Imitation of Picasso

Posted on February 11, 2010 by Linnea

The end of my neighbor’s wall was puzzling me. The edged bit seemed quasi-human. I couldn’t figure out quite what it reminded me off, then I thought it rather had the same sense as this view from Picasso’s villa in Antibes.

Now I think it was something else I was trying to remember– a white face formed rather like PacMan, facing left?– but I can’t put my finger on the title or artist of this imagined painting. Of course, if you look hard enough, you can see anything in a bit of wall. The island is having its effect on me; perhaps the glaring sun is creating mirages.

Do you know what I’m thinking of, or has this anthropomorphic bit of wall played tricks on my imagination?

Fodder from the Reader

Posted on February 10, 2010 by Linnea

Via SwissMiss

Taking another day for the old novel, which is still going full steam, I’m happy to say. However I did get a chance to do a little web browsing, and voila! interesting things abound:

Hyperallergic has a lovely post contrasting museum art versus street art in terms of how we experience it, with bonus points for working in Proust.
Innovative trend: artistic funeral urns?
The Dull New Global Novel from the NYT Review of Books. The title says it all.
Abstract Expression had a mother? Apparently those macho men have some secrets…
Jerry Saltz’s webpage
Jhumpa Lahiri and Chuck Close make President Obama’s advisory committee via Culture Monster
The Royal Shakespeare Company is doing a residency at the Armory this June, maybe even one-upping my beloved Shakespeare in the Park

Unrelated thought: ‘Write what you know’ is rubbish advice. The whole point is to imagine and create, not replicate in dronish detail. If we did that, there would be no magical creatures, no fantasy, and no sci-fi. Not to mention relatively few happy endings, if only because it’s hard to know where things end in life. You can’t wrap up a person’s life after the good parts like a story.

Back from Paradise

Posted on February 9, 2010 by Linnea

Little did we guess upon seeing this steep hunk of rock sticking out of the ocean that we were entering paradise. Saba was paradise. The scuba diving was fantastic, as we expected, but we didn’t know this tiny, beachless former volcano would be the most magical place we had ever been.

The people, all 1,400 living there, are friendly and helpful. The pace of life is beyond slow. Life is simple. There are no beaches, there are no bugs, and there are few tourists. The top of the island is rain forest, at about 3,000 feet above sea level, and is the highest point in the Netherlands. We did some hiking, but we didn’t make it all 1,064 steps to the top–we left that for next time.

It was a great break, and I came back full of focus and creative juice. So it’s back to the novel for me.