Tag Archives: language

Sancho Panza Appreciates a Nip of Good Wine

Posted on July 30, 2021 by JMN

Sancho Panza takes a memorable pull from a companion’s proffered wineskin (“bota”) in this scene from part 2 of “Don Quijote.” Y diciendo esto, se la puso en las manos a Sancho, el cual, empinándola, puesta a la boca, estuvo … Continue reading →

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Travesía (15)

Posted on July 28, 2021 by JMN

Versión castellana del poema “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” (1856) de Walt WhitmanEnglish text at http://www.poetryfoundation.orgSpanish Interpretation by JMN [Translator’s note: This is the third segment of the ninth and last part of “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry.” One segment remains.](9)Appearances, now or henceforth, … Continue reading →

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Praise Be!

Posted on July 17, 2021 by JMN

“Jesus Is My Air Plane”: When a great title meets its maker. A big, juicy exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts turns an embracing eye on Black artists in the American South. (Holland Cotter, “Art Meets Its Soundtrack … Continue reading →

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Jane Kaufman

Posted on July 16, 2021 by JMN

The savory quotation that leaps from this obituary of artist Jane Kaufman (1938 – 2021) is from Holland Cotter’s review of a 2008 retrospective at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, N.Y. “It’s funky, funny, fussy, perverse, obsessive, riotous, accumulative, … Continue reading →

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Pausing to Remark

Posted on July 16, 2021 by JMN

A former associate stumbled upon this blog recently and wrote to me. She had read some older posts in which I challenged certain language practice encountered in published articles. It’s true I experimented for a time with adopting the persona … Continue reading →

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‘Art Has Many Mansions’

Posted on July 12, 2021 by JMN

The NYTimes, as well, has sumptuous reportage on this exhibit of Medici-sponsored artworks. The portraits have a preternatural technical brilliance that’s otherworldly. “Laura Battiferri,” fingering her legible volume of Petrarch, is a creature contrived from mannerist lunacy. An interesting wrinkle … Continue reading →

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The Moncrieff Proust

Posted on July 11, 2021 by JMN

C. K. Scott Moncrieff (1889 – 1930) published the early-twentieth-century English version of Marcel Proust’s “A la Recherche du Temps Perdu.” Adam Gopnik reviews the first full-length biography of Moncrieff by Jean Findlay, “Chasing Lost Time: The Life of C. … Continue reading →

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‘This Is a Rooster’

Posted on July 6, 2021 by JMN

Don Quijote’s reference to Orbaneja the Painter stuck with me fondly over the years. It’s as savory now on second reading as it was on first. … Orbaneja el pintor de Úbeda, al cual preguntándole qué pintaba, respondió: <<Lo que … Continue reading →

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Worse Than God Made Us

Posted on July 5, 2021 by JMN

… Cada uno meta la mano en su pecho, y no se ponga a juzgar lo blanco por negro y lo negro por blanco; que cada uno es como Dios le hizo, y aun peor muchas veces. (Sancho Panza, “Don … Continue reading →

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Corn Fusion

Posted on July 4, 2021 by JMN

“Poems should be written rarely and reluctantly, / under unbearable duress and only with the hope / that good spirits, not evil ones, choose us for their instrument.”(Czeslaw Milosz) I get Ian McEwan and EwanMcGregor mixedup why I askmyself is … Continue reading →

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