Tag Archives: style

‘Cry of Pain’

Posted on April 15, 2021 by JMN

Housman’s “To an Athlete Dying Young” ruefully ironizes over a lad clever enough to “slip betimes away / From fields where glory does not stay.” Novelists, though, get more mileage out of superannuated jocks — Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom, Malamud’s Roy … Continue reading →

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

Be Paint

Posted on April 11, 2021 by JMN

… [Clement] Greenberg’s organizing idea was surprisingly simple: modern painting, having ceased to be illustrative, ought to be decorative. Once all the old jobs of painting—portraying the bank president, showing off the manor house, imagining the big battle—had been turned … Continue reading →

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

But Also Thank the Devil

Posted on April 6, 2021 by JMN

The worst way to defeat a social or cultural ill is to declare war on it. The U.S. declares war on problems it can’t or won’t solve. The worst way to foster a social or cultural good is to declare … Continue reading →

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

Wide Load

Posted on March 28, 2021 by JMN

Jason Farrago lavishes a container shipload of exegetical rumination on Julie Mehretu’s paintings. Lines accreted in an essentially radial configuration, with large arcs orbiting an absent central axis, and orthogonal spokes sprouting from the core. (The Mehretu black line is … Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

The Humble Art

Posted on March 13, 2021 by JMN

I support the premise, aspirationally, that translation “involves being a writer,” to quote this article. The premise piggybacks on something I took on board long ago — that the first asset of a capable translator is to write well in … Continue reading →

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

‘Ethics of Translation’ (?)

Posted on March 12, 2021 by JMN

As a presumptive translator I’m nagged by a sense of straying where I don’t belong. Where is my writ to translate into a non-native language, for example? I didn’t suck Spanish from mother’s teat. How can I possibly match what … Continue reading →

Posted in Commentary, Quotations | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

‘Bad Boy’ Harpsichordist

Posted on March 10, 2021 by JMN

Scott Ross moved to France when he was 12 years old. He studied harpsichord and organ at the Paris and Nice Conservatories, and in 1971 won the Bruges International Competition, in Belgium. Five years before dying of AIDS in 1982 … Continue reading →

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

Cambiando la perspectiva.

Posted on February 23, 2021 by JMN

Imaginando. Cambiando la perspectiva. A mi colega que estudia español en Gran Bretaña: te va a gustar esta foto de iglesia con su ángulo dinámico.

Posted in Commentary | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Shiny Objects and Hot Takes

Posted on February 7, 2021 by JMN

When I re-read my EthicalDative posts at a later date they often seem overly arch or frivolous — less trenchant and cleansing than they felt at the moment of posting. “Stale” is the word to describe them, I suppose, with … Continue reading →

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

‘Certitudes’

Posted on January 31, 2021 by JMN

This is the Cubist revolution: Here, for the first time in Western art since the Renaissance, the world as we see it no longer has primacy. The picture is no longer an act of perception. It’s an act of imagination, … Continue reading →

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