Height of Beauty
Secret obsessions, private mad endeavors, finally, unintentionally, revealed are so fragile they break the beholder’s heart. Which beckons the ask: why is heartbreak so beautiful? From “Letters from Max,” by Sarah Ruhl and Max Ritvo.
Jainism: Tolerance as Faith
Jainism may be a minority religion in India, but the vast proportions of the Indus Valley render the minor into the massive when scaled to world standards. Four to five million people practice this ancient faith, whose oldest spiritual masters go back to the time of Earth’s physical creation and whose most recent master, Mahavira, […]
The Most Miserable
Pictured above is the best book report I’ve ever read, about the actual best book I have ever read. Yes. I think. Coetzee’s “Disgrace” will have to make a more thorough appearance on here soon. Time is ripe for a reread. But, back to this current post, which is about Claudia Rankine’s “Don’t Let Me […]
Poems Heavy as Poached Game
Scenes from Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Sharon Olds’ first book of poems “Satan Says.” In the background, Paola Pivi’s solo exhibit at the Miami Beach Bass Museum.
Eating (and Drinking) One’s Way to Heaven
Western religions tend to keep faith separate from the ins and outs of the everyday. Church is for Sundays, specifically from 10:00 am to 11:30 am. Amen. And those quotidian ins and outs, when taken literally, are simply not matters of decency, certainly not ones in which to involve the Almighty. As a result, one […]
Mimetic, et al.
“Mimetic” is my Word of the Day. Synonymous (yes, at once!) with “echoic,” “apish,” “slavish” and “canned.” From John D’Agata’s genre-bending, lyrical, US-centered tour of the essay’s recent history: “The Next American Essay.”
Fascination
The fascinating thing about fascination is fascination itself. Obsession works in similar ways. An obsession, a swallowing up of will by all encompassing drive, takes over in inexplicable ways. Callings exist beyond a mere sense of purpose. Why else would there be an entire book of poems on Kanye? Poem “God Created Night and It […]
Do It Like the Poems Do it
Quick! Read this before the year is over. From Sarah Blake’s high-low masterpiece “Mr. West.”
Good Gossip
Just gonna call it: Naipaul dishing on Tolstoy smacking on Gandhi is the best thing I will read for the rest of this year. All three glorious days of it. From V. S. Naipaul’s “India: A Wounded Civilization.”
On Pink
Pink’s having a moment. So much so that New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology is hosting an exhibition on the color’s transformation. In a piece published by “The New York Times” about the exhibit, its curator presents pink as the color of androgyny, a topic that’s been coming up repeatedly in my recent readings. Pink […]
The Universal Teat
If you have not read “Grapes of Wrath” and for some reason plan on doing so, stop reading this. If, on the other hand, you would like to be spared the load but are curious about its classical buzz, read on. “Grapes of Wrath” is like a fat Oreo: delicious chocolate crunch on each end, […]
Moving for Love
I don’t usually post twice in a day, but the lines in Ada Limón’s poem above are so beautiful and it is raining so hard that I couldn’t bear to witness alone.
Nonnegotiable Time
Neko Case, a the vocalist in cult band “The New Pornographers,” is one of one hundred artists, entrepreneurs and writers interviewed for “In the Company of Women,” a surprisingly unsappy coffee table book. Pictured above is what she had to say about time and making it to make art. I agree.
Magical Thinking
For a few weeks this book has been on my mind. Didion, Didion, Didion. And her “Year of Magical Thinking,” written during the first year she mourned her husband’s sudden death. This for me has proven to be a year of magical thinking, a year of metamorphosing concrete barricades into trampolines via transformative thought. Magical […]
Bon Voyage
I can think of few things I enjoy more than buying a new book at an airport. The thought of being trapped in the air inside a metal tube for hours with nothing to do but read or watch bad movies is thrilling. The more so with a brand new glossy book upon my lap. […]
Break Point Break
British artist Fiona Banner turned the opening scenes of the cult classic Point Break into a huge canvas with red words. The point? Convey the break, the chiasm between what is experienced visually and mentally. Suspense is lost. Impact becomes flaccid. Scenes become silent. In the case of high-voltage action, Banner implies that sometimes the […]
Survival of the Horniest
During a recent blissful Sunday afternoon on a London rooftop a friend dutifully informs me that, from an evolutionary perspective, our happiness is problematic. He then plops open the book he is currently logging around town to the page above. Writer Yuval Noah Harari makes a good point: our evolution is not based on survival […]
The Difference between Coolness and Artness: What Turns Everyday Objects into Art
Inevitably, many of the highlights at this year’s London Frieze are works that turn common objects into art. To enter the Fair, visitors must walk by a courtyard and up a narrow hallway where Martin Soto’s pantyhose installation cuts the sky into the vaulted Gothic cathedral lines of a sacred place of worship. The Gagosian is the first gallery one meets, featuring the works of Edmund […]
No to New Neon
Neon art began in the 1960’s when an artist named Dan Flavin first displayed it in a New York gallery. Back then neon was street, current and controversial. Indeed, The New York Times compared it to Marcel Duchamp’s urinal: “When Dan Flavin first brought [neon] into art galleries during the 1960’s, he was, in effect, doing what Marcel Duchamp had […]
(Un)Signed
The event of reading, of unearthing meaning applicable to life, is the only event of art. When reading is truly reading, then reading and writing are the same thing. Signs such as the one pictured above and below are not unevents in the event they transform walking into reading and reading into, eventually, writing.