baublefobbersleuth

[baublefobbersleuth]

Art Critic Roberta Smith Retires. Damn!

Claire Merchlinsky [New York Times caption and illustration] Over her 38-year career at The Times, Ms. Smith cultivated a reputation for intimate observations conveyed in accessible prose. I became a critic in the same way a lot of people become critics: by immersing themselves in a subject and having enough confidence to listen to their opinions. Criticism isn’t really an academic subject. I…

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#art

[baublefobbersleuth]

The Sound of Inference

Hello, Inference, my old friend… It’s possible to attribute eccentric form to lineated discourse that’s unscannable. Discard capitalization, italics and punctuation. What’s left is line. Lines have their element, like a fish its water, in white space aka page space. The writer commandeers spacing as a tool with which to impinge upon the reader’s faculty for apprehending utterance. Danielle…

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#language #poetry #reading

[baublefobbersleuth]

The Zen of Falling Short

Hakuin Ekaku’s masterpiece, “Giant Daruma,” 18th century, which depicts the glowering visage of the Indian monk remembered in Japan as the founding patriarch of what became Zen, wears its Zen ideas lightly. Credit… The Gitter-Yelen Collection. [New York Times caption and illustration] The thin, gray quality of the old man’s face suggest [sic] that even a Zen master’s identity is evanescent,…

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#painting

[baublefobbersleuth]

However You Chi-Ching

Shopify helps you do your thinghowever you chi-ching. Mollify. Fortify. Qualify. Beautify. Ossify. The ‘-fy’ pattern is a fertile template for neologisms associated with chi-chinging. “Shopify” is a platform, an ambience, a tool suite, a code base, a launchpad, whatever; what matters is it aids thing-doing in the service of chi-chinging. That much the slogan delivers. However… You should know…

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#language #miscellaneous

[baublefobbersleuth]

How Translating Helps Me Learn: Ibn al-Rūmī, Verse 1

1 ḏāda ^an muqlaẗ(ī) laḏīḏ(a)-l-manām(i) šuḡl(u)-ha ^an-hu bi-d-dumū^(i)-s-sijām(i) For me, a learning translation (which may lead later to an “artistic” one) starts with inserting English phraseology that tracks the Arabic as closely as possible. This creates a “trot” that mirrors the source’s structures. The goal is to understand how the Arabic text is functioning and to retain vocabulary.…

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#Arabic-English #language #translation

[baublefobbersleuth]

Bombay Beach, On California’s Dead Sea (The Salton)

Ms. Kenneally’s photographs straddled the line between glamour and destruction but also showcased a community’s pride in survival. [New York Times caption and illustration] When I was there, I walked the streets with Denia Nealy, an artist who goes by Czar, and my friend Brenda Ann Kenneally, a photographer and writer, who would shout names, and people would instantly emerge. A stranger offered…

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#miscellaneous

[baublefobbersleuth]

Peter Schjeldahl on Richard Serra

I would dislike him if I could build a case from the visible evidence equal in strength to my itch to dislike him. But beauty kicks in. (c) 2023 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved

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#art

[baublefobbersleuth]

Don’t Mess with My Irrational Exuberance

I like its silky feel against my skin.It gets me through the days when Fury, Fearand Grief are signing autographs. Of coursea quality of underthings is theyneed airing. That’s what I came here to say. (c) 2023 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved

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#doggerel

[baublefobbersleuth]

The Caped Grammarian

The linguist’s mind ripples with muscle beneath his unprepossessing skull. Most days, reclusive and modest, he contemplates exotic texts in his remote book-cave. Occasionally, however, an English specimen from Digital City issues a cry for help. The linguist springs into action (spilling his tea)… In my fantasy I’m a super-editor tasked with swooping down to rescue important writing from…

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#language

[baublefobbersleuth]

What’s in a Name?

Ask César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, holder of the Gregory Williams Chair in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at Ohio State University. Ask Atahualpa Yupanqui (1908-1992), born Héctor Roberto Chavero Aramburu, holder of a guitar in Argentina. Ask Helen-Marie Lyon-Dalberg-Acton, wife of David Runciman, 4th Viscount of Doxford. Ask Sixtus Dominic Boniface Christopher Rees-Mogg, 6th son of Sir…

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#language

[baublefobbersleuth]

‘Romer’s Gap’ by Tian-Ai

‘Romer’s Gap’ by Tian-Ai is published in Poetry, January/February 2024. Romer’s gap, supratidal, intertidal, subtidal, fly agaric, snailfish, and aphotic are terms I boned up on in scaling the text. Italic print sets off three sections, headed by the tidal terms, and one quotation. There are no capital letters. The text is comprised of commands (draw back —) and noun phrases (fear of…

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#language #poetry #reading

[baublefobbersleuth]

Savage Women

Portrait of Berthe Weill (c 1920) by Émilie Charmy (Credit: Galerie Bernard Bouche, Paris). [BBC caption and illustration] The plasticity of the modeled flesh; the acuity of the subject’s skeptical gaze distorted by skillfully hinted pince-nez spectacles; the wristwatch: the rich blacks of garb against a brushy olive background: these excite notice in the expressive portrait of Berthe Weill by…

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#Fauvism #painting

[baublefobbersleuth]

An Alternative Social Medium

We all have moments when we’re prone to paraglide on feelings in lieu of actually knowing a thing or two. Here’s a way to break out of your stasis quo: Park your smart phone. Knock back a snort of tequila. Drive to a tavern where bikers congregate. Approach the burliest man you see. Lock him in a fixed stare and say, “You got a problem with me?” It’ll start a conversation every time. The…

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#miscellaneous

[baublefobbersleuth]

Who Would, You Know, Think It?

The Arabic letter ta’ in isolation makes a smiley face. “People who are coming from parts unknown, countries that you’ve never heard of. Languages that nobody in this country speaks. We don’t even have teachers of some of these languages. Who would think that we have languages that are like from the planet Mars? Nobody, nobody, knows how to, you know, speak it.”(Trump on undocumented immigrants…

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#language #Martian-to-English #translation

[baublefobbersleuth]

‘Artistic Project Born from Disastrous War and Political Disenchantment’

Max Beckmann “Self-Portrait With White Cap, 1926,” at the Neue Galerie in New York. His sober and analytical gaze was an artistic project born from disastrous war and political disenchantment. Credit… Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; via Christie’s Images. [New York Times caption and illustration] “I have been drawing,” Beckmann wrote to his wife one evening, after a day caring for men…

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#art #painting

[baublefobbersleuth]

Invasion of the Disembodied Tongues

“People who don’t speak languages. We have languages coming into our country, nobody that speaks those languages. They’re truly foreign languages. Nobody speaks them.”(Trump) https://www.washingtonpost.com/doonesbury/ Make America laisser les bons temps rouler again. ¡Ándale, buey! (c) 2024 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved

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#language

[baublefobbersleuth]

George Tscherny (1924-2023): Ad Artist

A promotion that Mr. Tscherny designed for the Strathmore Paper Company in 1966. Credit… George Tscherny, via SVA Archives. [New York Times caption and illustration] He recognized from an early age the way that high art and commercial art overlapped, blended together and even nestled inside each other. I called myself a space salesman when I worked in newspaper advertising. When I was made ad…

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#art #language