Category Archives: Quotations

Things people said.

‘Enough of This Tomfoolery!’ (God)

Posted on November 7, 2024 by JMN

“The Dallas-Fort Worth region is home to more than 6,500 houses of worship, the highest concentration in the top 10 largest urban regions in the country, according to the 2020 U.S. religion census. Four of the 20 largest churches in … Continue reading →

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‘The Gravity of Curiosity’

Posted on October 31, 2024 by JMN

… The gravity of curiosity. Our lives should be lived in interrogatives rather than imperatives. It’s more magnanimous to move through the world with wonder than with unearned certainty… [Poems] encourage us to ask the complicated questions, both of ourselves … Continue reading →

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‘It’s Death in a Modern Setting’

Posted on October 28, 2024 by JMN

Whether it’s taken as a grin or a snarl, all skulls bare their teeth; it goes with being a skull. But sometimes an art historian is in pursuit of a story to tell — it goes with being an art … Continue reading →

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‘Attention Is the Rarest and Purest Form of Generosity’

Posted on October 24, 2024 by JMN

Between “passionate” and “dispassionate,” why not the latter? Having a “passion” for something threatens to be trite. “Passion” emits heat, and there’s enough heat circulating already. How about “devotion” instead? I’m devoted to the art of mimickry. A bent for imitation, … Continue reading →

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‘Colorful Ooze’

Posted on October 19, 2024 by JMN

The Met’s new show… makes clear how astonishing it is that paint, of all things, became the center of Western art… There may never be another big American exhibition about this freakish little era, when artists figured out how to … Continue reading →

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Artists’ Palettes. They’re Artyfacts!

Posted on October 16, 2024 by JMN

The phrase “smeared with [a] personalised spectrum of paint” snagged me. The palettes are interesting in relation to who used them and/or for what they suggest about the painter’s “attack,” for lack of a better word. Fifty of these small … Continue reading →

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Zen Fire Alarm: The Sound of One Hand Slapping

Posted on October 1, 2024 by JMN

“I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”  (Trump) (c) 2024 JMN — EthicalDative. All rights reserved

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Quran 3:78 —> Vance

Posted on September 17, 2024 by JMN

Like the King James Bible for Judaism and Christianity, the Holy Quran is for Islam a monument to luminous language in a spiritual setting. As a student of Arabic I study Quranic texts to strengthen my grasp of the language … Continue reading →

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Martha Diamond: ‘Looming Masses, Fleeting Vistas, Overwhelming Immersion’

Posted on September 9, 2024 by JMN

She completed an oil painting in one sitting, often mixing colors on the surface of the canvas. Martha Diamond’s approach to painting, and her execution, delight me. I dream of achieving something even approximating her studied generality in my own … Continue reading →

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Attack of the Cosmic Chuckle

Posted on September 6, 2024 by JMN

I heard that Iris Murdoch said (or wrote), “Everything that comforts is fake.” Then I read: According to the best theories available, matter — everything we can see and feel in the universe — should not exist. Every particle of … Continue reading →

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