, much less the big ones.

But, as my mother used to say "we do what we want to do." In the case of Herb and Dorothy Vogel this unlikely couple chose to collect modern art.

After thirty years of meticulous collecting and buying, the Vogels managed to accumulate over 2,000 pieces, filling every corner of their tiny one bedroom apartment. "Not even a toothpick could be squeezed into the apartment," recalls Dorothy.

In 1992, the Vogels decided to move their entire collection to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The vast majority of their collection was given as a gift to the institution. Many of the works they acquired appreciated so significantly over the years that their collection today is worth millions of dollars. Still, the Vogels never sold a single piece.

Today Herb and Dorothy still live in the same apartment in New York with 19 turtles, lots of fish, and one cat. They've refilled it with piles of new art they've acquired.

I'm just sad its not playing in Atlanta yet. If it hits your neighborhood make sure to check it out.

How's Your Eye? Ask the Munsell Hue Test

2009-05-26T08:27:00.000-07:00

How's your eye for color? Is it as good as you think it is? I found this test on ye olde Internet today and while my eye is pretty good, its not as good as I thought it would be. I got a 12. Being a bit of a color snob, while I didn't expect perfect, I would have liked to have been single digit.

Of course, I'd like to blame it on my computer screen. But honestly-blue/green colors have always been a weird point for me. My exhusband constantly swore that my piece-of-crap car was green and it was as blue as could be to my eyes.

What is this thing? This is an online version of the Farnsworth-Munsell 100Hue Test which is used to separate persons with normal color vision into classes of superior, average and low color discrimination and to measure the zones of color confusion of color defective people. This test has been used in one form or another for over 40 years.

So-take a swing at it and let me know how you do.

Food From a Younger Land- Before the National Highways

2009-05-21T09:28:00.000-07:00

I was born in the 70s. The world was already changing like crazy, we went from transistor radios and record players to Walkmen and CD's in a matter of years. From there it was bye-bye glass soda bottles and hello Evian water (which I drank until I realized Evian was "naive" spelled backwards). Diet Coke didn't exist when I was born- which is frankly unthinkable to me.

I remember the days in Jacksonville Beach, FL. when we thought going out for pizza was pretty exotic, and believe it or not I never experienced the wonder that is cilantro until the mid-nineties when I moved to the teeming cultural metropolis that is Atlanta.

So, what am I babbling about? I've been doing a lot of thinking in the last 24 hours. All this brain activity has been started by a book reading I went to last night. Mark Kurlansky, the author of "Salt" and "Cod", has written a fantastic new book called "Food From a Younger Land" that has me thinking about the past, the present and the future of how this country eats.

Kurlansky has uncovered a pot of gold in the form of a long shelved WPA, Federal Writers Project called "America Eats". Originally intended to be a treatise on the traditions and ingredients of American food, the project was abandoned shortly after the beginning of WWII. A number of writers, including Zora Neale Hurston, Eudora Welty, and Nelson Algren, were dispatched all across America to chronicle the eating habits, traditions, and struggles of local people. Once the war broke out, all of their efforts were collected into boxes and stashed at the Library of Congress where they were destined to be forgotten.

Enter Mark Kurlansky. Years of sorting through boxes of writing has brought together a picture of our country when things were simpler. He doesn't make it look like never-never land-he completely acknowledges that it wasn't always easy. Yes-there were good things, but bad as well- racisim, ingredients like possum, and serious issues with poverty and fear.

One of the questions posed after his reading was what he thought about the "local food" movement surging through America. I was really impressed by his response-yes-its great that we're thinking locally. But, if I can get cherries from Mt. Ranier and cranberries from New England completely out of season why should I turn away from them? So True.

I will say this-get this book. It will get you thinking. It will get you cooking. It may even change the way you live.

Quimby the Mouse & The Talented Andrew Bird

2009-05-13T06:37:00.000-07:00

Quimby The Mouse from This American Life on Vimeo.

Quimby the Mouse is not very nice, but the magical Andrew Bird is playing his violin in the background, so what's not to like.

Check out the "This American Life" with Ira Glass that this clip was excerpted from last week.

Magical Feat of Engineering - The Millau Bridge

2009-05-06T08:03:00.000-07:00

Amazing how in this time when the world seems to get smaller every day that something so phenominal could have slipped past me. I know the Sears Tower has been bought by the British and its name will soon change. I know that Somalian pirates are ravaging the seas like days of olde, and I suspect that I can even find out what Oprah had for dinner last night if I put my mind to it. So imagine my surprise when I discovered today that for nearly four years people have been literaly driving through the clouds in their cars.

Connecting Paris to Barcelona, the Millau Viaduct is part of the new E11 expressway and an absolutely magical feat of modern engineering. At its tallest point it is 787 feet high. It is taller than the Eifel Tower, and spans an impressive 1102 feet, making it the highest bridge in the world. I can only wonder what John A. Roebling would have thought if he was still alive.

One of my favorite trivia factoids about the bridge is that it is not, and could not be straight. It has a slight 20 km curve which apparently remedies the sensation of floating that would be induced if the road was straight. Absolutely fascinating. It also has a light incline of 3% to improve visability and reassure drivers.

This is officially going on the "must experience before death" list which includes things like learning to fly a helicopter, visiting every state in the United States (which I've nearly completed) and to publish a book. Hmm. Maybe someday I'll have to do a blog entry on that interesting little list.

Meanwhile, I'll be dreaming of flying through the clouds from the safety of my own little car. What will man think up next?

A Well-Worn April Story

2009-05-05T06:31:00.000-07:00

Not particularly perky Parker prose, but then again, sometimes its just the ticket for a rainy morning. Hands down, this has some of my favorite quotable verse from my favorite writer.

A Well-Worn Story

In April, in April,
My one love came along,
And I ran the slope of my high hill
To follow a thread of song.

His eyes were hard as porphyry
With looking on cruel lands;
His voice went slipping over me
Like terrible silver hands.

Together we trod the secret lane
And walked the muttering town.
I wore my heart like a wet, red stain
On the breast of a velvet gown.

In April, in April,
My love went whistling by,
And I stumbled here to my high hill
Along the way of a lie.

Now what should I do in this place
But sit and count the chimes,
And splash cold water on my face
And spoil a page with rhymes?

Beautiful Found Sounds

2009-04-22T08:29:00.000-07:00

I get all sorts of artsy-fartsy things in my many inboxes, but this morning I stumbled upon of all things, an Icelandic composer who writes truly, hauntingly, painfully, lovely music. Olafur Arnalds has published a project online that I will be enjoying all day, and no doubt for many days to come.

The 21-year-old composer (yes, just 21) wrote and recorded a new piece every day and posted it online for anyone to download. Each of the compositions is free, and all of them are lovely.

I'm only through the first six of them. I thought at first "sure, I'll listen to them, but I doubt there will be downloading, I've got plenty of hauntingly pretty music on the ole iPod." Wrongo. So far I've downloaded every single thing I've listened to so far.

Here's what the newsletter (which I love) called VSL (Very Short List) had to say about the origin of the compisitions:

Day one’s piece, a waltz, was written for a friend named Elsa. The third composition — “Romance” — reminded Arnalds of a 19th-century opera. On day six, we heard a somber, year-old piece that Arnalds pulled off the shelf and reworked on the fly. And on the eve of the final day, the composer sent out a tweet in which he promised to end the week on a positive note. He delivered that note — a lovely duet for piano and violin — on Sunday, and it just might be our favorite of the bunch. At this rate, Arnalds can have a week of our time anytime.

Clearly-he's got more than a week of my time...and I hope yours too.

Check out the project at: Found Songs - Erased Tapes

While you're clicking around the Internets (not a typo) check out Very Short List too!

A Good Ad is Sometimes A Very Good Thing

2009-04-07T08:30:00.001-07:00

There are times when an advertisement can surpass just being a "BUY THIS ON SALE for $24.99" shill and move into being a piece of well..art. This was forwarded to me today and it made me smile so much that I watched it more than once. So, while its doubtful that I'll ever encounter this product (its from a company in Germany) I'm awfully glad to have been introduced to Loewe's electronics. Hopefully, you will too.

Grafitti as Art: BLU

2009-04-01T08:39:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of conversation in Atlanta these days about grafitti. Recently, a huge mural near my old house was defaced by a tag and even the local artists were raised to indignation. They wanted somebody to pay. They wanted the guy put out in public to be shunned and screamed at and taunted. I frankly didn't like the mural that much, so it didn't chuff me that much.

Graffitti is something that says "city" to me.

I might also say that this same group of riotous artists were up in arms last spring when a stretch of wall that has long been a graffitti work spot was painted matte green by residents. The artists were beside themselves with indignation when a local resident camped out in a tree and assaulted two teens who started painting on the wall in the dead of night.

Frankly, I think the whole lot of them are a bunch of nuts.

Here's an amazing short film by BLU. It proves graffitti can be art.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

Her Morning Elegance

2009-03-16T10:56:00.000-07:00

I was privileged enough to get to see a live showing of animator Nina Paley's "Sita Sings the Blues" last week and was watching it online today while doing other work (yes-multi-tasking). I was checking out her blog afterward and stumbled upon this awesome animation by Oren Lavie. The song is enchanting.

So, considering it's a yucky, rainy Monday, this should leave you with a smile.

Even a Grocery List... William S. Burroughs

2009-03-03T07:46:00.000-08:00

Okay, first I'll say that the bulk of this post is not mine. It's snagged directly from the New Yorker. If you're going to quote, quote from the best I always say. I saw this while skimming through their blog this morning and thought it was bloody brilliant.

Yes-we're in the biggest recession since the Depression, but a book-lover and his money are still easily parted.

Now, on with the show.

"I’ve come to accept that, when an artist or a writer achieves a certain type of fame, anything he or she comes in contact with becomes extraordinarily valuable. Take, for example, the recent liquidation of Michael Jackson’s Neverland estate. Or this story about Picasso’s doodles on a napkin.

Of course, somewhere, a line must be drawn. And perhaps, for me, it’s the recent discovery that someone is trying to sell, for nearly five hundred dollars, the grocery lists of William S. Burroughs. The handwriting is guaranteed, by the seller, to be Burroughs’s, but even if that’s true, nothing in the requested inventory reveals anything interesting about him or his work. If anything, his need for items like plain buttermilk waffles, dry and wet cat food, and vodka is reassuring for any creative mind: even the wildest of writers can be mundane."

Post Script from Bookishredhead: I love that our grocery lists are so nearly identical. Mundane or not, everybody needs dry cat food and vodka on a Wednesday morning.

Happy Clouds at the Tate Modern

2009-02-26T08:45:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm a total cynic and this made even this cold heart smile. Happy, smiley face clouds drifting through the air near the Tate Modern on a cold winter day. Awww. Nice.

28-year-old, Artist, Stuart Semple, created round, smiley face clouds from a combination helium, soap and vegetable dye and unleashed them in the skies around London. The clouds were created by a modified "snow making" machine that is used in Hollywood. This is the first time its been used to create clouds, and the first time its been used in England.

Why did he do it? The artist said, "this was the most straight forward way I could think of to literally contribute something happy to the atmosphere."

Looks like it did. Lots of school children chased along after the wafting clouds before they were picked up by the wind and scooted out over the Thames. Overall Semple receieved a very positive response from Londoners.

Although the happy faces were short-lived – each of them lasting only around 30 minutes before dissipating – Mr Semple was pleased with his efforts.

He said: “At the moment it is a one off piece but I am thinking I could do it somewhere else – the potential is there to do it in other countries.

“I don’t see why we couldn’t spread the happy clouds around the world a bit.”

Bless his optimistic heart.

Dark is the Night- Best Valentine's Day Present Out There

2009-02-11T07:30:00.001-08:00

I am celebrating Valentine's Day this year in a different way than usual. Okay, I'm single right now, so that has a lot to do with it, but even if I wasn't I am not really feeling pink hearts and rosebuds this year.

February 17th (okay its three days after VD but I have always liked odd numbers better anyway) Red Hot Charity, the same folks that brought us Red, Hot + Blue back in the day is releasing an awesome two-cd compilation. The list of artists is AWESOME.

