Election Day, finally. I have lost personal access to the timbre of evenhandedness in this political season, so it was with fascination that I read Eve LaPlante’s feature piece in the Boston Globe yesterday. She explores current research that suggests the hard-wired, biological and somewhat predetermined nature of a political point of view. A correlation […]
Year: 2008
Legacies and Other Mysteries
Double Wedding Ring Quilt When they exchanged wedding rings did they know it was only the start of sorting through work baskets of “why” and “what it all means,” a ragbag of eye-strain and piece work? Now, seventy eight and seventy five, they hold the quilt between them as you snap their photograph. It scalloped […]
Photographic Evocation
A few memorable images from Time Magazine–their Photo of the Week series… Baby parrots being released into the wild. Photo: Renzo Gostoli Elephant eye. Photo: Barbara Walton Fireworks. Photo: Chumsak Kanoknan Photo: Bobby Yip
Term Limits
Kyle Gann posted this note on his blog, PostClassic: Thank You, Sarah Palin We in American music owe a great debt to John McCain and Sarah Palin. Those two have so cheapened and tainted the word “maverick” that it will be at least a generation, maybe two, before anyone will be able to use the […]
Subservient to Painting…More on Saville
I’m still on a Jenny Saville bender (see post below)…Here are a few passages from an interview with Saville conducted by Suzie Mackenzie of the Guardian. I found these passages provocative and insightful. She attributes the early “fascination with fat” to sitting on the floor watching her piano teacher. “From below she had these big, […]
Jenny Saville in Boston
Saville uses her own body for most of her paintings This week we heard painter Jenny Saville speak at Boston University. Thirty minutes before the lecture was scheduled to begin at Morse Auditorium, 500 people were already in a line snaking down Commonwealth Avenue. My initial reaction was, how cool. How often do you find […]
In Search of Palliatives
OK. This is getting intense. Everyone in this house has become a political junkie of the worst kind. We start off the morning with a full perusal of the New York Times and the Boston Globe. Then after a day’s worth of work that gets punctuated with periodic flyovers of no less than 14 political […]
This Ain’t No Hobby, Investment or a Career
I have a lot of artist friends who are dedicated, hardworking and optimistic about their work. But when it comes to the vicissitudes of the larger world, they are ass-dragging pessimists. And it is understandable, given an art world that lavishly (and to a certain extent, randomly) rewards a few practitioners but leaves the majority […]
Bivalvia in Excelsis
My son is passionate about fishing, and lately his enthusiasm for all creatures of the salt water zone has spilled over into the bivalvia. He and his fishing friends found the perfect beach for both steamers and quahogs, one that isn’t too far from our home. So after a few baskets brimming with steamers and […]
Living in Trees
The Soul We know we’re not allowed to use your name. We know you’re inexpressible, anemic, frail, and suspect for mysterious offenses as a child. We know that you are not allowed to live now in music or in trees at sunset. We know—or at least we have been told— that you do not exist […]