Bryce, this is really wonderful. Learned and entertaining. The best kind of didacticism. Nice work. Do you know Lawrence Wrenschler? A talented SAS.M mmm mmm 🇹🇩
Eek. A talented essayist, he is also a longtime friend of Hockney, and wrote a loving and learned biography of him. He wrote some good obituaries stuff as well.
Thanks. Weschler's book True to Life accounts for 25 years' worth of conversations he had with Hockney. It also has great prints--and accounts for most of what I know about Hockney! I didn't know about W's essays.
His book on Robert Irwin, Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing You See, is brilliant, in essence a long monograph. And his Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet Of Wonder, essays, was shortlisted for both the Pulitzer and the National Book Critics Circle award. His essay on the Museum of Jurassic Technology informed my work on developing a museum in San Francisco, also meant that I had to search out the museum and show it to both me and my daughter when she was considering going to college in LA. He now posts regularly on Substack essays that he titles, e.g., “Wonder Cabinet #26.”
His essays gave me permission to try to write about things that apparently had little in common.
The museum project failed. I consulted with the SF historical society to build a museum of the history of San Francisco. I was doing financing and initial project management. The high point was connecting with Rebecca Solnit, another favorite essayist, on a city mapping project.
Yes. There are many. I especially like her writing on getting lost — flâneury — and environmental writing. But the project we had in mind for this project shows in this book; she has done a few others. I view it as a kind of radical geography. https://a.co/d/06lvoKr1
Thanks. We were there last fall, and I wish I had her Infinite City then. But it’ll probably mean more to me now that I’ve recently been there, so I just ordered the book.
This observation in Amor Towles's A Gentleman in Moscow, which I've been reading since posting this dialog, gave me pause: "Just when a carefully crafted bit of dialogue is about to deliver a crystal-clear message, a hint of sarcasm or the raising of an eyebrow can spoil the entire effect. In fact, it can give credence to a notion that is the exact opposite of that which was intended." Of course, Phil can't take a hint, much less give one. But Towles is speaking of art in general, and in Soviet Russia in particular, as "the most unnatural minion of the state" (192-93).
Bryce, this is really wonderful. Learned and entertaining. The best kind of didacticism. Nice work. Do you know Lawrence Wrenschler? A talented SAS.M mmm mmm 🇹🇩
Eek. A talented essayist, he is also a longtime friend of Hockney, and wrote a loving and learned biography of him. He wrote some good obituaries stuff as well.
Thanks. Weschler's book True to Life accounts for 25 years' worth of conversations he had with Hockney. It also has great prints--and accounts for most of what I know about Hockney! I didn't know about W's essays.
His book on Robert Irwin, Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing You See, is brilliant, in essence a long monograph. And his Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet Of Wonder, essays, was shortlisted for both the Pulitzer and the National Book Critics Circle award. His essay on the Museum of Jurassic Technology informed my work on developing a museum in San Francisco, also meant that I had to search out the museum and show it to both me and my daughter when she was considering going to college in LA. He now posts regularly on Substack essays that he titles, e.g., “Wonder Cabinet #26.”
His Substack essays since Hockney's death got me to sign up today. I didn't know you worked on developing a museum!
His essays gave me permission to try to write about things that apparently had little in common.
The museum project failed. I consulted with the SF historical society to build a museum of the history of San Francisco. I was doing financing and initial project management. The high point was connecting with Rebecca Solnit, another favorite essayist, on a city mapping project.
I remember her chapter on the SF earthquake in A Paradise Built in Hell.
Yes. There are many. I especially like her writing on getting lost — flâneury — and environmental writing. But the project we had in mind for this project shows in this book; she has done a few others. I view it as a kind of radical geography. https://a.co/d/06lvoKr1
Thanks. We were there last fall, and I wish I had her Infinite City then. But it’ll probably mean more to me now that I’ve recently been there, so I just ordered the book.
This observation in Amor Towles's A Gentleman in Moscow, which I've been reading since posting this dialog, gave me pause: "Just when a carefully crafted bit of dialogue is about to deliver a crystal-clear message, a hint of sarcasm or the raising of an eyebrow can spoil the entire effect. In fact, it can give credence to a notion that is the exact opposite of that which was intended." Of course, Phil can't take a hint, much less give one. But Towles is speaking of art in general, and in Soviet Russia in particular, as "the most unnatural minion of the state" (192-93).