TIDBITS FROM SETRIGHT’S TIMESCALE PART 1
AUTOMOTIVE JOURNALISTS WRITE ABOUT AUTOMOBLES. But some, like L.J.K. Setright, widened their field of vision considerably. His classic Drive On! is accurately subtitled A Social History of the Motor Car. … Continue reading
ON OLD REFERENCE BOOKS
I PONDER OCCASIONALLY, AMIDST SCADS OF BOOKS, whether a few clicks of the computer keyboard wouldn’t replace them all. This, in a sense, is the idea being LLM, large language … Continue reading
PUTTING ART DECO TO WORK
NEW YORK’S POSTER HOUSE ANNOUNCES its exhibition “Art Deco: Commerciailizing the Avant-Garde” with a provocative statement: “The term ‘Art Deco’ did not exist until the 1960s.” This in itself got … Continue reading
ART FORGERY
ROSEMARY HILL IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE writers in London Review of Books. This time around, her September 7, 2023, article ‘Art and Artifice’ reviews what she calls “the Courtauld … Continue reading
VIEWED RECENTLY, REVIEWED BACK THEN
BEING AS I AM an aficionado of old movies, I thought it would be interesting to consult reviewers of the era, kinda to see if they got it right. My … Continue reading
TEXAS GUINAN—NOT JUST ANOTHER INDICTED B.S. ARTIST PART 2
MAMIE, A YOUNG LADY FROM WACO, (sounds like the start of a salacious limerick, eh?) gained fame with a name change to “Texas” (out the window goes the rhyme). Today … Continue reading
TEXAS GUINAN—NOT JUST ANOTHER INDICTED B.S. ARTIST PART 1
MY RECENT REFERENCE TO Texas Guinnan recalls a favorite subhead of mine in R&T: “Let’s Belly Up to the Bar, Folks, And See What We Can Learn.” It was a … Continue reading
NATIONAL DESIGN AWARDS 2023
THIS YEAR’S RECIPIENTS OF THE COOPER HEWITT, Smithsonian Design Museum, National Design Awards range from “a handcraft-focused fashion designer to one of the early pioneers of digital design.” Established in … Continue reading
HE’S NO 007, BUT…. PART 2
YESTERDAY, THOMAS JONES’ REVIEW “Lives of Reilly,” London Review of Books, August 10, 2023, introduced us to a fellow known as “Ace of Spies,” not to say more than this. … Continue reading
HE’S NO 007, BUT…. PART 1
IN HIS BOOK SIDNEY REILLY: MASTER SPY, author Benny Morris recounts, “Ian Fleming once said that ‘James Bond is just a piece of nonsense I dreamed up. He’s not a … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 