One word. Language.

Author: Lucia Perillo
nytimes eview

A series of poems on Eve, apple and ribs. 

On the destruction of the mir - This poems reminds me of an article in NatGeo - Hiking 5 ecosystems in  a day.

Reading of gray gum in Nathan's reminded me of Subgum that I read in Oriental Jade menu.
Life pinned me on its thorn and 'let the dirty dishes click like castanets!'

Excuses against house cleaning

Author: Phyllis Diller

Wow.Arm sling really, to hide from house cleaning. I bet in the mess, she cannot remember where she left it last spring. This is dog's toy eating up the homework.

What veterinarians can teach physicians

For once, I feel proud at selecting a book. Every line of this book is informative. When we were in the delivery room, the nurse had asked my husband to grab something to eat. last thing she wanted was a fainting  father. I thought it must be because of starvation but the author tells that the fainting is due to the emotional high point. I once fainted into the rest room. Its interesting to imagine that there was a lag in the blood's difficulty in fighting gravity. While this is the kind of thing that  is easy to understand, as it relates to us, the author shows her path of the commonalities she found in the health conditions of humans and animals. By knowing that we face common problems, we go beyond the 98% common genes in understanding other animals and some day veterinarians will be seen on par with the doctors of human.
An interesting excerpt on fear at work with SIDS for the fatality.
Scoop on intestine and calories.

Lets Go Paris!

The last time I read a book in short posts format, The Rules of Inheritance, I was scared. It is by a cancer survivor. This book too is by a cancer survivor but not full scale. This book is funny. As much as her visit to a breast cancer specialist whose office was filled with Wonder woman memorabilia. 

The format made it easy for the author to continue several stories parallel. You can look forward to what the family eats at restaurants. Whats the big deal about it? The author moved to Paris with her family for a year. Half of her family is of school going age. The children's experiences at school are full of unexpectables as much as the trips they take their parents on.

Di Mezzo Il Mare

A journal entry

bontha

Bontha is  a telugu word for quilt made from old sarees and blankets, sewed together to make a sturdier cold fighter. A while ago, one career services lady was retiring. I asked of her plans during retirement.
'I like quilting' she said. Quilts have something old in them and the patterns in which they are joined make the assortment look complete. 

Author Dinty W Moore has four noble truths of writing just like Buddhism.
corpse meditation

Challenging

Finding the differences between two almost same pictures is difficult, more so it it is in colour. As a kid, the center page of a magazine filled with such puzzles was my favourite. This 'Moshi Monsters' is a collection of such puzzles - trace the maze, find the words, sudoku, match people, match objects. And in the end is an 'answers' section too.
All this activity will aid brain development. There are many exercises where the kids are to share their likes and dislikes with their friends. This will help them understand themselves and their friends and develop their personalities. All this while having fun.

Passage de la Tour

The Passage de la Tour sculpture is very enigmatic. By structure its a dead end but it is full of mind broadening books. The only way I could drill into it was through investigation of artist's motive. After a little history gathering on the project, his evolving annual sculpture quest, I tried to arrive at how the artist highlighted the books to make the people notice, before they are recycled.

Silo

At a second hand book fair at the church

Books lie around

like bricks unclaimed

Unbranded

Year 0

The arch is wide

Another pillar to balance the space

Stacked books in a column become the Atlas

Once two humans form a base with

their hands, others begin to form

The human pyramid

We always want to hoist something

Lift the world

The world of books

Year 1

The arch is wide

The space murmurs like a hive of

Paper wasps

Like a wooden box full of

Pigeonholes at a corner store

The hive is thin

Before the hive gives out

Before the books go to the pound

Before the words are pulverised

The words are in the dictionary but a particular long sequence is in that book. Save it as is. Or revise it with your life. Preserve the book. Pickle it. Increase its Shelf Life.

Note: Some wasps build their nests out of mud but ‘paper wasps’ use wood to make hives with papery material.

An experiment in science class

Fill a beaker with water upto half

Tie three seeds to a stick

Dip it in water

Let the bottom one be

Immersed in water

The middle one dangling

In water and air and the

Third fully aerated

The one that sprouts

Swims in amniotic fluid

and breaths in

aerated blood

How to read a potato in a painting as a potato and not a solar symbol?

