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.

Stand Tall for the Third Amendment!

Posted on April 3, 2023 by JMN

“I will defend my Second Amendment right to use my musket to defend my Third Amendment right to never, ever allow a British soldier to live in my house.” (Mark Russell, 1932-2023) (Robert D. McFadden, “Mark Russell, Piano-Playing Political Satirist, … Continue reading →

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A Jamaica in Texas

Posted on April 1, 2023 by JMN

Me gusta vivir donde se celebran fiestas de esta índole. ¡Viva la raza humana! ¡Viva la harmonía! ¡Viva la compaginación de los pueblos! ¡Vivan los tamales hechos en casa! San Luis Catholic Church in Yorktown will host its annual Jamaica … Continue reading →

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‘I Am on the Side of Tears’

Posted on March 31, 2023 by JMN

“All we can do now is pray.” Famous last words. Prayer is the recourse of the desperate when there’s no recourse. It’s the last croak from the isthmus of the fauces before humanity lies facedown in the mud. When you … Continue reading →

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Code Snaps for Lluis

Posted on March 31, 2023 by JMN

My Catalan grandson works for a company that makes flight simulator software. He’s experiencing the headaches of integrating C++ enhancements into decades-old legacy code written in Fortran. He complains of the lack of notes in the old code whereby programmers … Continue reading →

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‘La Ronde Enfantine’

Posted on March 29, 2023 by JMN

I savor the deep dark greeniness and people-dwarfing scale of the forest in this painting by Courbet. The syrupy light on the tree trunks is eyeball lickable. (Julia Jacobs, “He Lost a Courbet Fleeing the Nazis. His Heirs Are Getting … Continue reading →

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Ann Lauterbach’s ‘Blue Door’: It’s Open

Posted on March 27, 2023 by JMN

THE BLUE DOOR(Ann Lauterbach, Poetry March 2023) The obligatory cancels its strophe. Let me get a grip,and begin in this other patch where the air is. “I caught a whiff of poem on the wind straightaway, which is an exceedingly … Continue reading →

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Pausing With Your Eyes

Posted on March 25, 2023 by JMN

I’ve looked into what the exaggerated gaps between words or phrases in lines of verse are all about, curious whether or not they should affect my reading and, if so, how. A writer named Emilia Phillips calls them visual caesuras … Continue reading →

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Deep Fake AI: Could Chat-Git-Yer-Grannie Say This?

Posted on March 24, 2023 by JMN

We don’t need no edgy-cation —hum-thuh-rhumba humpit-humpithum-thuh-rhumba humpit-humpit We don’t need no thawtt cun-troll —hum-thuh-rhumba humpit-humpithum-thuh-rhumba humpit-humpit… Save the humans! (c) 2023 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved

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‘You Have to Be Interested in the Playfulness of Poetry’

Posted on March 22, 2023 by JMN

[Billy Collins] sat on a bench and watched some students playing Wiffle ball on a quad. “You have to be interested in the playfulness of poetry to want to keep writing it,” he said. Then, as if to shoo away … Continue reading →

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‘I Discovered That the Act of Writing Is Also an Act of Drawing’

Posted on March 21, 2023 by JMN

Lebanese-American painter-poet-novelist Etel Adnan (1925-2021) was interviewed by Gabriel Coxhead for the June 2018 issue of Apollo. I’m drawn to her work for how it mingles Arabic language, painting and poetry. Quoting from the interview: Perhaps most interesting, in terms … Continue reading →

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