Tag Archives: personal

‘We Were Limpid, So We Were Not Turbid’

Posted on December 5, 2022 by JMN

A verse of classical Arabic can be tightly packed. Besides immersion in grammar, what’s most useful to this student of the language is a highly Congruent (1) translation. It amounts to what’s called a “trot,” and is the least likely … Continue reading →

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View from the Low Side of Town

Posted on November 16, 2022 by JMN

My illustration is an abstraction derived from the layout of structures and spaces on my squat down by the Big Muddy. The turgid Waddy Loopy is a conduit of Texas Hill Country drainage that lumbers past me on its way … Continue reading →

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‘A Writer Who Composed Prose Like Poetry’

Posted on November 13, 2022 by JMN

Considering the toll it takes on me to construct a writing boiled down to within an inch of its life about something I think, punctuate it punctiliously, then figure out too late what I’ve said, much less thought, if anything, … Continue reading →

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Rough Handling of Paint

Posted on November 9, 2022 by JMN

[His] early Sugar Bowl, Pears and Blue Cup (1865-70)… shows Cézanne seeing and painting in a relatively traditional way. Apart from the rougher handling of paint, it is a close relative of traditional scenes like Harmen Steenwyck’s… (Matthew Wilson) I … Continue reading →

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The Case for Rhythm and Emptiness

Posted on November 1, 2022 by JMN

Brazilian artist Maxwell Alexandre speaks of how exposure to Kerry James Marshall’s painting made him aware of “an absence of representation. You would ask a Black kid to draw a person and he would draw a white person… Just by … Continue reading →

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Je pense, donc je blague

Posted on October 19, 2022 by JMN

When I’m tempted to post something here with greater frequency than usual, I ask myself: Am I in thrall to a voracious craving for plaudits? Am I a prelapsarian Ozymandias? An attention-seeking missile? Look what I’ve thought — done! — … Continue reading →

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Built Tough

Posted on October 11, 2022 by JMN

‘Is there anybody here that really believes Joe Biden was legitimately elected?’ (Jim Marchant, Republican nominee for secretary of state in Nevada) Yes. (This American) (Jamelle Bouie, “This Is What Happens When … ,” New York Times, 10-11-22) (c) 2022 … Continue reading →

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Why Do I Warm to These Two Paintings?

Posted on October 9, 2022 by JMN

Rosalyn Drexler’s elegant painting, “Cigarette Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health,” is stuck with a lumbering title but sings, nevertheless. I would give it a chill name such as “Composition in Vermilion on Black,” or one with saucy innuendo … Continue reading →

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Asked and Answered

Posted on September 10, 2022 by JMN

“The American press is infatuated to the point of intoxication with ‘democracy,’ ” [Buchanan] wrote in 1991. To make his point, he compared the Marine Corps and corporations like IBM to the federal government. “Only the last is run on … Continue reading →

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Some Days I’m Angry AND Disappointed

Posted on August 17, 2022 by JMN

Those are stay-big-picture days: paint, write, read, think about language. If gender is fluent, so are the other language markers which assert us. What if I don’t always identify as a first person? I may feel like a you, for … Continue reading →

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