600 Posts!

When I wrote my annual New Year's post, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that was my 599th blog post. When I went back to see when #500 was, I was even more surprised to realize it had taken place on New Year's Day in 2015...AND that #400 had coincided with 2013 New Year's. It seems oddly serendipitous, then, that my 600th post is happening now, and still rather amazing that I've had this blog going for 10 years now. I've decided to leave the design of the blog as-is for now, but it's always fun to look at statistics and see how the site has been reached and what are the most popular posts.

The blog statistics show that I've now had 185,536 page views since August 2008, with visitors mostly coming from U.S. Internet addresses, followed by Russia (!), France, United Kingdom, and Germany, with Italy just barely behind Germany. Readers are mostly coming from Internet Explorer browsers still, although that has dropped down a few percents since 2015 to 36%, while Firefox (30%) and Chrome (22%) use has gone up respectively by 4% and 3% since 500 posts. Not surprisingly, Google searching accounts for about 2/3 of all the statistics in terms of being directed to specific posts. When I look at the most popular blog posts since August 2008, I have to laugh that #1 has remained the most frequently visited/read post (you wouldn't believe how much spam commentary I get on that one!). What was #4 on the 500th mark has bumped up to #2, and remarkably my #s 3, 4, and 5 are all new posts since 2015. Who knew that my Inauguration Day 2017 rant would generate such a high number of reads!? Here's the current ranking:
#1: Male Enhancement [Jul. 5, 2010; 2675 views]
#2: Post-Queer Art History [Oct. 13, 2009; 1699 views]
#3: President Tyrant [Jan. 21, 2017; 1590 views]
#4: Poem #2 [Jan. 30, 2017; 1451 views]
#5: Poem #1 [Nov. 29, 2016; 1350 views]

It is interesting that my recording of two poems, relating them to certain events at the time, come up as being so popular. I suspect it has to do with the fact that someone is searching for the actual poems or poetry by the authors (in this case respectively Emma Lazarus and Florine Stettheimer), but I appreciate their discovery here and makes me wonder if there is a renewed interest in reading poetry? Last year, I read Richard Blanco's memoirs For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet's Journey, which was so fantastic in terms of his life experience as a gay Latino in America, but also his zeal and drive for poetry and writing, and reading his poem at Pres. Obama's inauguration. Perhaps we all need more poetry in our lives...

Thank you to the readers who contact me with encouragement to continue blogging along!

Happy 2019!

Earlier today I was speaking to Uncle Eddy and I said to him, "Can you imagine it's 2019?!"--to which he replied, "NO!" The way time flies by, it won't be long before we hit 2028, the centenary of his birth! We spent a lovely Christmas and the week afterward with AA's family in Kansas City, MO. Aside from family visits, I indulged in my first-ever KC barbecue dinner (delicious, but heavy on meat), and we visited the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, and the National World War I Memorial and Museum over the course of the week. We flew home on Sunday, then headed into the City the next day for a New Year's Eve dinner with AR, GM, and GG. It was pouring in NYC, so everyone gathered for the Times Square ball-drop got drenched, including Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper (above), whom we watched while staying toasty warm and dry just a few blocks away watching and supporting our fellow gays on TV. (Other than watching Anderson Cooper get drunk on shots, it wasn't as eventful as we would have hoped though. Or am I being nostalgic for Dick Clark?)

Today for New Year's Day we had a quiet day at home. We ate for dinner butternut squash soup, cod with lemon and pomegranate, and steamed broccoli. Then we watched the gay-themed movie The Cakemaker (2017, image right), in which a German baker goes to Jerusalem to find the family of his recently deceased lover, with some awkward consequences. It wasn't a bad movie...the acting and directing was good, there were some existential questions about sexuality worth pondering, and there were a few important moments about Jewish/Gentile cultural differences, but it was a bit slow. I am craving black forest cake now (you have to watch to get the message).

Happy 2019!

Happy 2018!

Happy New Year!! Well, yes, we are a bit late for the official, annual HNY message on bklynbiblio (here, here, and here, for instance), but this year we were doing something quite different and extraordinary, and we were traveling on January 1st as a result, so no chance to blog. We went to Ciudad de Mexico! The picture above is AA, his cousin GD, and me...after a few tequilas...ringing in the new year at the balcony bar of our hotel overlooking the Zócalo plaza and the main cathedral. We had a wonderful night, met some new people, ate a delicious multi-course dinner, and danced a bit too.

We had arrived on the previous Friday (after an exhausting red-eye flight), and after an early check-in and breakfast, headed to the Frida Kahlo House with timed tickets we purchased online (good thing too, as they had run out of tickets for the day as soon as we got there). The house-museum is a bit hagiographic, but considering it is meant to give you the sense of who Kahlo was, it does its job relatively well. You do come away sympathizing with her pain and anguish--seeing the wheelchair she used, the corsets and back-braces she wore, and the bed she lay in staring at the mirror on top while painting self-portraits--but I can't say you come away with a greater appreciation for her as an artist. The picture you see here is a photo I took in the exhibition room where some of her indigenous-style clothing was on display. Across from the vitrines were photographs of Kahlo taken by her father in some of these dresses, including this of the artist at age 25. I was pleasantly surprised by the unplanned mirror-effect of how her clothing appeared around her face. What struck me most about the numerous photographs of Kahlo on display was how much, in recent memory, Salma Hayek has come to dominate our impression of what Kahlo looks like and how she acted. It was refreshing to remove that veneer and actually see the "real Kahlo," albeit through her father's photographic eye.

