aesthetics | aesthetics
Dec.29.2012
The Delineator, a thick magazine full of fashion plates, made its money selling patterns. The Grecian Effect: Hmm. Classical Beauty.
There was hardly any advertising in the magazine, just many heavy-duty articles about social issues. Theodore Dreiser, the author of Sister Carrie, would soon...
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Dec.09.2012
Forgetfulness by Ward Just opens with a masterful first chapter in which the female protagonist, Florette, hurts her ankle on a French mountainside and is briefly helped by fugitive Islamic terrorists before, in an act of cruel expediency, they decide to slit her throat and leave her dead in the...
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Dec.06.2012
I recognize and understand spirituality more easily in the context of traditional religious rituals or the quasi-solitary contemplation of Nature or fine art, as opposed to more secular pratices such as yoga (as exercise) and tea ceremony which I view mainly as an aesthetic experience.
So when a...
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Apr.24.2012
American Galaxy is my upcoming new book: http://uwachuku.googlepages.com/americangalaxy
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Sep.13.2011
"A book is a network." Great phrase. Evocative. From new-publishing guru Todd Sattersten. I picked it up at a mind-widening webinar he hosted last week viaO'Reilly TOC. (I highly recommend him and them to authors, publishers and marketers.)
So: book as network. Let's mess around with...
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Jan.05.2011
Lately I have been pondering impermanence and mortality. Those who know me would understand why. They would also know that I like taking photographs, capturing and saving moments in time. These pictures would tell their own story, if anyone cared to listen. Sometimes I am the cinematographer,...
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May.28.2010
AN ARGUMENT FOR HYPERREALIST POETRY
Hyperrealism is a term mainly used to describe a movement in the visual arts that arose around the turn of the millennium. Artist like Ron Muech create works that reproduce the illusion of reality right down to every single pubic hair. They often strive to...
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May.05.2010
"Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen." --Leonardo da Vinci
There's nothing surprising in the observation that literary artists and visual artists often combine their talents to create works which, when joined...
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Apr.26.2010
No artist tolerates reality. Nietzsche said this. This is how I see the world. This = how.
David Shields' Reality Hunger, a compendium of numbered quotes from writers, philosophers, artists and other thinkers, is utterly inspiring.
I'm driven by a compulsion towards beauty. I hunger to hurl myself...
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Aug.25.2009
How do we distinguish between good and bad poetry? There are plenty of people who will say that it’s impossible to judge – that quality is a subjective thing and that one man’s literature is another’s junk. As a book reviewer who spends many hours a week judging the quality of a range of books,...
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