At a local shop there is a cake and pastry case next to the cashier. This week the tableau (“a striking or artistic grouping”) looked especially luscious — as if it were expecting the imminent appearance of a palette-carrying Wayne Thiebaud.
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Archive for the ‘Photos’ Category
Thanksgiving desserts
Friday, November 25th, 2011Its Final Appearance
Saturday, October 8th, 2011Two Octobers ago, while walking the dog, I came across an eruption of tree mushroom fungi at the base of an old oak (photos). Recently the weathered tree succumbed to old age and city contractors came to chain-saw and remove its above-ground bulk. A stump remains, but it too will soon be ground up and disposed of. And so this October the fungi reappeared to take a colorful final bow.
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Cranes in the City
Saturday, October 1st, 2011In the middle of the city a sign of optimism for the future despite present gloomy skies.
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The same construction site a few days later:
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“Train Dreams” by Denis Johnson
Sunday, September 11th, 2011.
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Denis Johnson’s “Train Dreams” is a well-wrought story of an American life. Its power will remind the reader of other durable works in the canon of American literature.
The book’s backwoods setting and the stoic philosophy of its characters have sympathetic ties to Hemingway’s early Nick Adams stories set in the Michigan woods. It’s laconic protagonist, Robert Grainier, is an heir to the solitary fate of men found in Jack London’s man-against-nature tales. Grainier is an uneducated man, a day laborer, and it is the hard work of living that Johnson attends to most sensitively. His interest in this common man is reminiscent of Steinbeck’s attention to the kindred spirits populating his short novels of the Depression era. As well, Johnson’s prose — simple, direct, unmannered — employs an an oft-used American style.
Yet there is nothing derivative, nothing imitative, nothing second-hand or second-rate, in “Train Dreams.” This is a stand-alone classic.
Here is a mystery: While the novella recounts a man’s life, the narrative structure Johnson adopts owes nothing to the usual forms that typically command the allegiance of the reader of life stories. The book does not take the form of a journey or an adventurous quest. It follows no easy arc that might help to confer some apparent purpose. Spoken words are few. Gainier’s taciturnity is matched by a mind unreflective, or at best only quietly reflective. How, then, does “Train Dreams” draw us in so close to an embrace that we feel its emotional force?
That’s a question to keep in mind when, a few years from now, you again pull this slim volume from the shelf or fire-up your e-reader . . . and settle in for a second reading experience.
Notes:
1. There is a free audio excerpt of the first five pages (3 ½ minutes, as read by Will Patton) available online at the publisher’s website, here.
2. Among reviews in mainstream media outlets, James Wood’s high praise in The New Yorker (Sept. 5, 2011, pp. 80-81; online here [subscription required]) is worthwhile as it discusses how the book relates to Johnson’s other works. But be alert that Wood’s piece gives away much of the plot and broadcasts many of the book’s specific beauties which ought to be left as surprises. Wood writes not so much for the potential reader as for those interested in testing its themes after completing the book.
3. Many people are mentioning the captivating book cover illustration. It is a reproduction of a lithograph (produced in an edition of 250 impressions in 1942) by the American regionalist artist Thomas Hart Benton. Two years later Benton reworked the image as a painting, reversing the direction of movement, adding color, and assigning to the new canvas the sentimental title, “Homeward Bound”:
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A hearty debate could be launched among readers as to whether the black and white image of “The Race” appropriately conveys the theme of “Train Dreams.” Does the wild horse represent the essential character of Grainier? When asked to describe the inspiration for this print, Benton said it was a “common enough scene in the days of the steam engine” to see “horses so often run with the steam trains” (but by the 1940s and the advent of diesel engines the phenomenon had ceased). I think the cover illustration fascinates us because of the horse’s devotion to a quixotic pursuit fueled by an urge to outlast the devilish machine nipping at its tail. Is it fair to say a comparable emotion and a comparable pursuit characterized Grainier’s life?