We went for a stroll afterward in Coyoacán, where on a random street I found this beautiful sanctuary for Our Lady of Guadalupe. Other highlights of the weekend included a fantastic dinner at the San Angel Inn (NOT the one at Epcot Center at Disney World!), and a visit to the university art museum at UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico), where we saw an interest, compact exhibition about Yves Klein (and some brain-numbing exhibitions by conceptual contemporary artists...the same thing also when we visited Museo Jumex...). GD also took us to the fascinating Museo de El Carmen, a former Carmelite convent where you can see some of their cells, view colonial Catholic paintings and polychrome sculptures of saints, and visit the sepulcher where unknown individuals from the nineteenth century had been buried, but whose mummified bodies are now viewable in class-covered caskets. That particular bit of the weekend may seem an odd way to ring in the new year, but perhaps it was a personal, poetic experience we needed that reminded us about the cycle of life and the ongoing march of time. Or perhaps it was just creepy-fascinating. I'm still trying to decide.

Happy 2018!!

Happy 2017!

Happy New Year! Is it really 2017 already?!?! Last year, AA and I had a quiet NYE in and spent NYD at the movies and roaming through the City. This year, we went to a nice dinner party with AG+GH at AR's new condo in Hell's Kitchen. Watching the festivities on TV, we talked about how fortunate we were to live in a City where all the Times Square festivities were just a few blocks away from us...the center of a Universe at a particular moment in time year after year!...and how we had the luxury of deciding to avoid all of that insanity in order to toast in the new year with our own bottle of bubbly! It was a relaxing, laid-back evening; AA and I even crashed there. As a result, we have been having a very lazy day today. The highlight of the morning was starting off the new year with a delicious cinnamon-raisin bagel with cream cheese. It was so delectable after all the imbibing the evening beforehand. I hope that bagel sets the tone for the year ahead. Knowing the upcoming inauguration is the next major news event in all our lives, we will definitely need lots of tasty bagels to make us feel better.

If you read this blog on the Web at bklynbiblio.blogspot.com, rather than via email or reader software, you will notice I've modified the look with new fonts and colors, and some fun wallpaper of books on shelves. I think it plays well with the "biblio" part of this blog. In that spirit, the picture above is a snapshot I took of some of my recent book acquisitions that I hope to start reading as 2017 unfolds. (One of them was my Christmas present from the godchildren AEOB!)

To all the bklynbiblio readers out there...Happy 2017!

And we're back...

It was comforting and reassuring to have had a few people reach out to me over the past couple of months asking, rather exuberantly, "Why aren't you blogging?!" I guess I did leave people hanging with London, implying more was coming. Admittedly, when I was in London that week, I had every intention of sharing more about that trip. But then the proverbial you-know-what hit the fan at work and it knocked some of my plans out of whack. Some of you will understand right away what I'm talking about, but for others who don't, you can read about it here ... or here ... or ... you get the picture. (No update on the whole thing, I'm afraid. I imagine I'm still unofficially-officially unable to comment.)

But since then, life has continued rather well. I turned 46 (egads!). We had a very fun house re-warming party (because since my arrival in AA's abode, I have re-warmed it!). We went to Florida to visit family, then we had an amazing vacation to Mexico City, and I recently went to Portland (Maine) for work. The job itself, of course, has continued with numerous things taking place, aside from the above-mentioned drama. And I've been writing.

I admit I contemplated whether I should blog anymore. With over 500 posts covering almost 7 years, what more could bklynbiblio possibly say? (Please...you KNOW I always have something to say!) It is true that the "old" days of blogging in general have dissipated. The first "weblog" dates from 1997, so it's now 19 years in. But do people actively read blogs anymore? I actually do still read a few, and you can see the links on this blog, but in general I have a tendency to binge-read them, not read their posts regularly. I don't think, however, that most people active read blogs as they used to. What seems to have happened is that as a plethora of information on the Internet has exploded over the past few years, no one can process anything more than a simple paragraph of "facts" (quotation marks intentional) in one quick read. Reading, let alone writing, an essay online is simply beyond what most people can process or even want to process anymore.

All this made me question if writing new blog posts merited anything. As I said in the beginning, it was absolutely delightful to know that some people missed the posts. (Thank you, AA, PR, JAM, PC, and others.) But does blogging on its own provide the same important outlet for news and general information as it once did? Social media has exploded in creating a multiple-platform means in which to convey "facts" (quotation marks still intentional). In other words, if we have YouTube, apps, notifications, and so on, do we actually need full-text information at all? Curiously, this isn't a situation faced only by bloggers. Newspapers are facing it too, as demonstrated by the fact that they continue to lay off full-time reporters because no one wants to read, or has the time to read, actual reporting anymore.

