the connections

I finally got my Christmas letter written and took it to the copy shop this morning. Now, I'm up in the library catching up on the latest issue of Artforum. It was good to see that one of the books I cataloged at Bard in November was selected by a critic as a "best of 2009." That book is Stüdyo Osep by Tayfun Serttaş (Beyoğlu, İstanbul: Aras, c2009), selected by Banu Cennetoğlu. Things Turkish always make me think of Hikmet Doğu who has written about Robert Smithson as well as being a librarian, now in Salt Lake City. She also happened to knit my winter hat which has a tail. I would love to see Turkey: the Roman and other archeological sites, the arid landscape and Mediterranean coast, the Muslim heritage as well. Someday. One of my NYU colleagues (Scot Dalton, whose wife is Turkish) said it would be possible to travel there, even into the countryside, by yourself which was encouraging.

Another of the year's best books is Art workers: radical practice in the Vietnam War era by Julia Bryan-Wilson (University of California Press), selected by Carrie Lambert-Beatty. JBW is a member of the Queer Caucus for Art and her book is to be featured in the issue now being compiled.

The music "best" was diverse and I hadn't heard of most of it. Just Shostakovich's "The nose" as done in Boston. I'd seen the announcement of its NYC presentation but missed it. You know I'm pretty sensitive about nose stuff and wished that I could have gone. My friend Sara Jane Pearman sent some Frosty the Snowman jokes that were quite insensitive AND funny! One of my recurring musical treats over the past year was the flute playing of Tara Helen O'Connor. I heard her two or three times at Miller Theater at Columbia and also at Zankel Hall.

The latest number of Mein schwules Auge came in yesterday's mail. It's a lovely and exciting mix of pictures and texts. Alas, most of the text is in German and mine isn't up to the task. But there was an article entitled "Alles für Roberto" so it all came around to more connections.