Related material —
"Off Broadway," a post from the date
of Eric James's death.
Friday, January 24, 2020
Exploring Fiction
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Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Language Evolution
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Saturday, August 17, 2019
Crystalline Complexity
Burroway on Hustvedt in The New York Times ,
Sunday, March 9, 2003 —
See as well "Putting the Structure in Structuralism."
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Monday, March 31, 2014
For Women’s History Month
“…what he was trying to get across was not that he was the Soldier of a Power that was fighting across all of time to change history, but simply that we men were creatures with imaginations and it was our highest duty to try to tell what it was really like to live in other times and places and bodies. Once he said to me, ‘The growth of consciousness is everything… the seed of awareness sending its roots across space and time. But it can grow in so many ways, spinning its web from mind to mind like the spider or burrowing into the unconscious darkness like the snake. The biggest wars are the wars of thought.'”
— Fritz Leiber, “The Oldest Soldier” (1960)
“And that’s the snake.” — Jill Clayburgh in “It’s My Turn” (1980)
Backstory — “For Daedalus,” May 26, 2009.
For a more up-to-date look at Burroway, see a
Chicago Tribune story of March 21, 2014.
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Saturday, November 27, 2010
Crystalline Complexity
The title phrase is from Art Wars and various posts in this journal.
"Go ahead," he said; he handed her three Chinese brass coins
with holes in the center. "I generally use these."
— The Man in the High Castle , quoted here on Nov. 14, 2003
See also Tangled Tale, Yonda Lies the Castle, and a gathering in Dublin today.
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Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Tuesday May 26, 2009
For Daedalus
“Some writers describe the
first draft as ‘making clay’….”– Janet Burroway
first draft as ‘making clay’….”– Janet Burroway
Quoted here
a year ago today:
“… she explores
the nature of identity
in a structure of
crystalline complexity.”
— Janet Burroway
(See ART WARS.)
Related material:
Amy Adams in Doubt
Amy Adams and Meryl Streep
at premiere of Doubt
Above:
Craft, 1999
“The matron had given her
leave to go out as soon as
the women’s tea was over….”
— James Joyce, “Clay”
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Monday, May 26, 2008
Monday May 26, 2008
Crystal Vision
Stevie Nicks
is 60 today.
On the author discussed
here yesterday,
Siri Hustvedt:
“… she explores
the nature of identity
in a structure* of
crystalline complexity.”
— Janet Burroway,
quoted in
ART WARS
“Is it safe?”
— Annals of Art Education:
Geometry and Death
* Related material:
the life and work of
Felix Christian Klein
and
Report to the Joint
Mathematics Meetings
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Monday, March 10, 2003
Monday March 10, 2003
ART WARS:
Art at the Vanishing Point
Two readings from The New York Times Book Review of Sunday,
2003 are relevant to our recurring "art wars" theme. The essay on Dante by Judith Shulevitz on page 31 recalls his "point at which all times are present." (See my March 7 entry.) On page 12 there is a review of a novel about the alleged "high culture" of the New York art world. The novel is centered on Leo Hertzberg, a fictional Columbia University art historian. From Janet Burroway's review of What I Loved, by Siri Hustvedt:
"…the 'zeros' who inhabit the book… dramatize its speculations about the self…. the spectator who is 'the true vanishing point, the pinprick in the canvas.'''
Here is a canvas by Richard McGuire for April Fools' Day 1995, illustrating such a spectator.
For more on the "vanishing point," or "point at infinity," see
Connoisseurs of ArtSpeak may appreciate Burroway's summary of Hustvedt's prose: "…her real canvas is philosophical, and here she explores the nature of identity in a structure of crystalline complexity."
For another "structure of crystalline
complexity," see my March 6 entry,
For a more honest account of the
New York art scene, see Tom Wolfe's
The Painted Word.
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