just a normal guy

“I’ve never felt symbolic. I felt — you know, I’m just here.” He laughed. “I’m just Ken.” (This was an allusion to Ryan Gosling’s showstopping song at the Oscars, the night before the interview.) “I’m just me. I’m just somebody who’s trying to be a writer, trying to do his best. And that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.”

Salman Rushdie, in an interview with Sarah Lyall, in the New York Times Book Review

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/14/books/salman-rushdie-knife-interview.html

Hieronymus Bosch in the NYTBR

Twice during the past couple-three weeks in the New York times book review, writers have mentioned Hieronymus Bosch.

"'The Doloriad' evokes Beckett's plays, or, in its static depiction of misery, Hieronymus Bosch's paintings. But 'Endgame' and 'The Garden of Earthly Delights' are funny and don't take five hours to get through. Ultimately this book, for all its ambition, isn't for me. But, who knows, it just might be what your rotten little heart deserves." -- J. Robert Lennon, in a review entitled "Wicked by design" of The Doloriad, by Missouri Williams, MCD/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York times book review, March 27, 2022, p. 10.

"One of my treasures is a book received long ago from fellow students as a present for my Ph. D. It is a beautifully illustrated volume about Hieronymus Bosch, the medieval painter. Many people find his art disturbing, but I was born in the city where he lived and worked, and grew up with his imaginative visions of heaven and hell. I like his attention to facial expressions while depicting humanity's sins and follies. There are also tons of animals in his paintings mixed with trees, fruits and figures that are half human, half animal. Bosch was the world's first surrealist." -- Frans de Waal, "By the book," New York times book review, April 3, 2022, p. 6.

I wonder if Frans de Waal's "beautifully illustrated volume" is the 1966 monograph on Bosch by Charles de Tolnay that has had a place of honor on my shelves for more than 50 years. I am much more taken by de Waal's image of Bosch than Lennon's "static depiction of misery." Flying to Madrid to see Bosch's paintings may take more than five hours but it is well worth the trip.

art and nature

Today I'm wearing the Tom Thomson t-shirt that I bought at the Art Gallery of Ontario many years ago. The text reads "Was his work more influenced by art movements or the movements of the wind and water?"

Today I'm reading about the Pritzker Architecture Prize 2020 being awarded to Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects. The article in the N.Y. Times about the prize includes this quotation from Farrell in response to a question about fame, recognition, and starchitects: "There are people whose work should be more recognized sometimes. The media goes for the easy thing -- eye candy. Architecture is much more. It infiltrates our lives in a much deeper way. It's important to remember that the earth is beautiful and sunlight is liquid gold. A lot of architecture excludes natural phenomena -- the rising and setting sun, the power of springtime moving up through the soul."

Daniel and I were talking about the glory of the winter sun as you go about looking at buildings.

separated at birth: Comedor Restaurant and Wiley House

Comedor restaurant, Austin, Texas

Olson Kundig

(opened 2019)

(photography by Casey Dunn, from dezeen.com)

Robert C. Wiley House

Philip Johnson

(completed 1953)

(photography North Carolina Modernist Houses,

from The Modern House)

Quote of the moment: "If this study is brazenly promiscuous in its interconnections and relationships, it is not in the interest of a new commonality that is its own form of categorization." -- Jonathan Weinberg, in Pier groups: art and sex along the New York waterfront (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019), page 6.

Cuba and the U.S.

"I candidly confess, that I have ever looked on Cuba as the next interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States. The control which, with Florida Point, this island would give us over the Gulf of Mexico, and the countries and isthmus bordering on it -- as well as all those whose waters flow into it -- would fill up the measure of our political well-being. Yet, as I am sensible that this can never be obtained, even with her own consent, but by war; and its independence, which is our second interest (and especially its independence of England), can be secured without it, I have no hesitation in abandoning my first wish to future chances, and accepting its independence -- with peace and the friendship of England -- rather than its association, at the expense of war and her enmity."

