tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-223272212008-08-27T19:24:45.738-04:00a.k.a. parenthetically // An undisciplined record of passing fancies.angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comBlogger112125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-69740331695868921752008-08-13T08:51:00.001-04:002008-08-13T09:11:58.624-04:00

part of an ongoing series, from my storage to your screen. Since I haven't gone anywhere this summer, chained as I am to my computer, I thought I'd feature this little tourist booklet of photographs I picked up recently. A souvenir from someone's vacation, sometime in the 1940s, it shows the Cote d'Azur surely not as they experienced it, but as they wanted to remember it being. Smaller than a

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-10511015226668125202008-08-06T13:21:00.005-04:002008-08-06T18:16:00.135-04:00

A few weeks ago I visited the Natural History Museum. It struck me, as we sauntered past the dioramas, that most representations of "Early Man" I have ever seen (Geico cavemen aside) are of these fright-wigged, snaggle-toothed, worried-looking creatures. They've usually got brambles and straw matted into their wild, frazzle mop and often sport a dyspeptic expression. This seems a bit odd

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-80344716065111462842008-07-31T07:30:00.000-04:002008-07-31T07:30:55.929-04:00

For a project about nineteenth century letterpress I'm working on, I was looking into the pendulum swings of criticism about "Victorian" design. I put air quotes on the term because anyone with the slightest knowledge of nineteenth century styles– decorative arts, fashion, whatever– can see that Victorian is cruelly broad brush stroke. It's a term that has been tainted by 20th century prejudices

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-3670683750398672242008-07-07T12:45:00.002-04:002008-07-07T16:00:49.535-04:00

* * * I've discussed my feelings before about the sorry state of American magazine covers (specifically Vogue). Whether today's newsstand staples are matched against the magnificent images created in the heyday of cover art illustration or the dynamism of later photography, they are spiritless pack animals merely conveying cover taglines. So, here again with a selection of the lost art of

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-60491836838540146672008-06-30T15:25:00.004-04:002008-07-01T12:34:23.381-04:00

I read with some envy and wistfulness about the reopening of St. Pancras Station in London (images second row) as the new 'home' of the Eurostar. Why would I care about a train station in London? Well, first I am inordinately fond of the city, despite the weather and the fact they charge you for matches, and I haven't been since Fall 2005. Mostly though its because London manages to renovate and

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-52463625367744818222008-06-06T11:31:00.010-04:002008-06-09T15:50:36.012-04:00

It looks as though I'm on a vintage fashion tear! From about the start of World War I to the early Twenties (before the Flapper Age) is, I think, my favorite era of fashion. While there are some horrors-- every period has some-- the silhouette, proportion, detail, and sheer inventiveness in construction of these years are unbeatable. (Well maybe the New Look of the late 1940 to early 50s might be

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-32064511745084040942008-06-04T18:40:00.003-04:002008-06-06T11:54:27.193-04:00

Recently, for a work project, I watched parts of Intolerance: Love's Struggle Through the Ages, DW Griffith's silent colossal spectacle of 1916. I'm not too clear on the whole hoo-hah surrounding the film but suffice to say it was conceived as four intertwined stories set in Babylon, Judea, French Renaissance, modern America; it cost close to $2M to make; it had 3000 extras, and it bankrupted

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-81040381283246559272008-05-23T11:49:00.003-04:002008-06-11T07:06:19.902-04:00

"Orientalism... is a complex idea, made up of history and scenery, suffused with imagination... We frame to ourselves a deep azure sky, and a languid alluring atmosphere; associate luxurious ease with the coffee-rooms and flower gardens..." Thus an anonymous author in The Knickerbocker, June 1853, attempted to set out a definition of the term, with further visions of fountains and minarets

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-34338283733261088352008-05-20T10:30:00.001-04:002008-05-20T10:45:28.333-04:00

Part of an ongoing series–from my storage to your screen. Flags of All Nations-- a keen bit of chromolithography I picked up years ago. Ganged together across several disbound pages, the flag tableaux are small, approximately 1.5" x 2.75" each, but surprisingly detailed. (I am particularly fond of the otherworldly view of Iceland: ice- bound ship, two gratified seals.) The inclusion of a flag

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-47219385729123351492008-05-11T16:15:00.003-04:002008-05-11T17:43:58.611-04:00

Recently I went up the the CooperHewitt to see the Rococo show. What I like about that museum is their usually adventurous curatorial take on whatever subject they tackle. In this case it is establishing the Rococo style in its own time period and then interpreting and teasing out Rococo "revivals" and influence in decorative fashion up to the present. While I was interested in Rococo more than,

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-18301143875823481002008-04-29T19:19:00.004-04:002008-04-30T08:01:10.402-04:00

Oh sorry, that title's a really bad pun. I've already thought through and choked on two other post topics so I decided to just go with it as it comes to me. Yesterday I came across the Farber Gravestone Collection, a photographic resource of 13,500 images documenting the sculpture on old gravestones and my heart did a leap. Oh so long ago I made a little book about gravestone carving for my

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-55043513080706783102008-04-06T09:00:00.004-04:002008-04-07T08:05:15.781-04:00

I was surprised by the impassioned-- dare I say a wee bit hysterical-- tone of the Ourousoff piece in the Times earlier last week. It was on the proposed demolition of several buildings belonging to St. Vincent's Hospital in Greenwich Village, including the singularly unmistakable "O'Toole Building," at top. I gradually realized the actual thrust of the article is rather alarming: permission

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-35623750235625121442008-03-17T07:38:00.002-04:002008-03-17T07:48:32.859-04:00

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-73542357272229583362008-03-06T21:05:00.004-05:002008-03-06T22:04:50.028-05:00

distracted. busy. can't wrap my head around a coherent post. soon. Image: a glimpse from a long ago 42nd street--the inside of this barber shop, once a fixture of the subway entrance near Eighth Avenue, c. 1994.

