Becky Hammon

Posted on May 16, 2018 by JMN

“My job is to be the best that I can be, and if that changes your mind, then great. But I can’t be consumed with how you feel about me.” (Becky Hammon, 5′-6″-tall basketball champion and contender for top coach position of the Milwaukee Bucks. Quoted by Frank Bruni, NYTimes.)

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Humility

Posted on May 16, 2018 by JMN

Even a cursory look at following blogs uncovers so much good image-making and wordsmithing it humbles one. I ply in contrast what seems but a plodding literal depictiveness, a pyrrhic victory of method over invention, craft over creativity, sarcasm over substance, the strutting of personal nonsense on one’s tiny stage. I guess that’s why I often feature in my commentary the zany image created by Texas artist Tom Jones of the galloping rodeo lady balanced forefingeredly athwart the saddle horn. It suggests an implausible act of flaunting. No help for one’s sense of inferiority but to press on, grateful for the attention paid.

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

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“Horseman”

Posted on May 16, 2018 by JMN

This gallery contains 1 photo.

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Supplication

Posted on May 16, 2018 by JMN

O Master, Boss,
Unique and only Sir,
We beg that Thine Almightiness (or His)
Flex His (or Thine) unending mercy to the uttermost
In righteous overlooking of our pitiable insufficiency,
Created though we be by Thee, O peerless Engineer.
Moreover beg we also that Thy Three-In-Oneness,
All-BeingBeer, All-Doing Doer, All-Knowing Knower, All-Owning Owner,
Try and convict and sentence our turdworthiness
To everlasting comeuppance without surcease of suffering
Save by Thy sovereign say-so and agreed-on decreed creed.
We hold ourselves in horror!
Flog and flay our flawed flesh if Thou wilt.
Thy will be done, whatever.
Beseech we Thee, notwithstanding, O Mono-Demiurge, O Mister:

Let fly if only a sliver of Thy bottomless compassion
In support of us, Thy sin-soiled product line.
Wholly in the name of the Father who art Thou,
And the Son’s name whose Father Thou art,
And the Ghost Thing’s name, and all Y’all’s name,
Forever and evermore. Absolutely.
One-hundred percent.
Believe me.
Amen.

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

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Thirty-Four Paintings

Posted on May 16, 2018 by JMN

(01) “Madonna of the Yardwinder”
(02) “Madonna With a Cat”
(03) “Madonna of the Pomegranate”
(04) “Madonna of the Carnation”
(05) “Madonna With a Vase of Flowers”
(06) “Madonna and Child With Saints Sebastian and Francis”
(07) “Benois Madonna”
(08) “Virgin and Child”
(09) “Virgin of the Rocks”
(10) “Virgin and Child With the Infant Saint John and an Angel”
(11) “Virgin Worshipping the Child”
(12) “Virgin and Saints Laurence and Remigius With the Christ Child and Infant Saint John”
(13) “Little Madonna”
(14) “Virgin and Child With Saint Anne”
(15) “Virgin and Child With Saint Anne and the Infant John”
(16) “Dreyfus Madonna”
(17) “Virgin and Child With a Bowl Of Fruit”
(18) “Madonna Doni”
(19) “Madonna Tadei”
(20) “Madonna of Bruges”
(21) “Mouscron Madonna”
(22) “Madonna of the Stairs”
(23) “Madonna Pitti”
(24) “Enthroned Madonna”
(25) “Ognissanti Madonna”
(26) “Madonna of the Magnificat”
(27) “Small Cowper Madonna”
(28) “Madonna and Child Enthroned With Saints Catharine, Peter, Cecilia, Paul, and the Infant Saint John the Baptist”
(29) “Madonna and Child With Saint John the Baptist and Saint Nicholas of Bari”
(30) “Ansidei Madonna”
(31) “Madonna of the Goldfinch”
(32) “Madonna of the Baldachino”
(33) “Alba Madonna”
(34) “Madonna of Foligno”
(Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

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HJN, Untitled Watercolor

Posted on May 14, 2018 by JMN

This gallery contains 2 photos.

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Eulogy on Mother’s Day

Posted on May 13, 2018 by JMN

[My mother died in 2016. This is from my remarks at her memorial.]

PERSISTENCE: SING IT THIS WAY

A memorial service unites you and us in a common undertaking to hold on, briefly, to someone who is departing. In some sense it’s a ritual of denial that we indulge in with your support. It says, “Don’t go. Don’t go yet.” As long as we are in this room, talking about Martha, thinking about her, hearing music that evokes her, we hold her, in spirit. Her going doesn’t have quite the finality that it will have when this ceremony ends. Then, life will go on, and each of us, in our way, will wrap ourselves around the hollow spot that she leaves, and start healing it, the way a tree heals itself around the wound of a lopped-off limb.

mother in houndstooth coat

Mother at the ranch looking like Hedy Lamarr. 1950s? (Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

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

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“Rifleman”

Posted on May 12, 2018 by JMN
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Happy Words

Posted on May 12, 2018 by JMN

I have taken a vow of poetry — I shall never be a Person of Wealth.
Strong and Wrong
ATT-Novartis Corporate Hedgequarters
No Lordering

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

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From Memory

Posted on May 12, 2018 by JMN

“The Second Coming,” poem by W. B. Yeats, http://www.poetryfoundation.org.

Yeats, like Shelley in “Ozymandias,” associates folly and tyranny and self-aggrandizement with the desert lands. That happens to be where the trio of stern monotheisms were “revealed”: I’m the Only One, etc. Joan Didion borrowed a phrase from the poem for the
title of her book of essays, “Slouching Towards Bethlehem.” In Yeats’s poem, the monster traversing the desert sands “moves its slow thighs.” That understated way of describing its locomotion is packed with power. It conveys spooky massiveness along with portent and menace. Everything in this short poem vibrates with resonance for me. I’ve carried it in my head effortlessly for years. (I have to periodically refresh others I’ve memorized by reciting them over the kitchen sink!) Yeats ends with a query similar to that of Dorothy Parker, who is said to have asked regularly, “What fresh Hell is this?” Also, the poem reminds me of Ezra Pound’s comment: “Literature is news that stays news.”

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

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