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.

Written in the 70s — Sontag: There are

Posted on April 21, 2018 by JMN

Sontag: “There are spiritual resources beyond effort, which appear only when effort is stilled.” Porno: passivity; easy [lack of] gratification. Sexual excitement accentuates vitality; an end in itself. One does not know, and it is an agony, whether to fill … Continue reading →

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“Woman Hugging Boy”

Posted on April 20, 2018 by JMN

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“Painting is a lie that tells the truth” (Picasso)

Posted on April 20, 2018 by JMN

“As Amos Oz, the Israeli novelist, once put it, ‘Facts at times become the dire enemies of truth.’ Picasso’s ‘Guernica’ is a poor factual account of what happened in a Basque village on April 26, 1937, and a magnificent rendering … Continue reading →

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From Memory

Posted on April 20, 2018 by JMN

“Dirge Without Music,” poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay https://www.poetryfoundation.org I’m attracted to the elegiac mode. This poem is formal, but with half-rhyming that doesn’t chime: “crowned” with “resigned,” for example. The speaker quarrels with how we handle death.

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“Lurchingly?

Posted on April 20, 2018 by JMN

I’ve read and admired Peter Schjedahl’s writings about art in the New Yorker for years. His recent article is entitled “The Lurchingly Uneven Portraits of Paul Cezanne” (New Yorker, April 9, 2018). The piece is unhelpful to me as an … Continue reading →

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Banditry Repression

Posted on April 20, 2018 by JMN

I’m happy to learn there’s an institution in France named the Banditry Repression Brigade. It handles art theft. Mentioned in an article in The Guardian by Kim Willsher, 4-4-18. (Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

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The Carper

Posted on April 20, 2018 by JMN

“Abe has not been able to shake allegations that his government gave huge discounts in land sales to two education institutions linked to associates *of he* and his wife, *and then* tried to cover up the links.” (Washington Post, 4-16-18) … Continue reading →

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This Is Stag Country

Posted on April 20, 2018 by JMN

Spunk McGruder was Athletic Director when Don Bob Rooke quarterbacked us to Bi-District. The Stags had the Fearsome Foursome on the line: Chance Purvis, Boog Jeeters, Colt McGruder, and Skeeter Muncie. Not one of those boys went on to play … Continue reading →

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Social Math — UK

Posted on April 20, 2018 by JMN

Giles and Trevor depart the suite of rooms they share in University College at 4:03 p.m. destined for their 5-o’clock rendezvous for high tea with Felicity and Nigella 30 kilometres thence. Giles’s vintage Morgan will average 44.2 kilometres per hour … Continue reading →

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Written in the 70s — Sontag: When suffering

Posted on April 18, 2018 by JMN

Sontag: “When suffering and pleasure are experienced vicariously, people can afford to be intense.” [Porno] Excessive susceptibility to the visual; is this the most “intellectual” of the senses? Ortega: “La dirección en que el ver va diferenciándose del palpar consiste … Continue reading →

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