Category Archives: Quotations

Things people said.

Crisis Antidote: Neighborhood Bookshops

Posted on May 27, 2022 by JMN

The small shops are sprouting where their readers are, in residential areas, keeping alive the rich literary scene that made Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital, one of the cities with the most bookstores per capita in the world. “Argentina may always … Continue reading →

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A Good Outing: Roger Angell (1920-2022)

Posted on May 24, 2022 by JMN

“It is foolish and childish, on the face of it, to affiliate ourselves with anything so insignificant and patently contrived and commercially exploitative as a professional sports team,” he wrote in his book “Five Seasons” (1977). “What is left out … Continue reading →

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‘Drawings Are the Great Teachers’

Posted on May 20, 2022 by JMN

… The mark-making basic to drawing is the starting point of so much else: the development of written language, numbers, musical scores. Drawings are the great teachers; they educate the eye and make us more conscious of seeing. They present … Continue reading →

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They Put the ‘Art’ in Partnering

Posted on May 15, 2022 by JMN

Sally Michel (1902-2003) was 17 years his junior when she married Milton Avery (1885-1965) in 1926. A painter herself, she provided income as a freelance illustrator for 30 years while he painted full time. He never had a studio, and … Continue reading →

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In Praise of Walls

Posted on May 8, 2022 by JMN

I’ve admired artist Outside Authority’s (www.outsideauthor.wordpress.com) lyrical renderings of UK churches and churchyards for some time. It’s stimulating to see a similar devotion to these spaces reflected in this Guardian article. “Eight hundred years ago, pagan sites – springs, wells … Continue reading →

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‘He Didn’t Get Out Much’

Posted on May 5, 2022 by JMN

For Matisse, the studio was the place where the real world receded, where magic could be made and art ruled. Once he absorbed what Fauvism had to teach him about natural light and pure color, Matisse didn’t get out much. … Continue reading →

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‘I Would Be a Really Good Artist If I Just Stopped Painting’

Posted on April 27, 2022 by JMN

“The Ordinary Song,” 2017. Credit…via Chiem & Read. Artist Donald Baechler (1956-2022) is remembered in the New York Times by Roberta Smith. Among [Baechler’s] holdings of New York artists was a neon-light wall piece by Joseph Kosuth, a leading Conceptual … Continue reading →

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How Poetry Feels About Itself

Posted on April 12, 2022 by JMN

Rae Armantrout’s poem “Smidgins” fulfills an imperative of lyric, which is “Don’t be gassy.” Also another imperative, which is “Talk in riddles.” My crumpled, wrinkled / blurt / of flesh. // “Let’s face it,” / it says. * … Ravaged … Continue reading →

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On ‘Love Letter to a Dead Body’

Posted on April 2, 2022 by JMN

I’m intrigued by the tension in Jake Skeet’s [sic] poem: Its title juxtaposes love with death, and its rhythms press against the nettle-like images. The first stanza’s images are scarred and rough with “burr and sage,” “bottles” and the “cirrhosis … Continue reading →

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Coming Unstuck With Glück

Posted on March 27, 2022 by JMN

I’ve acquiesced to much of what I can’t quite fathom in Louise Glück’s poetry. Enough reaches me to defeat surliness. I feel surprisingly addressed at times: … You are like me whether or not you admit it. / Unsatisfied. Meticulous. … Continue reading →

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