Here are just a few:
Andrew Bird (just go ahead and buy it now that you know that)
My Brightest Diamond (did they create this especially for me?)
Bon Iver
Cat Power
Arcade Fire
Sufjan Stevens

Come on- even if this was it, it would be worth buying. If you want to see more about the album go to their site at: http://www.darkwasthenight.com/artists

If you need more encouragement, the money from the sale of the cd (its also available in vinyl for you hipster, old-school folks who can find needles for your players) goes to benefit HIV and AIDS research.

Here are a few tracks from the upcoming compilation. Enjoy. And buy.

Sometimes a Song is Just What's Needed

2009-02-05T17:44:00.000-08:00

I had a crap day. I listened to this song and it brought back nice memories of two shows I saw earlier this year. Plus, Clare has a voice that makes you smile whether you want to or not. So, I'm passing it on to you.

The most rockin'ist cover song I've heard in a long time.

http://www.airmp3.net/player/slim.swf?&player_title=found on AIRMP3.net&song_url=http%3A%2F%2Flullabyes.net%2Fmp3%2F080313%2520Clare%2520%26%2520the%2520Reasons%2520Austin%2520TX%252010%2520Everybody%2520Wants%2520To%2520Rule%2520The%2520World%2520%28Tears%2520For%2520Fears%29.mp3&song_title=Clare+%26+the+Reasons+-+Everybody+Wants+To+Rule+The+World+%28Tears+For+Fears%29 (found on AIRMP3.net)">http://www.airmp3.net/player/slim.swf?&player_title=found on AIRMP3.net&song_url=http%3A%2F%2Flullabyes.net%2Fmp3%2F080313%2520Clare%2520%26%2520the%2520Reasons%2520Austin%2520TX%252010%2520Everybody%2520Wants%2520To%2520Rule%2520The%2520World%2520%28Tears%2520For%2520Fears%29.mp3&song_title=Clare+%26+the+Reasons+-+Everybody+Wants+To+Rule+The+World+%28Tears+For+Fears%29 (found on AIRMP3.net)" />
http://www.airmp3.net/search/-everybody_wants_to_rule_the_world/mp3/Xa4">everybody wants to rule the world songs
http://www.bresso.com/">Free mp3 download http://www.airmp3.net/">free music download

Good News in Dark Times

2009-02-05T17:22:00.000-08:00

I was pretty darn thrilled to read a post from my friend Tom Bell of the Georgia Center for the Book today and I thought I'd share it.

"Since 1982, the National Endowment for the Arts has regularly been reporting stomach lurching drops in the rates of literary reading among Americans. In the last report, in 2002, well less than half of Americans reported reading even a single novel, short story or poem over the past year.

Good news today, though. For the first time since 1982, when the NEA started tracking, the rate of literary reading has increased. 50.2% of Americans reported reading at least one novel, story or poem in 2008, compared to 46.7% in 2002. It’s a small increase and still a dishearteningly low number, but at least we seem to be moving in the right direction. Hurray!"

Life is short and there are too many amazing books to read to just sit there watching TV, so snap off the tube and pick up a book. All the cool people are doing it. :)

The World Has Lost a Great Painter: Andrew Wyeth

2009-01-16T07:54:00.000-08:00

The world lost a brilliant light in the art world today. Perhaps best known for his painting "Christina's World", a painting of a young woman named Christina Olson. The moving portrait shows a windblown field and Christina in the foreground. The inspiration for the painting purportedly had an undiagnosed muscular deterioration in her lower limbs which kept her from walking. Christina often dragged herself across the ground to pick flowers from her garden, which supposedly inspired the painting.

Wyeth was widely celebrated in and outside the art world. Awarded the Presidential Freedom Award by President John F. Kennedy, he was critically acclaimed since his first one-man show in 1937. His work portrayed America and the simple lives of the people he saw in every day life and the land they called home. Some of his most moving work, in my opinion, was of his neighbor 'Helga' a pale redhead who modeled for him for several years. The work is simply stunning.

I was privileged to see a show of his work several years ago, and while upon entering as a novice admirer of his work, I most certainly left a fan and admirer.

Wyeth, 91 passed away in his sleep on Thursday night at his home near Philadelphia.

Sleep well and be at peace. Thank you for the gifts you leave behind.

You Know Who You Are..

2009-01-13T18:29:00.000-08:00

I love Post Secret. It reminds me that there are millions of us on the planet, and at one time or the other we generally experience the same kinds of feelings. This could have been my secret -even though its not all that secret.

Got a Carrivagio in Your Closet?

2009-01-12T12:17:00.000-08:00

So you're cleaning out the box room one day and you stumble across a box of pictures you haven't seen in a while, a couple old yearbooks, some pants you thought you might be able to fit into again some day, maybe even your old prom dress. But, more likely than not, you're not going to stumble upon a painting that you've thought was a fake all these centuries, and which turns out to be a lost Carrivagio.

Queen Elizabeth did.

She has one of the world's greatest art collections, hundreds of Leonardo drawings, almost 30 Canalettos and paintings by Tintoretto, Vermeer, Holbein and Dürer. In 2006, the Queen acquired her first Caravaggio, worth £50 million or more if she could ever sell it.

The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew, owned by the Royal Family for almost 400 years, has lain unloved and seldom seen in a storeroom at Hampton Court for decades. Misattributed as a copy of a Caravaggio by an unknown hand, it was valued in thousands rather than millions.

The painting was bought by Charles I in 1637 and after being sold with most of the Royal Collection during the Commonwealth, it was re-acquired by Charles II.

Years of grime, varnishing and zealous over-painting to cover up damage convinced generations of art historians that it was of little merit. It was recently valued at "a few tens of thousands of pounds", mainly because Charles I's stamp was on the back.

The Queen cannot sell the work as she holds the Royal Collection in trust for the nation. But one expert said yesterday that the work, once accepted as genuine, could be worth £50 million or more.

The painting is taken from the scene in St Mark's Gospel where Christ, with Peter and Andrew while they are fishing at the Sea of Galilee, says to them: "Follow me and I will make you become fishers of men." Unusually, Christ is shown without a beard. The Royal Collection has dated it to between 1603 and 1606 when Caravaggio worked in Rome.

A notorious brawler, he fled in 1606 after killing a young man in a fight. He went to Naples and Malta but never returned to the Holy City, dying of a fever in 1610.

A copyist would have almost certainly drawn an outline of the picture he was copying on the canvas but cleaning, X-ray and infra-red investigation of the work revealed none. What they did show were incisions, made for the artist's guidance with the handle of a paintbrush, in the first layer of paint. This was a well-known feature of Caravaggio's technique. The removal of over-painting revealed brushwork that was stylistically consistent with other Caravaggio pictures.

The Queen's thoughts on the discovery are not known.

I Can't Justify the Cost of the Replica at the Metropolitan, but..

2009-01-10T16:51:00.000-08:00

a girl can dream.

I'd be perfectly satisfied with one of the replica's that are available at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, but if I was in the market for a wonderful piece of art, there's one soon to be available at Sotheby's. British millionaire Sir John Madejski is sending his Tiny Dancer to the auction block at Sotheby's Impressionist art auction on February 3.

The bronze sculpture from Degas, Petite danseuse de quatorze ans, is one of Degas's most famous and popular works. The bronze cast is one of only a few remaining in private hands. It is estimated at £9 – 12 million.

Sir John Madejski is one of Britain's leading arts philanthropists and the sculpture was on display at the Royal Academy in London since 2004 when he bought this statue for £5 million at Sotheby's in London. Another version sold in 1999 for $12.4 million which is highest price paid for a Degas sculpture.

So, if you were wondering what to get me for my birthday - this would certainly be appreciated.

Saying Goodbye to a True Lady

2009-01-07T06:56:00.000-08:00

I know its been a couple of weeks since her passing, but I couldn't not (incorrect grammar I know) mention the passing of the unbelievable Eartha Kitt.

I was priveledged to see her perform last year on her 80th birthday tour. It was nearly two hours of non-stop pedal to the floor entertainment. I went with a friend, and the whole time we both kept saying "she can't REALLY be 80 years old". I mean FLAWLESS.

The director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra told a story to introduce her. As he met her the afternoon of the performance for rehersal he asked if she had time to visit around town since her arrival. She glibly replied that she'd just gotten in as she'd been performing the night before at the Caryle, as she had performed consistantly for years.

Kitt was best known for her role as Batwoman, but it was far from her top achievement. She had a difficult and impoverished childhood in the country hills of South Carolina. Kitt worked hard to get to the top, but when she was a child, she had to fight prejudice within the African-American community because of her light skin color.

Eartha Kitt's career took a huge turn in 1968 after she was invited to a celebrity luncheon at the White House by Lady Bird Johnson, who asked Kitt about urban poverty. Kitt replied: "You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. They rebel in the street. They don't want to go to school because they're going to be snatched off from their mothers to be shot in Vietnam." The first lady reportedly burst into tears. She was investigated by the FBI and CIA. For years afterward, she was completely blackballed and performed almost exclusively overseas.

Unafraid of controversy, Kitt performed in South Africa in 1974. Heavily criticized, she responded by pointing out that she had managed to get two schools built there for black children. She had raised the money by selling autographs at department stores. Traveling around the country and performing in an integrated show, Kitt felt she did a little to weaken the apartheid system and raise awareness among South Africans of all colors.

In 1978 she was nominated for a Tony award for her starring performance in another Broadway show, Timbuktu. It was her first major performance in the U.S. in ten years. When the show opened in Washington, D.C., Kitt was invited to the White House, where President Carter met her, saying, "Welcome home, Eartha." The show was a success and ran for two and a half years.

She lived an amazing, powerful life and was an amazing, powerful woman. She will be greatly missed.

Read the Book: 5 Favorites of 2008

2009-01-05T09:05:00.000-08:00

I'm a big fan of music blogs. Lord knows there are plenty of them. I like to stroll around the Internet during the business day from blog to blog listening to new music and discovering bands that I might not otherwise have ever encountered. Some of my absolute favorites of last year were found this way - My Brightest Diamond, Firewater, Mystery Jets..okay. I'll stop before I get on a roll.

I wonder if there are people who go book wandering as well? I don't really do it much, but maybe its because new authors and books are so totally in my face because I well- put my face there. In the spirit of the new year, here is a tiny smattering of the books I read in 2008 that, if you missed, you should pick up. They're well worth the read.

The Boy Detective Fails
Joe Meno
I picked this up on one of my trips out West. It's no Nabokov, but it's a wonderful little book and well worth the read.

From Publishers Weekly
Playing such mysteries as "The Case of the Brown Bunny" against the mysteries of mortality and mankind's capacity for evil, the latest from Meno (Bluebirds Used to Croon in the Choir) presents former child sleuth Billy Argo at 30, having just finished a 10-year stint in a mental hospital, where he was confined after his teenage sister Caroline's suicide. Unhappy, painfully shy and doped up on anti anxiety drugs, Billy arrives in New York City and is admitted to a psych halfway house. Haunted by the mystery of his sister's death and feeling that a lapse in his sleuthing may be to blame, Billy is determined to find out the reason for her suicide and to punish those responsible. He soon finds allies in two bright and unpopular children who live across the street, and clues to relevant past cases from lifelong arch-enemy Professor Von Golum (who happens to live across the hall). Not all the plot strands pan out, and the effect is more impressionistic than narrative (various codes strewn throughout have their own digressive pleasures). But the story of Billy's search for truth, love and redemption is surprising and absorbing. Swaddled in melancholy and gentle humor, it builds in power as the clues pile up.

Dangerous Laughter: 13 Stories
Steven Millhauser
Maybe its not right for me to write about this one, as I wrote an entire blog entry about it earlier in the year. I love Millhauser-and if you don't- you should. He's brilliant and engaging and always makes me smile. Just read it.

From The Washington Post
Reviewed by Jeff Turrentine
One reason why Steven Millhauser is consistently so much fun to read -- whether he's writing novels, such as the Pulitzer Prize-winning Martin Dressler, or the short stories he clearly loves even more -- is that he has never forgotten what it was like to be an 11-year-old boy, fueled by curiosity and wonder, trying to make the banal world around him fit his comic-book image of how things should be. But for all of their boyish enthusiasms and fantastic, even gothic, trappings, Millhauser's novels and stories deal with decidedly complex themes. Among his favorites: the price of obsession, the folly of hubris and the inevitable collapse of best-laid plans under the weight of their designers' passion.