4. Some reviews mention a version of this novella appeared previously. The question arises, Did Johnson make any changes? I was able to compare the text of the just-released book to the text found in the Summer 2002 edition of The Paris Review, at pages 250-312, where the story made its first appearance. The two versions track exactly, paragraph for paragraph. The only edits I spotted are insignificant: in Chapter 2, the original measurements “one-hundred-twelve-foot” and “sixty-foot-deep” have been replaced with their numerical equivalents, “112-foot” and “60-foot-deep”; and, also in Chapter 2, an originally all-caps statement, RIGHT REVEREND RISING ROCKIES!, has been replaced with its lower case equivalent, right reverend rising rockies!
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Rilke on Rodin
Tuesday, September 6th, 2011.
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Here is a volume smartly conceived by its small press publisher, Archipelago Books. The book is nearly square in size to accommodate long-lined text printed on quality paper. It is sturdily bound in a partial cloth binding. This has the look and feel of a gift book, and one with the surprise of sophisticated content. If the editor’s plan was to see what happens when you assemble in one package the work of three powerful communicators — a living master essayist on matters literary, a titanic sculptor who ushered in new forms, and a poet striving to understand and explicate the invisible — that plan succeeds in sparking insights.
The book opens with an Introduction by William Gass, a long-time Rilke maven and an unsparing arbiter of things cultural. Gass stylishly fulfills his setting-the-stage duty. Using multiple perspectives (historical, aesthetic, biographical, psychological) he helps the reader understand why the young poet developed an awed appreciation for Rodin (the man and his work). We learn how Rilke absorbed the sculptor’s personal and aesthetic credo (“il faut travailler, rien de travailler”) with lasting effect on his mature poetic output.
All that Rilke learned from Rodin he expressed to the world in two significant pieces which make up the bulk of this book: an essay written at the very start of his personal association with the elder artist in 1902; and a public lecture written at the end of their relationship in 1907. Daniel Slager provides fine new translations from the German of both of these texts. Also found tucked within the pages of this book are four groups of eight glossy color photographs by Michael Eastman: a total of 32 close-up images of major pieces by Rodin that Rilke (and Gass) discuss.
The book contains 88 pages of text; this modest nominal count is misleading since in fact the material is the equivalent of about 150 pages in a standard-sized book. As a reading experience the book feels large thanks to the breadth of Professor Gass’ encyclopedic observations, paragraph after paragraph, and thanks to the seemingly unstoppable eruption of Rilke’s insights, sentence after sentence. Rilke reconnoiters the mountain of Rodin, tossing off witticisms (“Fame is no more than the sum of all the misunderstandings that gather around a new name”), evocative imagery (on The Burgher of Calais: “The figures withdraw within themselves, curling up like burning paper”), and grand judgments (“The artist’s task consists of making a world from the smallest part of a thing”). There are extended passages, describing pieces of art and art making, in which Rilke’s prose itself achieves a mountainous beauty.
True, the pieces that make up this assemblage are available elsewhere: Rilke’s essays are available in other volumes (for example, Where Silence Reigns: Selected Prose); Gass’s Introduction is reprinted in his book of essays, A Temple of Texts (American Literature Series); and there are many illustrated art books devoted to Rodin’s work. But as a package, I consider this particular book to be a fine and rewarding enterprise.
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“Me, Molly Midnight, the Artist’s Cat” by Nadja Maril, illustrated by Herman Maril
Saturday, July 30th, 2011.
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Like a heroine in a classic English novel who rises from lowly station to final prosperity, Molly Midnight, the feline star of Nadja Maril’s children’s book (published in 1977 and still in print), uses her wits and wiles to fulfill her destiny. Tracking her progress is as much fun (in miniature form of course) as following the exploits of her possible namesake, Moll Flanders.
Molly’s destiny is to serve as an artist’s model, and in that role she finds lasting stature. But more importantly, she achieves for herself “the same kind of peace and contentment” she sees each day on the face of her painter-protector, as he diligently works in his studio. Not a bad lesson for young listeners and readers.
