Snakes & Ladders

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A Shift of Attention

Friends,

I love making this newsletter but I can’t manage it right now — I am hitting the pause button, possibly for a long while. However, I still will be sharing interesting stuff I come across, just not in a structured way and not on a schedule. I’ll be doing that at my micro.blog page. And one nice feature of micro.blog is the option to send out a weekly digest of one’s posts. You can sign up for that here — it’ll be a lot like getting this newsletter! The next one will go out on Thursday, 17 August.

Thanks for all your attention over the years,

AJ

#228
August 16, 2023
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The Eye Chart and the King Actor

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abbey

Mal Evans’s diary

#227
August 14, 2023
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Silence, Minuets, Gold

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chest

A pocket medicine chest, with the Rod of Asclepius on its cover; copied from an original found at Pompeii.

#226
August 7, 2023
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Physicists, Poets, and Other Stock Characters

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evening

I’ve just returned from a wonderfully restorative week at Laity Lodge, the kind sponsor of this newsletter and my home away from home. My tummy is full of Chef Ryan’s good food and my heart is full of love.

#225
July 31, 2023
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I Am Inquisitive in the Lord

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jubilate

What a gorgeous edition of Christopher Smart’s weirdly wonderful poem Jubilate Agno. One of my first published essays — an excerpt from my dissertation — was on Smart, one of the eighteenth century’s most prominent “mad poets.” Samuel Johnson loved Smart, as this passage from Boswell’s life shows:

#224
July 24, 2023
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The Way the Cards Are Dealt

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Angus leaping

The breeder from whom we bought Angus would like to have a portrait of him now that he’s a big boy. The above is what happened when I tried to take that portrait.

#223
July 17, 2023
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Presidents, Aunties, and Hexagonal Rooms

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FLW

WSJ:

#222
July 10, 2023
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Pray for Rain

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fisherman

This site identifies the photographer here as Ilaria Miani, but evidence is lacking. Great Cartier-Bressonesque shot, though, taken at Inle Lake in Myanmar. These fishermen are quite photogenic: see for instance this photo by Rachel Mary Prout. These are the Intha people -- “sons of the lake.”

#221
July 3, 2023
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Cities and Ruins

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olivetti

How Stephen Heller lost his heart at the Olivetti store

#220
June 26, 2023
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Art Out of Time

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graphics

Early Computer Art in the 50’S & 60’S

#219
June 19, 2023
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Tiger, Cathedral, Atlas

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Tony Sarg

The art of Tony Sarg

#218
June 12, 2023
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En Passant

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dogs

Clay mastiffs, found in the excavated ruins of a palace in Nineveh, were meant to protect the property from demons. They have cuneiform inscriptions on them, one of which reads ē tamtallik epuš pāka -- or, “Don’t think, bite!” Who’s a good boy?

#217
June 5, 2023
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The Comfort of Friends

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magnolia


#216
May 29, 2023
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Tree and Leaf

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wenders

Photographs of the American West by Wim Wenders

#215
May 22, 2023
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Archbishop of Banterbury

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spoonbill

Melissa Cormican’s animal portraits

#214
May 15, 2023
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A Bell That Rings True

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berlin

Photograph by Tony Cearns

#213
May 8, 2023
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Begone About Your Business

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cresthat

Preston Singletary, Crest Hat (2021). Blown and sand-carved glass. 5½ x 21¾ x 21¾ inches. Photo by Russell Johnson. See a smart and sensitive essay on Singletary’s art by my friend (and former student!) Mischa Willett here.