Now, with Dangerous Laughter, he has given us a collection of stories that explore these ideas with the mixture of dark suspense and good humor implied by the title. Everything one has come to want and expect in Millhauser's fiction is here -- spooky attics, fantastic inventions, artists driven mad, and ambitious enterprises that become overattenuated and impossible to sustain. The result is almost a Steven Millhauser primer, a much needed fix for fans who've been waiting since The King in the Tree (2003) and a perfect introduction for those unacquainted with his writing.

Nothing to Be Frightened Of
Julian Barnes
I enjoy Julian Barnes - most of the time -yes, there are moments when I've not so much loved a book of his. This one, I liked. Arthur & George-not so much. Anywhoo. If you have any qualms about your mortality, aging or death, read this book. It will comfort you. It will unsettle you, and overall you will be glad that you were let into the musings of this man.

From Publishers Weekly
In this virtuosic memoir, Barnes (Arthur & George) makes little mention of his personal or professional life, allowing his audience very limited ingress into his philosophical musings on mortality. But like Alice tumbling through the rabbit hole, readers will find themselves granted access to an unexpectedly large world, populated with Barnes's daily companions and his chosen ancestors (most of them dead, and quite a few of them French, like Jules Renard, Flaubert, Zola). This is not 'my autobiography,' Barnes emphasizes in this hilariously unsentimental portrait of his family and childhood. Part of what I'm doing—which may seem unnecessary—is trying to work out how dead they are. And in this exploration of what remains, the author sifts through unreliable memory to summon up how his ancestors—real and assumed—contemplated death and grappled with the perils and pleasures of pit-gazing. If Barnes's self-professed amateur philosophical rambling feels occasionally self-indulgent, his vivid description delights.

The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food
Jennifer 8 Lee
Over the Thanksgiving holiday I was privileged to attend a "One Pot" Meal in the Capital Hill, Seattle loft of a local chef. The balance of the event was perfect for me, literature, entertainment, wine and food. Perfect. Jennifer 8 Lee, whom bless her heart, had to rush to the airport to return to NYC directly after dinner, taught me enough things in a half hour that I didn't know about Chinese food that I was simply (okay a little drunk) astonished. The entire evening would have been a success were it not for the ass across the table who tried to woo everyone with his coolness factor of being the dude to discover "Iron & Wine" for Subpop. Who gives a flip. Am I digressing? I am. Trust me. You'll never think of Chinese food the same way again- and in a good way. Read it- read it- read it.

From The Washington Post
Christine Y. Chen )"[Lee] embeds her subject's history in an entertaining personal narrative, eschewing cookie-cutter interviews and dry lists of facts and figures . . . she has a breezy, likable literary demeanor that makes the first-person material engaging. Thanks to Lee's journalistic chops, the text moves along energetically even in its more expository sections . . . Tasty morsels delivered quickly and reliably.

The Ladies of the Corridor
Dorothy Parker & Anton d'Usseau
If you've spent even five minutes perusing my blog you know that I love Dorothy Parker. So, when I had the opportunity to snap up a long lost play you can imagine how long it took me to click on the Paypal option. The introduction by Marion Meade, one of Parker's best biographers, it was my favorite treat to myself all year. I can understand why this play might not rock the stages of Broadway- now, or when it was let loose in the 60s. But it peels back a time that absolutely was, a type of women who absolutely existed, and still do even if we don't want to admit it in the depths of our feminist (and you may find you are one once you read this play) hearts.

Where Has A Month Gone?

2008-12-14T15:48:00.000-08:00

I realized today it has been a long time since I posted to this blog. If you, dear reader, are still out there, I've not ditched this blog. It's been a stinker of a fall/winter season. Surgery, infection, slow healing, pain meds, all-together unpleasant. But, slowly, slowly healing.

If I don't get a chance to post again before Christmas, I wish you a happy holiday.
Best hopes and wishes for the new year.

In of All Places....

2008-11-10T05:41:00.001-08:00

From time to time great masterpieces turn up, having been hung in Russian dentists offices or shoved beneath couches that haven't been moved in 100 years. You've read the stories. They never cease to thrill me.

Well, up springs another one. Recently, a painting by the Italian master Sebastiano Ricci, long presumed to be forever lost has turned up in of all places - Texas. The painting titled "The Vision of St. Bruno" is a portrait of a beautiful town in Italy. In my opinion, it's so finely crafted upon first glance it appears to me more like a photograph than a 3 centuries old painting.

The journey from the hands of a European nobleman playboy to a fur trader and finally through generations of family to its current owner is fascinating, but of course cannot be fully known. The last known documentation of the painting was in a 1776 catalog of the collection of Count Francesco Algarotti, a Venetian playboy and art collector. The painting seems to have been passed along through descendants of Charles Rannells, a St. Louis lawyer. The family believes it was originally given to the family in lieu of payment for legal fees.

The painting will go to auction in late November through a Dallas-based auction house called Heritage Galleries, and is expected to garner at least $600K.

The Little Island off the Big City

2008-10-20T07:17:00.000-07:00

I was browsing through my New York Times this morning when I came upon a story that made me smile for the sake of art. It appears that the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council has been selected to run an artist’s studio and exhibition space on Governors Island.

What is Governor’s Island? Situated just 800 yards from Lower Manhattan (and even closer to Brooklyn), for two centuries it was a military base for the Army and Coast Guard. In 1996 it was “mothballed” by the U.S. government and sold to the people of New York for $1.00 in 2003. Today, 150 acres of the island are governed by the Governors Island Preservation & Education Corporation and the remaining 22-acres are considered a National Monument which contains two early 19th century efforts.

The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, responsible for rejuvenating the arts downtown after the 2001 terrorist attacks. It’s also well know for creating and providing studio spaces for artists all over Manhattan, beginning with its World Views Program at the WTC in 1997. Their latest project will include a year-round artist residency on Governor’s Island, and weekend events. The residences will provide space for all walks of creative life from dance to writing to painting and sculpture. The group will organize shows of the residents’ art as well. The artists will keep bankers’ hours on the island: Monday to Friday, 9 to 5. (No overnight stays are permitted.) But during the island’s “public access” season — from the end of May to mid-October — artists will also be in their studios from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

The building is to have 30 artist and three rehearsal studios, and the council plans to have up to three performing-artists, dance or theater ensembles and up to 20 visual artists’ studios at one time. Residencies will last three weeks in the public-access season, and three months the rest of the year.

All I can say is YEAH! And, that I’ll be taking a little trip to the island the next time I’m in the big city.

Alexander Calder at the Whitney

2008-10-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

I don’t remember when or how I was introduced to Alexander Calder’s work. He just seems to have always been in my life. I remember being a Girl Scout (maybe even a wee Brownie) and when we made mobiles during craft time, Calder was an example we worked against.

As a young teenager, if you’d have asked me who was my favorite “modern” artist I would have said Calder. Partially, because I really loved his work, and mostly because he was probably the only “modern” artist I knew other than say Picasso.

This week the Whitney in New York is opening an exhibition of Alexander Calder’s work. Of course, I’d love to go. It wasn’t until my early 20’s when I got to experience his Circus-which is part of the Whitney’s permanent collection. And frankly, it’s my favorite. The show is focused on his years in Paris, from the ages of 27 to 34, when he created his first wire drawings in space, created the Circus, and invented his signature mobiles.

Of course, I’m going to find a way to go. The show runs through the middle of February.

For more info on the show, go to http://www.whitney.org/
While you’re there, make sure to check out the ‘Signs of the Time’ photography exhibition in the Sondra Gilman Gallery. It features pieces from the museums permanent collection, including some awesome work by Sam Durant, Gordon Parks, James Casebere, Zoe Leonard, Katy Grannan, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Sam Samore and Sara VanDerBeek, among others.

The Right Way to Be a Collector

2008-10-10T11:18:00.000-07:00

I know I sound like a broken record, but it's true. I wish I had millions of dollars to collect art and literature. If I did I would follow in the footsteps of someone who I never thought I'd look to as a model for modern art collecting.

The New York Times announced today that Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich is selling a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting from his art collection that could set a new auction record for the artist. The painting entitled "(untitled) Boxer" is one of my favorites. Like the majority of Basquiat's paintings it screams of urban folk art and the 80's in New York City. Looking at it makes me think of the pre-Gulianni, rough streets and the raw energy and danger of that time in history.

Starting today Christie’s will be showing the painting in its King Street galleries in London. It will also be the cover image of the sales catalog for the New York auction on Nov. 12. While the economy is shaky right now, Ulrich doesn't expect there to be any trouble selling the work. Brett Gorvy, a co-head of Christie's postwar and contemporary art department agrees. “We’re talking about a very finite amount of material by an artist who died young,” Although Christie’s coyly states that the sales estimate can be obtained “on request,” Mr. Gorvy said it could bring $12 million to $16 million.

Art collectors in general wonder if the painting will fare as well as an untitled Basquiat canvas from 1981 — of a primitive figure with clenched teeth, his oversize hands held high in the air — that brought $14.6 million at auction last year, a record for the artist.

Ulrich has owned the painting for the last 10 years, and feels like its time to put it back out into the market so that other collectors can appreciate it. A lovely thought. This is the last piece of Basquiat's work that Ulrich owns. He has within the last five years auctioned off two other pieces by the late painter.

Hopefully, whomever next acquires the painting will hold the same altruistic mindset as Ulrich. It would be a shame for this amazing piece to dissapear into a private collection, never to be displayed in public again.

Just a Slow Month

2008-09-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

I don't actually know if many people stumble upon this little blog. I write it for myself for the most part, but it would be nice to know if there were people out in big ole Internet land who enjoy my ramblings.

It's been a slow month for interesting news, and a busy month for personal matters. So, this blog o mine has suffered from lack of new content.

Off the top of my head, discoveries that I should pass along are a couple of bands - My Brightest Diamond, who's lead singer Shara Worden's voice is so beautiful it is almost painful, and Patrick Watson who sings on my favorite Cinematic Orchestra song "To Build a Home".

Meanwhile, as usual when things are slow and my life is busy, I turn to Ms. Parker for words of wisdom. Maybe you'll find some here as well.

Bric-a-Brac

Little things that no one needs --
Little things to joke about --
Little landscapes, done in beads.
Little morals, woven out,
Little wreaths of gilded grass,
Little brigs of whittled oak
Bottled painfully in glass;
These are made by lonely folk.

Lonely folk have lines of days
Long and faltering and thin;
Therefore -- little wax bouquets,
Prayers cut upon a pin,
Little maps of pinkish lands,
Little charts of curly seas,
Little plats of linen strands,
Little verses, such as these.

Begrudgingly Promote a Book Sale

2008-09-17T11:57:00.000-07:00

I have to admit it, I hate to advertise a good sale. You might get there before me and find something wonderful that I want! But, its for a fantastic cause and everybody knows that I love books. So...make plans.

THE KENAN RESEARCH CENTER AT THE ATLANTA HISTORY CENTER HOSTS FIRST ANNUAL BOOK SALE

Atlanta, GA The Kenan Research Center will hold its inaugural Annual Book Sale the weekend of September 21-23, 2007 in the Jesse Draper Members Room of McElreath Hall at the Atlanta History Center. The sale is open to the public from 10:00 AM 4:00 PM on September 21st and 22nd, and 12:00 PM 5:00 PM on September 23rd.

Come choose from 1,000 titles featuring a wide-range of topics including Atlanta history, American history, southern gardening, fiction, biography, and the Civil War at bargain prices while helping the Kenan Research Center!

Admission for the Book Sale is free. Most books are priced between $1-$5. All proceeds from the book sale will benefit the preservation of rare books and manuscripts at the Kenan Research Center. For more information about the Book Sale or the Kenan Research Center, please contact Senior Archivist Paul Crater at 404.814.4049.

The Ladies of the Corridor

2008-09-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

I got a tasty little morsel in the mail yesterday. Anyone who has read this blog knows that I'm a fan of the marvelous Ms. Dorothy Parker. Recently, Pengin Classics released a new edition of her collaboration with Arnaud d'Usseau.