The book is illustrated with reproductions of 11 paintings by the author’s father, Herman Maril. Created over the period from 1962 to 1976, the pictures are a mini-exhibition of this gentle modernist and master of color. He also made four charming new drawings especially for this book.
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I own a small painting by Maril titled “Circus Horse” (gouache on light blue tinted paper, 1940). It pre-dates the paintings illustrated in “Me, Molly Midnight” by several decades, but is a good example of how brilliantly Maril could apply his fluid style to create a captivating picture of an animal.
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A master of seascapes, landscapes and still-life works, Maril is an American artist who deserves to be better known. Currently on view at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore (until August 30, 2011) is an exhibition of 40 of his works.
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Edward Hopper’s “Approaching a City”
Saturday, July 23rd, 2011.
This morning I discovered that the British newspaper, “The Independent,” has for the last several years been publishing a weekly series of short essays on individual works of art. The ongoing project’s name is “Great Works.” From what I’ve seen and read, most of the selections are interesting pieces you’re not likely to have come across in Janson or Gardner art history texts. The last 12 months’ profiles of paintings, sculptures and other works of art are available for reading online, here. Recently, art historian Michael Glover has taken over writing duties from Tom Lubbock, continuing a tradition of elegant and intelligent analyses.
Last month Glover contributed an appreciation of “Approaching a City” (1946), an Edward Hopper painting that now hangs in the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC.
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Glover’s passionate analysis of the formal and thematic aspects of the work reminds me of the large rewards that every great Hopper painting surrenders to the discerning eye. Stand openly and patiently before a Hopper painting and you will experience muteness giving way to tantalizing meanings. Such is the case with this mysterious, unpeopled urban landscape.
Mr. Glover’s piece inspired me to share some thoughts of my own.
What I see in “Approaching a City” is an artist using the static medium of an easel painting to comment on the temporal, to upend our notion of time’s arrow, and, finally, to question the very American credo of progress. A tall order, yet Hopper manages all of this through the simple arrangement of buildings in the background.
What Hopper constructs in the upper portion of the picture is essentially a timeline, but one in which the conventional proposition (left to right = past to future) suffers a reversal. If you decide to read the frieze “backward” (from right to left) you will find yourself in the comfortable position of keeping chronological time. In the right margin you see huddled a pair of urban townhouses. These dwellings appear to date from the 18th or early 19th century (possibly from the Federal period) and they exhibit pleasantly solid forms, although their shutters have been lost and their brick fronts are now white-washed. To their left is a later 19th century residential building. It is two stories taller and retains architectural adornments such as a cornice, stone lintels, and warm brick facing. Side by side, you see that these are human-scaled, human-purposed structures.
Then, as you move again to the left, you encounter a gap. Even though the abutment of the railroad underpass obscures a street level view, you intuit this gap to be a cross-street. But you sense it is much more than that. For across this divide is a massive 20th century structure: artless, soulless (its fenestration dead-eyed), brutally concrete. It has laid siege to all remaining territory, even unto the sky. It is a chilling vision. If, in revulsion, you turn your eyes back to the right side, the twin dwellings will appear to be in protective hiding, cowering in fear of the future onslaught.
Hopper’s architectural tableau is a statement of decline, of devolution. What was Hopper thinking about? Our culture? Our politics? Our moral sense?
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Additional notes:
1. If anyone doubts my opinion of the rich rewards of Hopper’s paintings, ask yourself what other artist produced a body of paintings sufficient to form the basis for an opera?