This book is about writing on art.It has sections to equip you with what to keep in mind while writing an essay, research paper or review of an exhibit.

The book has sample examples for comparitive essays and reviews with a good analysis on the organization of the material, its purpose and aptness for the reader.

The checklist on writing on art can be extended to writing on books too. The many references to artists of all times with your interest will give you a walk through the whole of history of art.

The sections on what is art, interpretation, the importance of seeing for creating art and quotes by many writers and artists are interesting to read.

Sep 4, 2006

Excellent book on art

This book is an excellent study of Palestinian art and its history. Art work of Ismail Shammout, Sliman Mansour, Kamal Boullata are extensively described with the relevant context to the times and loss of Palestine inhabitants.

One comes across not only paintings but also other forms of expression - 'mud on wood'(page 84).

One of the paintings 'Whereto?' on page 49 shows the effect of influence of 'absence of a character (part of defined standard of family)' by exclusion from the figure-ground of a painting but not from a higher space of our understanding. While paintings are assumed to be more real by blending into the atmosphere i.e extending onto the walls that they are placed. This one creates a great seperation. It is to such art that you get introduced to in this book.
Mona Hatoum's work is described , most of which is daily home objects turned useless in a very prickly way, the source of it being her sense of alienation from home.
The same themes are explored in works of Khalil Rabah and Asad Azi.


sep 10, 2006

Affecting the outcome

Author: Hart Seely

The author has practised Juju for a long time. In the kingdom of baseball he knows what works what doesnt. Voodoo out. Anything that works for three times In. He has a whole set of instructions with dos and donts. He beseeches the need for helping hands for the juju to work for sure. A Harry Potter world with its own lingo. But not a world that defies physics. Heisenberg's Uncertainity principle still holds. Thats the basis of observation influences.
If you are not mentioned in the book, you must not be a Yankee fan.
The author takes the whole Juju thing so seriously that he has explored the negative side of it too, for world peace and safety.
Yankiverse. The author relates Yankees and US performance. If they have been wronged, the nation goes down.
Yankee fan through and through, he sustains the book just on Yankity. The high and low of the fictive 'juju' element is maintained consistently in the book. It is easy to come up with an imaginary thing but selling it is what Seely is good at what with the math of guaranteed thirteen wins which is thirteen less losses. The pace of the book is quick. All the trades, its effects, wins.

Pennant race
Snake oil
Also-ran

Then and now

Author: Charles Dickens

Pantechnicon

Postilion

Character Tom Noddy

Modern Tom Noddy - Bubble magic

Palace of Popes is now a museum.

Morra (game)

Rhythm

Dance. Music. Instruments.

Designed to fly
fagot - bundle of sticks

That particular point in time

Flash point. Now I understand why my friends car stalled after he filled it with diesel instead of gas.
Since the stories are from writers, it is not surprising that many moments deal with how writers found  their spirit of writing, came to their book or are praised by John U in a letter.
The secret life of parents if funny. Is our baby being disillusioned too when she watches her parents busy in the kitchen cooking for themselves?

Keebler cookies in cornrows.

Science in food

Author's food website

Little miss millet stood with her skillet
Why curing(with salt) as a food preservation technique, was necessary in countries like Scandinavia with little sun?
Why toast can be crisp on top (Thermal diffusivity)?

Father

Author: Elisha Cooper

The tiny picture at the beginning of the chapter, a mom covered in sheets, the outline looks like Africa.

Stretchable fabric book covers

Exterior Decoration

Some houses in rural India
have a border of red
lined with raised stone
in front as if
on a pedestal

An artist and a child

This is the story of the great painter Goya, and Rosarita, a poor child who dreams of 'the art of strokes', while her canvas is the earth, and her finger the only sketch.

Goya moves from the King's Court to a rustic life, so that he can paint in peace and not worry about what theme in his painting will offend the church.

When Rosarita chalks out a picture of him as a wicked man, he is impressed by her talent ,but realises that she needs help in 'seeing' more than just two eyes can see, to be a good painter.

He then appoints Rosa's mother as the housekeeper giving them a roof. While he is doing paintings in his own style, he also teaches Rosa to finetune her skills and lets Rosa do an ivory painting. She does the ivory more justice than expected from a child.

