"A Short History of America"

I just re-watched the documentary Crumb about artist Robert Crumb for the first time in about seventeen years. It has this great segment depicting his brilliant "A Short History of America" panels:

Burning is tumbling

Well, looks like my Burning House picture was passed around at tumblr. Much obliged to whoever started it and those who re-tumbled.

Art in a small town

First the Auschwitz sign, now this?

What's a person to make of our times? The famed Christ the Redeemer statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro, one of the New Seven Wonders of the World (oh, by the way), was vandalized last week:


The Christ the Redeemer statue appears surrounded by scaffoldings for a cleaning operation, on March 8 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Brazilian officials were Friday cleaning up graffiti on the famed Christ statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro, which was vandalized after access was cut off in the wake of devastating rains. (AFP/File/Antonio Scorza)


Ray Anthony

A river of a novel

The illustrations are by Edward Windsor Kemble, and were included in the original, 1884 publication of the novel.

The French call an episodic, wandering novel a "roman fleuve" - the novel as a river. Such is Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I've just reread it and have a couple of thoughts. First, being a little bit older and more experienced now than when I last read the book, I felt really sorry for Huck, not yet fourteen-years-old during the year of the novel's events, 1839. Despite being raised in hellish conditions by an abusive, alcoholic father in dirt-floor squalor and famine-level poverty, he is unfailingly clever (smart even) and surprisingly sensitive and sweet. Jim is treated so poorly throughout (and depicted so stereotypically, I assume), he almost doesn't register as a human being. Is he simply a stereotype, or were enslaved Africans really like that?


Secondly, Ernest Hemingway was absolutely right about the final chapters:

If you read it you must stop where the Nigger Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating. But it's the best book we've had. All American writing comes from that.

Hemingway is also quoted as saying the book "devolves into little more than minstrel-show satire and broad comedy" after Jim loses his freedom. That is a very accurate description. I found Tom Sawyer and his elaborate schemes tiresome, so I read through those parts very quickly. I kind of like the way this person succinctly puts it:

Read for my Mark Twain class, started on 2/2 and finished on 2/7. I loved the first 31 chapters of this book. LOVED. Huck is just the greatest character, and Jim is awesome, and yes. Unfortunately, in chapter 32, Tom Sawyer saunters in and has to mess it up for everyone. What a little assh*le. Go away, Tom. No one likes you.

Yet the passages where Huck and Jim are out on the raft, floating down the Mississippi River ("the monstrous big river"), are prose as poetry, beautiful and stunning. Their drifting journey down the Mississippi "may be one of the most enduring images of escape and freedom in all of American literature" (source).

From chapter 19 ("The Duke and the Dauphin Come Aboard"):

"Two or three nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum by, they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely...Sometimes we'd have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest time...It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened..."

"Bob Peak: Father of the Modern Hollywood Poster"

Bob Peak in 1985
A really cool art gallery, Gallery Nucleus, will feature the works of Bob Peak all month long. Bob Peak was an American commercial illustrator best known for innovative design in the development of the modern movie poster. His artwork has been used on the cover of Time magazine, TV Guide, and Sports Illustrated. He also illustrated advertisements and U.S. postage stamps. His style is instantly recognizable. If you are like me, Peak's images were constantly somewhere in the periphery of your childhood view. As I was growing up during the '70s and '80s, Peak's art was to the visual what composer John Williams's music was to the aural. Just a sample:

Apocalypse Now

Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
(Peak did all the original cast movie posters)

Excalibur

Superman: The Movie

Rollerball

I wish I lived near Alhambra, California! I guess I will just have to settle for Space Center Houston's "The Cinema of George Lucas" artifacts exhibit.

(Pictures source)

Diedrich Rulfs: Master Architect of Nacogdoches

May 16, 2011 UPDATE: In honor of The Daily Sentinel (subscription only) having an "interview" with Diedrich Rulfs, and a link back to me, I hereby make all the pages of this ridiculously high-priced Blurb book temporarily viewable. Wouldn't you much prefer the actual, tactile sensation of finger on high-quality page? Or an attractive edition sitting on your very own coffee table?? I'm just sayin'.

Announcing the completion and publication of the 2nd (and hopefully final) edition of Diedrich Rulfs: Master Architect of Nacogdoches. This 130-page book (previous version was 112) includes all of the photographs I used in my posts devoted to the architecture of Diedrich Rulfs, and several I didn't. Two copies of this book are available at the University of Houston library. You can get a free taste at my Rulfs Flickr set.

Diedrich Rulfs...

By Chris Adams

Book Preview

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Philip Roth on cell phones

In Exit Ghost (2007), writer Philip Roth's alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, returns like Rip Van Winkle to a post-9/11 New York after being away for eleven years :

What surprised me most my first few days walking around the city? The most obvious thing--the cell phones...I remembered New York when the only people walking up Broadway seemingly talking to themselves were crazy. What had happened in these ten years for there suddenly to be so much to say--so much so pressing that it couldn't wait to be said? Everywhere I walked, somebody was approaching me talking on a phone and someone was behind me talking on a phone. Inside the cars, the drivers were on the phone. When I took a taxi, the cabbie was on the phone. For one who frequently went without talking to anyone for days at a time, I had to wonder what that had prevously held them up and collapsed in people to make incessant talking into a telephone preferable to walking about under no one's surveillance, momentarily solitary, assimilating the streets through one's animal senses and thinking the myriad thoughts that the activities of a city inspire. For me it made the streets appear comic and the people ridiculous. And yet it seemed like a real tragedy, too. To eradicate the experience of separation must inevitably have a dramatic effect. What will the consequence be? (pp. 63, 64)

Palestine mural

The last time I went to Palestine (November 2006), gas was $1.98 a gallon. Today it was $3.34 as I returned for a second look. I found a couple of things that really excited me, and I had somehow overlooked during my previous visit. I'll do a post about this visit sometime very soon.