These are the words of Thomas Jefferson in 1823 during a period of discussion about the idea of the U.S. annexation of Cuba. The quotation, from a letter to President James Madison, is here taken from Cuba: a new history by Richard Gott (Yale University Press, 2004) which I am reading in anticipation of going to Cuba on a College Art-sponsored trip during the Havana Bienal. I am very much looking forward to Cuba being in peaceful association with the United States.

Just a reminder of relative distance between Florida and Cuba and the relationship to the Gulf of Mexico (screen shot from Google Maps)

"dissonance made eloquent"

I just got back to Alfred after spending most of Thanksgiving week in New York City, cat-sitting for Tigris and Euphrates out in Ridgewood, Queens. Thanks for the job, John. There's a 6:30 pm bus from Port Authority that gets into Alfred at 1:15 am. I like that bus because you can get stuff done in the city and sleep on the bus rather than spending lots of daylight hours on the bus, not that looking at the Catskills and Southern Tier is a problem. So I dozed on the bus and went to bed pretty quickly after the bus got me home in the early morning. Got up in the morning and went off to Wellsville after my morning walk. The convenience store here in Alfred used to carry the Sunday Times but they don't anymore. So it's off to Tops Supermarket in Wellsville and then pancakes and one sunnyside egg at the Texas Hot. I usually sit at the counter and there's plenty of room for me, my paper, and my food. This morning, I was toward the kitchen end of the counter and a bit later than usual. After a bit, I found myself cheek-by-jowl with several of the employees as they ate their breakfast (French toast and sausage) or lunch (salad), but not brunch. Whatever meal was appropriate for their "lifestyle." There were different conversations on either side, mostly about life, but they were more "there" than the conversations in New York City. Not really intrusive but not ignorable either.

As I sit here several hours later, reading "In Praise of Impracticality" by Bill Hayes in the Sunday Review section of the Times, I am struck by his description of what a New Yorker misses when not in town. "By this, I don't mean missing the Rockettes at Radio City, New Year's Eve in Times Square, or some amazing exhibit at the Met. In New York, there is always something amazing happening somewhere that one ends up hearing about only later. What I meant instead was missing the evanescent, the eavesdropped, the unexpected: a snowfall that blankets the city and turns it into a peaceful new world. Or, in summer, the sight of the first fireflies in the park at twilight. The clop-clop of horses' hooves on cobblestones in the West Village, mounted police patrolling late at night, or a lovers' quarrel within earshot of all passers-by. Of course, what is music to my ears may be intolerable to another's. Life here is a John Cage score, dissonance made eloquent."

That's it: in Alfred or Wellsville, the nearby conversation butts into your consciousness and it's difficult to ignore, partly because you're likely to be considered rude or unfriendly or you actually know who it is they're talking about. Probably no one on South Main Street was delighted to hear the "clop-clop" of my suitcase wheels as I came up from the bus stop a bit after one in the morning. The sidewalk was a slushy mess and there were no cars on the street.

Shadow Country, Mother Nature, and poetry

Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen is a grand book: in scope, in narrative, in size at almost 900 pages. It's a grand read all along but, every once in a while, there's a passage that is particularly wonderful. To wit ... (on pages 660-661 of the Modern Library paperback edition)

One afternoon over lemonade and cookies, discussing our [Everglades] wilderness with the children, she quoted some opinions of the poets. A Miss Dickinson of New England had concluded that the true nature of Nature was malevolent, whereas the self-infatuated Mr. Whitman of New York found undomesticated Nature merely detestable. What could such people know of Nature, Mandy inquired, pointing at that huge motionless gray-green beast across the river: nature was not malevolent, far less detestable, but simply oblivious, indifferent, and God's indifference as manifested in such creatures was infinitely more terrifying than literary notions of malevolence could ever be. To regard such an engine of predation without awe, or dare to dismiss it as detestable -- wasn't that to suggest that the Creator might detest His own Creation?