Two extremes in relation to parents, children and art can be seen. Goya's son is a failure at art. Rosa's mother believes art's no good to earn bread.The son's dedication for father, trying to get him out of Inquisition, have been well brought out.

Towards the end, an important point is driven home, that it is scary to express your innermost fears, but the result will relieve you, for having found the expression. After all, what good is art if you cannot communicate your deep felt emotions.

Aug 30, 2005

Anterooms

first drafts poetry and first drafts nonfiction (more at the bottom of that link)

Myth central

Author: Paul A Trout

If David Letterman  is to be believed, Deer fly prey on human flesh. Then who needs a mythical Hawaiian shark.
I didnt realise the importance of creation myth, all the time we were taught about Manu  and Kalpavriksha. 

Blue Lyra Review

From a common thing as Spring Training, Peter Serchuk ages the poem by a life, dispelling the players.
Lyra is an interesting myth. 

Once in Moonlight, part of Walking in stone.
The 'rocking' in the poem comes back to you long after you read the poem and relaxes you.

Untaco Tuesdays

I came across Philomela in Has poetry changed?. Itylus, a character in that myth is an inspiration for another poem. Myths charm so many poets.

Isles of Scilly

Miscellany

Author: Joe Brainard

'I remember' section is funny. A movie on it.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg - Makes one wonder how you would react in the end in the place of 'Guy'.
Jane Froman

Place

Author: James Longenbach

A review

Venice has keys in it. It is the title poem.
Greek Myths and art are in many of the poems.
With some say, the poet captures the mutability of myth

Derain painter
Honore Desmond Sharrer painter
Diodorus Siculus historian
cerements
twice told tale of how fig trees are saved from the frost
Meleager poet
Madonna dell'Orto church
Tintoretto painter
Zattere
Santa Maria dei Miracoli, Venice
Rio di San Barnaba
Tibullus
Ceres (mythology) - cereal
Carl Andre Stone field
square paper clips with heart at the centre
Aeolus - blue painting
Orpheus - Sati Savitri
Daedalus - Ariadne - Labyrinth
Naxos
Ampelos
Leto
Anacreon
Hephaestus
Gadara in Three Epitaphs. With grave codes only one is possible.

An interview

What roars in the morning

Author: Michael Ryan

The first poem is 60th birday dinner . Age and morning have been in his mind before in Poem at Thirty.
Airplane food is  a poem where an insipid act brings about a paper pop up of furious characters.You can imagine what a tapestry he can weave with sewing needle in sandwich.
Petting Zoo - His 'darling torturer' and the fate of the animals. The playful mood changes to grim in 'This morning' poem.
Mug. I am reminded of my favourite yellow mug that I remember from a diet time.
Garbage truck. An unusual subject to voice its feelings but being the sole consolidator of what we throw, it sure has a say.
'Miss Joy' - But she couldnt give her son the chance to flourish
                  unless she gave herself the chance in spirit


A poem and postmortem
More poems

a review

Real and Abstract

Author: Laura Kasischke
Some prose poems.

Before the poems begins there's a riddle.

In the poems too, there are three poems that are titled riddle. the poet finds the complexity of life of a single person puzzling.

'A wolf rolling in ashes' in The photograph album in the junk shop seems to be a line from the Bible but I dont understand it. There's another reference to Bible being saved in a fire that took the family.

How many hearts does an earthworm have, a question that you are likely to ask after reading apoem that inspired an artist to do this painting.

In 'Look', the commitment of  'a girl at the bookstore determined to read every f***ing magazine on this shelf for free' reminded me of Joe Brainard's determination to tear page 48 of every book in the Boston Public Library.

'Near Misses' is something everyone can relate to. 'I remembered to blow out the candle burning on the table beside me'. Good for her. Have you ever seen Ikea candle warnings? The first one had me hooked. Something that new parents need to remember, replacing the candle with the baby.

In 'Atoms on Loan', 'Who are we? without one another,'

Abigor

The poet makes abstractness palatable by sneaking it in like mom hiding the veggies in your food.

David - Dawood

Author: Elana bell

Abu - father of
The key