The play is heartbreaking. It's so honest. You can see shards of her in every page- the real Dorthy Parker - not just the witty, fork-tongued dragon (though there are glimpses) but of the deeply depressed, alcohol-soaked anger that she struggled with throughout her life.

Marion Meade wrote a wonderful introduction to the book that puts the reader in the picture as to what was going on with Mrs. Parker during this time in her life. As usual Marion Mead is brilliant. She is without a doubt my favorite biographer.

This is a wonderful play. It was badly received on Broadway when it opened, and not incredibly well received in 2005 when it was reprised. It's a play that should be read. It's a play for for those who love Mrs. Parker.

Like Dorothy Parker - it is beautiful, tragic, perfectly-imperfect, and heartbreaking.

Obsessed with Obsession - Millhauser's Dangerous Laughter

2008-08-20T08:55:00.000-07:00

I generally have a stack of books beside my bed, in the backseat of my car, in the kitchen, next to the sofa, you name it. There’s usually something in my life waiting to be read. After my recent move I reshuffled the little stacks and decided it was well past time that I read one of my favorite author’s new offerings. I nearly fell over myself to purchase Steven Millhauser’s new collection of short stories. So, it was about time I read it.

I LOVE Millhauser. I love his delicious descriptions and his story lines. I always feel a little dreamy, almost transported, when reading his work. Sort of the way you feel after a really good first date. This collection is no exception. Divided into three parts, it examines the obsession of obsession.

“Vanishing Acts” looks at risk and escape-be it from a “kingdom of forbidden things” or from a relationship with a troubled girl. Lots of people have hailed the “Cat ‘n’ Mouse” story, and it’s not my favorite, but well worth quoting:

“The mouse, dressed in a bathrobe and slippers, is sitting in his plump armchair, reading a book. He is tall and slim. His feet rest on a hassock, and a pair of spectacles rest on the end of his long, whiskered nose. Yellow light from a table lamp pours onto the book and dimly illuminates the cozy brown room. On the wall hang a tilted sampler bearing the words HOME SWEET HOME, an oval photograph of the mouse's mother with her gray hair in a bun, and a reproduction of Seurat's Sunday Afternoon in which all the figures are mice. Near the armchair is a bookcase filled with books, with several titles visible: Martin Cheddarwit, Gouda's Faust, The Memoirs of Anthony Edam, A History of the Medicheese, the sonnets of Shakespaw. As the mouse reads his book, he reaches without looking toward a dish on the table. The dish is empty: his fingers tap about inside it. The mouse rises and goes over to the cupboard, which is empty except for a tin box with the word CHEESE on it. He opens the box and turns it upside down. Into his palm drops a single toothpick. He gives it a melancholy look. Shaking his head, he returns to his chair and takes up his book. In a bubble above his head a picture appears: he is seated at a long table covered with a white tablecloth. He is holding a fork upright in one fist and a knife upright in the other. A mouse butler dressed in tails sets before him a piece of cheese the size of a wedding cake.

From the mousehole emerges a red telescope. The lens looks to the left, then to the right. A hand issues from the end of the telescope and beckons the mouse forward. The mouse steps from the mousehole, collapses the telescope, and thrusts it into his bathrobe pocket.”

There, that should whet your appetite.

One of my favorites is the story of Harlan Crane. The owner of the “Phantoptic Theater” displays paintings so real that spectators insist that their contents move. Millhauser teases us with the tenuous connection between reality and imagination and as usual leaves us with the true reality of mankind.

A nation covered by increasingly larger and larger domes, a city (which closely resembles modern America) which has become not a mall, but an immense hall of entertainment, museums that enumerate the “New Past” with monopoly pieces and badminton rackets, a “microscope of touch” created by Thomas Edison…there is just so, so much to rave about in this book.

As with a fine wine, this book is best savored in little sips and cherished swallows. Reading it all at once may turn out to be a mistake. You may find the bouquet of the stories diminished if you take them all at one sitting. (I believe I’ve worked this particular metaphor to its fruition)

Trust me, it’s certainly worth a read, and I’m glad it moved to the top of my stack of things to read.

Punk Gets Punk'd

2008-08-15T08:56:00.001-07:00

Oh the irony. OH the irony.

There is a wonderful article in The Independent today about a war being fought between Malcom McLaren, (the creator of the Sex Pistols) artist Damien Hirst, and a man called Simon Easton. What is this battle; copyright infringement, political differences? Nope. The root of the ballyhoo is an e-commerce scam that one of the most popular modern artists of the decade fell for, hook, line and sinker.

It turns out that last year Damien Hirst bought 80K Pounds worth of punk clothing from Mr. Easton’s Punk Pistol website. The clothes were supposed to be originals of McLaren and Vivienne Westwood’s 1975-79 punk collection.

That’s a lot of torn up t-shirts and bondage pants.

In the 70s punk fashion first emerged in London on the backs of about 200 people who defined themselves as anti-fashion urban youth. It closely aligned with the punk music movement. The clothes suited the lifestyle of those with limited cash due to unemployment and the general low income school dropouts and students often experience. Punks cut up old clothes from thrift shops, destroyed the fabric and refashioned outfits in a manner then thought a crude construction technique, making garments designed to attract attention. Tattered edges and ripped holes were patched together with ragged stitches and safety pins. McLaren and Westwood were cornerstones of the anti-fashion movement, creating the famous “God Save the Queen” t-shirt that is synonymous with the Sex Pistols and punk movement.

McLaren apparently took one look at Hirst’s collection and damned them as complete forgeries. They were made of fabrics that weren’t even available in the 70s and the stitching was completely different than the style that McLaren and Westwood used. McLaren told the New York Daily News: “I felt terrible, but they were fakes. We simply didn’t make that many. I mean, we literally made these clothes on my kitchen floor. They were each unique.”

Of course Mr. Easton says that they’re not fakes and points out that the Sex and Seditionaires (the boutiques started by McLaren and Westwood) sold their garments via mail order after 1979 and through the Boy shop on London’s Kings Road.

So where’s the rub? Hirst got scammed-that’s his deal-right? Wrong. Apparently, Easton wrote a book about clothes sold through Sex and Seditionares shops and McLaren wrote an introduction for the book-which it turns out, is full of images of the fake clothes from Hirst’s collection. McLaren has approached the books publisher and told them to remove his name and essay from the book.

See the irony? McLaren is now a hugely wealthy man (as is Westwood). The complete opposite of everything they stood for in their angry punk days. They ARE the man. And the man is getting scammed. A scam, I might add, that they would have most certainly rolled on the floor about when they were in their late-teens and early 20’s and have thumbed their noses and thrown a bottle at just for good measure.

I love irony. And of course, Damien Hirst, The Sex Pistols and most of all the jaded and mean British Press. (I’m just glad they don’t have their guns pointed at me.)

An Aladdin's Cave of Stolen Delights in NYC

2008-08-14T08:53:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I wish I had absolutely no scruples and was full to the brim with audacity. With these two traits I could wander the world doing as I pleased and having no scruples about who was affected by my actions. Sort of like William M. V. Kingsland of New York City.

Apparently, upon his death it turned out that not only was his name false (his birth name was Melvyn Kohn) but most everything about him was also quite fabricated. One thing is for certain though, he had a heck of an eye for art. The F.B.I. has been flummoxed by the late Mr. Kingsland for the last four years. Upon his death they were called into a small apartment on East 72nd where quite a magnificent art collection resided. Only one problem, there was little if any provenance that much of it actually belonged to Mr. Kingsland and it appears that quite a bit of it was pilfered from private and public collections around Manhattan and the world.

A charming bust by Giacometti was used to prop a door open, while four paintings (two Porters, a Redon and a Kurt Schwitter) turned out to be reported stolen in the 60s. As Agent James Wynne of the F.B.I. began digging deeper in the mystery of the collection he began finding previous owners who were either unaware or unconcerned that their pieces had gone missing. But, the case must be resolved- what happens to all this wonderful booty?

Part of the “collection” has already been sold through Christie’s Auction House, including a 1790 Copley portrait of the Second Earl of Bessborough which turned out to have been pinched from the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard in the 1970s. The gallery owner who purchased the piece got it at quite a deal ($85K) and expected to make somewhere in the neighborhood of $400K on the piece. But because it was stolen he’s out of luck.

Ironically, when New York City hired two auction houses to go through the floor-to-ceiling stacks of sketches, sculptures and paintings two movers made off with two Picasso’s. They were caught (don’t mess with Christies) and sentenced to probation. Kingsland's collection, which came mostly from Manhattan galleries, is considered to be diverse and interesting, but isn't necessarily a find of epic proportions. Still, the Picassos pinched by the movers were worth at least $60,000 total, and other Picassos in the collection were worth about $600,000.

The FBI has posted a portion of the works found in his apartment in hopes that the rightful owners will come forward. Quite an impressive little cache.

So what happens next? Auction houses attached to the case have cancelled all sales related to the Kingsland estate. Harvard University is working with the authorities to secure the safe return of the Copley and another piece reported stolen from the university in 1968. The FBI waits for people to come forward to make whatever claim they can of the galleries of work. And the public administrator of the New York office who will end up with the loot from the eventual sale and auction of whatever isn’t claimed? She’s treading carefully. Ethel Griffin is quoted as saying “ We don’t want to destroy the man’s reputation if in fact he acquired these from someone else,” she said. Still, she added, “This one is for the books.”

Indeed.

A Little Ms. Parker for a Monday Afternoon

2008-08-11T10:19:00.000-07:00

Ballade at Thirty-five

This, no song of an ingénue,
This, no ballad of innocence;
This, the rhyme of a lady who
Followed ever her natural bents.
This, a solo of sapience,
This, a chantey of sophistry,
This, the sum of experiments, --
I loved them until they loved me.

Decked in garments of sable hue,
Daubed with ashes of myriad Lents,
Wearing shower bouquets of rue,
Walk I ever in penitence.
Oft I roam, as my heart repents,
Through God's acre of memory,
Marking stones, in my reverence,
"I loved them until they loved me."

Pictures pass me in long review,--
Marching columns of dead events.
I was tender, and, often, true;
Ever a prey to coincidence.
Always knew I the consequence;
Always saw what the end would be.
We're as Nature has made us -- hence
I loved them until they loved me.

L'Envoi

Princes, never I'd give offense,
Won't you think of me tenderly?
Here's my strength and my weakness, gents ---
I loved them until they loved me.

***

Ditty for Monday Afternoon- Ballade at Thirty-five

2008-08-11T10:11:00.001-07:00

A little Dorthy Parker for a Monday Afternoon

Ballade at Thirty-five

This, no song of an ingénue,
This, no ballad of innocence;
This, the rhyme of a lady who
Followed ever her natural bents.
This, a solo of sapience,
This, a chantey of sophistry,
This, the sum of experiments, --
I loved them until they loved me.

Decked in garments of sable hue,

Daubed with ashes of myriad Lents,
Wearing shower bouquets of rue,

Walk I ever in penitence.

Oft I roam, as my heart repents,

Through God's acre of memory,

Marking stones, in my reverence,

"I loved them until they loved me."

Pictures pass me in long review,--

Marching columns of dead events.

I was tender, and, often, true;

Ever a prey to coincidence.

Always knew I the consequence;

Always saw what the end would be.

We're as Nature has made us -- hence

I loved them until they loved me.

L'Envoi

Princes, never I'd give offense,

Won't you think of me tenderly?

Here's my strength and my weakness, gents ---

I loved them until they loved me.

***

Behold..A Hidden Van Gogh Revealled

2008-08-08T09:49:00.000-07:00

Science has given the art world a view at a Van Gogh that was never intended to be seen. Beneath the bright strokes of green, yellow, pink and blue that make up his 1887 landscape titled “Patch of Grass” lies the face of a simple Dutch peasant woman with haunting blue eyes.

A remarkable new X-ray technique, called X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, which relies on the science of particle acceleration has recovered the hidden image in remarkable detail-even down to the colors Van Gogh used. While researchers were aware of the existence of the portrait, until the development of this new technique technological limitations could only show the outline of the woman. This new technique is able to show the entire painting and differentiates between color pigments, showing not only the distinct strokes but the original colors used.

