Perfection!

Opposition of lines: Red and Yellow
by Piet Mondrian



What work of art or artist turns you on? I was recently at the Dallas Museum Art (come on, don't be jealous) and I literally had to run by a Mondrian much like this one because L was running in one direction and K in the other. I was there because my in laws were in town and I was keeping the kids busy while they looked around. In the end it wasn't a great idea. You can't imagine how uptight those guards get when little children are bouncing around priceless pieces of art! The kids and I ended up spending most of our time in the lobby or the gift shop.

Anyway, I was so sad when I had to speed by the Mondrian and not even properly look at it. I always thought people like Mondrian were kind of laughable when I was a kid. Who can't paint squares and lines? Couldn't a kid do that? But now I realize Mondrian was a visionary who changed our entire aesthetic. The lines, color and composition of his paintings reflect the best in the modern aesthetic. They're literally perfect.

On Gay Wallpaper

by William Carlos Williams

The green-blue ground
is ruled silver lines
to say the sun is shining

And on this moral sea
of grass or dreams lie flowers
or baskets of desires

Heaven knows what they are
between cerulean shapes
leave regularly round

Mat roses and tridentate*
leaves of gold
threes, threes and threes

Three roses and three stems
the basket floating
standing in the horns of blue

Repeating to the ceiling
to the windows
where the day

Blows in
the scalloped curtains to
the sound of rain

*three-pronged

On Gay Wall-paper

Ugh

Good evening Off Hesperusians,

I am spent. Physically, emotionally, mentally. I feel like I haven't read a poem in five years. In fact, I feel like I haven't read anything in five years. I am so tired and decrepit that it's difficult to even type this measly little post because my nails are way too long and wild. That's right, folks. My children are transforming me into Howard Hughes. Or at least a very tired Howard Hughes. I started this blog, in part, to have a safe, warm intellectual nook of my own. Something that was just mine, apart from the demanding and sometimes gruelings days as a mother to my two young children. But I am afraid folks that these adorable children have finally stood on top of my lifeless body and declared victory.

Okay, I'm being dramatic. But it has been a particularly hard week. It has been filled with unholy things. Fluids and infections, runny tummies (for everyone!), endless whining, crying and an odd outbreak of fruit flies.

So I write to you to say I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I am so damn lame. I'm not even going to pretend that I've read or written anything edifying lately. I would though appreciate your thoughts on the whole Juan Williams debacle. The more I thought about it, I never did understand his arrangement with Fox and NPR. It did always seems odd to me. But I liked him as a commentator. I heard an NPR story on the whole matter and they made him sound like a very occasional guest commentator, but he was much more than that. He was an NPR all star, no?

The whole thing is really odd. It sounds like it was a conflict that was waiting to happen, what with his dual roles in very different news organizations. But I personally wasn't that offended by what he said. It sounded like he was expressing a personal feeling but wasn't purposely trying to be incendiary like a Bill O'Reilly on the View. And it is confusing. He isn't a straight reporter, he is an analyst and a commentator mostly. Can you never insert yourself if you're constantly giving your take on things?

Thoughts?

Photo of the day

Nikki S. Lee is an intriguing Korean-American photographer who has this series of photographs where she inserts herself into different subcultures and poses as one-of-the-gang. The photo above is called the Hispanic Project. Others include the Yuppie Project, the Lesbian project, the Hip-Hop project. They're really vibrant, dynamic photographs.

Geoff Dyer--Who is this guy???

Is anyone a fan of author Geoff Dyer. This guy absolutely intrigues me. I started reading him because of his book on photography called The Ongoing Moment. It's hilarious because he's not an expert on photography, he even admits in the book that he doesn't own a camera, but the book is insightful, expansive...I really learned a lot.

But then the guy is also a novelist. I recently saw a book he had written called Paris Trance. There was a naked lady on the cover so I was a little too embarrassed to buy it. I'm a prude, what can I say?

I just don't know how to peg this guy. He's an essayist, novelist, and goodness knows what else. Does he have a cookbook out as well? He's also written a sort meditative post-modern self-help book called Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It (isn't that the greatest title?). What an enigma!

Anyway, is this guy well-known? Is he really as brilliant as he seems or is he just all over the place? Paris Trance intrigued me but I was afraid it was going to be too similar to Henry Miller. It's a "Lost Generation" novel about ex-pats in Paris. It could be good or it could be really really bad. I don't know. Every time I read jacket copy that talks about a book being erotic or sensual, I just think it's going to degrade the female characters. My most recent attempts at both Philip Roth and John Updike left me feeling grossed out and alienated from their characters. Because it's always from the male character's perspective, the women just come across as objects the male characters vent all of their frustrations and anxieties on. What's usually described as "erotic" comes across as crude and in humane.

What I'm reading

Just finished a fine coming-of-age novel called Jim the Boy by Tony Earley. I have never heard of this writer but I was browsing in the bookstore, the cover caught my eye and I felt in the mood for a well-written but not too serious novel. And that's exactly what I got. I really respect writers who write what they know. And I think Earley is that kind of writer. His characters and setting ring true and I trust that he can recreate this world that is so foreign to me.

Although, in some ways the idyll of a small farming town in the south isn't that foreign. It's reminiscent of other great American writers like Faulkner or Harper Lee or Willa Cather. Although it's foreign to me personally, I'm familiar with the place in my imagination. Just as I feel familiar with the mid-century world of prep schools from books like Catcher in the Rye and A Separate Peace and Lord of the Flies.

Earley has written a sequel to Jim the Boy called The Blue Star. I hope to start reading it today. It's been a long time since I read a novel I really enjoyed and didn't feel like work but also felt satisfying.

What are y'all reading?