Moroccan calligraphy, 19th century (courtesy of BibliOdyssey) I know many of you are regular readers of 3 Quarks Daily and the fascinating posts by Elatia Harris. But for anyone who may be a newcomer here, run, don’t walk your way to her latest foray into the extraordinary blog, BibliOdyssey. In her words: “One of my […]
Skid Marks: Inflection or Innuendo
In Wallace Stevens’ oft-quoted but still provocative (IMHO) poem, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, he captures a simple dichotomy that has served as a divining rod for most of my creative life: I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just […]
Not Entering One’s Own House
I’ve always thought of myself as a Clydesdale artist–the kind that applies sheer will and fortitude to obstacles. It must be my pioneer heritage (a epigenomic proclivity?) that programs me to just keep walking no matter what. I have ancestors who did that as they made their way across the North American plains in the […]
I am not the Backpfeifengesicht your fist is looking for
Lifelong friend Liz Razovich sent me a list of words culled from a book that I ordered for myself: The Meaning of Tingo, by Adam Jacot de Boinod. Here’s a sample: Tingo: A Pascuense language word from Easter Island that means borrowing items from a pal’s house, one by one, until there is nothing left. […]
- Humor
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Claiming the Unk Unks
I was intrigued by an article in the Summer 2007 issue of the MIT Sloan Management Review titled Discovering “Unk-Unks”, by John W. Mullins. “Unk-Unks” is an engineering term that means unknown-unknowns.* Mullins, a professor at London Business School, focuses his article on entrepreneurs since he contends that the Unk Unks are the mostly likely […]
In Good Company
It isn’t often you get to be in a show with other artists who are both friends and talented makers. I am having that chance now with Riki Moss and Keith Maddy. The artist reception on Friday night was pure joy, and the people that came seemed particularly warm and receptive. Maybe they sensed the […]
- Art/Language
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Here are the extinct feathers, here is the rain we saw
Losing a Language A breath leaves the sentences and does not come back yet the old still remember something that they could say but they know now that such things are no longer believed and the young have fewer words many of the things the words were about no longer exist the noun for standing […]
Who Do You Serve?
Alice Notley, poet I don’t know much of the poetry of Alice Notley, but the Sunday New York Times review of her latest volume, In the Pines, piqued my curiosity. Here are a few paragraphs from Joel Brouwer’s lively review: Over the course of Alice Notley’s long and prolific career — she’s written more than […]
The Compound Eye
Elizabeth Bishop. I’ve written about her and her poetry many times before on this blog. But her effect on my interior landscape is like frost heaves, pushing up vertically through the thickest pavement and foundation stone. It is not just her final poetic product that captivates me, but also the way in which she went […]
Giving Voice
Is there some trace of the land’s past still resident? Although songlines are not part of our Western cultural history, the concept of stories preserved in a particular landscape has a powerful appeal. Here in New England we often joke about the tenacity of our Puritan ancestors whose energy still seems to linger in spite […]