Monthly Archives: May 2019

Guide by the Perplexed — Restatement

Posted on May 14, 2019 by JMN

Here we restate and complement our OO schemes as follows: Octave-of-Following (OOF) *E-string-1 at Fret-0 is an E-note with OOF state re E-string-6 E-string-1 at Fret-7 is a B-note with OOF state re B-string-2 B-string-2 at Fret-8 is a G-note … Continue reading →

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Rust in Peace

Posted on May 12, 2019 by JMN

There’s this sense of wonder you get when looking at abandoned buildings. You try to imagine what these spaces were like when they were filled with busy workers trying to meet production targets. And why did they close? (Brett Patman, … Continue reading →

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Parting Looks

Posted on May 11, 2019 by JMN

This inadvertently comical drawing by Harold J. Nichols (1924-2013) has a vigor and intensity that I find seductive. It has the top-of-head deficit common amongst us untrained drawers. The brain fools the eye somehow. I think it discounts what’s above … Continue reading →

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Guide by the Perplexed — Denial

Posted on May 11, 2019 by JMN

I did not err in an earlier post; the post simply misspoke itself. Derived Octave-of-Following (DOOF) state was announced as coming next. The post should have intended to say: “Octave-of-Preceding (OOP) state — coming next.” Octave-of-Preceding (OOP) state is the … Continue reading →

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Guide by the Perplexed

Posted on May 6, 2019 by JMN

Octave-of-Following (OOF) state is the state in which a fretted note is the octave of the following open string. This is true: E-string-1 at Fret-7 is a B-note with OOF state re B-string-2 *B-string-2 at Fret-8 is a G-note with … Continue reading →

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Guide by the Perplexed

Posted on May 6, 2019 by JMN

The Poet sat in a dive on 52nd Street “uncertain and afraid.” I sit in a shed on 3rd Street where I, too, watch “the clever dreams expire of a low, dishonest decade.” The manic hubbub of tear-it-downers and bust-it-uppers … Continue reading →

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“Islands of Daring”

Posted on May 6, 2019 by JMN

Any drawings that are “like letters of a foreign language” would get my attention. This is so with the drawings of Susan Hefuna. … Susan Hefuna makes ink drawings inspired by the intricate wooden screens of her Cairo childhood… done … Continue reading →

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“Splendidly Cagey”

Posted on May 4, 2019 by JMN

Work by Klee always gives me a boost. I also enjoy the critic’s sprightly accounting of it, which I excerpt here. … David Zwirner [Gallery] has nabbed a heavyweight: Paul Klee, the splendidly cagey Swiss-German modernist and Bauhaus professor. … … Continue reading →

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Parting Looks

Posted on May 4, 2019 by JMN

This gallery contains 1 photo.

The humans are cartoonish, with unsettling ocular highlights. The man’s buckle and spurs gleam unexpectedly. The beakish woman (clad in denim?) grasps a shepherd’s crook. A bucket dangling from block and tackle drips water drawn from an artesian well. It … Continue reading →

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“Corrupted Formalism”

Posted on May 1, 2019 by JMN

I ponder what exactly the relationship between professional critic and working artist is. I, of course, am neither — a nosy bystander at best. I’m aware glancingly of debates in the professional art community about who says and does what. … Continue reading →

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