 Notes from a barbarian at the gates of culture.
By Morgan Meis |
Matter of Fact Sometimes material things are just material things. Caravaggio was a fan of such harsh naturalism.
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Summer Reading You realize first that you're alive, and then that you will die. Not bad for 78 pages.
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Independent Streak The Declaration of Independence balanced revolution and prudence, ushering in a new American prose.
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Foot Doctor Would that you could mount, frame, and exhibit Lionel Messi's goal in the 2007 Copa del Rey.
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Ladies' Choice Women of the Hudson River School are not often remembered. It's a shame, because Mary Blood Mellen sure can get the light right.
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Balancing Act Guru might be gone, but Gang Starr's ''Just to Get a Rep'' feels like it'll be around forever.
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East Meets the American West You think you know what Yosemite looks like, and then a new cultural lens comes along.
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Sweating the Small Stuff The funny thing about miniatures is how they're physically small, and yet overwhelming expansive.
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Well That's Just Grate' The Grateful Dead iconography is on display at the New York Historical Society. Heady stuff...
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Indian Winter Alwar, India is the dreamy home of sleeping dogs, algae-covered pools, and typewriters.
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Nether Nether Land The Dutch get shafted in the stories we tell of the country's origins, so kudos to the New York State Museum.
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Sloppy O You think the masters take exacting care with everything they make, and then you watch Orson Welles' The Stranger.
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Flaking Out Wilson A. Bentley's photographs of snowflakes create a kind of yearbook for winter, the crystals alike and not.
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That's My ''Story'' and I'm Sticking to It James Cameron doesn't care about plot, but neither did Muybridge. Such is mind-blowing filmmaking.
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Marley and Me I say, Bah! Humug! to the plot of A Christmas Carol. But God bless Dickens' writerly tricks.
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Lend Me Your Ear Unlike the private letters of most great persons, Van Gogh's illuminate the man behind them.
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Line Reading Transcendence to a godly non-place seems an unlikely goal for an illustrator, but that's Blake for you.
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Local Forecast Nature is mechanistic in its functioning, but speaks to us in feelings. Take the weather.
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Old Haunts ''The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'' — a bridge between the old myths and the ones yet-to-be-written. Oh, and good for Halloween.
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| Peep Show What makes Marcel Duchamp's ''Étant donnés'' erotic? It can't just be the nudity...
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| Defining Moment Is a dictionary meant to describe or prescribe? Samuel Johnson, who's turning 300, knew the answer.
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The Naked Truth It's not the scale of The Naked and the Dead, but the minutiae of its characters' thoughts and actions.
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| Housing Authority Dan Graham's photographs in 'Homes for America' celebrated the Minimalism not of the gallery, but of the new landscape.
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| The Straight Talker Leszek Kolakowski's "Conservative/Liberal/Socialist": short, bold, brilliant.
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True Story The book based on John Edwards' mistress isn't exactly a biography, but it's still a more honest life story than most.
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Surf's Up Bob Bogle has died. As one of the founders of surf music, he did what few musicians can.
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| Art or Bust The oldest sculpture ever discovered is a 36,000 year old woman with really big boobs. Is anyone surprised?
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Style Mavens You can have rules and principles and Elements, but good writing just has a certain...je ne sais quoi.
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Into the Sunset What do people want played at their funerals? AC/DC, Meatloaf, and this quaint little weather report theme.
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Court Papers The Iowa Supreme Court opinion on gay marriage is a surprising read, as far as judicial opinions go.
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Lords of the Ring The power of When We Were Kings is not in Ali's knockout, but in the meet-up of two irreconcilable worlds.
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| Holy Smoke The Holy Mountain — as confounding as a Matthew Barney film, but a lot more charming.
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Money Talks Joseph Schumpeter wouldn't be worried about the state of the economy — he'd be eating it up!
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Punk'd Sid Vicious died 30 years ago this month. As his version of 'My Way' shows, dude was serious.
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Homesick Ceci n'est pas a crippled woman lying in a Maine field, trying to reach a farmhouse on the top of a hill.
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First Impressions For Clement Greenberg, appreciating a work of art was like loving a person: You can't explain why you do.
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It's a Rap If there were doubts about rap in the early '80s, Run-DMC's 'Christmas in Hollis' erased them.
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Reality Check The protagonist of E.T.A. Hoffman's 'The Sandman' can't go home again. Could you if you discovered your lover was a robot?
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Axis of Evil The Night of the Hunter is a fairy tale gone horribly wrong.
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Meet Me in the Art Museum The schizophrenia of 'Saint Louis in 1846' began with westward expansion, but endures today.
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Music Therapy Leonard Cohen's 'Hotel Chelsea #2' acknowledges an ugly world, then gets on with being beautiful.
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Pool Boy Summer wanes, but there's time enough left for a dive into David Hockney's pool.
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| Notes From a Barbarian Asking “Why?” must become a more personal affair. Let's start with the poetry of Catullus...
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