Ricky Jay
One of the best (if not the best) doing his thing; what brilliance we lost.
On the other side of these very thin Paintshop walls...
…banging and clanging and impact drilling and cutting continues: Garage door, day two ensues: looks like we're nearing the end, fingers crossed – on both mine and the builder's mental capacities: he said it was by far the most challenging garage he's ever worked on, which, I suppose, makes me feel semi-vindicated that I hadn't tackled it because it would have ended up being a tarp with velcro and even that's pushing it. Even the removal was more elegant than my crowbarring of one panel, not that that's difficult to improve upon, but the building team did it with aplomb.
Wait: I think I heard some beeping. Is that… the garage door rising by itself??? Oooh…
After wrapping up the morning, it's lunch and then more waiting around until K gets home so I can go mow my remaining grandfather's yard and finish weedeating of the bank from hell. Unless things take a surprising turn, ending the school year as I began, with another grandfather exiting, is not at all outside the realm of possibility.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.
the floral still lifes of Christiane Kubrick (in EYES WIDE SHUT)
I really need to revisit EYES; it’s been far too long.
Christiane’s paintings serve as more than decoration. Their floral subject matter reinforces the movie’s themes of lust and decay. Another work titled Homage to Van Gogh, an imitation of the Dutch master’s work seen in the background as the characters eat breakfast and watch TV, evokes the concepts of truth and authenticity, which play a central role in this story about a troubled marriage.
As author Juli Kearns explains in a frame-by-frame analysis of the film:
“What is authentic and what is not the real thing? What hasn’t fidelity? Butter is not butter and what represents itself as a bear is instead honey. In the Looney Tunes cartoon, Santa proves to instead be the Tasmanian Devil when the soot is removed. And then there’s Christiane’s rendering of Van Gogh flowers in homage of him.”
(via artnet)