But this blog isn't really about news like our conflicts with the Islamic State, Zika, terrorists, or the Presidential campaign. This blog has been about the arts in its broadest context, filled with personal reviews and original works of art, interviews and travelogues, and "best of" annual recaps. So it does still serve a purpose. What has changed, however, is me in that I now utilize social media more than this blog to disseminate information. My Instagram and Twitter accounts are both bklynbiblio, for instance. Therefore, if one really wants to keep up with bklynbiblio, apparently one has to follow not just this blog but all my social media outlets!! And if the very idea of doing that infuriates, upsets, or even disheartens you, then you're not alone. I feel the same way! It is, quite frankly, exhausting. Seriously.

Perhaps part of the problem is that we are inundated by the insane drama of Trump-Clinton-Sanders-Rubio-Cruz-whothehellcaresanymore...non-stop, 24/7. Perhaps it is because innocent people are being slaughtered by unbalanced individuals who, instead of being encouraged to get mental health therapy, are allowed to buy assault rifles and take our their anger by shooting whomever they like, and we also hear about it 24/7. Perhaps it is something simpler, that I'm now post-45 and my eyes tire more easily from staring at computer screens, but I can't help checking Facebook one more time. My new, longer commute from NJ means I read many more print books each day, which is great, as I'm reminded how much more enjoyable that active form of reading is for me than ever reading online (even if I have to prop a book on someone's head in the subway to read it!). Worth mentioning at this precise juncture, then, is one of those books I have read on the subway: Jonathan Crary's 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep. This erudite, short text outright warns us that we need to stop letting corporations control our lives through these online gadgets and media. Their ever-growing capitalist intent fools us into thinking we need the latest technology in order to stay in touch, and that if we aren't online all the time we will miss something important. Hence, the end of sleep, and the utter exhaustion that we are all feeling more and more every single day. (Read the book. It's worth it.)

What I have discovered about myself (and I'm sure others feel this way) is that I struggle between my constant use of various media platforms (as both a browser and a poster), and my desire to pull away from all of them because I can tell how much these various media outlets are exhausting me. And I hope that the latter part of that struggle is winning out. I consciously now try to live "in the moment." I realize that is incredibly cliche, and the quotation marks here are also intentional, but this time not for a negative reason. I really do mean "in the moment." I find myself more and more actually looking at people, admiring who they are and wondering about the lives they live. I look around at buildings and bushes and bodies of water and try to notice what makes each element in life unique or the same. I touch textiles and woods and metals to try to understand what they feel like. I listen for birds singing in trees. I gaze at paintings and walk around sculptures, simply to take in the beauty of what artistic creation. And I actually have grinned when I realize that I have stopped to smell lilacs, jasmine, and, yes, roses. And they smell divine.

Of course writing this blog post right now may seem contradictory to everything I've just written. But not really, because ultimately I've always perceived myself as a writer, and for me this is how I communicate my thoughts and feelings about all these things. So, yes, we are back on the blog! I can't promise how often I will be posting, or whether I will be posting things like I have in the past. But you can be sure: "writing" in some format or another is taking place, simply because living is happening off-line.

Westward I Go

For New Yorkers, whether born and raised or appropriated, after a certain amount of time Manhattan becomes the center of the universe. Die-hard Manhattanites resist going to Brooklyn, and will never go to Queens, the Bronx, or Staten Island. So can you imagine going to New Jersey? Well, my dear readers, this post serves as an announcement that I have once again changed residencies. I have embarked on that journey far across the Hudson River to the land known as Jersey City. Westward Ho indeed! Now, to just about anyone else in the entire world, this move may seem like nothing--the JC waterfront literally looks out on the World Trade Center and lower Manhattan--but the NYC-centric mindset is a powerful force for those of us who live(d) here. I had become very accustomed, living on the Upper West Side, to doing things like heading to Riverside Park to read a book, eating a cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese at Tal Bagel on Saturday mornings, and shopping in a local grocery market called Broadway Farm. I had a 12-minute subway ride to work, and on beautiful days I could walk home in 30 minutes. Readers may even recall my discovery of the building I was living in having been designed by my great-grandmother's brother, the architect George Bagge! Alas, circumstances regarding my residency (i.e. the owners decided to sell) forced me into finding a new home. I confess I would never have considered Jersey City on my own, even if it is currently less expensive by NYC standards. When I was growing up, JC was one of the worst cities in the tri-state area. Not anymore, I can tell you. The restaurants, galleries, and boutiques popping up everywhere have ensured Jersey City's status as the new hipster zone. Some are even calling it the "new Brooklyn," and even The New York Times picked up on the story! (Who knew I would ever be so hip?!)

So...my daily commute is going to be much longer, but I am anticipating catching up on more reading. And I am lamenting the loss of all the NYC conveniences I have grown to love, but it will be nice to spend less on groceries. There is, though, a most wonderful turn of events about this relocation: AA and I are now living together. We are residing in a beautiful unit in the CANCO Lofts. The picture above shows you the south facade of the building, which was one of five that in the early part of the 20th century were factory warehouses for the American Can Company. The building was converted into condominiums just a few years ago. You can read more about this building as one of the new great places to live in that same NYT article linked above. And, in case you're wondering, bklynbiblio is not going to change its name. As I mentioned a few years ago when I moved to the UWS, this blog was born and christened in Brooklyn, so no matter where I go, its heart will always be in Brooklyn.

Happy 2016!

