Lemony Snicket

So I went to the Rittenhouse City Institute Branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia today and picked up a first edition of A Series of Unfortunate Events for 91 cents, though I still owe the Librarian 9 cents.  I’ve seen the movie so it won’t be a big surprise regarding the plot but still a good score for 91 cents.

Under New York

Here is a link to the Transit Museum of New York City’s website that somewhat details the 8 mega-projects now going on under New York.

 

http://www.transitmuseumeducation.org/fbu/

If you are in any way fascinated by the infrastructure or development of the City of New York please do check this out.

Michelangelo @ 500

Here is a link to an article from Smithsonian.com on Michelangelo @ 500.  It is interesting even in its brevity.  And while I personally have never been to Italy or Europe for that matter it never hurts to look at digital images of an old master:  http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/The-Measure-of-Genius-Michelangelos-Sistine-Chapel-at-500.html?utm_source=newsletter20090422&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=InsiderApril2#

Enjoy!

Pierre Bonnard: the Late Interiors at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

So on Saturday I Chinatown bussed it on up to ole’ NYC to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the Avenue of Fins on Central Park.  The show was one of the most attenuated, focused and forceful I have been to in quite a while.  Though there were some ghastly apparitions haunting some of the paintings on display, Monsieur Bonnard was and remains a master of the Post-Impressionist style. This style would seem to be more chromatically concerned than anything else. Each color must have its’ compliment and so forth.  This attention to harmony, let alone the interior forms the exhibition so deftly chose for its’ subject, really shows what a complete artist Bonnard was in his lifetime and with what gifts he was blessed with. I am glad I attended the show on its’ last weekend. I can only hope for an Edouard Vuillard exhibition sometime in the years to follow.

Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale

This descent into the criminal underworld of Gotham is a must read for any Batman fan. *SPOILER (almost, depends how you look at it)* The three possible Holiday killers angle rivets one to their seat and the pages somehow turn themselves in this graphic novel.  The Falcone and Moroni famiglias give us shades of la diable. The Joker is not at his best in this outing. Though he gets a gold star for trying to murder all of the festival goers on New Year’s Eve. I find the backstory for Two-Face to be a little thin but very interesting none the less. Being a relative newbie to the Batman comics franchise I was intrigued with the Calendar, locked up in Arkham Asylum by Harvey Dent, he ultimately could find no answer for the Batman or Gordon. 

I can’t really suffer to go too deep into this basic murder plot because the writer’s have to, as a duty to the reader, make the story visually appealing as well as hooking the cranium with the scantest of substances to move the whole thing forward.  But seeing Batman and the Joker duel on a crop duster is something that one does not encounter everyday, in the real or faux world.  Also seeing the Scarecrow on a horse amidst a two-page layout is, to be trite, really freekin’ cool.

Grateful Dead at NYTimes.com

There is an interesting article over at NYTimes.com about the legacy of the Grateful Dead and their different eras and periods.  Specifically the underground fandom of amateur tape archivists is discussed at length. One can tell the reporter is a Head which makes the article that much more enjoyable.

Here is the link to the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/arts/music/12ratl.html?ref=arts

There is also a fine fan photo tribute site that is being added to daily: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/04/10/arts/20090410-grateful-dead-user-photos.html#/0

A Celtic Psaltery by Alfred Perceval Graves

This little known title is available on Gutenberg.org and it is wonderful:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14232/14232-8.txt

A Celtic Psaltery is filled with Irish, Scots and Welsh Poetry translated by Mr. Graves himself.

Please Enjoy,

Michael Evan Kerry McCullough

Archaic Word of the Day!

Bairn – Child

 

Ex.  ‘Dem bairns is alright wit’ me.

Harry Kalas R.I.P

Harry Kalas passed away today.  I remember having a little radio by my bed and listening to him call Phillies games while drifting off to Slumberland. This is a real shame. One of the best.  If there is a public viewing I am definitely going to it.

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Charles Ryder the ever suffering artist and protagonist of Brideshead Revisited reaches his logical conclusion and peak of character development in the following excerpt:

I heard her say that; it was the sort of thing she had the habit of saying.  Throughout our married life, again and again, I had felt my bowels shrivel within me at the things she said. But that day, in this gallery, I heard unmoved, and suddenly realized that she was powerless to hurt me any more; I was a free man; she had given me my manumission in that brief, sly lapse of hers; my cuckold’s horns made me lord of the forest.

Here Mr. Ryder becomes what he was destined to be, a willful, liberty-loving man.  For me I don’t really see any overriding theme to the novel.  Of course there is the issue of faith that is so leadenly hanging over the entire novel.  But since Ryder has no qualms in picking up any faith then I really don’t understand why all of the tertiary characters must have crises of faith throughout the book.  All one can obtain from Mr. Waugh’s novel, aside from the fact that the British probably used the term “White Trash” first, is that being aristocratic in Britain in the first half of the 20th century wasn’t all peaches and cream. Besides the all-consuming depressive quality of the novel I must add that it is supremely well written and definitely a must read from Waugh’s ouevre.