Tag Archives: style

“That Was Now, This Is Then”

Posted on December 6, 2020 by JMN

The very title of Vijay Sheshadri’s volume of poems, reviewed by David Orr, has the jewel-beam of poetic crystal to it. I keep rolling it on my tongue, as if it makes some kind of sense of the moment. Orr’s … Continue reading →

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Pithy Gristle

Posted on December 5, 2020 by JMN

David Orr reviews Vijay Sheshadri’s volume of poems “That Was Now, This Is Then” (Graywolf Press). Reviewers who are poets are especially equipped with spicy pronouncements. Poetry has a long, proud history of acting as if readers don’t exist. Often … Continue reading →

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Incandescent Kandinsky

Posted on December 4, 2020 by JMN

I’ve lost the article from which I clipped this painting — something about vicissitudes and provenance. No matter, the painting is the thing. It trips and snares me. It’s like a knotty, naughty doodle done with psychedelic syrups from a … Continue reading →

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‘High-End’ Jinks in ‘Opulent’ Joints

Posted on December 3, 2020 by JMN

Ninety-one people broke the state’s 50-person limit at an October wedding held at the North Fork Country Club in Cutchogue, NY. Afterwards, 30 tested positive for the virus and 156 wound up quarantined. In a second New York event in … Continue reading →

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From Concept to Chrome

Posted on November 27, 2020 by JMN

“Detroit Style: Car Design in the Motor City, 1950-2020,” an exhibition at the Detroit Institute of Arts, opens this month and runs through next June. … The D.I.A. exhibition set out to communicate the journey that started with a designer’s … Continue reading →

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Attire Power

Posted on November 27, 2020 by JMN

The pussy-bow blouse: the quintessential working woman’s uniform in the years when they began to flood into the professional sphere; the female version of the tie; the power accessory of Margaret Thatcher, the first female British prime minister. (Vanessa Friedman, … Continue reading →

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‘Kate Is There in the Shadows’

Posted on November 17, 2020 by JMN

Here is narrative from a 1960 American novel. A character ascends a staircase to the mezzanine of a house to join another person there: There comes to me in the ascent a brief annunciatory syllable in the throat stopped in … Continue reading →

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‘Explicit and Mysterious’

Posted on November 12, 2020 by JMN

I’m a child of ranchers. Because of how misshapen and reactionary mythic cowboy culture is in America, I’m a fool for painting that introduces what Roberta Smith terms the “subversive theme of the gay black cowboy.” And as usual, Ms. … Continue reading →

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Opportunities to Panic

Posted on November 10, 2020 by JMN

Ben Ehrenreich writes: The current pandemic has already given many of us a taste of what happens when a society fails to meet the challenges that face it… The climate crisis, as it continues to unfold, will give us additional … Continue reading →

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The Squat

Posted on November 6, 2020 by JMN

I learned the term “typosquatting” today. Shortly after 2:30 a.m. on October 30, 2020, Twump tweeted the hashtag “#BidenCrimeFamiily” with no other context or link. That extra “i” circumvented Twitter’s efforts to hide the hashtag in search results. Called #typosquatting, … Continue reading →

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