Category Archives: Commentary

Opinion or analysis concerning whatever’s on my mind.

“Corrupted Formalism”

Posted on May 1, 2019 by JMN

I ponder what exactly the relationship between professional critic and working artist is. I, of course, am neither — a nosy bystander at best. I’m aware glancingly of debates in the professional art community about who says and does what. … Continue reading →

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Blooper Reel — Evening News

Posted on April 30, 2019 by JMN

It’s a veritable laff riot when talking heads wax jocose with their colleagues while the camera rolls. Rachel, female reporter ending her remote footage: “Back to you, Tucker. I’m gonna stay here and have fun with Curly, my new buddy.” … Continue reading →

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Ruination

Posted on April 17, 2019 by JMN

My first encounter with Texas writer Bruce Sterling was through a column he penned in the early nineties for one of the Houston newspapers. It proffered the notion that our very nature is to seek drugging; that if there existed … Continue reading →

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On Clarity

Posted on April 11, 2019 by JMN

As a first-year law student I, along with my peers, had to read and sort out a seeming infinitude of cases written by appellate judges whose writing skills varied widely. Navigating the dense prose of the tomes we lugged around … Continue reading →

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Paint-by-Numbers

Posted on April 6, 2019 by JMN

For art critics, painting-by-numbers was, and is, a byword for robotic repetition and unoriginality… (Jonathan Jones, “From Warhol to minimalism: how painting by numbers revolutionised art,” The Guardian, 4-5-19) At some point in my pre-teen years I was given a … Continue reading →

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Some Fizz for ‘Fissile’

Posted on March 31, 2019 by JMN

“That’s Alex Jones’s M.O.,” Owens said of the deposition. “To flood any topic with confusion and doubt so no one can grab onto anything.” But under oath, Mr. Jones’s tactics fissile. (Charlie Warzel, “Why Courtrooms Are Kryptonite for Alex Jones,” … Continue reading →

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Dyspeptic Rumination

Posted on March 29, 2019 by JMN

A French aphorism says, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”: “the more it changes, the more it’s the same thing.” It’s sometimes paraphrased in English as, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” My comments, … Continue reading →

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To ‘E’ or Not to ‘E’

Posted on March 27, 2019 by JMN

A silly title, yes. I get pleasure from reflecting on minutiae of language — syntax, spelling, grammar, etymology, what have you. Language is part of “what makes us us,” to borrow Jacinda Ardern’s clarion phrase. It’s worth talking about. If … Continue reading →

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Trompe L’oeil

Posted on March 21, 2019 by JMN

“Painting objects and people as they actually appear….” (Andrew Ferren, “A 7-Hour, 6-Mile, Round-the-Museum Tour of the Prado,” NYTimes, 3-18-19) The phrase encapsulates my former goal: To paint something accurately, yet somehow enhanced: A simplistic, naive and ambiguous goal all … 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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