Another New Year celebration has passed. A year ago our annual New Year's message celebrated not only the welcome of 2015 but our 500th post. This year, it was quite a laid-back celebration. AA and I rang in the new year with our feet up on the coffee table participating in the countdown...and then going to bed. Yes, it was a quiet couple's night for us. Today, however, New Year's Day, we were in SoHo and the East Village for a while walking around. Our 72-degree temperatures of Christmas Eve are long gone...the high today was 43, and it's going to get colder over the next few days, so it was chilly, but good to get out.

We went to see the new movie Carol with Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, who play respectively an older, married mother and a younger aspiring photographer who fall in love during Christmas/New Year's of 1951-52. The movie may seem a little slow, but it is beautifully filmed, and the writing and acting is superb, so the tempo of the storyline is intentional and more realistic as a result. Cate looks stunning in this move, incredibly elegant in her expensive, chic 1950s couture, and Rooney is adorable in her plaids and youthful sweaters. Their characters practically transform into icons from the past. Rooney becomes a dead ringer for Audrey Hepburn, and Cate finds herself somewhere between Deborah Kerr and Grace Kelly. A true love story, it has its crescendo and its heartache. The film delicately handles their sexuality and the controversy of their love, not as normalized, for it would never have been perceived that way in the 1950s, but certainly more as being more consciously in the cultural awareness of the greater NYC area than one might typically assume of lesbianism in the 1950s. Sarah Paulson (best known from her amazing characters on American Horror Story) is excellent as well in her supporting role as Cate's friend and former lover. Overall, this is a movie worth seeing indeed, and will receive a number of nominations if not awards.

Last year I did not change the look or design of bklynbiblio, but I've made some background and color changes this time around. I may update it a few times seasonally, when I have the time. If you read these posts via email or an RSS reader, you can always go directly to http://bklynbiblio.blogspot.com to see the new look and read all of the posts from the past. And so we welcome the year 2016...HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Birthday No. 45

Following up on last year's memorable birthday, I thought I would share some highlights of birthday no. 45, which took place on Friday evening. My birthday celebration actually began last weekend, when AA & I took an overnight trip to Philadelphia, which was nice and relaxing. We have, of course, been there a few other times before, but this time I booked tickets for our first visit to the Barnes Foundation, the art museum established by private collector Albert Barnes, with its heavy emphasis on late 19th- and early 20th-century French modernist art. The Paul Cézanne still life you see here, from 1892-94, is just one of the many beautiful paintings by this artist in the collection. In contrast, Barnes clearly also liked Renoir and as a result there are way too many really bad Renoirs there too. I was surprised, however, by the number of paintings by Modigliani and Prendergast, that were all quite good. The reason why one goes to the Barnes, however, is to see his extraordinary installations, mandated by his bequest to be remained as such, for future learning experiences. His eye was based on formal elements: line, color, composition, etc. Subject was irrelevant. As a result, Barnes liked to hang things based on balance and harmonic influences, so one sees arrangements that often seem bizarre with mixed small and large paintings hung crowded together, and with metal ornamental objects like door hinges and scissors hung to balance the linear structure of the paintings. There is a method to the madness, and the more one learns about Barnes and his vision of looking at art, one realizes what a fascinating museum it truly is. The foundation itself did a rather controversial thing in moving the museum from his home in Merion, PA to downtown Philadelphia near the Rodin Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA), but their new building, which opened in 2012 and was designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, is an example of gorgeous, organic architecture, and the rooms have been retained in their original installations. This is definitely worth a visit if one has never been. We also visited the Rodin Museum, which has the largest collection of works by Auguste Rodin outside of Europe, and we also strolled through a few galleries at the PMA too. We also enjoyed strolling through historical neighborhoods like Society Hill, with its delightfully charming 18th-century colonial homes, and the downtown areas near Rittenhouse Square.

My actual birthday was this past Friday, so I took the day off from work. I was suffering from bad hayfever, but fought through it to get my haircut, then eat a delicious lunch with my artist-friend MT. I received in the mail a gift from the PR-AMs: a beautifully illustrated book by Cynthia Mills entitled Beyond Grief: Sculpture and Wonder in the Gilded Age Cemetery. That evening AA & I first met up with my friend JHC and her adorable son D for a glass of wine and charcuterie. Then we had a stylishly hipster dinner of tapas & dim sum at Ma Peche in midtown. My birthday gift? A new iPhone 6! (Oh, how I love that man of mine!) I'm still just getting the hang of it, so I doubt I will write a technology review as I've done in the past, but the phone is fantastic. On Saturday, our friend AR arrived from Zurich, and last night the boys (AR, DM, JM, DC, AA and moi) got together for drinks at Therapy and then dinner at Maria Pia in Hell's Kitchen (veal saltimbocca...molto buono). All these festivities will continue some more on Tuesday when KB arrives to stay at my apartment, and we have a group post-birthday dinner with a few other friends.

But wait...it gets better. In a few days I leave for Italia. I'm going to see family for a few days, reconnecting with them after my father's passing. Then AA is flying over with the DPG-JBs, and I am meeting them in Rome. After we visit the Eternal City, we head to Florence, and then a final day in Milan before heading home. It's going to be such a great vacation. I can't believe I haven't been to Italy since June 2009 (about which I blogged here). The image you see here was taken by me back then as well, and shows a view of the Ponte Sant'Angelo with sculptures by GianLorenzo Bernini, taken from the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome.

