Variations on a Blue Guitar

They said, “You have a blue guitar,

You do not play things as they are.”

The man replied, “Things as they are

Are changed upon the blue guitar.”

Gertrude’s Gloire

Gertrude Stein, sculpture by Jo Davidson

I’d been warned that the exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum, The Steins Collect, was vast and, not only that, but also full of explanatory text.  “You can spend all your time,” said my artist-friend Barbara, “just reading the text.”

Where the Wild Things Really Are

Exhibition Poster, from Illustrated Legends of Kitano Tenjin Shrine

And when he came to the place where the wild things are/

They roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth

—Maurice Sendak

An eight-headed, nine-tailed monster greeted us at the door of the exhibition. Fortunately for us, the monster was preoccupied with other business, for he guards the gate to hell.

My City

Balmy, it was.  Last winter, New York City was snowbound.  We had to pick our way across the slushy streets.  This holiday season, though, we could step out when and where we liked.

The Triumph of Style

“Even if we returned skillfully and victoriously to those wondrous paintings of Tamerlane's time . . . in the final analysis, all of it'll be forgotten,” I said mercilessly, “because everybody will want to paint like the Europeans."

“My Enishte believed the same,” Black confessed meekly, “yet it filled him with hope.”

—Orhan Pamuk, My Name Is Red 

We had two hours to cover the ground.  Even before we stepped into the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibit Wonder of the Age:  Master Painters of India 1100-1900, we knew all was lost.  In the fond hope I’d mistaken the closing date, I braved the gift shop attendant’s dour demeanor and inquired.

In the Beginning, Cracked Duck Eggs

After a far-too-early blast of winter here and a power outage that wouldn’t quit, it’s not surprising that the re-dawn of electrical power might call to mind the beginning of the world.

Innisfree in October

In autumn, Innisfree Garden, so lush with blooms in spring and summer, begins to reveal its bones.  The stands of yellow flag have been cut down, the bed from which peonies once spilled out has been returned to bare ground.