#212
May 1, 2023
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Scott Joplin

joplin

Scott Joplin was born in 1868 or thereabouts. Probably in Texarkana, probably on the Arkansas side. His father was a railway worker and for a while he was one also, though eventually he was able to begin making a career he preferred as a music teacher. Then he became a performer and a composer of songs in the form that we know as ragtime. When Joplin published “Maple Leaf Rag” in 1899 he grew relatively wealthy and was recognized as the greatest exponent of ragtime music. However, the popularity of ragtime began to wane and Joplin’s career tailed off. He died of syphilis in 1916, in a New York hospital, and was soon completely forgotten.

rifkin

So things remained for half a century. But then, in 1970, a classical pianist named Joshua Rifkin released a record called Scott Joplin Piano Rags on the Nonesuch album label. Nonesuch was a classical label, which is fitting because Joplin thought of ragtime as a kind of classical music. Rifkin’s record was unexpectedly popular, ultimately becoming the first million selling record on Nonesuch, and it reintroduced Joplin’s music to the American public. This recovery was greatly aided by the appearance of one of Joplin’s rags, “The Entertainer,” in Marvin Hamlisch’s score for the movie The Sting. (An anachronistic choice, since the movie was set in the 1930s.) It was soon discovered that Joplin had written a great deal of music, including two operas, one of which was performed in his lifetime but was later lost. (The manuscript was confiscated after Joplin had become ill and unable to pay his debts.) The other one – a story about the importance of education in the Black community – survived, and was structurally and melodically complete, but had never been scored. Gunther Schuller orchestrated this opera, called Treemonisha, and had it performed in 1978. The resurrection of Scott Joplin as a major American composer would thus seem to be complete.

#211
April 24, 2023
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Sameness and Difference

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abraham

Abraham, from Dream Big, Laugh Often: And More Great Advice from the Bible, by Hanoch Piven and Shira Hecht-Koller.

#210
April 17, 2023
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Sedentary and Unsedentary Persons

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Lazarus

Lectionarily speaking, it’s a week late to be posting Sebastiano del Piombo’s The Raising of Lazarus. But here it is anyway. On the National Gallery website there’s a cool video of how such a painting is moved.

#209
April 3, 2023
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Heaven Words

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atuan

From the Folio Society edition of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Tombs of Atuan. I’m teaching the Earthsea books right now; what a joy.

#208
March 27, 2023
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Images and Architectures

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prestes

Photography by Henri Prestes

#207
March 20, 2023
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Planless

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reading

Colin Hayes

#206
March 13, 2023
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In Lieu of a Newsletter

Friends, I don’t have a newsletter for you this week because I am taking a brief head-clearing roadtrip to New Mexico and a bit of Colorado. But I do have a handful of photos and a tiny bit of commentary for you here.

Oh, especially for you William Blake fans, one more little thing.

Normal service will resume next week!

#205
March 5, 2023
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Comedy This Morning

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astle

Holly Astle

#204
February 27, 2023
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Mudlarkers and Drinking Fountains

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ravilious

The Sussex Downs in Winter by Eric Ravilious (1935)

#203
February 20, 2023
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Crocodiles and Thesauri

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crocodile

Tirzah Garwood, “The Crocodile” (1929) -- otherwise known as a "walking bus," but I love the word "crocodile" in this context.

#202
February 13, 2023
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System, Sequence, Mystery

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vicarage

Eric Ravilious, “Vicarage in Winter” (1935)

#201
February 6, 2023
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The Quality of Mercy

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paper

Paper sculpture by Layla May Arthur

#200
January 30, 2023
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Ain't Got Time for the Small Stuff

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I started this newsletter on Mailchimp before moving to Buttondown – and if you ever start a newsletter of your own I would strongly discourage you from using Mailchimp and strongly encourage you to use Buttondown – and this is my 200th edition. Goodness! And thanks to you all for coming along for the ride.


#199
January 23, 2023
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A Riot of Linkage

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Forthcoming in Comment:

murray

#198
January 16, 2023
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Highways of Empire

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alphabet

Johann David Steingruber’s Architectonisches Alphabeth (1773)

#197
January 9, 2023
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Here's What's Next

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atw

I’m calling this the question for 2023.