The painting, owned by the Kroller-Muller Museum in the Netherlands, harkens back to a series of pieces painted by Van Gogh while he lived in the Dutch town of Nuenen. The most famous of his works from this period is his 1885 painting The Potato Eaters.

You may say “Patch of Grass” is quite lovely, but why would Van Gogh cover over his original painting? A fit of anger? A touch of madness? Maybe. But most likely it was his need to recycle canvases because of his poverty. Experts believe that this is not the only of his works hidden beneath another painting. They estimate that around one third of his works were painted over. Scientists, introducing the study in yesterday's Analytical Chemistry journal, said: "Van Gogh would often re-use the canvas of an abandoned painting and paint a new or modified composition on top... Our approach literally opens up new vistas in the non-destructive study of hidden paint layers, which applies to the oeuvre of Van Gogh in particular and to old master paintings in general." (I love that they got to say oeuvre)

They added: "These hidden paintings offer a unique and intimate insight into the genesis of his works. Yet current museum-based imaging tools are unable to properly visualize many of these hidden images." Maybe not any more gentlemen – I would expect that scholars and collectors alike would be more than thrilled to see beneath Van Gogh’s work just for the chance to see if they had literally gotten a two-for-one deal with their purchase.

It will be interesting to see how, now that they have made these discoveries these hidden gems will be exhibited. And, to see what other hidden treasure lies beneath the long dead masters canvases.

Oh Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

A Serious Lady

2008-08-07T09:55:00.000-07:00

Jane Bowles fascinates me. Her stern, unsmiling face in pictures by VanVetchen. Her circle of admirers. Her brief but impactful career.

While her entire list of work consists of one novel, one play and six short stories she was lauded by literary greats such as Tennessee Williams, John Ashbery and Truman Capote. She was considered a “writer’s writer” and yet, she is nearly unknown to the general populous.

Her book Two Serious Ladies, published in 1943 was met with mostly odd and uncomprehending reviews, and while she made several frustrating attempts, Jane never finished another book. The critics weren’t much kinder to one play that appeared on Broadway in 1953. In the Summer House was lauded by some and completely misunderstood by others – much like Jane herself.

While I find her a fascinating author, and have enjoyed her work, I must admit that her life and the circle of companions she travelled in just as much if not more fascinating. I first stumbled upon Bowles when I was reading “The February House” a few years ago. Once of my favorite non-fiction books, it tells the story of a period of time just before WWII in Brooklyn. A group of artists, including Gypsy Rose Lee, Carson McCullers, Paul & Jane Bowles, W.H. Auden and George Davis took up residence at 7 Middagh Street, a shabby brownstone, and busied themselves with creativity while playing host to a cavalcade of interesting folks from the children of Thomas Mann to Salvador Dali (who almost died in their study during a botched experiment with a diving suit) and his sullen wife Gala.

Jane married Paul Bowles in 1938. To be strictly honest, as one never knows what goes on behind another’s door, it seems to have been more a marriage of convenience, though they appear to have truly cared for each other. Jane was homosexual and the two lived fairly separate sexual lives. Paul was a well known classical composer, and Jane worked with him on several pieces while living in New York together and then in Tangiers, where Paul lived through much of the 1950s.

Jane’s life as an author was very brief; she always experienced difficulty writing, but by the 1950s things were made worse by alcohol and prescription drugs. Some blame her writers block on jealously of her husband Paul-who began writing after editing her book. Rumor had it that she felt that Paul had stolen her glory, but this isn’t a widely accepted belief.

In 1957 Jane suffered a major stroke at the age of just 39. The stroke left her with impaired vision and acute aphasia. While she tried to overcome the challenges of her impairments, she was unable to complete any more work after the stroke. Just ten years later, her mental and physical health had deteriorated to the point that Paul was forced to place her in a psychiatric hospital in their then home of Malaga, Spain. A year later she was moved to the Clinica de los Angeles in Malaga. She was released in 1968 and returned for a few months to her home in Tangier, where she visited her favorite bar (the Pergola) every day. Sadly, she had to be placed back into care in 1968 and stayed in a convent hospital until her death in May of 1973.

She Once Held an Apple - The Venus De Milo

2008-08-04T09:47:00.000-07:00

The sculpture of Venus or Aphrodite stands in state in Paris's Louvre, mesmerisingly beautiful despite her broken form. She was discovered by a Greek peasant named Yorgos Kentrotas in 1820, on the island of Milos, broken into two large pieces, an apple in her left hand.

As soon as French naval officers recognized the historical significance of the ancient sculpture, they set about hauling the marble bulk off the island. A fight broke out as Venus was dragged across rocks to a waiting ship and both arms were broken off. The exhausted sailors refused to retrace their steps and search for the body parts, so the goddess's left arm remained cut off at the shoulder and her right at breast level.

The controversial plinth was initially found to fit perfectly as part of the statue, but after it was translated and dated, the embarrassed experts who had publicized the statue as a possible original work by the artist Praxiteles dismissed it as another later addition to the statue. The inscription read: "...(Alex)andros son of Menides, citizen of Antioch on the Maeander made this (statue)...".

The inscribed plinth would have moved the dating of the statue from the Classical Age to the Hellenistic Age because of the style of lettering and the mention of the ancient city of Antioch on the Maeander, which did not exist at the time Praxiteles lived.

So many "Oop's" for one magnificient sculpture.

A Moment of Silence for Audio Book Lovers

2008-07-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

One of my dirty little secrets is that I love audio books. I have for years. I am a voracious reader, going through a couple hundred books a year. But, in my down time (in other words when my head isn't actually in a book) my ears are more often than not listening to one.

Audio books quench my thirst for what I call "snack books". Those are your garden variety mysteries and NYT Best Seller List titles. I like having a story told to me. I usually have one on the tape player as I nod off to sleep. Maybe it reminds me of my childhood-but I find it comforting. I've heard every audio book version of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie that I could get my hands on..probably more than once. I discovered and fell in love with the indefatigable Amelia Peabody Emerson of Elizabeth Peter's works through audio books. I heartily admit that I adore the entire "Cat Who" series that for the most part has been voiced entirely by George Guidall. I know my book readers. I favor Barbara Rosenblat, George Guidall, Charles Keating, Michael Jayston and Meegan Fellows. And of course Jim Dale of Harry Potter fame.

This week marked the end of an era in the audio book arena. Last week there was a funeral at the midtown Manhattan offices of Hachette, the book publisher, to mourn the passing of the cassette tape. While the medium long ago shuffled off this mortal coil in the music business, it has lived and thrived among audio book publishers for decades.

"Cassettes accounted for 7 percent of all sales in the $923 million audio-book industry in 2006, the latest year for which data is available, according to the Audio Publishers Association. While many publishers, like Random House and Macmillan, stopped producing books on cassette in the last couple of years, there are holdouts.

At Blackstone Audio, which produces cassette versions of its roughly 340 annual titles, Josh Stanton, the executive vice president, said there was still demand from libraries and truckers, who buy them at truck stops. But he could forecast only that his company would produce cassettes through 2009.

Recorded Books, whose authors include Philip Roth and Jodi Picoult, still issues cassettes of all its titles, roughly 700 a year. Retailers like Borders and Barnes & Noble have essentially stopped ordering them, but libraries have been slower to abandon them, said Brian Downing, the company’s publisher. "

So goodbye dear friend. I'll miss those funny little comments at the beginning of most recordings; "if you have difficulty with any of these cassettes, hold the cassette in your hand and slap it smartly across your palm." Without my audio book cassette, what am I going to slap smartly across my palm? I ask you?

Ah well. I'll be holding onto my good old reliables until they snap and break.

Keep your paws off my Whitney Otto's and we'll be just fine.

Big Birds Daddy has Died...on My Birthday

2008-07-25T12:38:00.001-07:00

Six years ago my Grandmother died on my birthday. This year we lost another great- Kermit Love, the man who brought Jim Henson’s characters- Big Bird, Mr Snuffleupagus, Oscar the Grouch and Cookie Monster to life.

Born in Spring Lake, New Jersey, in 1916, on leaving school Love became a puppet-maker for a theatre company. Switching to costume design, he worked for Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre in New York, before progressing to Broadway productions such as The Fireman's Flame (1937-38) and One Touch of Venus (starring Mary Martin, 1943-45).

Following his costume design for the New York City Ballet and Agnes de Mille's Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo production of Rodeo (1942), Love worked with Jerome Robbins on Broadway for the ballet Fancy Free (1946) and with other leading choreographers. With George Balanchine, his creations for Don Quixote (1965) included a 28ft-tall marionette giant.

Then came Sesame Street, with Love also designing characters for 22 foreign versions of the program. His most famous character, Big Bird, also made a cameo appearance in The Muppet Movie (1979).

Jim Henson insisted that his Muppet Kermit the Frog's name was settled before he met Love, who went into semi-retirement in the 1990s, although he continued to work with the Joffrey Ballet. His partner of 50 years was Christopher Lyall.

Mr. Love, thank you for making my childhood magical and sweet dreams.

A Fragile Display of War

2008-07-24T06:51:00.000-07:00

On April 26, 1937, twenty-eight Nazi German bombers surged through the skies of the town of Guernica, Spain wreaking havoc and killing between 250 and 1,600 people. This act of cruelty brought the Spanish Civil War to the eyes of the world. It also sparked the creation of one of the most famous modern paintings- Pablo Picasso’s great masterpiece “Guernica”. The painting portrays Picasso’s interpretation of the air raid bombings and destruction brought down upon the Basque town, it presents death, violence, brutality, suffering and helplessness. It is often said that this work stands above all as a perpetual reminder of the tragedies of war, an anti-war symbol, and an embodiment of peace.

Commissioned by the Spanish government, the 11ft tall, 25.6 ft wide mural was originally created for display at the Paris International Exhibition. At the completion of the World’s Fair event in Paris the massive painting went on tour around the world. In the over 70 years since its creation it has continued to tour, showing in great museums and even the United Nations building. But the time for touring may be drawing to a close.

When it was on display at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City restorers spent painstaking hours working to preserve the integrity of the piece from the wear and tear of thousands of exhibitions and as many miles of travel. It now resides at the Renia Sofia museum in Spain.

This week art experts have alerted the media that Picasso’s masterpiece is in “stable but serious” condition. Apparently, the years have taken its toll and has “suffered a lot and needs special care”. Curators from the famous contemporary art museum in Madrid gave their initial conclusions of the first detailed examination of the painting in ten years in a press conference on Tuesday.

There are no imminent plans for another restoration of the painting, as it would risk damaging it even further. The Spanish government has refused to move the famous work from Madrid to Guernica, in the Basque Country – or to the Guggenheim Museum in the Basque city of Bilbao.

Banksy Revealed? Is He Really Robin Gunningham?

2008-07-23T10:35:00.000-07:00

For years people have wondered about the real man behind the name Banksy. One of the world's most famous names in art, his identity has been a closely guarded secret known to just a handful of friends. His grafitti art has changed how people look at grafitti. His secretiveness only added fire to the flame.

Such is the curiosity around Banksy that when he supposedly threw a pizza box into a garbage bin in LA, the box resurfaced on Ebay, with the seller suggesting that the few anchovies left inside might yeild DNA.

He is the Scarlet Pimpernel of Modern Art. The Robin Hood of the Council Estate Wall.

His stencil-style 'guerrilla' art started popping up in public spaces years ago in London, Brighton and Bristol. It's even appeared on the West Bank of Gaza on the wall seperating Israelis adn Palestinians. His work is interesting, contrversial and of late..quite sought after and expensive. Just ask Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie.

Turns out that he may well be a Bristol boy who made his way through public school and went on to paint public walls. Renowned for his use of stencils instead of the freehand grafitti style, some councils and businesses have started protecting his creations.

But is this real or rubbish? People who know Gunningham are now unable to say what has become of him. His father Peter, who lives in Kingsdown, Bristol, denied that the man in the photograph was his son, and his mother Pamela was surprised by the picture, then denied she even had a son, let alone one called Robin.

Banksy’s publicist would neither confirm nor deny whether the artist was Robin Gunningham.

