Tag Archives: Peter Paul Rubens

utopia: realms of Nowhere

Posted on April 24, 2012 by Dave

Not satisfied. Not content with the world as it exists, people have always tried to imagine the world as it might become.Utopia has always been on the map of the imagination and every age, with some notable exceptions has created … Continue reading →

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bandits with brush holsters

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Dave

Just received some travel cases from Silverbrush for short handled brushes. The Monaco and Tuscany. $12 each and well made. When you think of all the gadgets and accessories that exist you have to wonder what people did in the … Continue reading →

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way out east : serpentine serpentine!

Posted on February 18, 2012 by Dave

Its tough to find a decent tailor in the Tuva heartland. Picture that caught my attention, given the incongruity of their appearance within the context of Washington fashions and the overall chic of Western garb. Here Medvedev, Svetlana and Armenian … Continue reading →

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dragon: fly the friendly skies

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Dave

Up in smoke. It’s the jeer of the dragon. That charming scaly fellow. In Western iconography, the dragon, generally speaking, is a writhing symbol of evil, even of the Devil himself. But to the Chinese it is a benevolent heavenly … Continue reading →

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closet painter

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Dave

A “flamboyant homosexual” as Dan Brown labeled Leonardo is misleading and irrelevant unless the author was searching for a DNA code for gay tendencies and not the other trail of splatter leading to the holy grail. Although a kind of … Continue reading →

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mixed blessings

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Dave

The emancipation of selfishness. The fecund faculties of myth making. Harold Bloom created a furor with his article on Mormonism, but for the most part it was  misinterpreted, or rather interpreted in a literal sense. Bloom understood the fantastical and … Continue reading →

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spreading the spectrum

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Dave

About doing more with your life than being stationary and looking dumb. “Any girl can be glamorous,” Lamarr  said. “All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.” … Did she stand up and stand in for Hitler. … Continue reading →

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the collector: “our Hermann”

Posted on October 29, 2011 by Dave

Or so he was called by the die-hards. Hermann Goering functioned as a leading symbol of all the perversity modernity could bring to bear and a living 3-D demonstration of the power of instrumental reason over our lives. The Nuremberg … Continue reading →

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play it again zorba: the crocodile cure

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Dave

Its a bit ambivalent.  Michael Lewis applying the screws to the Greek population. Fatuous moral righteousness with  the cruel guile that only Ugly American can muster.A targeted assassination of an un-people.  Not that descriptively the proof is in the pudding. … Continue reading →

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wild things: the kids are alright

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Dave

Songs from the wood….Forest Boy. The unusual but not unique story of the teenager who ambled out of a German forest speaking broken English and going by the name of Ray seemed to appeal and capture the imagination of Germans … Continue reading →

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