From the Slow Muse archive: This post first appeared in April 2014 and was titled “Pitchers and Catchers.” “Veriddyi 2”, a painting that speaks to my ongoing longing to envision that first day of creation One of my favorite quotes comes by way of W. S. Piero from his book of essays, Out of Eden: […]
Philosophy
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The Wheel Inside the Wheel
Adam Gopnik‘s recent piece in the New Yorker codifies the suspicions many of us have been sharing with each other: “We are living in the Matrix, and something has gone wrong with the controllers…The people or machines or aliens who are supposed to be running our lives are having some kind of breakdown. There’s a […]
What We Can See, and What We Can’t
Earth rising as seen from the lunar surface via Apollo 8 (Photo: NASA/Bill Anders) Lessons learned from the last U.S. election cycle are still being processed and discussed. A big theme for me is just plain epistemological: How do you know what you know? The strange and the unreal took over somewhere in this process, […]
The Strange and the Familiar
“Lajiva”, from a new series In his essay, The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism, Jonathan Lethem writes, “It’s not a surprise that some of today’s most ambitious art is going about trying to make the familiar strange.” That line is a reference to the 18th century poet Novalis whose early romanticism was captured in his […]
Rhizome Redux
Revisiting the past: “Tuffesse,” 20 x 50″, from a body of work I painted about the same time as this original post This post first appeared here in April 2007. In looking back through that period of time I found these quotes from Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari still relevant and useful. A Thousand Plateaus […]
Nietzsche and Perspectivism
Illustration by Joon Mo Kang (New York Times) In John Logan‘s play Red, one of the first topics discussed by the painter with his studio assistant is The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche. While Rothko waxes rhapsodic about the profundity of the ideas in the book he also takes time to brow beat his […]
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Weather Patterns
Skyline of the Wasatch Mountains in Salt Lake just after a cloudburst Yesterday I heard an interview with an American journalist on NPR. She has spent most of the last 8 years in Afghanistan reporting on the war. In the process she developed a deep affection for the country and its plight, so much so […]
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Sontagism
Susan Sontag Claims and concerns that we are creating an increasingly voyeuristic culture are heard frequently these days. The deeply disturbing (but essential viewing IMHO) film, Catfish, is just one of a number of movies, books and articles delving more deeply into how we are constructing relationships with others and how we construct our sense […]
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The Mysterious, The Ambiguous, The Particular
A common theme in my postings over the last few weeks has been the very basic question, “how are we to live?” While it is sometimes hard to be objective about the prevalence of a trend when it is a topic you yourself are interested in (I call it the “car buying syndrome”—all of a […]
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Cognitive Tools
One of my favorite spots on the web is the annual World Question* presented by The Edge. Each year a provocative question is posed, then answers flow in from every profession and point of view. It is a fascinating cross section of thinking, perspectives and insights. The question being asked for 2011 is: What scientific […]