I loved reading about French photographer Thierry Cohen’s images of the starry skies over cities like San Francisco and Tokyo minus the light pollution we’ve added to them. Nice to remember that the stars are still there, even if we can’t always see them. (More images after the jump…) And check out this link for [...]
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Over a two year span, beginning in 1820 and culminating in the summer of 1822 when he completed as many as 50 cloud studies, English painter John Constable had his eyes on the sky over Hampstead. Most studies were finished in under an hour. “I have done a good deal of skying,” he wrote [...]
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Swooning this morning over images from Andrew Zuckerman’s photography book Flower, showcasing his masterful minimalistic images of exotic and not so exotic blooms. He pictures are as lush as those of Robert Mapplethorpe or Georgia O’Keefe, though he arranges his shots without any of their artistic commentary, with his goal to simply get out of the [...]
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After the spectacular storm last night I’m thinking about wonder, and specifically 16th century thinker Francesco Patrizi’s list of the 12 sources of wonder, which he published in the 1580s. Patrizi’s twelve sources of the marvelous: —ignorance —fable —novelty —paradox —augmentation —departure from the usual —the “exceedingly natural” —the divine —great utility —the very exact [...]
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As I wind down writing my second book (!), I’m taking some time to go back through my files & to post some of the photos I had hoarded while writing Encyclopedia of the Exquisite. Perhaps you’ll remember the entry on Felines? Well, here are some photos of famous feline lovers, like Josephine Baker and [...]
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Whenever the seasons change, it’s a good time to check in with Kenko (1283-1352), the medieval Japanese monk scholar behind one of my favorite books, Essays in Idleness. ”No season is so crowded with events as autumn.” I love his take on the turning leaves, and the darkening atmosphere of autumn: “Here the autumn moor, in wanton [...]
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I’ve got one more maritime themed entry to share. All winter long we’ve been busy around building not one, not two, but three fantastic little sailing boats designed by the phenomenally talented Eric Blake with a big knot of friends, in anticipation of summer. Late nights. Loud music. So much fun. Someone pointed out recently [...]
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Artist Sophie Calle is someone whom I hope I’ll have the chance to meet somehow before one of us is no longer. I mean, that kind of thing can go wrong—you meet the admired person after so many years of admiring, get disappointed, etc. But I’d certainly risk it in Calle’s case. I just saw [...]
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All summer long I’d been meaning to write about how much I love beekeeping. We got a hive in July and I could sit and watch those little ladies dart in and out with their bags of pollen all afternoon long. We started too late in the season to harvest any honey this year—they needed [...]
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It’s been too long! I just wanted to drop a line here on an article about Keats and Shelley meeting at Lake Geneva in the New York Times (See it here), as described in Encyclopedia of the Exquisite’s entry on Tempests. The two loved sailing, and even went in on a small boat together. Unfortunately, [...]
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