Category Archives: Arts

Windy City Journal #2

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Dissolute Hipster Bell-Ringer

Another beautiful day here in Chicago, the temperature hovering around a seasonally balmy 40-something degrees.  Spent the afternoon at the Art Institute, which, despite several galleries being closed due to construction, continues to impress and amaze.

Galleries 200 and 201, the Impressionists, were truly marvellous.  No matter how many times you see Renoir, Degas, Suerat, Monet, Manet, etc. they can still provoke awe.  What a wonderful collection!

Caught the fellow above along South State Street

More wit from beyond

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A Mgic Story

My RSS aggregator just popped this into my consciousness, direct from the late Theresa Duncan’s blog, The Wit of the Staircase:

I thought he might have decided, looking back, that it had all been some sort of bizarre coincidence, or maybe a highly original prank. He said, “At the time, of course, I was quite shaken by it.” And now? “I am still shaken by it.”
The Wit of the Staircase: Basil Rathbone’s Ghosts

Sorry, just had to reproduce that portion of the original, as it speaks to how those of us who miss Theresa feel when these automaton apparitions knock on our mailboxes.

The posting is about a ghost story from Basil Rathbone, as related by Dick Cavett.

The site editor, Theresa’s friend Glenn O’Brien (I think) added this note to the end of the post:

Editor’s Note: Theresa had left this post to appear automatically on this date (another will appear on New Year’s Eve).

Ooh goody, once more we will waken to find letters from beyond in our mailbox.

Sandblasted Into Oblivion

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Is it intolerance, myopic fastidiousness, or outright stupidity?

What is the biggest eyesore on the streets of east London? A giant rat with a knife and fork in its paws, apparently. Or a rioter throwing flowers. Hackney council says these subversive images are making the place look dirty and have to go – even if they were spray-painted by Banksy, the art world’s most unlikely superstar.
…
“We have to clean up the walls,” said a spokeswoman, confirming that the street cleaners are ready to blast some of modern British art’s most distinctive images away as part of a zero-tolerance policy. “We can’t make a decision as to whether something is art or graffiti. The Government judges us on the number of clean walls we have.”
You dirty rat: street cleaners prepare to blast Banksy away – Independent Online Edition > This Britain

Sunrise

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Sunrise over Lake Michigan

The sunrise was so fucking beautiful this morning.

The impressionists laid down their brushes in surrender and bowed down before Ra.

As I left the shore a long, high, sharp cloud lay like a scimitar across the sky, its blade slicing that great god in two.

Thoughts On Theresa Duncan

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manequin-head-sm.png
I took a break from my attempts to understand the SPP and thought it might be interesting to look at Theresa Duncan. Kind of wonder what your obsession with this woman was was all about.

First read various articles and posts by her friends and acquaintances. They do paint a portrait of woman with a keen eye and focused mind. Though most sensed or saw there was a dark, brooding, and paranoid current sweeping her through the later part of life. This intrigued me. So I next turned to Duncan’s blog. I read some of her posts and looked at some of the pictures. I was struck by an infectious and seductive quality her blog had. But have to admit there was an uneasiness conveyed by the words and pictures, at least for me.

It is hard to exactly put my finger on why I felt uneasiness. Guess it had to do with intimate sensuality displayed as a lofty idea, one always just out of reach. It has a feel of an old era existentialist struck in the middle of a sidewalk, which is crowded with beautiful modern day posers.

Anyways, kind of understand your obsession. Its gauzy, diffuse style is so honed, it is a sensuous art.

A Sobering Look At The Summer Of Love

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Twiggy - 1967

The Independent Online has an interesting reflection on the things we maybe don’t remember about 1967 and the summer of love:

But such artists as The Seekers are as much a part of the summer of 1967 as The Beatles, and their vast record sales cannot be entirely explained away by their appeal to a middle-aged public. The fact that “Georgy Girl” was the theme song to a popular film certainly boosted its success. It also garnered the only known Oscar nomination for a member of the Carry On team; the lyrics were by Jim Dale.
But this was also the year that Engelbert Humperdinck’s “Release Me” beat the best double-A side in pop history, “Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane”, to No 1 in the hit parade, Vicky Leandros sang a much-hummed Eurovision entry, “L’amour est bleu”, and Des O’Connor entered the Top 10 with “Careless Hands”.
1967: The truth about the summer of love – Independent Online Edition > This Britain

Fashion patterns - 1967

Laughing at the Gods

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Over at Heading East, a superb blog by Raul Guteerrez, comes this beautiful piece of experiential prose. Do yourself a favor and follow the link, read the whole piece:

In the office of Melvin Hurwitz you will find four guys in ill fitting grey suits hunched over metal desks, all in a row. The lights are florescent and harsh, the walls are dingy, haphazardly decorated with pictures of wives and old pictures of Mr. Hurwitz who sits at the last desk. While the other men chat on the phone or sort through papers, Hurwitz sits with his hands on his desk with a look of real calm. He’s ready to do business.
Heading East: Hubris

Damning with Faint Praise

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Joanna Newsom

Just received an announcement of an upcoming performance by Joanna Newsom in my humble town. It included this quote from a Pitchfork Media review of her album (“her 2006 masterwork”) “Ys”:

She swoops into the sky and races across the ground, names every plant and every desire, and never feels less than real. The people who hear this record will split into two crowds: The ones who think it’s silly and precious, and the ones who, once they hear it, won’t be able to live without it. (9.4)
Pitchfork Media

Wow. Who else has a sneaking suspicion, sound unheard, that they’ll land in that first cohort?

Seems Newsom just inspires such insipid writing. Try this one on for size:

Though it’s unfair to reduce an artist to a few superficial descriptors, Joanna Newsom has undeniably emerged as a candidate for such caricature. A classically trained harpist with long red hair and a little girl’s voice, dressed like a character from a medieval-themed restaurant, Newsom is all but asking you with her otherworldly performances and allegorical songwriting to label her a pixie prodigy.
Paste Magazine | Joanna Newsom Tugs at the Harp Strings

Not even a good pun to wrap that one up.

Late news of the late

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I was totally blown off course and beached on the sands of emotion tonight when I received this message in my personal email account:

From: “A Friend”
Subject: Theresa Duncan
I’m a freelance writer with an assignment to write about her recent death–did you know her very well?

I am shocked!!

I have known Theresa on-line for about a year, and always found her blog, The Wit Of The Staircase, to be a pleasant diversion, a reliable guide, and a valuable window into areas of interest which I would not otherwise have followed. She taught me about the importance of scent and the art of parfum, the proper place of art criticism and the value of the use of the third person.

Theresa was so young, barely 40, and now her husband, Jeremy Blake, has followed her into the abyss of suicide. I know not why for either. I have abandoned the third person here, because this is just so abjectly personal that there is no way that the third person could do her and Jeremy the honor that they deserve for the contributions that they made in life, and the promise that they left us. I am so, so upset and pissed off at them both right now.

Sleep well, my young and foolish friends, my children of the staircase. I will never forget you.