Guide by the Perplexed — Denial

gris guitar

Juan Gris, “Guitare sur une table,” from 1916, at Helly Nahmad. Credit via Helly Nahmad Gallery.

I did not err in an earlier post; the post simply misspoke itself. Derived Octave-of-Following (DOOF) state was announced as coming next. The post should have intended to say: “Octave-of-Preceding (OOP) state — coming next.”

Octave-of-Preceding (OOP) state is the state in which a fretted note is the octave of the preceding open string.

This is true:

E-string-6 at Fret-5 is an A-note with OOP state re A-string-5

A-string-5 at Fret-5 is a D-note with OOP state re D-string-4

D-string-4 at Fret-5 is a G-note with OOP state re G-string-3

*G-string-3 at Fret-4 is a B-note with OOP state re B-string-2

B-string-2 at Fret-5 is an E-note with OOP state re E-string-1

*OOP state occurs at Fret-5 often enough to be useful for raising note consciousness. The exception is on G-string-3. The interval between G-string-3 and B-string-2 is the only interval that isn’t a Perfect-Fourth; it’s a Major-Third. Therefore, OOP state is a half-step lower at Fret-4.

And there you have it. It’s time for a summary of what we’ve learned so far — coming next.

(c) 2019 JMN

Posted in Anthology | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Guide by the Perplexed

gris guitar

Juan Gris, “Guitare sur une table,” from 1916, at Helly Nahmad. Credit via Helly Nahmad Gallery.

Octave-of-Following (OOF) state is the state in which a fretted note is the octave of the following open string.

This is true:

E-string-1 at Fret-7 is a B-note with OOF state re B-string-2

*B-string-2 at Fret-8 is a G-note with OOF state re G-string-3

G-string-3 at Fret-7 is a D-note with OOF state re D-string-4

D-string-4 at Fret-7 is an A-note with OOF state re A-string-5

A-string-5 at Fret-7 is an E-note with OOF state re E-string-6

*OOF state occurs at Fret-7 often enough to be useful for raising note consciousness. The exception is on B-string-2. The interval between G-string-3 and B-string-2 is the only interval that isn’t a Perfect-Fourth; it’s a Major-Third. Therefore, OOF state is a half-step higher at Fret-8.

And there you have it. It’s time now for Derived Octave-of-Following (DOOF) state — coming next.

(c) 2019 JMN

Posted in Anthology | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Guide by the Perplexed

gris guitar

Juan Gris, “Guitare sur une table,” from 1916, at Helly Nahmad. Credit via Helly Nahmad Gallery.

The Poet sat in a dive on 52nd Street “uncertain and afraid.” I sit in a shed on 3rd Street where I, too, watch “the clever dreams expire of a low, dishonest decade.” The manic hubbub of tear-it-downers and bust-it-uppers and look-at-miners washes over the world like a toxic red tide.

For respite from anomie I resort to the guitar fretboard. It supports a lifetime of soothing obsession. Full disclosure: I haven’t read Maimonides. I know him only by name and reputation. My version of his title reflects a conviction that the best guide for the perplexed is the perplexed.

And here we go:

Guitar strings are numbered 1 through 6, tuned E-B-G-D-A-E unless you learned them 6 through 1 in E-A-D-G-B-E order, as I did. For a mnemonic phrase, use “Easter Bunnies Get Drunk At Easter” or vice versa according to the situation.

With string nomenclature and tuning mastered, it’s time for Octave-of-Following (OOF) state, coming next.

(c) 2019 JMN

Posted in Anthology | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

“Islands of Daring”

Any drawings that are “like letters of a foreign language” would get my attention. This is so with the drawings of Susan Hefuna.

susan hefuna drawing

“Untitled, 1994” by Susan Hefuna — ink drawings inspired by the wooden screens of Cairo. Credit Rebecca Smeyne for The New York Times.

… Susan Hefuna makes ink drawings inspired by the intricate wooden screens of her Cairo childhood… done on overlapping sheets of tracing paper fastened with rice glue… a fascinating tension between clarity and ambiguity — the drawings are like letters of a foreign language glimpsed in a dream.

And the notion of repainting famous portraits of women while eerily disguising their faces, is cheeky and provoking in a thoughtful way. The painting by Ewa Juszkiewicz shows that the scariest masks don’t have horny ears and dripping teeth. They’re much closer to what we expect to see, then don’t. They creep up on us by distorting the familiar, cobbling a fiendish false face for it.

ewa juszkiewicz painting

“Untitled (after Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun)” by Ewa Juszkiewicz, 2019: one of the artist’s altered representations of classic portraits of women. Credit Rebecca Smeyne for The New York Times.

… Ewa Juszkiewicz, who repaints classic portraits of women, but hides their faces with cloth, ears of corn or a backward French braid.

