Status Updates From Vermeer in Bosnia: Selected...

A Girl Intent: Wislawa Szymborska and The Lacemaker: a lovely end to a lovely book

A Parkinsonian Passion: Ed Weinberger: story just as beautiful as the furniture

“It *is* just a chair, but a chair taken seriously as such—a chair truly interrogated, a chair raised to the level of a question.”

keinholz’ past affixed also: now i want to see his work in person

true to life: david hockney’s photocollages: so interesting and now i really want to see one in person. would be cool to view through the lens of barthes is it time for me to reread camera lucida again???

the light of la: so incredibly beautiful, so many perfect quotes, i’m eating my words as this is now my favorite essay in the collection

“Finally comes the light, clear as stone-dry champagne, after a full day of rain. Everything in this light is somehow simultaneously particularized and idealized: each perfect, specific, ideal little tract house, one beside the next. And that’s the light that breaks hearts in L.A.”

“But when you have the kind of veiled light we get here more regularly you become aware of a sort of multiplicity—not illumination so much as luminosity. Southern California glows, not just all day but at night as well, and the opacity melts away into translucency and even transparency. “”

had to cut this quote into 3 but it’s so beautiful

“In places where you get a crisp, sharp light with deep, clean shadows—which we do get here sometimes—you get confronted with a strong contrasting duality: illumination and opacity.”

“”It feels primeval—there’s a sense of the undifferentiated, the nonhierarchical. It’s not exactly a dramatic light. In fact, ‘dramatic’ is exactly what it’s not. If anything, it’s meditative. And there’s something really peculiar about it.”

the la quake: really really liked this one

an la high school youth: robert irwin: loved this one. so fun

my grandfather’s passover cantata: it’s funny that in the previous essay, his daughter lays out all this crazy math about ages (verging on numerology) just for him to respond “Sara, get a life” and then turn around and do something very similar with generations in this essay

i hope that was on purpose

a fathers and daughters convergence: quite possibly my favorite essay in the book (so far at least)

“Do any of us ever grow up?”

why is the human on earth?: feels timely

a season with the borrowers: so sweet i could cry, might have to try and find the audio of this

sara’s eyes: short and sweet

my grandfather’s last tale: made me listen to ernst toch so that is good. touching

the son’s tale: art spiegalman: i really need to read maus.

the troll’s tale: jerzy urban: probably would have gone faster if i knew more about poland

the brat’s tale: roman polanski: honestly made me feel icky to read but also really makes me think about justice / what happens after someone does something horrible / who gets to decide what is “enough” etc etc etc