Tag Archives: Paris

the capacity for human error

the late Nora Ephron composed this list. I’ve drawn up mine below (with ones stolen from her in italics). I’m not sure why I’ll have to miss things – but it’s cute.

So there.

What I Won’t Miss

sun burn (I knew i forgot something when i went golfing yesterday!)
Bad dinners like the one we went to last night
My closet
smudged lenses
Seasonal flues and allergies
Polls
Fox TV
Mammograms
Dead flowers
The sound of the vacuum cleaner
Bills
Small print
the smell of dust
badly dubbed videos

What I Will Miss

Spring
Fall
Waffles

Bacon
A walk in the park
The idea of a walk in the park
Shakespeare in the Park
The bed
Rereading loved books
Dinner with friends
Paris
Pride and Prejudice
The Christmas tree
Taking a bath

good mornings

PS. Sorry I’ve been AOL lately. So much on my plate – no time to digest. I’ll be travelling a lot this month so updates will be random (but frequent, hopefully – am glaring at my drafts folder right now, oh sigh).

… seeing Picassos [2/3]

Sorry guys! I know some of you have been waiting for the next installment – my schedule has been pretty pack recently and I only found time to get this down because I’m sick now (thus, no partying/sports allowed)

We last left off at Picasso‘s famed Portrait of Dora Marr – turning around the corner in the gallery, we arrived at his politically inclined pieces:

Massacre In Korea – Picasso was particularly sensitive to the increasingly violent nature of  international political disputes. This painting depicts a number of females (some pregnant) about to be gunned down by fearsome machine like creatures. There is an obvious divide in the landscape. The women and children are in front of a collection of green hills whilst the opposition is backed by a flat, graying tundra.

Another famous war-piece was commissioned by the Spanish Gov’t: Guernica (wiki: The bombing of Guernica (April 26, 1937) was an aerial attack on the Basque town of Guernica, Spain, causing widespread destruction and civilian deaths):

An extremely patriotic man, Picasso was especially dedicated to this project – which took about 40 days to complete (extremely fast for such a large piece) This mural extends 11 feet by 25.6 feet and was exhibited at the 1937 Word’s Fair in Paris. It helped raise awareness for the Spanish Civil War that was plaguing the country at the time.

I have been dismissive of Picasso’s sculptures of various instruments. They are brilliant, of course – but I failed to make personal connections with them. I did, however, marvel at this set of sculptures depicting beach goers (made from flat metal sheets Picasso scavenged) This is a case of a picture is worth a thousand words. For the life of me, I can’t find pictures of them on Google so it’s very difficult for me to talk about them w/out reference. I’ll try to find a photo and I’ll update this post then.

Here’s is Jacqueline, Picasso latter wife. I love the angles in the painting – she looks like Cleopatra!

I don’t have much to say about this one – I simply have this visceral reaction to it.

The last of this series should be up by the end of the week – Ciao~