(Martha Schewendener, Will Heinrich et al., “At Frieze New York, Islands of Daring,” NYTimes, 5-2-19)

(c) 2019 JMN

Posted in Commentary | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

“Splendidly Cagey”

Work by Klee always gives me a boost. I also enjoy the critic’s sprightly accounting of it, which I excerpt here.

… David Zwirner [Gallery] has nabbed a heavyweight: Paul Klee, the splendidly cagey Swiss-German modernist and Bauhaus professor.

klee 1

Paul Klee’s “Signs in the Field,” from 1935, at David Zwirner. Credit Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, via David Zwirner.

… Full of wily small-scale watercolors like “Signs in the Field” (1935), with its joyously inscrutable cloud of glyphs, ovals and eyes.

klee 2

Klee’s “The Singer L. as Fiordiligi,” from 1923, at David Tunick. Credit Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, via David Tunick.

… A knockout 1923 portrait of the soprano Lilli Lehmann, goggle-eyed and adrift in a sea of beige… executed… with a unique blend of oil and watercolor… almost… a comedic double of his imposing “Angelus Novus.”

klee 3 angelus

“A storm is blowing from Paradise,” wrote [Walter] Benjamin. “It has got caught in his wings with such violence the angel can no longer close them.” (Credit: The Israel Museum, Jerusalem).


(Jason Farago, “Tefaf Brings Masterpieces (and Tulips) to the Armory,” NYTimes, 5-2-19; links to his article “How Klee’s ‘angel of history’ took flight,” BBC Culture, 4-6-16)

(c) 2019 JMN

Posted in Commentary | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Parting Looks

This gallery contains 1 photo.

The humans are cartoonish, with unsettling ocular highlights. The man’s buckle and spurs gleam unexpectedly. The beakish woman (clad in denim?) grasps a shepherd’s crook. A bucket dangling from block and tackle drips water drawn from an artesian well. It … Continue reading

More Galleries | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

“Corrupted Formalism”

julia rommel

Julia Rommel uses color to great effect in works like “Volvo 240,” 2019. Credit Julia Rommel and Bureau, New York.

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. Sounding off  from my provincial redoubt feels daring, if not foolhardy.

But fools venture. It’s hard not to fall, first of all, for “Candy Jail,” the title of artist Julia Rommel’s fourth show at Bureau, a New York City gallery.

Second of all, I’m seduced by art critic Roberta Smith’s statement that Rommel “continues her brand of corrupted formalism, exploring ways to revivify Minimalist abstraction with a non-Minimalist, piecemeal sense of process.”

Say what you will, that statement has loft and verve.

This one lands smoothly: “… Ms. Rommel’s color is as beautiful as ever, especially in simpler works like ‘Volvo 240,’ where two orange squares both divided by and edged in green rivet the eyes.”

(Roberta Smith, “Spring Gallery Guide: Lower East Side,” NYTimes, 4-26-19)

(c) 2019 JMN

Posted in Anthology, Commentary | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Parting Looks

Harold’s welded tonnage of heroic longhorn steer stands about eight feet tall at the poll (the space between his ears). It’s from an early period — the 80’s. Harold donated the steer to his alma mater, Sul Ross State University … Continue reading

More Galleries | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Blooper Reel — Evening News

rattlesnake9

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.” [She pets Curly, a dog, and cuddles him. Curly beams and wags. Rachel’s story was about rescued animals.]

Tucker, anchor man: “Maybe you two should get a room.” [Glances off camera grinning.] That’s probably the most action you’ve gotten in a month! [Pauses expectantly, eyes drifting to his view of Rachel. Two seconds of dead air…] Well, I crack myself up, if no one else. [Fade-out.]

(YouTube)

(c) 2019 JMN

Posted in Commentary | Tagged , | Leave a comment

On Being an Afterthought

Roma movie scene

A scene from Roma, the Oscar-winning Mexican film whose subtitles in Castilian-Spanish, French and English have come in for widespread criticism. Photograph: Netflix.

I like learning that the average reading speed for adult viewers of subtitled movies is 15 to 17 characters a second, that 37-42 characters fit on a line, and the number of lines is limited to two.

A sad fact, however, is inherent to the argument that subtitlists should get more respect: It was ever so. If you are reduced to pointing out that what you do is as important as what other people do, you’re already an afterthought and confirming your status. Linguists are relegated to the back bench, if they have a seat at all, and there’s no change in sight from my corner.

… Too many film-makers look on subtitling as an afterthought… As [David Buchanan, a freelance translator] points out, “Subtitles are the conduit allowing you to communicate your film’s ideas around the globe. Bad subtitles can ruin millions of dollars’ worth of hard work. A film-maker wouldn’t outsource their colour correction or audio mix and just think: ‘I’ll leave them to it, I’m sure it’ll be fine.’ They would want to see it, hear it, get a second opinion, make sure everybody is on the same page. It should be the same with subtitles.”

(Anne Billson, “Say what? Why film translators are in a war of words over subtitles,” The Guardian, 4-25-19)

(c) 2019 JMN

Posted in Quotations | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment