Category Archives: Anthology

My collected writings and those of family members.

Tenderness in the Kitchen

Posted on November 9, 2018 by JMN

The young man [Flynn McGarry] seems a relatively gentle soul in a world still learning to be less needlessly rough. (Glenn Kenny, “‘Chef Flynn’ Review: A Gastronomic Wonder from Boy to Man,” NYTimes, 11-9-18) (c) 2018 JMN.

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Otto Schubert: Paintings from the Trenches

Posted on November 8, 2018 by JMN

  Art student Otto Schubert (1892-1970) was 22 years old when he was drafted into the war. As the conflict unfolded, he painted a series of postcards that he sent to his sweetheart, Irma. … All pictures extracted from Postcards … Continue reading →

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Leonor Fini

Posted on November 8, 2018 by JMN

“She always felt that identity was just a mask,” Ms. Rivera said. “So the masks that she chose to wear were more true than her biological face.” (Daniel McDermon, “Sex, Surrealism and de Sade: The Forgotten Female Artist Lenor Fini,” … Continue reading →

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Judith Kazantzis

Posted on November 8, 2018 by JMN

Ms. Kazantzis wrote in free verse, her language intelligent but not didactic, powerful but not polemic. It could be witty, with traces of sarcasm. She portrayed women as complex, to correct literature’s pigeonholing them in one-dimensional characterizations as goddess or … Continue reading →

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Lineman’s Whine

Posted on November 7, 2018 by JMN

(1) My love goes deeper than a Ditch Witch pokes, And higher than a cherry-picker soars. But I done caught you, darlin’, way ‘cross town Spendin’ my money in the Dollar Stores. (2) Baloney, rotgut wine, Chef Boyardee, Bags of … Continue reading →

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1987: Afterlife of “A Fable”

Posted on November 6, 2018 by JMN

To HH & C(B)B Dear Both: Thank you. I’m dazzled… and a little chastened… that all or even some of this afflatus (re yours of today) should have been wrung from an Equity [computer]. As it happens, C’s afflatus looks … Continue reading →

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Limits of Art?

Posted on November 1, 2018 by JMN

What kind of change his or any political artist’s work can actually achieve remains an open question. In his book 9.5 Theses on Art and Class, the art critic Ben Davis argues that political art is not a force on … Continue reading →

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A little twirly birdie?

Posted on October 27, 2018 by JMN

I stream my music from Spotify and Pandora, resorting to radio only when I’m in the car. My local station is Jack Radio. Its jaunty slogan, We play what we want, belies the wretched predictability of its fare, a trait … Continue reading →

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Whitman on Abraham Lincoln

Posted on October 25, 2018 by JMN

“None of the artists or pictures have caught the deep, though subtle and indirect expression of this man’s [Lincoln’s] face,” he wrote. “They have only caught the surface. There is something else there. One of the great portrait painters of … Continue reading →

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1987: Response to “A Fable”

Posted on October 24, 2018 by JMN

[From CB to HH & JMN:] I sat relishing the feel of the florescent light on the cheap fabric of my imitation Henry Grenthel shirt and listened as Teena’s phone conversation wafted up the ventilation system like the plaintive cry … Continue reading →

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