Green Man: The Archetype of Our Oneness with the Earth by William Anderson My rating: 4 of 5 stars You’ve probably seen him even if you haven’t noticed. This book explores the historical, artistic, architectural and spiritual history of this pre-Christian image that has stubbornly hung on with something akin to ubiquity. The “foliate head” turns up in even the most religious of settings, from Gothic cathedrals to the title pages of Martin Luther’s writings. The book can veer a little toward the New Agey at times, but that hazard seems inherent in the subject matter. The profuse photography easily
Continue readingOldenburg’s Mouse Museum and Offensive Abstraction
Claus Oldenburg’s Mouse Museum, now recreated at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, was hugely influential when I saw it at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 1978. His collection of commercial tchotchkes (salt-and-pepper shakers, Plasticville train set buildings, robot toys, product packaging), shown with pieces of his own art and models for works in progress, validated my own nascent fascination with pop culture objects, proving that they were interesting in and of themselves. I was just starting to collect kitsch items, commercial paraphernalia, handicrafts — prosaic stuff that seemed to resonate with some kind of
Continue readingReview: Signs of Life
Signs of Life by Peter Sekaer My rating: 5 of 5 stars I had not heard of Sekaer until I saw this book. He was a student of Berenice Abbott and a pal — and sometime photographing companion — of Walker Evans. If you like those two you’ll most likely find his work quite interesting. View all my reviews
Continue readingReview: Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World
Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World by Michael Lewis My rating: 4 of 5 stars Pretty scary stuff about the global financial crisis, and great insights and anecdotes. I’m not sure I’m as convinced as Lewis that each country’s unique flavor of crisis can be attributed to each country’s unique national character, but it’s an interesting perspective. View all my reviews
Continue readingReview: The Fellowship of the Ring
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien My rating: 5 of 5 stars Forty+ years since I last read it and I still skip many verses of the songs and chants. But otherwise still great. View all my reviews
Continue readingReview: The Passage of Power
The Passage of Power by Robert A. Caro My rating: 5 of 5 stars Caro continues to overwrite, but his obsessive love of detail not surprisingly makes for a fine-grained story, a mark of great history writing and sufficient payoff for those who have the patience to slog through it all. In this volume he also seems to moderate the distaste for his subject that has been evident throughout the biography. This covers the period, after all, where Johnson built a foundation of greatness as he rose above his predecessor’s accomplishments by passing the first strong civil rights law since
Continue readingReview: Lost Chicago
Lost Chicago by John Paulett My rating: 4 of 5 stars Pictures of old buildings. Interesting historical tidbits. What’s not to like? View all my reviews
Continue readingSpam fans are the best fans in the world
If you think comment spam on blogs is just a nuisance, think again. No one has EVER shown me with greater deference than the spammers who spend their days barraging my blog with kind words and flattering queries. Author : buy azithromycin with no prescription I used to be very happy to seek out this internet-site.I wanted to thanks for your time for this glorious read!! I undoubtedly having fun with each little little bit of it and I’ve you bookmarked to check out new stuff you blog post. Author : Arun Panchariya There is perceptibly a bunch to know
Continue readingReview: The Deal from Hell: How Moguls and Wall Street Plundered Great American Newspapers
The Deal from Hell: How Moguls and Wall Street Plundered Great American Newspapers by James O’Shea My rating: 3 of 5 stars If you lived within the orbit of Tribune Co. or the L.A. Times within the last decade, this book will be interesting to you. It’s a quick read with a number of fine anecdotes. That means it’s mostly inside baseball, so if you’re looking for great insights into the fate of journalism in the (sadly likely) post-newspaper age, you’ll want to look elsewhere. O’Shea throws in a handful of mea culpas but little reflection on how the narrow
Continue readingReview: The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker My rating: 4 of 5 stars Steven Pinker’s core argument is compelling and important. Contrary to the nearly universal assumption that things have never been worse, human society is actually becoming less violent. As horrifically as the wars and genocides of the last 100 years loom in our consciousness, the long view of history demonstrates that life for many of our ancestors was far nastier. Genocide, rape and enslavement were routine, even heroic, aspects of war. Interpersonal violence was ubiquitous. Human rights as a concept was unknown.
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