"How about the mosquitoes?" complained Eddie, ever anxious to return indoors.

Lucius led us to the nest of red-winged blackbirds, parting the tall reeds so we could see. Losing its mate after the eggs had hatched to a snake or hawk, or owl, the male bird, flashing his flaming shoulders, had simply resumed his endless song about himself (like Mr. Walter Whitman, said Mandy, smiling), by dint of which he won a second female, and now this pair was busily engaged in constructing its new nest on top of the old one -- on top, that is, of the live young, which were squeaking and struggling to push their hungry bills up through the twigs. The horrified children longed to rescue the trapped victims, although this meant that the second clutch would be destroyed. Lucius forbade this and his mother nodded. "Even victims are not innocent," she whispered to no one in particular. "They are simply present. They are simply in the way."

Instinctively I had to agree, though Lucius and I could never explain to each other just what she meant. Her words made me feel odd. One moment a man bathing in the river celebrates his sparkling life and the next he is seized by the unseen and dragged beneath the surface, which moves on downriver as placid as before. God's will, Mandy would say. Man's fate, I agreed. Are they the same? But since long ago I had lost all faith, Mandy knew it was useless to discuss this.

talking about art in front of the object

Write as much as possible in the presence of the actual object and return to it if you have second thoughts.
(J.J. Winckelmann, advice to Charles-Louis Clérisseau, quoted in Dr. Kimball and Mr. Jefferson by Hugh Howard (Bloomsbury, 2006), p. 62)

Went with Angelica to the Rondanini Palace. You will remember that, in one of my first letters from Rome, I spoke of a Medusa which made a great impression on me. Now the mere knowledge that such a work could be created and still exists in the world makes me feel twice the person I was. I would say something about it if everything one could say about such a work were not a waste of breath. Works of art exist to be seen, not talked about, except, perhaps in their presence. I am thoroughly ashamed of all babbling about art in which I used to join. If I can get hold of a good cast of this Medusa, I shall bring it back with me.
(Goethe, Italian journey, 1786, quoted in "History lessons: imitation, work and the temporality of contemporary art," Art history, Sept. 2014, p. 807)

photo by Lydia Anne McCarthy

as part of her i will be the void series

walking in cities

Rachel recommended a recent article in The New Yorker by Adam Gopnik: "Heaven's gaits: what we do when we walk" (September 1st issue, p. 74-77). He describes the craze for walking as a spectator sport in the 19th century, based largely on Pedestrianism: when watching people walk was America's favorite spectator sport by Matthew Algeo. I didn't know. Gopnik also talks about A philosophy of walking by Frédéric Gros which begins "Walking is not a sport." Gros's theory of walking is that there are three essential kinds of walking: contemplative; cynical (from the Cynics of ancient Greece); composite contemplative cynic (the modern city walker, the flâneur). Gopnik expands on Gros's Parisian emphasis to talk about New Yorkers, looking to such authors as Walt Whitman and Alfred Kazin (A walker in the city, 1951).

Gopnik ends the article by talking about the stages of walking: peripatetic (walking where we will, as children); circumambulent (walking around our children); make an attempt at a pilgrimage, fail, and become immobile; walking outdoors to randomize our experience of the city. There's lots to think about in the Gopnik essay.

Toward the end of the article, Gopnik says "Walking for pleasure in cities is an occupation of the young. Only a very few older people of great vitality walk long in cities." Having just spent a couple weeks in Belgium and Amsterdam, I guess I am just one of those few older people. I don't always feel vital and sometimes I walk because it's too hard to figure out which bus or tram to take. But, boy oh boy, do I enjoy walking in cities, usually with a destination at least vaguely in mind, but enjoying the walk sometimes as much as the destination.

