THE BRONX, WEDNESDAY, JULY 25TH, 5:40 PM
Shot from the window of a northbound Harlem Line train.
Art
CIVIC VIRTUE?
There is an article in the Times today by Sarah Maslin Nir about “Civic Virtue,” am immense marble sculpture by Frederick MacMonnies. First unveiled in 1922 in City Hall Park, the statue, depicts a broad-chested nude man representing Virtue standing above two vanquished naked women representing Vice. From the beginning the statue, whose main, triumphant …
BURNING BANKS
I must say I kind of love this painting by Alex Schaefer, a Los Angeles artist. I really appreciate this peacefully anarchic protest. According to the website at Hive Gallery, where this and other paintings in this series are being exhibited, “Alex wants us to “get over our apathy”…to let the regulators, economists, bankers know …
MAURICE SENDAK AND HIS ANTI-HEROES
Here’s a new piece done for my new friends at The American Interest: The incidences of writers taking ownership of words are few and far between. Moses or whoever wrote Genesis certainly owns begat; the authors of the Declaration own inalienable; and Maurice Sendak owns rumpus. I cannot hear the word without thinking of reading …
RONALD SEARLE, 1920-2011
The peerless Ronald Searle has died in his sleep in France at the age of 91. Best known for a manically gothic style that invigorated his illustrations of the frantically anarchic schoolgirls of St. Trinian’s, the grinning, lustful oenophiles in The Illustrated Winespeak, the Molesworth series, The Rake’s Progress, The Adventures of Baron Muchausen, and …
HIGH ON THE HIGH LINE
Yesterday I finally took myself out of the running to become the last person in the greater metropolitan area to visit the High Line, the terrific elevated urban park built on the elevated rail bed that runs through Chelsea on Manhattan’s far west side. I will now add my puny voice to the great chorus …
MADISON SQUARE PARK, JUNE 9, 2011, 5:15 PM
I had the great good fortune to be visiting the office of my accountant near Madison Square yesterday, which gave me the opportunity to see this wondrous sculpture sitting in the middle of the lawn. It is called Echo, and it is by the Spanish artist Jaume Plensa. Forty feet tall, and sprinkled in marble …
MORT KUNSTLER
It’s rare to get a phone call from a fan; it’s totally unprecedented when the caller is Mort Kunstler, one of the premier artists of Civil War themes, and one of the premier illustrators of his era. Kunstler has been reading the Disunion series in the Times, and much to my delight, offered me a …
AWESOME!
On a visit to National Geographic‘s website, I found this incredible photograph of volcanic lightning taken by Italian photographer and scientist Marco Fulle as flew over Iceland’s erupting Eyjafjallajökull volcano last April. Who could imagine such terrible beauty?