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.

“Whereabouts”

Posted on October 17, 2018 by JMN

Quite a few readers wrote to us last week to take issue with this sentence at the end of a briefing: “His whereabouts is unknown.” Surely, they wrote, it should be “whereabouts are.” Well, yes and no. Times editors consult … Continue reading →

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1987: Coping with Technicalese

Posted on October 14, 2018 by JMN

[Dear Mother,] I’ve spent the afternoon coping with IBM technicalese in the form of new product announcements… Here’s the block of turgid prose for your enjoyment: Highlights Allows IBM Personal System/2, attached to a Local Area Network to communicate with … Continue reading →

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1987: “A Fable”

Posted on October 14, 2018 by JMN

For C*** and H*** Bamboo blinds gentle the noonday, coastal sun. A Gulf breeze licks the south-east corner of Casa Ramico’s. I take my usual table, nodding at the busboys who greet me deferentially. Eulalia brings me water and a … Continue reading →

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1987: Twain: Tells a Lot

Posted on October 10, 2018 by JMN

[Dear Mother,] Another anecdote that tells a lot about the man is when he was allowed, with great reluctance on Clara’s part [one of Twain’s daughters], to attend a recital that she did manage to give. He was placed on … Continue reading →

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Barbara Kingsolver

Posted on October 10, 2018 by JMN

“I’m in a really unusual position,” she says, “because I work as a literary writer. I work at the level of the sentence, at the level of the image, the metaphor, the theme, but I also have this commitment to … Continue reading →

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Julia Dixit

Posted on October 10, 2018 by JMN

Our project must be serious. This is not for fluffies! — Julia Child (Dorie Greenspan, “A Cake Fit for Julia Child,” NYTimes, 10-10-18) (c) 2018 JMN.

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“A Weaver Who Changed Art”

Posted on October 10, 2018 by JMN

“[Anni Albers] could’ve done painting later on, but she immersed herself in thread: Anni was a great person for working with limitations,” [Nicholas Fox] Weber said. “She used thread to make abstract art. Her best wall hangings from the Bauhaus … Continue reading →

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Michelangelo Merisi (Caravaggio)

Posted on October 10, 2018 by JMN

The exhibition’s principal curator, Francesca Cappelletti, said her aim was to demonstrate “what Caravaggio’s intellectual legacy was, not only as a painter but as an inventor.” He found new ways of depicting age-old subjects, be they mythological or biblical, and … Continue reading →

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Julian Schnabel: Rudimentary Concerns

Posted on October 10, 2018 by JMN

“What the surface of a painting can be is an obsession of mine,” Mr. Schnabel said. “If you see how the plate paintings function, it’s very three-dimensional, both physically and spatially. I like dealing with physical problems and rudimentary concerns … Continue reading →

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Dystopia Myopia

Posted on October 10, 2018 by JMN

Quotation of the Day One of the things about looking at the world through a feminist lens is that we are already in a dystopia. — Leni Zumas, author of “Red Clocks,” part of a growing canon of female-written dystopian … Continue reading →

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