As festive as all of this is, I think the most important part of aging and celebrating each passing year is the reflection on our lives, all of our accomplishments, and all the lessons we continue to learn each day. In thanking everyone on Facebook for their wonderful birthday wishes, I wrote the following message, and I hope it has some poignancy for anyone who reads it here as well: "Thanks, everyone, for the wonderful birthday wishes!! Having now reached the 45th anniversary of my birth, I'm starting to accept all those things, good + bad, that accompany the beginning of my 'middle-aged' years (note that I said beginning!!). Gray hair + a few extra pounds aren't that traumatic, I really don't sweat the small stuff like I used to, I've learned through difficult losses, but also with great love, that life IS about the ups + downs and learning how to ride those waves without falling, and--the one lesson I try to remind myself each day--there is truly nothing more important in our lives than the moments we are living right now. I look forward to more of life's lessons as I continue maturing gracefully."

500 Posts and Happy 2015!

January 1, 2015...HAPPY NEW YEAR! I start off each year with the proper greeting. Sometimes I modify the layout of the blog, but I've decided to leave it as is for now. However, I have added a link to the bklynbiblio Instagram account, so check it out and follow me there, as well as on Twitter (where we now have reached 515 tweets). The big news, however, is that this New Year's Day post also coincides with the 500th post on this blog. The image above is from the Fortune 500 list from 2014; the bold, gold numbers seemed appropriate for a New Year's association. (It is strangely coincidental that two years ago we reached the 400th post on New Year's Day.)

When I first started this blog back in August 2008, I envisioned it as a space where I could write and see the results of my writing. I was still taking courses in my doctoral program, and I lamented that I could not spend more time writing my own work. A blog seemed to be the most logical way to do this. People claim that blogs today are dead, and arguably social media products like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram are the preferred way of maintaining communication. But I still find this blog an effective place for me to write. It is a virtual zone where I can be creative or critical, analytical or entertaining. It is an aesthetic arena in which I can share images of works of art so they can be admired and contemplated as objects of beauty and constructs of social engagement. What I never imagined was, more than 6 years later, that I would still be writing this blog and that I would reach my 500th post. It is a milestone, and I am admittedly proud of this accomplishment.

As always, I find these centenary markers an opportunity to share some interesting statistics about bklynbiblio. Since August 2008, there have been 91,565 page views. That works out to be approximately 1189 page views per month. More than half of the traffic coming to the blog is from U.S. Internet addresses, but after that the traffic comes from, in order, the United Kingdom, France, Ukraine, and Germany. (This is an interesting contrast to the top countries when we had hit 400 posts: UK, Germany, Canada, and Russia.) About 40% of readers use Internet Explorer to read my blog posts, followed by 26% on Firefox and 19% on Chrome (note: I use Chrome for all my blogging). Most interesting, of course, are the blog posts that rank as the highest viewed. Amazingly, #s 1 and 2 have retained their top most popular posts, while #3 moves up one from its former position. The next two are new entries and I'm pleased to see at #5 one of my Monthly Works of Art. Here are the official ranks:
#1. Male Enhancement [Jul. 5, 2010; 2090 views]
#2. Review: Yinka Shonibare MBE [Sep. 6, 2009; 1038 views]
#3. Is It Baroque, and Do We Fix It? [Aug. 7, 2011; 513 views]
#4. Post-Queer Art History [Oct. 13, 2009; 445 views]
#5. MWA II: Vatican Shepherd [Apr. 7, 2012; 438 views]
Among the ranks for #6 through #10 are my obituary of art historian Lionel Lambourne and my post about the sale of Simeon Solomon's signed copy of his 1871 prose poem A Vision of Love Revealed in Sleep dedicated to Algernon Charles Swinburne.

Although this blog is a way for me to express myself, my writing only has perpetual value because there are readers out there who appreciate, agree, disagree, comment, "like," and respond to these words over time, if not on this blog directly, then in emails, on social media, and in person. Thank you, readers, for helping bklynbiblio reach its 500th post. Here's to reaching 600!

Happy 2014!

I kicked off the new year today by visiting the New-York Historical Society, as I suggested I would do in my last post. Their big exhibition has been The Armory Show at 100: Modern Art and Revolution, a celebration of the international modern art show that arguably revolutionized the history of American art itself with the introduction of Cubism and Fauvism to American audiences. The exhibition gave a survey appreciation of the 1913 show by bringing back many of the most famous works that were on exhibit, but I was actually surprised the show wasn't very large. It was an interesting study of the history and impact of the 1913 Armory show, and I did learn a few new things, but the show didn't impress me as I had expected. In contrast, Beauty's Legacy: Gilded Age Portraits in America was much more appealing. Highlighting exquisite grand-manner portraits of wealthy Americans painted from about 1880 to 1920, when the Astors and Vanderbilts ruled New York City's social scene, this exhibition offered interesting ways to consider these portraits as symbols of feminine beauty and masculine virility. One of the stand-out portraits was the one you see here of James Hazen Hyde (1876-1959) painted by the French artist Theobald Cartran (1849-1907). The portrait dates from 1901 when he was 25 years of age, and both his proud, peacock-like stance and hand gestures connect the portrait to a 16th-century work by Bronzino at the Met Museum. Hyde was the chief owner of his father's company, Equitable Life Assurance Society, and soon after this painting was completed he was unjustly accused of a scandalous bungling of the company's assets. He spent the rest of his years as an expatriate living in Paris...as if that were such a tragedy. (Image source: New-York Historical Society)

