Tag Archives: style

‘It’s Death in a Modern Setting’

Posted on October 28, 2024 by JMN

Whether it’s taken as a grin or a snarl, all skulls bare their teeth; it goes with being a skull. But sometimes an art historian is in pursuit of a story to tell — it goes with being an art … Continue reading →

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Modernism in Amateur Painting

Posted on September 15, 2024 by JMN

It’s a tricky business this amateurism. Progress consists in putting a non-realistic spin on scenes and objects. Ideally, the subject should be rigorously interrogated, stripped to its essences, warped or scuffed up past anodyne mimesis. Seen, not depicted. Stamped with … Continue reading →

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Basically It’s Sort of Like About Two Tech Dudes Grokking AI

Posted on July 23, 2023 by JMN

… It’s about a woman named Joan who’s sort oflikea mid-level manager at what appears to bea big Silicon valley tech company,and she discovers one day thatunbeknowst to herthere is a TV show being made about her lifestarring Salma Hayek … Continue reading →

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When the Work Be Done, Then Rest Will Come

Posted on July 9, 2023 by JMN

My title sounds like a hoary aphorism distilling virtuous wisdom passed down through the ages in simple, God-fearing households. But I just made it up. The “aphorism” models usage gone all but missing from English. An encounter with it in … Continue reading →

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Notes on Poetry (‘Expressing the Unsaid’)

Posted on May 26, 2023 by JMN

He was so handsome, so fine and flinty and long-boned, that he was a shock to be around — he made people stupid, or teary, or angry or skin-starved, sometimes all at once. (Dwight Garner) (Dwight Garner, “Sam Shepard and … Continue reading →

Posted in Quotations | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Lie, Lay, Etc.: Humdrum Conundrum

Posted on May 5, 2023 by JMN

I always lay my keys on the table when I get home. I laid them there an hour ago. They lay there undisturbed last night, and they’ll lie there tomorrow until I need the car. Using lie-lay-lain and lay-laid-laid according … Continue reading →

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Pausing With Your Eyes

Posted on March 25, 2023 by JMN

I’ve looked into what the exaggerated gaps between words or phrases in lines of verse are all about, curious whether or not they should affect my reading and, if so, how. A writer named Emilia Phillips calls them visual caesuras … Continue reading →

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Ann Lauterbach’s ‘Door’: Trouble Me, Poet

Posted on March 20, 2023 by JMN

A noun or pronoun, with a participle in agreement, may be put in the ablative to define the time or circumstances of an action. This construction is called the Ablative Absolute… The Ablative Absolute is an adverbial modifier of the … Continue reading →

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Drawing in the Dark

Posted on March 10, 2023 by JMN

… As a young artist living in Georgia, he spent nights alone in a dark room, teaching himself to draw without the meddling of his eyes. Unlearning is still a kind of learning. (Jackson Arn) (Jackson Arn, “Cy Twombly, the … Continue reading →

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Gender Reveal Vagary

Posted on March 8, 2023 by JMN

The byline for a good essay in The New York Times is “Abraham Josephine Riesman,” tagged as follows: Mx. Riesman is a journalist and the author of a biography of Vince McMahon. It’s my first encounter with “Mx.” in The … Continue reading →

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