I do wonder about the FDR on that mural - it looks as if the muralist was originally planning Clinton, and realized he/she hadn't included Roosevelt.

Edward Hopper

Self-Portrait (1925-30)
From the Wikipedia entry:

Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching. Born in upper Nyack, New York to a prosperous dry-goods merchant, Hopper studied illustration and painting in New York City at the New York Institute of Art and Design.

Summer Interior (1909)
Hopper made four trips to Europe to study the emerging art scene there, but unlike many of his contemporaries who imitated the abstract cubist experiments, the idealism and detail of the realist painters resonated with Hopper. His early projects reflect the realist influence with an emphasis on color and shape. Eschewing the usual New England subjects of seascapes or boats, Hopper was attracted to Victorian architecture, although it was no longer in fashion. According to Boston Museum of Fine Arts curator Carol Troyen, "He really liked the way these houses with their turrets and towers and porches and mansard roofs and ornament cast wonderful shadows. He always said that his favorite thing was painting sunlight on the side of a house."


A nice mix of Hopper's work to the tune of Glenn Miller's "Tuxedo Junction"
While he worked for several years as a commercial artist, Hopper continued painting with moderate success yet not as much as he yearned for. He sold a variety of small prints and watercolors to tourists and minor publication yet received only a casual if warm response from curators and gallery owners.

The Mansard Roof (1923)
According to Troyen, Hopper's "breakthrough work" was The Mansard Roof, painted in 1923 during Hopper's first summer in Gloucester, MA. His former art school classmate and later wife, Josephine Nivison Hopper, suggested he enter it in the Brooklyn Museum annual watercolor show, along with some other paintings. The Mansard Roof was purchased by the museum for its permanent collection, for the sum of $100.

House by the Railroad (1925)
In 1925 he produced House by the Railroad, a classic work that marks his artistic maturity. The piece is the first of a series of stark urban and rural scenes that uses sharp lines and large shapes, played upon by unusual lighting to capture the lonely mood of his subjects. He derived his subject matter from the common features of American life — gas stations, motels, the railroad, or an empty street — and its inhabitants.

The Sheridan Theatre (1928)
The Night Window (1928)
Another fantastic video, this one with photographs of Hopper at work, with Benny Goodman swing accompaniment.
Photo from this site, which has a fairly complete, alphabetically ordered list (with copies) of his work.

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

The New Seven Wonders of the World are: The Great Wall (China), Petra (Jordan), Christ Redeemer (I'm not sure how that's a wonder; definitely impressive, but a wonder? - Brazil), Machu Picchu (Peru), Chichén Itzá (Mexico), The Roman Colosseum (Italy), and The Taj Mahal (India).

Here are the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World:

The Great Pyramid of Giza (2700-2300 B. C.)
The Great Pyramid is the only Ancient Wonder that does not require a description by early historians and poets for us to know about it. Its appearance, size, and shape are known (unlike the other six). Ironically, it is the oldest, yet only surviving of the Seven Ancient Wonders.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon
The Gardens may have only existed in the minds of Greek poets and historians. Supposedly, it was a palace with legendary gardens built on the banks of the Euphrates river by King Nebuchadnezzar II

The Temple of Artemis
Dedicated to the goddess Diana, construction began about 555 B.C. It burned down in 356 B.C., but it was rebuilt by Alexander the Great.

The Statue of Zeus at Olympia (430 B.C.)
"In his right hand a figure of Victory made from ivory and gold. In his left hand, his scepter inlaid with all metals, and an eagle perched on the sceptre. The sandals of the god are made of gold, as is his robe." - Pausanias the Greek (2nd century AD)

The Mausoleum at Halikarnassos (353 B.C.)
Like the Great Pyramid, it was the burial place of an ancient king. Its sculptured friezes apparently made it a thing of great beauty, and likely led to its inclusion on the list.

The Colossus of Rhodes (280 B.C.)
Between its building and destruction are a mere 56 years (an earthquake snapped the statue off at the knees). Why was it included? This quote from Pliny the Elder - "But even lying on the ground, it is a marvel," suggests why.

The Lighthouse of Alexandria (279 B.C.)
The Lighthouse of Alexandria is the only one of the Seven Ancient Wonders to have had a practical use. It was the tallest building on Earth during its existence. It is believed that the mirror's reflection could be seen more than 35 miles off-shore. And the remains could be seen as recently as 1480.

image from CNN
Some of the facts come from this excellent site. It's some fascinating stuff!

Playtime in the woods

This is one of the reasons it's nice to live in a small, college town like Nacogdoches. While on a walk at the S.F.A. Mast Arboretum,



I found what at first glance appeared to either be something out of The Blair Witch Project, or the work of a disturbed mind. It turned out to be something called "Tree Art." Who knew? It's reflective of the bohemian fringe around this part of East Texas. This one is particularly original and bizarre.
*TREE ART*
(Playtime in the woods)
TREES HAVE A LIFE FORCE, OR (ENERGY) THAT IS NURTURING. I like to recycle the organic life & create a "tree art" mixing in some of my paintings. I believe in cyclical time and this piece in the woods hopefully reflects that,

Mary Coronis
12/2006