bklynbiblio readers know I start off the new year with a blog post; last year's coincided with my 400th post! It's been a quiet holiday season for me this year, giving me time to write and catch up on a few things. I've even redesigned the look of bklynbiblio, since I had not changed it in a couple of years. If you're reading this by email and/or through an RSS feeder, go to http://bklynbiblio.blogspot.com to see the new look. I've also activated the mobile version with a slightly different template, so it will read better on iPhones, iPads, etc. And so...here's to another year of blogging, and working toward my 500th post. Happy 2014!

Movin' on Up!

The picture you see here is the front facade of the building in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, where I've lived for the past 8 years. It amazes me to realize that I moved here in August 2005 and how fast the time has flown by. My entire doctoral education took place on the 2nd floor of this building, as did a number of parties with good friends, and stayovers with family and friends who got a taste of Brooklyn on their visits. This is actually one of the longest residences I've ever had too. But one must move on. Or as I've been envisioning it, I'm "movin' on up!" Yes, readers, I'm moving into Manhattan. I'm moving into a studio apartment on the Upper West Side, which will make my commute to work faster. I will be able to enjoy the benefits of being near Riverside Park and Central Park as well. It's going to be a big change for me, but I'm looking forward to it. But what shall we do with bklynbiblio? The premise of this blog name was because I lived in Brooklyn. Do I change it because I'm moving out of Brooklyn? I've thought a lot about this, and I've decided the answer is NO. I've become rather proud of my blogging sobriquet, and rather than suggest by its name that I'm a current Brooklyn resident, my blog name will reflect where it was born and christened. So, although I bid adieu to 8 years of Brooklyn residency--to the BQE, to the Met grocery store, to Bocca Lupo's amazing food, and my local laundrymat and dry cleaner/seamstress (that poor Chinese woman will be devastated!)--I also say hello to Manhattan...I'm movin' on up! And to commemorate this great moment, I present to you George and Louise Jefferson, who once upon time found themselves "movin' on up" to the East Side (okay, I'm going to the West Side, but you get the idea). If you can't see the video, click here.

Portal 1

Ever since I began bklynbiblio in August 2008, I've used it primarily for the discussion of ideas and reviews associated with the arts and humanities. I've also brought in my own work, such as my scholarly presentations and writings on the 19th-century artists John Gibson and Simeon Solomon. However, it always was my intention to also use the blog as a portal for the dissemination of my own creative work, especially my photography. For the record, I make no claim to being a professional photographer, and in fact I would only ever claim to be an amateur. To be blunt, I'm not that good, and I know very little about how to take professional photos. Digital photography, not to mention software tools like Photoshop and Instagram, has made all of us photographers in one way or another, for better or for worse. So in some ways for me it's less about the ability to take photos and more the conscious thematic arrangement or composition of them that is important. Over the years, I have worked on an art project that I call Portals, and I've decided to start sharing images from the series on this blog. The work you see here has now been dubbed the first in the series, Portal 1: Firenze (8 July 2005). As I post these from time to time, each will be accompanied by texts, and to begin the series I thought I would write a statement about the project and the images. I hope you enjoy it, and please do feel free to comment on the blog. (Note that I hold copyright on these images. You are free to download them for your personal use, but please ask my permission before using an image for print or electronic publications, including on another website. You should always cite the source and photographer for your images, when known.) And now, my statement...

What is a portal? It's a doorway, a gateway, a passageway. It's the in-between space between here and there, between today and tomorrow, between life and death. It is no space and all space at the same time. Sometimes it is open, sometimes it is closed. A portal's very existence is an invitation to look through it and to pass through it, and in doing so a new world awaits you on the other side. It may be better than what you left, or it may be worse. That is the risk and thrill of a portal. We pass through portals every day of our lives and never think about them. Other portals, however, make us stop and think, perhaps because we see something exquisite on the other side and we cannot fathom how we to obtain it, or because we know something dark is there and it terrifies us and we can barely convince ourselves to turn the doorknob. To pass through a portal is to evolve. Portals may be doors, but they may be windows, gates, or simply created spaces in which to pass to another place. My photography series Portals will show you various types of passageways I have photographed through the years. I leave the aesthetic judgment of each image up to you. Each will be accompanied by excerpts from poetry, literature, essays, and/or spiritual texts, each of which will share how portals have impacted and continue to affect our lives. It is my hope from this series that you will appreciate my images as examples of the beautiful and the sublime. But ultimately I hope that the series may teach you to pause every once and a while when you come up on a portal, to think for a moment about where it is you are in life and where you are going, to relish the very life you are living and the experience you are about to begin, simply by peering through an open window or stepping through a doorway to another space beyond.