2. In his essay, Michael Glover notices how the painting does not allow the viewer to rest contentedly anywhere on its surface. This is agonizingly so in the foreground: “Our gaze keeps shifting leftwards as if we are afflicted by some kind of a tic that jerks our head in that direction, as if we are being forced to acknowledge and inspect, again and again, that sucking promise of blankness, blackness” of the left-side tunnel. I thought it interesting that Glover assumes we are all destined to be drawn into the tunnel, that trains will descend into its maw. Speaking objectively, it is a matter of simple statistics that it is equally probable that a train we are traveling on will emerge from this tunnel. But emotionally I think Glover is correct. There is a sinister air of dread to the tunnel, indeed an air of surrealistic upheaval, that makes us think the darker direction is more likely. Compare the unlikely fate of Magritte’s train engine which happily emerges into domestic comfort.
3. In examining different stratum of time, time present and times past, Hopper can be seen as participating in a pessimistic strain in American thought and culture. It is of a piece with F. Scott Fitzgerald (“And so we beat on, boats against the current, born back ceaselessly in the past”) and Woody Allen (The “Midnight in Paris” visits to between-the-wars and Belle Epoque eras).
4. Hopper painted “Approaching the City” in 1946, which I think is significant. Most Americans had reason to believe 1946 marked, finally, an awakening from years of nightmare: world-wide economic Depression, the rise of totalitarian regimes, the Holocaust, the horrible destruction of WWII. Surely some optimism was deserved. Was Hopper not of this view? Did he paint “Approaching the City” as rebuke to, if not an explicit rejection of, healing and recovery? I’m thinking now of Winslow Homer, who welcomed an end to the Civil War’s horrors in a different fashion. Here is “The Veteran in a New Field” (1865):
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Felled by storm wind this weekend
Monday, July 4th, 2011.
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“How Do You Hug a Porcupine?” by Laurie Isop and Gwen Millward
Sunday, June 26th, 2011.
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The storyline of Laurie Isop’s “How Do You Hug a Porcupine?” follows a simple and naturally pleasing formula. One by one, eighteen children pair up with one or more huggable animals.
What ensues is a festival of the warm-and-fuzzies.
Featured are a dog, cat, horse, cow, pig, ostrich, giraffe, bunnies, a yak and more. Coming in last is the most challenging of the potential hug receivers: a porcupine. But, Hooray! Undaunted, one little boy accepts the challenge. A big heart and patient ingenuity (hint/spoiler: his clever solution involves some well-placed marshmallows) are all it takes to succeed. The book’s final page delivers us into a warm embrace.
All of this activity is captured in Gwen Millward’s sweet, 1950’s-style illustrations, created with pencil, ink and watercolor. Her pictures will bring smiles especially to baby boomers who are now grandparents. Notable are several views of the porcupine with quills extended, and one of an elephant modeled in washes of gray. If your child or grandchild is a budding artist, and likes to draw animals, consider this book as a means to inspire her or him to learn the ways of watercolor.
A Spanish translation by Argentina Palacios Ziegler appears just below the original English on each page. Ziegler favors communicating the original text’s meaning, rather than slavishly duplicating its meter or rhyme scheme. (Her only arguable misstep occurs when she chooses to use the verb “de vomitar” to convey the idea of the boy’s stomach “feeling kind of queasy,” just so she can rhyme the previous line ending, “va a dar.”)
The moral of the story is as old as the New Testament and as ever-relevant as the Golden Rule: We must try to find a way to muster our courage and reach out to those who, because of some seeming difference, appear unapproachable. And yet there is nothing heavy-handed about the message in “How Do You Hug a Porcupine?” It is one of those books that can inspire, from young readers and maybe the listener in your lap, both childish and non-childish thoughts.
NOTE: The version of the book I read was one of 3 million free copies found in Cheeries boxes this Spring. It is a small paperback (7″ x 5 ¼”). On July 26, Simon & Schuster will publish a larger, hardback edition, but in English only. Expect copies of the bilingual version to pop up at used bookstores, such as stores on Amazon, here. Additional background from General Mills/Cheerios can be found here. Laurie Isop talks about her book in a video posted here.
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A Bumper-Sticker That Nevers Goes Out of Style
Sunday, April 10th, 2011.
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