This just in!

Posted on July 10, 2018 by JMN

“In football, there’s a fine line between winning and losing. It’s football, and football is sometimes like that.” (Fernando Hierro, Spain’s coach, NYTimes)

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“Wanted Dead or Alive”

Posted on July 10, 2018 by JMN

Steve McQueen stares at the viewer from a sitting position in the lefthand space — steely eyes, cowboy hat. Two stubby rifles dominate the righthand space: “A sidearm like nothing any lawman or outlaw had carried before — The MARE’S LEG Lever Action Pistol.”

Describing a painting under construction feels like explaining a joke before you tell it. Normally I’d let my picture embarrass itself personally, but I’m not yet shameless enough. I see so much really good work on other blogs that showing mine is like exposing a torso with love handles while in the company of rippling six-packs.

Rifle Hoist, JMN, 2018. Oil on canvas. 18 x 24 in. Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols, All rights reserved.

JMN2018, Rifle Hoist. Oil on canvas. 18 x 24 in. Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols, All rights reserved.

The Mare’s Leg is a pistol because it can be holstered, a repeating rifle because you can jack torrents of hot lead from it. It must have been the AR-15 of the factitious Wild West in which “Josh Randall” operated as bounty hunter.

I devoured that TV series and others like it as a kid. Why am I at such cross purposes now with the gun culture that raised me? My dad left West Texas ranch life behind to become a college educator five-hundred miles away. But he returned to that life thematically throughout his long second career as an artist.

I fled Texas as soon as I could to become… a college educator fifteen-hundred miles away! Jeez. The last thing I wanted was to follow in his footsteps. We weren’t that close. Yet here I am in the Lone Star state again, living in his house, painting guns….

JMN2018 Justice of the Piece, Oil on canvas. 18 x 18 in. (c) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.

JMN2018 Justice of the Piece, Oil on canvas. 18 x 18 in. (c) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.

“Purge” film actor Ethan Hawke said, “We love guns. We love violence. And then we hate it when it happens. We have a weird dance with violence, as a country.” (NYTimes)

I’ve hesitated to use that quote because I want this blog to favor wit and celebration over polemics. I point out only that a reverse strategy lay behind Mark Antony’s line, “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.” There’s something of that in my mediocre parade of rootin’ tootin’ gun toters, except I invert his reversal. “Mischief, thou art afoot.”

JMN2018 Go Ahead, Make My Tea. Oil on canvas, 18 x 18 in. (Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

JMN2018 Go Ahead, Make My Tea. Oil on canvas, 18 x 18 in. (Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

HJN died here in 2013, leaving me a ton of blank canvases and supplies. I guess I’ll die here, too. I hope that’s a long time away, though. These canvases need to be messed up first.

JMN2018 Hoss. Oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in. (c) James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.

JMN2018 Hoss. Oil on canvas, 16 x 20 in. (c) James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.

(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

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Directions

Posted on July 9, 2018 by JMN
Home for Sale, JMN, photo, 2010. (C) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.

Home for Sale, JMN, photo, 2010. (C) 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.

<— Je Ne Sais Cove
Brigand Dunes —>
<— Grotto Blotto
Dog Platitudes —>
<— New Deli
Donny Brook —>
<— Post Hockish
<— Ergo —>
Propter Hockish—>
<— Center For Customer Insights (New Haven, CT)
Academy of Combative Warrior Arts (Richardson, TX) —>

(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

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Ouch!

Posted on July 9, 2018 by JMN
Tom Jones drawing, bronc-riding cowboy

Tom Jones drawing, bronc-riding cowboy

“I don’t like country music, but I don’t denigrate people who do. And for people who like it, ‘denigrate’ means ‘put down.’ ”
(Bob Newhart)

(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

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The Painted Word

Posted on July 8, 2018 by JMN

In my twenties I fantasized an artistic project called “The Painted Word” — standing language on its head by meticulously brushing it on canvas. (I didn’t know until later that Tom Wolfe had used the phrase for the title of … Continue reading →

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“They are female.”

Posted on July 8, 2018 by JMN
JMN2016 Woman in White, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 in. (c) James Mansfield Nichols, All rights reserved.

JMN2016 Woman in White, oil on canvas, 18 x 24 in. (c) James Mansfield Nichols, All rights reserved.

