To Signify: A Tincture of Pink
“Adults and children huddle around a brazier, or coal fire, to hear ghost stories.” “A man, perhaps the …
Words+Literature
Teach Your Children Well
A slice of a Wikipedia column of information is enough to read how unreliable that information is. You can whack off a part of every …
The Man Who Couldn’t Mean
Trump Talk Bubble We’ve all heard about the little man who wasn’t there but now we have the fatsy man who couldn’t mean. What do …
Immigrants With Pets
–––––– I’m enjoying the pleasures of writing with pointed words — as if this administration was Saint Sebastian and my arrows would sink in. –––––– …
Black experience, flip and deep
I need to write this. Now. I’d heard of a prize-winning novel by a black man writing of black experience. A quick search turned up …
Diane Savona Sees Beyond Cloth
Diane Savona — her textile work wows me with its ingenuity, personal vision, its way of making more than you’d expect of little. A thinker. All …
The Art of Tuesday, 020916
Try to take in that over 7 billion minds are alive with you on Earth today. While you’re focused on your thing a Chinese fisherman focuses on his cormorant. He’s …
Amazing Grace
My mother’s family was actively American. Example: a few of us kept an Underground Railroad safe house for escaping slaves in the Civil War. I say a …
Nictating Language: Language That Winks
I have long believed that a rich vocabulary could be used as code to imbue a risque glow in everyday text. Nudge nudge. I’ve …
New York City Pleasures
* Links to New York food and attractions are at the bottom of this post. Leap ahead to access them. Detail of a dress …
About “John Saturnall’s Feast” part 2
A critic once described the painter James Ensor’s inner world as too redolent of pitiable psychological distortions for me to visit longer than half …
About “John Saturnall’s Feast” part 1
Book illustration by Andrew Davidson via food orleans Should you choose to partake of Lawrence Norfolk’s new novel John …
A Trail of Herrings
The Herring Net by Winslow Homer via Wikimedia In Winslow Homer’s The Herring Net you don’t see the …
13, or 2, Ways of Seeing
Buddha, by Nam June Paik TV Buddha by Nam June Paik via paikstudios TV Buddha by Nam June Paik via thefaketory Buddha …
mousemade (adj.)
There’s a new player on the web called Creative Market. They describe their wares as mousemade, a term I’ve long sought. Not handmade, not machine-made. And …
Drawing and Writing with Light
This is the reconstruction of a June 19 blog post that suffered digital destruction. Comments evaporated, updates have been made. __________________________________ Lucid line, a line …
Maybe the 100 Most Beautiful Words in English
A long time ago a friend opined that the most beautiful word in the English language was syphilis. You could hear in his delivery that …