400 Posts and Happy 2013!

bklynbiblio has reached its 400th post! We made it to 300 back in May 2011, so it has taken a while to get to this one, but I think you'll agree that this is still quite a milestone. It also conveniently times well with our annual New Year's Day post, so what better way to kick off 2013 and celebrate 400 posts then with a lovely champagne toast!

Each new year I modify the look of bklynbiblio, but I'm leaving it alone this time as I actually like the look. And now for some statistics. Blogger software has been keeping stats since our little blog was launched in August 2008, so here are a few I thought you might find of interest. We have had 42,301 page views, which works out to be about 830 page views per month. Almost half of those views have come from US Internet addresses, with the UK, Germany, Canada, and Russia (!) next on the list. 76% have been Windows users, with Mac users only at 14%. Here's my favorite part--the most frequently visited posts--and the top 2 and #5 remain the same! (#1 certainly isn't much of a surprise, but what is going on with #3?)
#1. Male Enhancement [July 5, 2010; 1391 views]
#2. Review: Yinka Shonibare MBE [Sep 6, 2009; 881 views]
#3. Happy 3rd Birthday! [Aug 29, 2011; 420 views]
#4. Is It Baroque, and Do We Fix It? [Aug 7, 2011; 368 views]
#5. 50 UK Days: Week 2.5 [Oct 28, 2010; 317 views]
Among #s 6-10 are my posts on Downton Abbey and my review of the Cindy Sherman exhibition.

My thanks as always to all of my readers for your continued support and encouragement. Here's to the next 100 posts!

MWA II: Vatican Shepherd

Following up on last month's Tulips in a Vase by Paul Cézanne, I've decided to select as the second MWA (Monthly Work of Art) the statue you see here, The Good Shepherd, from the collections at the Vatican Museums. The statue is 39 1/8 in. in height, carved from marble, and dates from the late 3rd century. Scholars refer to this period as Late Antiquity to distinguish it from the heyday of classical sculpture, such as 5th-century B.C. Athens or early 1st-century Imperialist Rome. The implication is that the quality of this work is less impressive than these early masterworks, and it borders on the beginning of the medieval period (no one says "Dark Ages" anymore). This is the time when Christianity had spread far and wide through the Roman Empire. Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 312, then issued the Edict of Milan the following year, effectively ending the persecution of Christians. Hence, art from this period reflects a growing interest in Christian subjects, but it has similarities to ancient Greco-Roman precedents. For instance, this shepherd bears some resemblance to figures of the sun god Apollo, with his youthful facial features and curls of hair. Iconographically, however, the statue traditionally has been interpreted by Christians as representing Christ and his parable of the Good Shepherd, who abandons seeks out the one sheep who is lost and return him to the flock (Matthew 18:12-14; Luke 15:3-7; John 10:11-16). Of course, shepherds were a relatively common appearance in Greco-Roman art, so the figure was simply adapted as a Christian icon.

It may seem as if I've chosen this work as April's MWA because tomorrow is Easter. In fact, this statue has had great meaning for me most of my life. Art historians often reflect about the work that first inspired them to pursue the study of art. For me, it was this statue, and it makes me realize how I've come full circle in many ways, specializing in sculpture as I am. In 1983 this statue and numerous other works traveled to The Metropolitan Museum of Art here in NYC for a special exhibition entitled The Vatican Collections: The Papacy and Art. The Pater and the Mater took me to see this show. It was my very first trip to an art museum, and I am almost positive that we went because it was my 13th birthday. I don't know why I would have known about the show, but I suspect the nuns in my school probably encouraged us to see it. I remember being completely overwhelmed by the beauty of the Met building, and I remember waiting on a long line to see the show. But in going through the rooms of Vatican art from ancient through modern periods, it was this statue that left its mark on me. One would think it might have been the Apollo Belvedere or some other magnificent ancient statue on display, but I suspect I may have been bashful about that work's provocative nudity. Instead, The Good Shepherd resonated with me as an adolescent, interested at that time in my Catholic faith, and from birth always instinctively interested in caring for animals. I simply loved how he carried over his shoulders his lamb as a pet with such genuine concern. He was a savior for both humans and animals.

Curiously, I've been to the Vatican Museums twice, and I cannot recall ever seeing this statue there. In looking up more information about it, I was surprised to discover that most of it is 18th-century restoration work, although his torso and upper body and head, and most of the lamb, are 3rd century. I didn't realize that it may have been part of a column or a segment from a high-relief sculpture either. And looking at the work now in reproduction, I cannot say that it is an exquisite work of art, certainly nowhere near as idealistically beautiful as the Apollo Belvedere. This just may be one of those moments where you can never return home again. But maybe that's okay. My memory of the statue and first encountering it led me on a path that has taken me to where I am today. It is my statue, fragmented and restored, misinterpreted and misunderstood. In short, it is human in its most natural, imperfect way.

Happy 2012!

Is it really 2012? Someone needs to tell Father Time to slow down! The weather here in NYC is surprisingly mild, pushing into the 50s today, although we are expecting a cold snap with highs in the 20s on Tuesday. Since I've been recovering from another sinus infection and feeling perpetually exhausted, I decided to lay low last night. I wound up watching the 1934 film It Happened One Night with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, which was surprisingly racy for the time, with blatant sexual innuendos and flashes of bare flesh. The film itself was okay, but it wasn't easy listening to all that misogyny, as if constantly belittling a woman was a sure way to win her heart.