My Favorite Post Secret of 2008

2008-07-15T11:13:00.000-07:00

I read PostSecret.com every week. It's sort of like online therapy to me. If nothing else sometimes it humbles me and reminds me that no matter how good or bad I think my life is, there are plenty of other human beings on this planet that I'll never know who are experiencing the same things, the same heartbreak, happiness, depression, pure joy, insecurity, silliness..name an emotion..that I am.

I saw this today and had to save it. I love this.

The Deliciously Fascinating Fernado Pessoa

2008-07-15T11:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the New York Times has some really delicious articles. I mean, the kind of interesting writing that makes me literally salivate and sparks my mind to fifteen different directions of thought. The latest example is Michael Kimmelmans article on Fernando Pessoa, the Portuguese writer and poet.

How on earth he whittled down this positively fascinating subject into two pages is quite beyond me. Pessoa, dead from cirrhosis in 1937, at the age of just 47 is a character who has so many layers it is almost unimaginable that even the surface could be scratched. In point of fact, Kimmelman lays the foundation for readers like me to find the foot and finger holds into the face of the story and begin to do our own exploration.

A lot of people find Pessoa fascinating because of his multi-year penpal relationship with the notorious Aleister Crowley. What must this quiet, spectacle clad, celibate have found to say to the British mystic, mountaineer, writer and practitioner of black magic?

I personally find him so fascinating because his mind is like an intricate labrynth-different people and lives living inside one man. While not psychotzophrenic, he literally had invented characters that he would write as-for example-Alexander Search, a Scottish engineer, Alberto Caeiro, Ricardo Reis, and Alvaro de Campos, a retired bisexual naval engineer and melancholic with an addiction to drugs. Delicous! Pessoa’s name literally describes him. In Portuguese Pessoa means “person.”

And what a person he must have been.

Get Up on the Soapbox

2008-07-08T08:32:00.000-07:00

Talk about the world’s biggest soapbox. Soon Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth will be transformed into a gigantic platform which will give anyone and everyone a chance to do whatever they want for an hour at a time.

The concept, developed by Anthony Gormley, is called “One and Other” is the latest winner of the “Fourth Plinth” project. Expected to go live next spring, Gormley’s piece will be a “haven for a certain degree of anarchy”. Originally scheduled to run for 365 days, the Gormley project – which will incorporate a safety net around the plinth to prevent people falling off and will necessitate six curators to guard it day and night – has since been scaled back to 100 days. The hydraulic stairs he first proposed to transport people on to the plinth have also been replaced; now a crane will lift people up for maximum theatrical impact.

"I'm favouring a crane because it will be a moment of theatre, someone lifted from common ground and made into an image when they are on top of the plinth ... It will be a spectacle, but I'm also concerned about the subjects, what they learn about themselves, exposed in a public arena," he said.

People who wish to take part in the project will be able to apply online.

Gormley did have one new, and slightly unusual, suggestion: a statue of the Mayor himself. "The idea of Boris Johnson not saying anything but simply standing there, with his hair blowing in the wind, looking at the city which he has come to be Mayor of might be a very nice thing," he said.

Another Eyedrum Book Sale- July 24th

2008-07-07T09:36:00.000-07:00

If I Was A Rich Girl..Monet's Le Basin Aux Nympheas

2008-06-26T11:38:00.000-07:00

Oh, to have money to burn. I wouldn’t burn it. No. I would buy art.

Lots of art-and I’d be nice and share it with everyone.

I would loan it to museums and go stand in awe of it next to the esthete’s and the flip-flop wearers and the screaming three year olds. I promise.

If there is a genie in a bottle somewhere or a bank robber or major corporation looking to divest themselves of a few hundred million dollars, I promise I’ll treat your funds with kindness and conscience.

For example, this week I’d have been front-row-center this week when “Le basin aux nympheas” by Claude Monet went on the block in Europe. The most important work from his Waterlilies series to be auctioned in Europe, it sold for 41 million Euro, a record price for the artists work.

The painting, produced in 1919 is unlike most of Monet’s other work which remained unfinished in the studio when he died in 1879 of lung cancer in 1926. Of the three other large-scale water-lily works, one is in the collection of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, one is in a private collection, and the third was cut in two before the Second World War.

Damien Hirst and his Golden Calf

2008-06-25T12:01:00.000-07:00

Damien Hirst is famous for his audacity. Since the launch of his daring career in the late 90’s, he has dominated the modern art scene throughout the world. Now he’s really pushing the envelope and possibly slaughtering his own golden calf to boot…literally.

This September Hirst will do something that simply isn’t done..he’s taking his new collection straight to the auction block and circumventing the galleries. Needless to say, Sotheby’s is delighted. This audacious move is a first in history for a living artist. Sure, lots of art is sold through the fine auction houses of the world, but usually the artist is long dead. Hirst feels this will give the artist more control and provide a wider audience with the opportunity to purchase his work. Art experts predict the auction could mark a turning point in the way artists sell their work. Look out Christies, bet Banksy will be knockin at your door any day now.

The highlight of the collection is a typically outrageous piece of Hirstian creation called “The Golden Calf” which is of course, a gigantic calf suspended in formaldehyde. The 2.15 metre bull sculpture is crowned by a solid gold disc, while its hooves and horns are cast in 18-carat gold. The piece sits on a gigantic marble base and is encased in a gold-plated box. It’s expected to fetch at least 12 million Euro. The sale will also feature new paintings and sculpture of some of Hirst’s favorite subjects, butterflies, cancer cells and pills. Four of the pieces from the collection will be sold for charity.

Cheyenne Westphal, the chairman of Sotheby's contemporary art in Europe, said: "We are hoping museums and private collectors who make their artworks available to the public on a regular basis will be present."

She added that the latest creations took Hirst's large-scale sculptures to a "new level". "What's new here is the monumental scale and the use of gold," she said.

Check out the Christie’s site for a closer view of some of the other works that will be up on the block. I know I will!

The Quintessential Dancer Has Left the Stage - Cyd Charisse

2008-06-19T08:03:00.000-07:00

When I was a little girl I loved Sunday afternoons. They meant old movies and musicals on TV. I gobbled up all the Fred and Ginger that Chanel 47 could put out. I saw Easter Parade, Royal Wedding, Top Hat, and Singin’ In the Rain so many times my parents begged told me they’d rather hear me learning to play the oboe than have to hear the songs again (which trust me sounded like I was slowly strangling a soprano goose with a bagpipe).

After the 3 o’clock flick was over I’d be pushed outside to play and would spend hours hanging upside in a tree, or running around the backyard pretending to be dancing with Fred or Gene. I loved the costumes and the sets. I loved the romance and the songs. I was probably the only kid on my block that could sing most of Cole Porter’s songs by heart by the age of nine.

There was one dancer who absolutely enchanted me. She was all legs- slinky, smooth and seductive. She seemed to turn the men she danced with into shadows. When she was on the screen nobody else existed. Cyd Charisse. Even my father, who rarely made comments about women other than my mother’s good looks, would stop and watch. She had something special. I didn’t get exactly what she had, but boy did she have it in spades.

Yesterday part of history passed when Ms. Charisse was taken from us by a sudden heart attack. She hasn’t appeared on film in decades-1958 to be exact. But she remains trapped like a magical spectre in those knockout numbers like “Dancing in the Dark” in Band Wagon and “Girl Hunt Ballet” where Fred Astaire dances with two stunning women-one blonde and one brunette-both danced by Charisse.

There was a fantastic comment in the New York Times this morning that I can’t help but quote. “The number, “Broadway Melody Ballet,” occurs in a film within a film that takes flight with Gene Kelly as an eager hoofer looking for his Broadway break, singing “Gotta Dance!” He slides on his knees toward the camera, abruptly stopping before his hat, which has somehow become perched on a foot attached to a long, long leg. He gapes (as do we) as that leg then rises straight in the air with phallic suggestiveness, a prelude to a carnal encounter that was as close to on-screen sex as was possible in the 1950s and wholly sublime.”

She was sex before I knew what sex was. She was beautiful and sublimely talented. And she will be greatly missed.

Picasso's "Sylvette" Breaks Auction Records in Australia

2008-06-18T09:44:00.000-07:00

If you are a follower of Picasso you know that the women that graced his bed also grace his pictures. You could always tell when Picasso had taken a new lover (and sadly so could the women in his life) as his painting style would start to morph and new faces, new styles and even new colors would begin to push their way out of his canvases and creations. Not that his discarded ladies got much slack. As he was tiring of them they would begin to morph on the canvas as well. For example-Olga Koklova, his first wife became a face of pointed teeth and gaping mouth as Picasso dealt with her nagging and anger. Dora Marr who began as large yes and bright colors became a hardened, bitter woman who Picasso portrayed as the “weeping woman”.

There is one model that (wisely) never made the jump from model to lover. Sylvette David, who sat for the famous “Sylvette” painting at the age of just 17, kept her relationship with Picasso a platonic one. It’s even said that Brigette Bardot got her signature long, blonde ponytail from David.

Picasso met Sylvette when she was living in the south of France with her English-born mother and her mother’s boyfriend Toby Jelinek, a maker of avant-garde metal chairs. Picasso took a fancy to Jelinek’s style and ordered two chairs for his nearby studio. When Jelinek delivered the works he had Sylvette in tow. Several days later, Picasso appeared with a picture of her, drawn from memory and asked her to pose for him. In the months that she sat for him he produced over forty pictures of her.

Yesterday, in Sydney, Australia one of the most famous of those portraits entitled “Sylvette” was auctioned off for $6.9 million (6.1 million American dollars) smashing the record for the most paid for a work of art in that country. The painting was formerly part of the collection of the director of the gallery and famous art collector, Rodney Menzies.

Firewater- A Beautiful Mashup of Cultures

2008-06-16T12:15:00.000-07:00

You might think I've been carried off by flying monkeys and completely forsaken this blog, but you'd be wrong. I am still and will always remain the bookishredhead. I've just been exceedingly busy of late.

I am positively impelled talk about a show I was fortunate enough to see this weekend. If you don't know about Firewater then get ready for a nearly religious experience. If you've ever felt the need to whirl like a Dervish and not look stupid in a crowd-this is the band for you. I've seen Gogol Bordello three times and Firewater would kick their ass and not apologize for it. Getting the point?

Anybody notice that some damn remarkable music is coming out of Brooklyn these days? Well-Firewater is originally from Brooklyn, and actually originally a punk band called Cop-Shoot-Cop (which happened to totally rock). But, then George Bush was elected again and the lead singer, the remarkably talented and visionary Tod A proclaimed he'd had enough of monkey boy and hit the road. I'm not 100% on the history-so don't quote me. But, I'm told he travelled from Deli, India to the Afghanistan border recording along the way. The trip produced an amazing amalgam of musical sounds from some of the best musicians of the area.

Saturday night brought Firewater to The Earl in Atlanta (sans a bass guitar which Eric seems to have left in Austin). I don't think the band thought that we were much of an audience when they first got there. A friend of mine spoke to Tod before the show and said he seemed a bit "whatever", but frankly, I would be a total butt if I was going from town to town and playing in hot, sweaty venues. I just wanted to hear the music. And BOY did we get music. The band played for nearly two hours and honestly blew us all away. I don't think any of us hadn't sweat through our clothes by the end of the night.

I can't decide who to compliment the most? It goes unspoken that Tod A was amazing. His dark, brooding lyrics and sarcastic attitude are absolutely wonderful. Did I mention he's a babe to boot? Meanwhile there is this stunning young woman named Avi Leibovitch, I think, who rocks the hell out of a trombone in a way that I didn't know was possible. Most bands travel with one drummer-but not Firewater. They have the excellent drummer, guitarist and bass player who's names I cannot seem to track down online to give them the heaps of praise they greatly deserve. Then there's Johnny Kalsi-the percussionist. All I can say is Good Lord. He absolutely brings people up off the ground. I haven't danced that much at a show in lord knows how long. Even the sullen little punk rockers behind me were dancing at the end of the show.

I have read blogs about the band before, and Tod A seems surprised that anybody bothers to come out to see them. I don't know if this is their shtick or if its real-but Mister-lemme tell you-come back to Atlanta. We'll be waiting for you.

Oh, and after all was said and done - two encores and a fantastic rendition of a personal favorite "Three Legged Dog", I looked around to see Tod A manning the t-shirt booth. Sweating as much as the rest of us were, he was absolutely charming. I even fanned him with my ever-present fan, to which he gave a kind thank you in return.

