Author Archives: JMN

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About JMN

I live in Texas and devote much of my time to easel painting on an amateur basis. I stream a lot of music, mostly jazz, throughout the day. I like to read and memorize poetry.

Parting Looks

Posted on April 29, 2019 by JMN

This painting has some slight appeal for me. Maybe it’s better called a sketch, and its appeal is in its very sketchiness. It’s flat; there’s no hint of color perspective. The figures are suggested crudely. The paint is slathered on … Continue reading →

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Parting Looks

Posted on April 28, 2019 by JMN

When I re-launched this blog a year ago, my father had died. I imagined one use for the blog as being an archive for images of some of his art works. That particular thrust of the blog faltered. Lately, with … Continue reading →

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“Nulla dies sine linea”

Posted on April 25, 2019 by JMN

I see almost daily in the work of fellow bloggers luminous evidence of the play of eye and hand across a surface with some object — pen, crayon, brush, mouse — that leaves expressive marks. Laura Cumming, art critic for … Continue reading →

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Haunted by the Undefined

Posted on April 25, 2019 by JMN

Thank you, Maeve Higgins. I’m always glad for the rare journalist who doesn’t assume her reader is privy to novel slang. A term I knew only from sailing has headlined several unread articles recently. I assumed it had to do … Continue reading →

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Bastard File

Posted on April 20, 2019 by JMN

I went shopping online for a metal file with which to increase the gap of the hook on the support strap I use for my classical guitar. The hook engages with the sound hole of the instrument, and is too … Continue reading →

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Ruination

Posted on April 17, 2019 by JMN

My first encounter with Texas writer Bruce Sterling was through a column he penned in the early nineties for one of the Houston newspapers. It proffered the notion that our very nature is to seek drugging; that if there existed … Continue reading →

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“… This realm, this England.”

Posted on April 16, 2019 by JMN

I find the paragraph cited here interesting and amusing for its self-aware description of how the author and his interviewee, both of them writers, preen themselves competitively on their humble class origins to establish their bona fides while preparing to … Continue reading →

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Body Language

Posted on April 16, 2019 by JMN

I’ve had little opportunity to enjoy the spectacle of dance except vicariously through the writing of Joan Acocella in The New Yorker. I admire the discipline and athleticism that dance demands of its performers. The passage cited here charms me … Continue reading →

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Not Ready for Answers

Posted on April 16, 2019 by JMN

Merce Cunningham comes across in these recollections of his dancers as a man who spoke volumes in few words. “Don’t make everything so pretty” and the terse statement that answers demand questions cover about ninety percent of art and life, … Continue reading →

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The Heart Is a Pump

Posted on April 12, 2019 by JMN

I like what Terence McNally says about creating character through dialogue. His “heart” trope further in the interview, however, is hackneyed. I hope writers who survive this “age of calamity” find a new way to talk about courage, tolerance, empathy, … Continue reading →

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