For the past few years, I've been redesigning the look of bklynbiblio on New Year's, and today is no exception. A few months ago Google introduced some new templates, but despite their sleek looks and functionality, none of them worked for me. Since I believe the look of the blog shouldn't overwhelm the posts themselves, I've gone for a more streamlined look for easier reading. (If you read these posts by email or RSS, go to http://bklynbiblio.blogspot.com to see it live.) So here's to another year of blogging. Happy 2012!

Christmas 2011

The tree you see here is from The Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection. It is installed in the Medieval Hall during the holidays. The enormous tree and the nativity scene, with accompanying angels decorating the tree itself, were made in Naples in the 18th century. To all the bklynbiblio readers out there, here's wishing you and your loved ones a very Merry Christmas!

The M.Phil. Degree

Which one of these things doesn't match the other? If you guessed the square on the lower left, you would be quite right. I went to school today to pick up my diploma for my M.Phil. degree (Art History), which is the newbie joining my B.A. (English) on the stand and 2 M.A. degrees (Humanities and Library & Information Science) on the wall. Too bad it's kind of plain looking compared to my other degrees with their fancy Gothic calligraphy. I actually received my M.Phil. on September 30, but it took them so long to prepare the actual diploma, I had forgotten all about it. In case you don't understand how all this works, in American universities the M.Phil. stands for Master of Philosophy and is the degree you earn when you've finished all Ph.D.-level coursework and exams. It means you're A.B.D. (colloquially, "all but dissertation"). Once I complete my dissertation and defend it, then I will earn the Ph.D. and you'll be able to call me dr. bklynbiblio. But I still have more to do to get there, and Lord knows I'm working hard at it. The dissertation is moving along slowly but surely. I have a tendency to obsess over what I need to do next in my life, to the total detriment of acknowledging what I've done so far. It was a pleasure then to set the diploma on my bookcase today, and to take a few moments to pat myself on the back and think about all that I have accomplished. It felt rewarding, and I even smiled. We all need to do that a little more often.

Happy 2011!

Since I had a quiet Christmas, I figured New Year's should call for some celebrating. I met up with JM and AR for drinks and dinner, then we headed over to a party hosted by friends of ours. Midnight meant champagne, noise makers, and lovely cardboard tiaras as we watched Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin on television hosting the ball drop at Times Square (you didn't actually think we would deal with the 100,000 people smoshed in Times Square, did you?). The weather yesterday and today is beautiful, in the upper 40s Fahrenheit, although we're expecting rain for this evening, so perhaps some of the snow will melt and no one will have to worry about the fact that the City still hasn't plowed sections of the boroughs. A freeze is coming back by Monday though. Since it's out with 2010 and in with the new year, I've redesigned the bklynbiblio site, so if you're perusing this post through Google Reader or some other blog reading program, go to http://bklynbiblio.blogspot.com/ to see the new look. Let me know what you think. As for the picture you see here, it's a lovely old-fashioned card scanned by Vintage Holiday Crafts offering wishes for the new year. So here's to 2011!

Christmas 2010

The picture you see here is The Adoration of the Shepherds by the northern Italian artist Andrea Mantegna, showing the scene from Luke 2:16, "So [the shepherds] hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger." This Renaissance picture dates from just after 1450 and is part of the exquisite paintings collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Christmas this year is a bit different for me. For the first time, I decided to stay in NYC and not visit family. With all the traveling I've been doing, and just getting back into my NYC groove, I decided to spend this holiday season doing...well...nothing. Since last night I've been reading, watching movies, and gorging on Entenmann's marshmallow iced devil's food cake (it's taking all my will power not to inhale the whole thing in one sitting). In short, I'm relaxing. And enjoying every minute of it. While it would have been wonderful to see everyone and participate in all the food and presents and blissful dysfunctional chaos that has defined every Christmas in my life, I have to admit there's something spectacular about having no pressure to do anything more challenging than deciding whether I should change from my pajamas into a pair of sweat pants. A blessed holiday indeed. Merry Christmas, dear readers!

Christmas 2009

Even though the temperature today was about 30 degrees Fahrenheit, the sun was strong. I'm surprised (and perhaps a little disappointed) to say that a few inches of the snow have melted already. From comments on my post last night, it appears my friend CC and her family in Yorkshire, England have been contending with heavy snow, while Shermania in upstate New York barely got any snow at all. We wound up with just under a foot in my neighborhood and, yes, I was out there shoveling at 8:45am! Hopefully this means airport travel tomorrow should be smooth. I'm heading to the Sunshine State (where it's actually not very warm at the moment) to visit family for the holidays, so any bklynbiblio posts I do for a while will be from down there. I leave you with the above picture I took with my mobile phone of a wooden rocking horse that was a gift from my mother in 1991. The hand-painted horse is about a foot high and long. To me, it exudes a sense of Victorian sentimentality, which Momma knew I would appreciate. It seemed like an appropriate image to share since tomorrow also would have been her 67th birthday. Needless to say, this rocking horse is one of my most cherished holiday decorations. Buon Natale, tutti! Merry Christmas to you all!