Firewater-you have a fan for life.

Total Advertising I Know, But It's for a Good Cause

2008-05-29T09:37:00.000-07:00

So I'm doing another book sale at Eyedrum on June 20th. We're looking for donations. So, if you have shelves full of books you want to clear off let me know and I'll come get them.

Give Your Spare Change to Eyedrum

2008-05-08T12:59:00.001-07:00

Okay-I never write about Eyedrum. I feel like its a conflict of interest since I'm on the board. But, we're hurtin for funds these days. So, if you're reading this and you're not a member, or you're a member and you haven't re-upped your membership this year-PLEASE do. We need to keep the lights on and no kidding-we might not be able to this month.

Cinematic Orchestra- Almost Painfully Beautiful

2008-05-07T09:05:00.001-07:00

Two weeks ago I made a sojourn to the big city for an experience I knew would be one of those moments in life that if you let pass you by, you will always regret. I was right. It was a life changing musical event.

Cinematic Orchestra played one of their THREE (what a crime) U.S. shows in New York in the last week of April. They played in a tiny little venue in the East Village called the Jazz Standard. Somehow they shoehorned their seven bodies, piles of equipment, instruments and talent onto a stage that couldn't have been more than twelve feet deep and 25 feet across (when you have a stand-up bass, a piano, a sax player, and two guitars-that's damn snug).

These guys are musicians with a capital M. We're talking people who GET IT. They weave sound in this unbelievable web of beauty. Voice, electronic, real instruments, amazing, amazing. I was literally moved to tears. I have seen a lot of shows. I thought that maybe Andrew Bird was my favorite, or Zoe Keating..but this has to be it hands down. I just wanted it to go on and on. I don't think I could have gotten tired of hearing them play. I suspect if there weren't non-smoking laws in NYC they probably would have played longer. But they (and truthfully I) really needed some nicotine.

I also got to discover Grey Reverend, a friend of theirs who calls Brooklyn home and has done some work with them in the past. He played most of the set and did an acoustic'ish version of "Build A Home" that was breathtaking. Needless to say, I recommend you dash out today and buy everything they do and pile on the Grey Reverend while you're at it.

After the show I got a chance to chat up their road manager and their remarkable (and downright cute) sax player. They were of the opinion that there was nowhere in the south worth playing and I *hope I disabused them of this and they'll come to Atlanta. My fingers remain crossed. But, if they come back I'm certainly doing the road trip again.

Been Gone Too Long

2008-05-06T10:41:00.001-07:00

I haven't forgotten about this blog. I have just been up to my eyeballs with life of late. Things haven't slowed down, so I'll just leave you with the following little snippet from Mrs. P. I stumbled upon a first edition of 'Death and Taxes' the last time I was in The Strand and I haven't been able to stop reading it.

Lady, lady, never start
Conversation toward your heart;
Keep your pretty words serene;
Never murmur what you mean.
Show yourself, by word and look,
Swift and shallow as a brook.
Be as cool and quick to go
As a drop of April snow;
Be as delicate and gay
As a cherry flower in May.
Lady, lady, never speak
Of the tears that burn your cheek-
She will never win him, whose
Words had shown she feared to lose.
Be you wise and never sad,
You will get your lovely lad.
Never serious be, nor true,
And your wish will come to you-
And if that makes you happy, kid,
You'll be the first it ever did.

Peter Callesen-From A Single Sheet of Paper

2008-03-26T08:53:00.000-07:00

Someone from ArtPapers sent me a link to this persons work a few weeks ago and I'm still utterly fascinated with it. I'm actually beginning to see trends in my own tastes, and you dear reader may see them as well. There was the Brian Dettmer works that swept me off my feet earlier last year and now Peter Callesen.

How can you not find these fascinating? Single pieces of paper that literally come to life. Callesen creates characters and entire worlds with simple snips of scissors. Some of the work is even disturbing. For example, the dying birds. They are not real, but there is still such a heart-rending emotion attached to the visual of these beautiful, delicate little forms struggling. You can almost hear the tiny thumps of their panicked hearts.

I very much like his explanation of these particular works. "A common theme in many of my works is a reinterpretation of classical fairy tales as well as a more general interest in memory in connection to childhood - for instance in my performances Castle, Folding and Jukebox. These playful performances exist in the lost land of childhood, between dream and reality and it is in this meeting or confrontation of these two conditions, in a kind of Utopian embodiment, that these works of art become alive, often in a tragicomic way.

This interest for the romantic is extended in my later exhibitions White Shadows at Esbjerg Art Museum and From dust to dusk, but here with less focus on the confrontation between dream and reality leaving more space for the poetic aspect as well as the possibility of a reality behind or within the dream."

Please do visit his site. These are just a few photographs that are available. I'd LOVE to see his work in person.

http://www.petercallesen.com/index.html

City in India Sitting on It's Architectural Heritage

2008-03-19T07:27:00.001-07:00

I read a fascinating article in the New York Times today about a small, modernist city in India called Chandigarh who has recently fallen victim to a sort of "Antiques Road Show" phenomena of its very own. For the last few years a handful of bright antiques dealers have become regular visitors to the government junkyards in Chandigarh, the experimental modernist city concieved by architect Le Corbusier in the 1950's. They've been snapping up disused stocks of furniture create by the architects colleagues to equip the city.

It's doubtful that anyone would have blinked an eye--just a bunch of teak junk being carted off by some foreigners. Fine. Big Deal. Good riddance. Wrongo-or at least in the opinion of Christie's Auction House in NYC. A pair of teak, cane backed and bottomed chairs created for a civil service office will go on sale in the near future with a starting reserve of $8,000 to $12,000 buckeroos.

No surprise some turbans blew off in Chandigarh.

A local architect Rajnish Wattas, principal of the Chandigarh College of Architecture says "we found out we were sitting on a pot of gold, quite literally. But the dealers had realized much earlier that there was BIG money to be made." (that's why they're dealers Mr. Wattas-its their job).

There was nothing illegal about the purchases made by foreign dealers, much of which was being thrown away or sold off for rupees by the city's administration. But, quite belatedly heritage experts are lamenting the loss of a vital part of their city's original design.

The majority of the design of the city was completed by Le Corbusier's cousin Jeanneret. Jeanneret was passionate about creating simple, functional, long lasting furniture that echoed the style and ethos of the surrounding Le Corbusier buildings. There were no shops in the new city to buy furnishings-so the architects literally had them created. Jeanneret didn't stop with the interiors of city buildings, he also designed manhole covers (with beautifully detailed maps of the city embossed in them) light fixtures, lampposts, even the pedal-boats in the man-made lake in the middle of the city.

A Paris dealer, Eric Touchaleaume, first came to Chandigarh in 1999, and started buying at government sales. Much of his collection was auctioned at Christie’s in New York last summer: a manhole cover, designed by Mr. Jeanneret, molded with the map of Chandigarh, was listed with a reserve of $20,000, alongside daybeds, stools, armchairs and bookcases.

Kiran Joshi, a professor of architecture at the Chandigarh College of Architecture, agreed that the dealers were perhaps not to blame. “It’s not the collectors that were the problem,” she said. “The problem is our perception of heritage. We thought it was junk; our government thought it was junk.”

The city authorities, who are applying for Unesco World Heritage status, have ordered that no more furniture be auctioned, and prisoners in the local jail have been commissioned to start restoring some of the broken pieces.

Oh, I'm so jealous.....

Basquiat's "Hannibal" Found in NYC Warehouse

2008-02-18T12:02:00.000-08:00

In something resembling a plot straight out of fiction, authorities have recovered a painting created by the late Jean-Michel Basquiat hidden in a New York City warehouse. Allegedly tucked away there by order of its Brazilian owner who has been accused of "illegal schemes" to make the money to purchase his fantastic collection, the painting is valued at over $8 million dollars.

The last known owner of "Hannibal" was Edemar Cid Ferreira, the former owner of the Banco Santos. He also happens to be one of the countries biggest art collectors. His bank went bankrupt in September 2005, leaving behind debts over $1 BILLION dollars. Ferreira has been convicted in Brazil on charges including money laundering and bank fraud. He was ordered to begin serving a 21-year sentence in December 2006, but was released while his appeal winds through the courts. Recently a Brazilian court ordered the seizure of $20 to $30 million dollars worth of art saying that it had been bought with ill-gotten gains. But, when they made the seizure "Hannibal" was nowhere to be found.

In August of 2006 a courier brought the painting from London into the U. S. via John F. Kennedy International Airport. There was no mention made of the contents of the package, and was valued at a mere $100 on customs declaration forms. Prosecutors filed papers on Wednesday to seize the 1982 painting in an effort to help Brazilian authories claim the work after its seizure in November.

So-what will become of the painting? Don't expect to see it anytime soon. Just like Ferreira himself, it will probably spend quite a bit of time behind closed doors. If we're lucky, maybe someday the Brazilian government will loan it to a U.S. museum (along with the rest of Ferreira's collection) for a tour. But, I wouldn't hold your breath.

Major Art Thefts in Europe

2008-02-11T07:28:00.000-08:00

Somewhere in the world today there is a person, or group of people who have some pretty amazing loot in their hot little hands. Within the last month there have been two spectacular art thefts in Europe, and famous, irreplacable works by Picasso, Monet, Cezanne, Degas and Van Gogh have vanished.

The lastest happened just yesterday at the Emil Buehrle in Switzerland. A gang of three thieves threatened guards with guns before seizing the works. This latest theft is considered to be one of the world's biggest art thefts in the last 20 years. Two days earlier near Zurich, two Picasso paintings were heisted.

The police themselves have called the thefts "spectacular" as the small group of armed men grabbed the paintings and shaved them into a white vehicle parked just outside the museum.

The paintings stolen include Poppies near Vetheuil, by Claude Monet, Count Lepic and his Daughters, by Edgar Degas, Chestnut in Bloom, by Vincent Van Gogh, Boy in a Red Jacket, by Paul Cezanne, Head of Horse and Glass and Pitcher by Picasso.

Artists Tossed into the Street- 475 Kent Evacuated

2008-02-01T12:02:00.000-08:00

If I was a resident of 475 Kent in NYC right now I would probably not have anywhere to live, and very little of my own possessions with me.

Last week was a very bad week for the artist community that has called the building home for years. Sunday, January 20th the community located in Brooklyn's waterfront neighborhood of Williamsburg was issued a Vacate Order by the NYC Fire Department at 7:30pm, being told that the building was unsafe and immediate action had to be taken.

It must have been a bomb, right? Or fire? Or unsafe wiring? I mean, 200 tenants given until 2:30 in the morning to get out in the middle of a 30 degree weather. Think again. The fracus was caused by what we all know and fear....two 10; diameter metal canisters containing grain used for making Matzo. Sakes alive! Alkida-you must be behind this travesty.

Turns out that the FDNY inspected the basement and noticed a Matzo bakery operating on the site...might I mention that the building, which is inspected quite often, has been home to said bakery for more than ten years. But, on that night the grain resulted in a "hazardous emergency" situation that gave the FDNY and the DOB license to vacate the building. When the landlord and several residents offered to alleviate the problem and remove the "dangerous" grain from the premisis they were told "they were not qualified to move the grain". Dangerous, dangerous grain.

Folks, can you say "follow the money". Talk about yelling fire in a theater. Here's a snippet from the press release sent out by the residents association....

"Upon the issue of the vacate order 200 people scrambled to rid 110 spaces of their most crucial belongings. The following day people were given 6 hours access to remove their belongings, tools and equipment, a scenario that for most people who had been in residence for 5 - 10 years with substantial equipment and installations was completely untenable. From there the scene snowballed.

On Tuesday January 22, tenants arrived with moving trucks at 10am having been told they would have another 6 hours access to the building. They found all entrances blocked by NYPD and FDNY and no one was allowed upstairs. Finally, at 1pm the leaders of each agency stood on the staircase and delivered their plan to the crowd:- residents would be allowed into the building six people at a time for one hour, followed by another group of six people each being granted one hour.

Do the math.

No, I'll do it for you. 200/6= 33.3 hours it would take to allow each person ONE hour access to collect their stuff.

