Tag Archives: writing

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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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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Slant-Wise Talk

Posted on June 25, 2021 by JMN

Saying things that are graspably cockeyed is my kind of self-expression. Doing so skirts peekaboo obscurity and affectation constantly, but sometimes it feels like it’s working and those moments make me feel interesting. “Even your most serious problem,” [Stephen Dunn] … Continue reading →

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Shows and Prose

Posted on May 28, 2021 by JMN

Along comes more NYTimes torqued and taut art talk of the sort that sweeps me up. … Several gorgeous self-portraits made toward the end of his life. Their precision is astonishing… It’s clear that what most interested Ellis about ink … Continue reading →

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‘A Fisherman Holds Up a Trout He Caught’

Posted on May 26, 2021 by JMN

El hijo de su madre has stumbled upon an El Dorado of found poetry in the “Outdoors” fishing column of a local newspaper. Bink Grimes’s lavish rundown of the piscatory scene pulses with staccato verve, inside lingo, and riptide granularity. … Continue reading →

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Adverb Rebellion

Posted on May 23, 2021 by JMN

This passage from a fellow blogger (cap doff to) caught my eye: Reality? Well it starts to mock back at your face, you get surrounded by the clouds of regret, cry on the ashes of your pretentious bliss and feel … Continue reading →

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Semicolon Rebellion

Posted on May 22, 2021 by JMN

Use a semicolon to separate two independent clauses — i.e., two sentences that work on their own — which are closely sequential: “I finished a painting today; it went better than I thought it would.” Or in order to separate … Continue reading →

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The Rock Pile

Posted on May 14, 2021 by JMN

Dwight Garner’s review of a new biography of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings* evokes a foible-wracked genius: It’s a pleasure to meet this cursing, hard-drinking, brilliant, self-destructive, car-wrecking, fun-loving, chain-smoking, alligator-hunting, moonshine-making, food-obsessed woman again on the page. The passage that hits … Continue reading →

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‘Gloopy Glory’

Posted on May 5, 2021 by JMN

The paintings of 90-year-old Frank Auerbach, “last surviving member of a pathfinding generation of postwar British figurative painters,” are up my alley. Auerbach’s iterative pigment attacks are savage and astonishing, and Jason Farago is always good for a blue-streak of … Continue reading →

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