#196
January 2, 2023
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Christmas Epiphany

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globe

Shakespeare’s Snow-Globe

#195
December 26, 2022
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Whoops! Broken link

Sorry for the second intrusion into your inbox, but: This is the post by Tish Harrison Warren in which she commends A Rocha International.

Blessings to all,

Alan

#194
December 19, 2022
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The Winter Storm of Advent

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pancras

This year London’s St. Pancras Station “Christmas Tree” deserves those scare quotes, because it isn’t a tree and isn’t Christmassy. But it’s kinda cool! -- a 3D vertical compilation of London’s architectural landmarks. Here is a much larger image.

#193
December 19, 2022
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Picture-boxes in the stars

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ac

Bethlehem in Germany,
Glitter on the sloping roofs,
Breadcrumbs on the windowsills,
Candles in the Christmas trees,
Hearths with pairs of empty shoes:
Panels of Nativity
Open paper scenes where doors
Open into other scenes,
Some recounted, some foretold.
Blizzard-sprinkled flakes of gold
Gleam from small interiors,
Picture-boxes in the stars
Open up like cupboard doors
In a cabinet Jesus built.

#192
December 12, 2022
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Harvest Time

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regent Harold Burdekin, photograph from London Night (1934)

A very different image from London: Piero della Francesca’s Nativity has been restored and is back on view at the National Gallery:

#191
December 5, 2022
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Madnesses, Gentle and Otherwise

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andrade

Edna Andrade

#190
November 28, 2022
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The Idea You Have

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city

Bill Myers

#189
November 21, 2022
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Welcome to the Working Week

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diner

John Baeder

#188
November 14, 2022
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Truthier Truthiness

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craco

The abandoned village of Craco.

#187
November 7, 2022
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Yo!

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kestrel

The American Kestrel, AKA Sparrowhawk.

#186
October 31, 2022
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Illuminations and Retreats

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arch

More here.

#185
October 24, 2022
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Long-haulers and Loafers

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signs

French signage

#184
October 17, 2022
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Patient, Skilled, Peaceful, Goal-Oriented

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Odd monuments of Westminster Abbey:

The abbey held writers to a higher moral standard than the rich. Stanley cheered that Aphra Behn, writer and all-round hussy, hadn’t managed to get closer to Poets’ Corner than ‘beyond the east Cloister’. (Her stone carries one of the best inscriptions in the abbey: ‘Here lies a Proof that Wit can never be/Defence enough against Mortality.’) But he said not a word about Thomas Thynne of Longleat, who died seven years before her, in 1682. Known as Tom of Ten Thousand because he was so rich, and said to be syphilitic, he arranged a marriage to 14-year-old Elizabeth Percy, one of the richest heiresses in England, having paid his fellow MP Richard Brett, a known conman and a crook, £10,000 for helping to close the deal with Percy’s grandmother. His bride immediately fled abroad and Thynne was shot in Pall Mall on the orders of a failed suitor, the Swedish count Königsmarck. Königsmarck was acquitted (according to John Evelyn the jury was bribed) but his three hirelings were hanged. The murder, looking like a stagecoach hold-up, is shown in a relief on the base of Thynne’s monument – it’s worth a look and not just because it’s the only portrayal of a murder in the abbey.

#183
October 10, 2022
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Eccentricity

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york

Two weeks ago, I failed in my duty to my readers: I forgot to remind you all of the coming of an Ember Week. I am sorry. But you may remember them in the future this way:

#182
October 3, 2022
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Of Dust and Disks and Music for Animals

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Maugham

Etching by John Sloan from a 1938 edition of Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage.

#180
September 26, 2022
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Revisiting, Restoring, Recomposing

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benin

David Frum’s long report on the past, present, and future of the Benin Bronzes is fascinating, though I have some serious doubts about his arguments. All of this reminds me of a visit I made 31 years ago to the Sacred Grove of Ọṣun.

#167
September 19, 2022
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Storyboards

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storyboard

A storyboard by Wiard B. Ihnen for Fritz Lang’s Man Hunt (1941).

#181
September 12, 2022
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