“Maybe our leaders, who seem so quick to threaten violence or shut down the government, should spend some time with dairy cows. They are ponderous ships of milk. There are infinite births to attend. They slow time. They are female.” (Robert Olmstead, NYTimes, 2013)

“If <name country> is indeed to be transformed, and the corrosive grip of fear loosened, it is women who will make that happen.” (Roger Cohen, NYTimes, 2018)

(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

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Dominoes

Posted on July 7, 2018 by JMN

The powers that be have signed the contract that assures Hurricane Harvey (2017) will have robust progeny in my neck of the planet into what future is foreseeable. In a forlorn holding action against storms to come I’m having a standby generator installed.

If you still have a roof and windows, the greatest hardship in the aftermath of a drubbing is the loss of electricity, measured not in hours but in days. Most of hurricane season falls during the hottest, dankest time of year on the Texas coast. Functioning air conditioning (or at least fans) during storm recovery is almost as life-sustaining as food and water.

The generator will run on propane, a large tank of which is being installed as I write. Gasoline is a nonstarter since hurricanes exhaust supplies of it quickly. Natural gas can fuel a generator, but there must be an available connection (none in my case), and one gambles on the gas supply not being interrupted during or after a storm — not a sure thing.

Propane is a decent compromise — my tank will power the house for a week; however, there must be enough diesel fuel on hand for delivery trucks to reach customers. The diesel supply got perilously low after Harvey, according to my dealer — plenty of propane, no way to deliver it.

On another front, the municipal water supply was cut for several days because pumping stations ran out of fuel and couldn’t be serviced due to flood waters. (Rainfall was measured in feet, not inches.) Plenty of water, no way to pump it. The local supply, by the way, is chlorinated river water. For consumption, I subscribe to a service that delivers six hefty bottles of purified water monthly. Keeping my pets and me hydrated also depends on a reliable diesel supply!

The four-story building that houses my doctor’s office and dozens of medical facilities lost a portion of its roof during Harvey. The ensuing flooding ravaged the entire building and its contents. It took months of remediation to restore it.

The analogy that leaps to mind in pondering the climate reckoning is the proverbial row of dominoes. The services we depend on and indulge in are helplessly interdependent; the fall of one can trigger a chain reaction. My great state is throwing down the gauntlet to Mother Nature. No doubt Mother will take it up.

(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

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How a bespoke Suit works

Posted on July 7, 2018 by JMN

“A Savile Row suit ‘rarely looks new in the conventional sense.’ Its magic ‘is that it enhances your real self into heightened fantasy, then presents this fantasy as your real self.’ “ (Lance Richardson, “House of Nutter,” reviewed by Matthew Schneier, NYTimes)

Mr. Richardson’s Observation seems to me silly on several Levels. It’s “precious” Language in the old “affected” Sense of the Word. It’s a Piece of Casuistry. It’s too cute by half. DISCLOSURE: I have a Weakness for that kind of Rhetoric.

I recently blogged a Wisecrack about “fake Mendacity.” It may have garnered a “Like” from an unlikely Direction. Did the Quip have a Fox-and-Friendly FEEL to it, I wonder?

The new F-word has collapsed into a vapid Slur, rarely true “in the conventional Sense”; applying it to “Mendacity” enhances it into ouroboric Fantasy.

I generally rue these little Effusions afterwards. A good way NOT to cut yourself is to use a sharp Knife. The Rule might apply to Sarcasm, too. I usually remember it after I’m hoist by my own Petard.

Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.

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Likability

Posted on July 7, 2018 by JMN

“As far as likability, I don’t think that I have more than most people but I try not to be rude. I like when people are polite and kind to other people. I just think life is so hard, why make it harder?”

(Paul Rudd, quoted by Kathryn Shattuck, “Paul Rudd, Larger Than Life but Still Nice,” NYTimes)

(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

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Anne Tyler on Eudora Welty and endurance

Posted on July 6, 2018 by JMN

[Tyler discovered Welty’s “A Curtain of Green and Other Stories” at age 14.]

“I was just flabbergasted. I said, she’s writing my life, people I know, and it’s not Shakespearean English… Later I even got to know her. She was like her stories. There was something wondering about her as she spoke, as if she was marveling at everything she looked at.

“… I really think I’m deeply interested in endurance. I don’t think living is easy, even for those of us who aren’t scrounging. It’s hard to get through every day and say there’s a good reason to get up tomorrow. It just amazes me that people do it, and so cheerfully.”

(Quoted by Charles McGrath, “Attention Please: Anne Tyler Has Something to Say,” NYTimes)

(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

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