Then they shut down the elevators, insuring that the task was impossible. People, in a panic that this would be their last chance to save their belongings, began to carry equipment and valuables down ten flights of stairs, creating a real hazard."

As of Wednesday, the grain has been removed. But, tenants are still being evicted. On Saturday night the building will be padlocked for the foreseeable future. Although requested repeatedly the DOB has never provided a complete list of the violations on the building. They do know that one of these violations is an inoperable sprinkler system, a problem that can mitigated with the presence of fire-guards while the system is repaired, allowing continued occupancy of the building.

Does this sound like total crap to you? It does to me. I'll say no more, I'll just close by giving you the last of the press release. And, if you've got a sheckel to share, you can go to http://www.475kent.com/ and help these poor folks out.

"Since the 1960's New York City's tacit urban renewal policy has been reliant on artist's moving into derelict buildings in less desirable neighborhoods. The city does nothing to bolster or support economic activity in these down and out areas, nor do they do anything to create affordable, legal, usable space for live/work entrepreneurs. 475 Kent is a prime example of this kind of turn-a-blind-eye urban renewal that has been a boon to the City of New York. A decade ago South Williamsburg was a dangerous neighborhood. Once artists take the initiative to live on the edge and restore and renew unused real estate in what were marginal areas the City becomes predatory. The transformation of Williamsburg by the artist community into one of New York City's most desirable neighborhoods encourages the city to move artists out as they calculate the tax revenue of luxury condo developers moving in. No one in any city agency cared about our health and safety ten years ago. Now that our building has become hot property the City is ready to muster all the powers of its many agencies to assist in the muscling of the property from the owners and the tenants. The tenants of 475 Kent Avenue call into question the hypocritical policies being put forth by the agencies of the City of New York. We cannot help but wonder what forces are driving this vacate and why the agencies are suddenly so concerned for out health and safety."

A Librarian's Treasure- Jean Preston's $8 Million Dollar Art Trove

2008-01-30T10:08:00.000-08:00

I ran across a remarkable story in Reuter's today. Oh what I wouldn't have given to be first on this scene. I know that frankly, I wouldn't have been able to identify all these fantastic works, but what a thrill it must have been for the folks who walked in and found this cache in this little house!

LONDON (Reuters) - From the outside it's an ordinary, red-brick house in a terraced row, not unlike tens of thousands of others scattered across Britain.

But on the inside, Jean Preston's spartan Oxford home contained works of art of international significance, carefully acquired over a lifetime and haphazardly displayed.

Preston, a thrifty 77-year-old spinster who rode the bus and ate frozen meals, died in 2006. But art experts and auctioneers have now completed the sale of the exceptional works hoarded in her modest home.

The auctions have raised an estimated 4 million pounds ($7.95 million), according to valuers, about 20 times the price of the house they were kept in, stunning experts and Preston's relatives alike.

Among the treasures were two paintings by Fra Angelico, the 15th century Italian Renaissance master, that were the missing pieces of an eight-part altar decoration.

They were sold together for $3.4 million and are expected to be returned to the Uffizi Gallery, Florence's famed art museum.

"We knew we were going to a house that contained some important works," Guy Schwinge of Dukes art auctioneers in Dorchester, which helped with the sale, told Reuters. "But I was amazed to see quite how many treasures there were ... The Fra Angelicos were behind the bedroom door and we only spotted them on the way out."

Hanging in the kitchen was a 19th century watercolor by pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and in the sitting room, above an electric fire, a work by Sir Edward Burne-Jones.
Those two, estimated to be worth $2 million, have been saved for Britain and are expected to go on display at Oxford's Ashmolean Museum, Schwinge said.

Another hidden treasure was a rare edition of the works of Chaucer that was too big to fit on Preston's bookshelf and was found buried in a wardrobe. It sold for nearly $150,000.
"We often go to fabulous homes to evaluate artworks, but in this case the house was just so modest from the outside, and had very modest decor on the inside too," said Schwinge.
"It's just rare to stumble across something quite so breathtaking."

Preston, who worked as a librarian for much of her life, inherited many of the works from her father, a keen collector. Her relatives were stunned by the artworks she had tucked away.

"My aunt bought her clothes from a catalog, ate frozen meals and went everywhere on the bus," the Daily Mail newspaper quoted one of them as saying.

"Who would have thought she had the equivalent of a winning lottery ticket in her spare room all these years?"

Not Gone-Just Sick

2008-01-28T10:58:00.001-08:00

I promise I haven't stopped writing. I've just had walking pneumonia for the last two weeks.

I have a new interest. Alma Mahler. She friggin rocks.

Seeing Water in a Different Way in NYC

2008-01-18T08:40:00.000-08:00

Well, we might be in a drought situation in Georgia, but New York City has no concerns. Starting this summer (July to be specific) four giant waterfalls will be erected in the city that never sleeps.

The waterfalls, including one that will fall from the Brooklyn Bridge, are the concept of Danish artist Olafur Eliasson. "It's about seeing water in a different way," Eliasson told a news conference on Wednesday, unveiling plans for the waterfalls, which will range in height from 90 to 120 feet -- around the same as the Statue of Liberty from head to toe.

Three of the waterfalls will cascade into the East River and New York Harbor from free-standing scaffolding towers that Eliasson said were part of his artistic vision, mirroring the scaffolding towers that sprout up throughout New York. The falls will be in place from mid-July to mid-October.

The Circle Line Downtown boat company will offer free and discounted trips to give visitors a closer look at the waterfalls.

Eliasson said the tour boats would not be able to get as close to the water as tourist boats do to New York state's most famous waterfall, Niagara Falls, on the Canadian border. "It's quite a lot of water, it would not be good to go under," Eliasson said. The scaffolding will have a floating barrier at the bottom to stop small boats going underneath and a "shark cage" under the water to stop fish being sucked into the pumps that will take the water to the top. The pumps will be powered by renewable energy sources and the falls will be lit only by low-level lighting at night that Eliasson said would be "not Las Vegas-style." (thank God)

The waterfalls project will coincide with a retrospective of Eliasson's work, called "Take Your Time," which will run at the Museum of Modern Art and P.S.1 between April 20 and June 30.

Eliasson is known for creating immersive environments that take their inspiration from nature and play tricks with viewers' perceptions. With "The Weather Project," Mr. Eliasson used mist, mirrors, and 200 monofilament light bulbs to create an image of a glowing sun in the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. In a work called "Green River," in 2000, he poured nontoxic dye into a river in Stockholm, turning it green. In an early work called "Beauty" (1993), he created a rainbow in a gallery by projecting light across a fine mist of water.

Born in Copenhagen to Icelandic parents, Mr. Eliasson has long been interested in waterfalls, which form an important part of the landscape of Iceland. A piece called "Reversed Waterfall" (1998), which will be included in the P.S.1 exhibition, uses a system of pumps and basins to send water jetting uphill. In 2005, he created a 20-foot outdoor waterfall as part of an exhibition at Dundee University in Scotland.

Mr. Eliasson is one of a number of contemporary artists working on a scale that requires vast work spaces and fleets of assistants. According to a 2006 profile in the New Yorker, he has a 15,000-square-foot studio in a former train depot in East Berlin and employs about 40 people there, including mathematicians, technicians, lighting designers, and architects.

Can't wait. I didn't get to see Cristo's "The Gates" but I'm not missin this one. Imagine how cool it will be at night.

Lincoln Images Rediscovered

2008-01-17T10:00:00.001-08:00

No, they weren't images of the Grand Review of the Armies, nor were they of the inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant- the three glass negatives previously mislabeled by the Library of Congress have recently been discovered to be of Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address.

The pictures, taken on March 4, 1865-just one month before Lincoln was shot at the Ford Theater show a rainy day and mud soaked crowds thronging the area around the podium where Lincoln was sworn in as the 16th President of the United States. A curator of the Library of Congress spotted the misidentification on Friday, January 4th while checking old logbooks and discovering the annotation 'Lincoln' in the margin. The Library of Congress was able to confirm by "careful visual comparison" with the two existing photos of the event that the images were in fact from Lincoln's inauguration.

Carol Johnson, a curator of photography at the Library of Congress was prompted to review the negatives after a patron altered her to the fact that while the photos were visually similar, they had radically different identifications in the Library's online Civil War photographic negative collection. Sadly, I haven't been able to find any note of the savvy patron who pointed this out-who I think should get some credit.

The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division has updated the catalog records. To view the full set of photos, visit the Prints and Photographs Online Catalog at www.loc.gov/rr/print/catalog.html.

Here are the photo links:
Soldiers and crowd: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cwpb.01430
Soldiers lining up: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cwpb.00601
Soldiers lined up: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cwpb.00602
People arriving (previously known image used for comparison): http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsc.02927

Lichtenstein Outdoors in Miami

2008-01-15T12:33:00.000-08:00

Best known as a painter, Roy Lichtenstein was also a prolific sculptor. He began making sculptural works in the early 1960's, just after his first exhibition of paintings at Leo Castelli Gallery. His earliest sculptures were renderings of utilitarian objects and mannequin style heads, both directly influenced by the representation of commercial techniques in his painting. As his career progressed, Lichtenstein's sculpture evolved with his painting. In the 1980's this convergence of media culminated in his monumental brushstroke sculptures. Evoking the movement and color of paint on canvas, these totem-like works suspend the artist's sweeping brushstrokes in midair.

If you find yourself in the Miami area before the end of May make sure to stop into the Fairchild Tropical Gardens which is currently exhibiting a series of Lichtenstein's beautiful pop sculptures. Much like the events that the Atlanta Botanical Gardens have done with Dale Chihuly and Niki de Saint Phalle in the past, the Art in the Garden series at Fairchild seamlessly blends the natural beauty of the gardens with stunning artwork.

I could write tons about both the gardens and the artist, but I'm in a time pinch today, so in the meantime I'll leave you to do your own hunting about both if you're interested.

Check out this awesome video about the exhibit at: http://miamibeach.plumtv.com/videos/art_basel_miami_beach_2007_roy_lichtenstein_fairchild

Use Your Ears and Read

2008-01-14T13:49:00.000-08:00

I love audio books. I don't really listen to the radio anymore, haven't in years. I probably listen to more than 100 audio books a year. Yes, some of them are total drivel. Sappy detective novels that I'd be embarrassed to be caught reading (did I mention I'm a literature snob-or didn't you already assume that?) classics that I read long ago and enjoy hearing performed, even some really good "young adult" stuff that I would usually never even know about without the genre.

A friend forwarded me this site today and I can't wait to delve deeper into it. I'm not going to buy one of those cool, yet totally expensive Kindle's (which I probably couldn't track down even if I wanted to) but do check out this site.

http://librivox.org/

Have a great day. Read or listen to a book today.

Coolest Job EVER Up For Grabs

2008-01-09T10:44:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I'm not qualified, but boy howdy if I was I would be dancing the Irish jig right now and greasing palms and calling in favors all over New York City today. Pilippe de Montebello, the head of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the last 30 years announced his retirement today. The eighth, and longest serving director in the museum's 138-year history announced at the Met's board of trustees meeting on Tuesday afternoon that he intended to leave at the end of 2008 or as soon as a successor had been found.

Why is it time to go? The New York Times phoned de Montebello up yesterday and he is quoted as saying, "“After three decades, to stay much further would be to skirt decency,” he said. "This has not been an easy decision — it’s wrenching for me, it’s been my entire life. But it’s time.”

You would have to pry my cold dead body out of that gig.

Okay-de Montebello isn't a saint. He's drawn controversy for not being a big fan of modern art-but that being said he was responsible to acquiring "White Flag" by Jasper John's and placing Damien Hirst's "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living" (or the shark floating in formaldehyde to laymen) prominently at the opening of the modern wing of the museum where it will stay for the next three years.

They are big shoes to fill. I sure wish I could fill them. I wouldn't care for all the fundraising and posh boot licking that would have to be done to make the museum a success, but imagine....all that magnificent art at your fingertips. Think of walking through the completely empty museum by yourself and sitting quietly in front of an ancient bust of Akhenaten, spending hours searching through the visual layers of a Pollock or the following the dancing lines of brushwork of a VanGogh. Absolute bliss.

Mr. de Montebello you will be greatly missed.