Category Archives: Anthology

My collected writings and those of family members.

W. S. Merwin (1927-2019)

Posted on March 24, 2019 by JMN

This tribute to W. S. Merwin is by Dr. A. Hope Jahren, a geobiologist who is author of the memoir “Lab Girl” and a professor at the University of Oslo. My own experience of Merwin has been mostly through his … Continue reading →

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“Aroha, Manaakitanga”

Posted on March 24, 2019 by JMN

Masha Gessen’s article is unusually affecting for me at a time when I feel enervated by tinyness in my own country. The article is a sensible and sensitive appreciation of conduct that betokens great — I would say towering — … Continue reading →

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“Ars longa, vittles brevis”

Posted on March 24, 2019 by JMN

  “My goal is to keep drawing forever, to get to all the restaurants in New York,” [John Donohue] said. It’s a silly goal, perhaps, but what goal isn’t? It’s cheap, it gets him outside (as opposed to eating in … Continue reading →

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Embrace-Aversive

Posted on March 21, 2019 by JMN

Do I love this painting? Love is not a word I would use to describe my regard for Warhol, which is high. He and his art are too trouble-makingly elusive and embrace-aversive for that. But this is true of some … Continue reading →

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How Things Actually Appear

Posted on March 21, 2019 by JMN

Artists of the Spanish “golden age” in the 17th century seemed to delight in manipulating paint on the canvas to create dazzlingly realistic effects, such as the light shimmering on silk gowns in Velázquez’s “Las Meninas,” or the churning clouds … Continue reading →

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“That’s not quite right”: Sociodicy

Posted on March 21, 2019 by JMN

How a target of students’ ire came to write a book about humanity’s transcendent goodness. To accept this belief that human beings are evil or violent or selfish or overly tribal is a kind of moral and intellectual laziness,” [Nicholas … Continue reading →

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“Something You Did in Latin”

Posted on March 21, 2019 by JMN

Carol Gilligan is the author of “In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development,” published in 1982. The widely disseminated book “made her an academic celebrity.” She and Naomi Snider have recently co-authored “Why Does Patriarchy Persist?” The quotations … Continue reading →

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Vivian Browne

Posted on March 18, 2019 by JMN

In 1965, the artist, educator, and activist Vivian Browne (1929-1993) began a series titled Little Men. Considered her first major body of work, it consists of oil and acrylic paintings of white-collar middle-aged white men… They’re dressed in button-down shirts … Continue reading →

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“The Birth of the World”

Posted on March 17, 2019 by JMN

The artist André Masson once likened this large (8-by-6½ feet) canvas [“The Birth of the World” by Joan Miró] in its radicalness to Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” of 1907. It is still startling that the two are only 18 years … Continue reading →

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From Llandudno to Cromer

Posted on March 17, 2019 by JMN

I have a weakness for challenging place names. Mr. Rayner delivers handsomely in his article. I have reviewed [restaurants] from Marazion and Porthleven at the tip of Cornwall to Stornoway and Drumbeg in Scotland’s furthest reaches; from Llandudno in the … Continue reading →

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