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-26532940319715889892008-02-25T14:00:00.002-05:002008-02-25T14:25:08.298-05:00

Thanks to Mr. Trigg at Side Effects I guess I'm "it." 1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages). 2. Open the book to page 123. 3. Find the fifth sentence. 4. Post the next three sentences. 5. Tag five people. I'm having trouble adhering to the rules already. Book nearest me is the one I just got from the library, Mayflower, A Story of Courage, Community, and War. It's got one of

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-37981009903980766042008-02-21T08:32:00.008-05:002008-04-08T08:31:02.077-04:00

I'm surprised I hadn't thought about this before: word aversion (also called "the moist panties phenomenon.") My friend Clay brought it to my attention that a fair number of women, in particular, express disgust at the sound of the word "moist." This was the first I'd heard of it. And it was not until I focussed on it did I begin to find something unpleasant about the word. I hadn't really had an

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-71026335479667852912008-02-11T14:00:00.000-05:002008-02-12T07:57:08.007-05:00

Maybe I've become too attuned to 'New New Realism' in photography, fashion and otherwise? The flashlit anti-glamour of Juergen Teller for instance, or the mundane, affectless, almost documentary style of... well, if I knew slightly more about contemporary photography I could reel off the pertinent example. Martin Parr? Am I reaching here?: I was looking at real estate listings online and somehow

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-60867367393798286132008-02-08T14:00:00.000-05:002008-02-08T14:22:26.045-05:00

February 8th marks the observance of Harikuyo, Japan's Festival of Broken Needles. A celebration thought to be several hundred years old (I've read it originated in the Edo period, or 16th century-19th century, and have also read that it stretches back to the 4th century AD!) Harikuyo is a memorial service and a ritual of thanks and respect for the tools of sewing. Broken sewing needles and bent

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-23565597255046217132008-02-06T14:50:00.000-05:002008-02-12T07:57:08.008-05:00

I came across my copy of The City (originally published in 1925) by Frans Masereel. I've had it for years and just recently was moved to look through it again. Masereel was born in Belgium in 1889 and lived first in Paris and then Berlin where, notably, he was friends with George Grosz. He worked as an artist for magazines and journals and created a number of 'graphic novels.' He worked in

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-4285105296383412962008-01-31T21:11:00.000-05:002008-02-01T13:07:24.082-05:00

I recently finished This Republic of Suffering, the new book by Drew Gilpin Faust, about this country's relentless confrontations with death during the Civil War and its toll on the collective psyche. (That title is taken from–of all people–Frederick Law Olmsted and his description of the wounded and dying at Union hospital ships.) An unreservedly glowing review in last Sunday's Times

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-80965701886973256572008-01-28T07:00:00.000-05:002008-01-29T04:57:58.388-05:00

A "Talk of the Town" in this past week's New Yorker recounts how Art Garfunkel has kept an index of the 1023 or so books he has read since June, 1968. The list, kept on loose leaf pages, reveals a predilection for classics and 'high literature' (James, Fitzgerald, Tolstoy), as well as more rarefied fare (St. Augustine, Hazlitt, Spinoza). "I avoid fluff," he announces with appealing surety.

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-81537507761094334432008-01-24T08:47:00.001-05:002008-01-24T13:11:04.468-05:00

Somehow I felt like we'd been building toward a Henry Fuseli moment. The Owen Wilson wrist-slashing documentation (where are the scars?), the ghoulish video loops of Anna Nicole Smith slur-babbling in clown make up. There was the morbid preoccupation with defining Britney Spear's mental state, and pathetic images of her, wild-eyed, as they wheeled her off to the hospital. Frighteningly soulless

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-86571619696486842202008-01-15T10:00:00.000-05:002008-01-15T10:26:51.734-05:00

In a rare burst of self-revelatory earnestness I will begin by admitting that I don't listen to music that often. I'm not sure why. Many people come home at the end of a day and reflexively turn on the stereo (or load the files), I turn on the tv or check my email in silence. Occasionally I'll get in a phase where I put the CD player on endless shuffle or check out some new jangly, folky

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-54745674940878701632008-01-11T09:05:00.000-05:002008-02-12T07:57:08.009-05:00

Robert Warner's ephemera collage art show at Pavel Zoubok gallery. A wonderful display of vintage what-not and obscure commercial flotsam, expertly assembled. There's Robert, who cleans up very well, out of "costume"--second row, right. Lots of picture taking going on. (Samantha, at left, has an exceptionally keen eye and does the most unusual and hilarious things with fabric, beading,

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22327221.post-9146757344422276782008-01-03T01:52:00.000-05:002008-01-05T07:09:57.303-05:00

Feeling somewhat expansive with the New Year, I've decided to simultaneously look outward from my navel-gazing and be more aesthetically open-minded. Here: a Flickr cluster of Brutalist architecture (via Sit Down Man, You're a Bloody Tragedy) addendum: a Flickr set of the building that first started me wondering what possible merits rusticated concrete ever seemed to offer. I've expressed my

angelahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11986780554724964458noreply@blogger.com