New book review published

Just found out this week (due to voting on a membership dues survey) that the most recent issue of ARLIS/NA Reviews, covering new books in art history and related disciplines, has been posted.

This issue (June 2008) includes my review of Robert Verhoogt’s Art in Reproduction: Nineteenth-Century Prints after Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Jozef Israëls and Ary Scheffer: http://www.arlisna.org/resources/reviews/index.html

Direct link to review PDF: http://www.arlisna.org/resources/reviews/2008/06/Verhoogt.pdf

(ARLIS/NA = Art Libraries Society of North America.)

Knotless

Reading a bit about the financial crisis when I came across this picture of William H. Gross, co-head of Pacific Investment Management Company.  Strange to see a financial-type with his tie completely undone & shirt unbuttoned, microphone lying on the table.  Perhaps this crisis is worse than I thought, and I think it’s pretty awful.

from NY Times.

Richard Armstrong

I was glad to find out today that the Guggenheim chose Richard Armstrong as its new Director– I remember taking several trips to the Carnegie in Pittsburgh and was especially impressed by his 1995 International there.  It will be nice having him right around the corner.

Concord grapes!

My heart nearly jumped out of my rib cage this afternoon when I noticed Concord grapes on the shelf in the produce section as I was picking up a couple things for the week’s meals.

Concord grapes are my number one favorite food (that’s saying a lot if you know how much I like food) and I look forward to this time every year when they appear for a brief span.  Perhaps I wouldn’t like them so much if they were permanently around– more proof of the benefits of eating (relatively) locally.

I was just getting over the post-Labor Day <sigh> I experience on that particular Monday night every year.  Can’t help thinking that the summer attitude is losing its grip though I am trying to hang on, so this is a welcome development.  Their appearance was a sweet way to get on with it already!

let’s go 30-for-30

One of my favorite things to do is to make lists, but this fall after seeing the NY magazine fall preview I decided I’d really try to make this an Art fall. So here’s their list of 30 “unmissable exhibitions ” and I’m challenging myself to see each of them. (If you bother to count, there are more than 30 because NY mag lumped a couple together in the original list.)

For my own convenience I’ve reordered them by closing date. Original article: http://nymag.com/guides/fallpreview/2008/art/49472/

nu haiku

mist nets
flung by the rushing waterfall
Spring’s applause

Writing up my notes and filling out datasheets for my bird survey trip back in the beginning of June and I came across the following quasi-haiku I wrote (at the bottom of the “estimating cone mast” page) about 8:00 am at Diamond Notch waterfall at the base of the trail. As the poem came to mind I happened to be close to the pictured spot (photo by Ryan in June 2007).

Postcard postlude

Postcards have unexpectedly been a recurring theme for the past couple of weeks (e.g. sea grape leaves; shermania; boring postcards), so another coincidence carries me beyond the tipping point of posting.

What brings me to the topic at this late/early hour is a page on the The Center for Land Use Interpretation web site (http://cluistore.org/mepopo.html; I kind of like that: “mepopo.html”) — I was routed there by way of a post on the Rhizome.org news page — hocking a few sample postcard sets by the “postcard king of the west,” Merle Porter. He was a one-man postcard factory and at his peak, according to CLUI, he was driving 1,000 miles a week to take photos and circulating one million cards a year.

I have no choice but to completely respect someone who works with such apparent diligence at their craft for fifty years, and also hold out some hope that I may find a fraction of that kind of passion for something within myself.

(The CLUI online newsletter looks pretty neat too: http://www.clui.org/clui_4_1/lotl/index.html. Unfortunately there’s no feed or email notification, so you’ll have to remember to check back. Boy, am I getting mentally lazy or what?)

mixologisms

Had to record somewhere the contents of my our potions consumed Saturday night (aka date night) at the Flatiron Lounge on 19th St. Our bartender was Adam and he knew what he was doing.

Something I can’t remember the name of (Elaine’s)

• bourbon
• carpano (sweet vermouth)
• grand marnier
• Benedictine
• chocolate bitters
• shaken with ice, strained
• orange peel (flamed, wiped on rim)

“Agave Old-Fashioned”

• Tequila anejo
• agave syrup
• ice, stirred
• lemon peel (removed after stirring)
• Laphroaig mist swirl
• orange peel for garnish
• over rocks

Something else we were given for free without a name, very clean.

• tequila
• manzanilla sherry
• splash of pear brandy
• lemon peel
• with ice, strained

Capitalization, hierarchy and style

Was taking a look at some of the NY Times slideshows of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to New York today. One of the things that struck me stylistically while doing so (in addition to the red shoes he wore with the white double-breasted overcoat during his visit to Ground Zero) was the following sentence:

• “The pope and Cardinal Edward M. Egan, the archbishop of New York, walked on the ramp.”

A caption on this photo, the capitalization decision struck me as hierarchically backwards: it seems funny that while “pope” was not capped, “Cardinal” was. To me, one would logically capitalize Pope, the head of the Church, if one has decided to do so for those whom he appoints to office, the Cardinals. I would think that the NYT editorial style calls for such consistency. In any case, it sounds like a good excuse to have a fact-finding look in the Chicago Manual of Style.

july 23, 2008 = toofunky

Excited to learn today about George Michael’s upcoming US tour, who apparently last did the circuit 17 years ago — so we had to run straight to tktmstr and buy a pair for this July 23. So we’ll be celebrating Loretta & Brian’s 3rd anniversary in Madison Sq Garden.

Seats aren’t fantastic because of 72 presales and I’m sure lots of prospective buying by ticket scalpers and bulk resellers like stub hub, but we’ll be there. And we will be (as my colleague Erika is fond of saying) 150,000% funky, I promise you.