With a few exceptions, most art photography leaves me . . . meh. Probably that just means I lack the education or sophistication to understand it, but for me it seems like there's a few obvious tricks to art photography and once you master those there's not much to distinguish one art photographer from another. … Continue reading Nutshell Movie Reviews: The Last Resort (2018)

Every great con artist movie performs a kind of card trick in which the audience identifies with the suave anti-heroes as they relieve their naive victims of their assets only to discover at the end that they have been gulled into a version of reality that failed to anticipate the final double-cross. The movie is … Continue reading Nutshell Movie Reviews: The Swindle (1997)

This documentary on the career and demise of Amy Winehouse provides chapter and verse on her too brief trajectory from ingenue to superstar to pop culture punching bag to the grave. It's the same sad endlessly repeated story of our news/entertainment industry building up and then destroying celebrities. The celebrities are adults. No one forces … Continue reading Nutshell Movie Reviews: Amy (2015)

And this time it's an actual poet, not some mangy "singer/songwriter." To celebrate Louise Glück's triumph, here's a verse from one of my favorite poems by her, The Myth of Devotion: Doesn't everyone want to feel in the nightthe beloved body, compass, polestar,to hear the quiet breathing that saysI am alive, that means alsoyou are … Continue reading A Poet Wins The Nobel Prize

He threw the eighth fastest fastball of the game: https://twitter.com/craigjedwards/status/979446219461349378

Jeffrey Eugenides in the February 5, 2018, issue of The New Yorker has a short story entitled "Bronze."  In the story, Eugene, an aspiring poet, translates the Roman poet Horace's boastful final poem in his third book of Odes, Exegi Monumentum Aere Perennius, thus: I have made a monument more lasting than bronze And higher than … Continue reading It Ain’t Braggin’ If You Can Do It

When my brother John died, I inherited part of his stash of books by his favorite authors: Elmore Leonard and Larry McMurtry.  I recently finished Pagan Babies by Elmore Leonard.  The Leonard book that I previously reviewed was The Hot Kid which rehearsed the Raylan Givens character from Justified in the form of Carlos Webster, … Continue reading Book Review: Pagan Babies

Guillermo del Toro loves to make lovable monsters.  The Shape of Water features a love story between a webbed, gilled, bioluminescent merman and Eliza, a numinous mid-century mute, played by Sally Hawkins. At one point, Eliza says of her merman-sel in distress, "“All that I am, all that I have ever been, brought me here to … Continue reading Movie Review: The Shape of Water

I'm catching up on old New Yorkers.  In the September 11, 2017 issue, Siddartha Mukherjee has an article where he discusses invasive species.  It has this line: "The Japanese knotweed, now colonizing the cherished gardens of the English, is hardly known as a weed in Japan.  An aggressor in one environment is a placid resident … Continue reading Siddartha Mukherjee Is A Pretty Good Writer

My friend, Beth Finke, teaches a class in memoir-writing at the Chicago Public Library.  Most of her students are senior citizens.  She has long observed how writing a memoir can provide the impetus for senior citizens to reconnect with long lost friends and family members.  It turns out that there's now a study showing that … Continue reading Writing Is The Best Medicine