A couple pictures from Ghent. More on my Flickr photostream.

greenery will triumph

Maybe my other new year's resolution will be to put something here more often. In the meantime a couple paragraphs from the "March" chapter of Truck by Michael Perry of Population: 485 fame:

The snow will fall again before the frost is out, but we are gaining momentum for that time of year when everything reappears. The ugly stuff first, as it happens: neglected lawnmowers, weed-wrapped tires, waterlogged copies of the Early Bird Shopper. But most days there is a flavor to the air that suggests greenery will triumph.

Last thing before I turn off the lights and head for bed, I inspect the sprouting tray. Each cell cradles a cube of peat, and at the center of each cube is a seed, quietly pursuing the sun. Thomas Moore said [in Lalla Rookh] tears are a luxury only to the happy. When I am forced to cast my eyes beyond my own navel, I realize that a dip in sweet melancholy is every bit as indulgent as a bubble bath. Be joyful, says Wendell Berry, though you have considered all the facts.

powers & the power of art

This month's bookclub selection is Three farmers on their way to a dance by Richard Powers, published about 20 years ago but suggested by Daniel who is reading Powers's newest novel. Three farmers has been occasionally confusing but wonderful. The section on Sarah Bernhardt, directly on Bernhardt, was especially great as have been several sections as I near the end. Here's a quote for you:

"I prefer walking to any other means of getting from A to B. It's a perversity on my part, pure and simple, but I enjoy the feeling of even the smallest, ten-cent errand taking up twenty dollars of my prorated time." (p. 261)

Talk about a different way to say "stop and smell the roses." Of course in New York City it is sometimes faster to walk but then that's just a bit more perversity that NYC spreads about.

That quote is from a section entitled "The cheap and accessible print" which is really a post-Walter essay on the photograph and whether it is more or less real than life. I might just have to take Illuminations with me to Kansas City so I can finally read the "mechanical reproduction" essay by Benjamin. Peter's trip to the catacombs with the bums of Paris is also extraordinarily good.

It wasn't the day I thought I'd have. After an expensive grocery shopping trip in the Bronx (the answer to the unasked question is "yes"), I decided I needed some art and went to the Guggenheim to see the Spanish show. It closes before I get back from Kansas City. It really had some wonderful paintings and not as many dogs as I'd been warned about. There were at least three still life paintings by Juan van der Hamen (signature: Banderamen), a couple of which had "sweets." In one, the cubic sweets looked suspiciously like Rice Krispie Treats. Who knew that RKTs were around in the early 17th century? Great portraits by El Greco, Velázquez, Zurbarán (St Isabel of Portugal), Sánchez Coello (is that Meryl Streep?), Goya. Some of the formulaic portraits had a strangely surrealist look, e.g., the Pantoja de la Cruz portrait of Don Felipe and Doña Ana. I remember having discussions in high school art class about what was Spanish in Spanish art. One of the Sánchez Cotán vegetable still lifes had little wings on the cardoon that Bosch could have painted. And a really wonderful early Picasso "Green bowl and black bottle" (1908, in the Hermitage) that was painted as the shapes were beginning to break up in the cubist melée. The last (or first) painting was the wonderful "Agnus Dei" by Zurbarán from the Prado. The painting was as alone on its wall as the shackled lamb is in the painting.

note to self

I started this blog because I had to register in order to respond to Tee's blog. It's been almost a month and I wondered if "shermaniac" would show up if I googled it. Damn. There's a SherManiac out there who is keen on things like Sherman Tanks and warmongering. That's not me!!

This stuff is all too interconnected. My brother put up some family pictures on his Facebook site so I had to sign on for that too. The profile there asked for a favorite quote so I picked:

He was not cut out to be a soldier, he thought, but neither were most of the young men of his class and acquaintance who went to fight. It was not wisdom which kept him away, he believed, but something closer to cowardice, and as he walked the cobbled streets of his new town, he almost thanked God for it. (Henry, the narrator, in The master, a novel based on the life of Henry James, by Colm Toibin)