by Alta Price It's the Ides of March, and thanks to daylight savings having stolen an hour from me today, my brain is tired. It's been months since I finished compiling a long series of texts to be included in the anthology portion of The Infinity of Lists, the third installment of Umberto Eco's “illustrated…

Games and the idea of play have been obsessing me lately. Having recently exited academia—for a short while, at least—I've been able to give a little more time to this pastime. Wanting to go beyond my adoration of the intriguing, endless theme of wordplay, I thought a brief reflection on play and its various other…

A Good Beginning… Excited as I was for autumn to arrive, it’s gotten off to an awful start. After spending three days bedridden with the first all-congesting cold to hit me this season, my head is still in a fog as thick as the one that shrouded the whole city this morning. But this season’s…

This text, which appears on 3QD as the last of a four-part post, was begun as a musing on the theme of series and repetitions in modern and contemporary art inspired by a challenge issued by an art historian colleague of mine. For the previous posts—considerations of the work of Wade Guyton, Frank Stella, and…

This text, which appears on 3QD as the third of a four-part post, was begun as a musing on the theme of series and repetitions in modern and contemporary art inspired by a challenge issued by an art historian colleague of mine. This post addresses the work of Georges Seurat, one of many artists who’ve…

This text, which appears on 3QD as the second of a four-part post, was begun as a musing on the theme of series and repetitions in modern and contemporary art inspired by a challenge issued by an art historian colleague of mine. This post addresses the work of Frank Stella, one of many artists who’ve…

This text, which will appear on 3QD as a four-part post, was begun as a musing on the theme of series and repetitions in modern and contemporary art inspired by a challenge issued by an art historian colleague of mine. This post includes the intro and a consideration of the first of three artists who…

I’ve spent the weekend out in the cold, and as I sit here sipping a glass of hot water with a wedge of lemon, the song that’s been stuck in my head for the past few months returns yet again to mind. Unexpectedly, yet somehow logically, the taste of this citron chaud cold cure I…

The moon’s orbit has been a bit odd as of late, but today brings a floodtide in anticipation of tomorrow’s new moon. Yes, my dear readers, it’s been awhile, the days are growing short, and I’m glad to be back. The full title for today’s Monday Musing is “Monumental Life: Tout bien ou rien.” Both…

There is nothing new under the sun.  —Ecclesiastes Deus creavit, Linnaeus disposuit. (God created, Linnaeus organized.)  —Linnaeus It is ninety-nine degrees in New York today—welcome back to yet another summer. This means, dear reader, that unless you are reading this in the southern hemisphere’s fine winter, or from the lofty alpine altitude of a mountaintop,…

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, dear Reader. Not that I’m Irish, or you’re Irish, or even feel this day is special … this is just one more semi-holiday I have the pleasure of posting on.    I say semi-holiday because for someone in my trade—the specialized trade of word and image—any state, national, religious, or any…

Happy Holidays, dear Reader. Yes, I seem always to get stuck with the holidays (Labor Day, Christmas, and whatever might come next…), hence you get stuck reading me—if, in fact, you read on such supposed holidays. Kindly note that I’m using PC in my title to refer to Personal Computer, not Politically Correct. See, if…

Anselm Kiefer, the enfant terrible of ambivalently postwar-wartime art, has undertaken an astoundingly architectural series of projects, constructing several towers in vastly different settings. These curious structures exude a sense of timelessness, yet also an undeniable timeliness. Like many of the themes he deals with, they have appeared in his paintings, photographs, books, and sculptures…

Happy Labor Day, dear Reader. I know embarrassingly little about this North American holiday, distant and most disenfranchised relative of the redder and more international May Day, but have nevertheless enjoyed this year’s to the fullest. I’ve not partaken in any of the supposed Labor Day sales; I took a walk in the park, and…

I write you now from a sand dune in Michigan, an entirely new state for me. I’m on an oxbow-shaped lagoon near Saugatuck, and when I first heard that name the Simon and Garfunkel song America got immediately stuck in my head: “it took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw / I’ve gone to…

I’ve just returned from a few short days in my hometown, a very different part of New York than the more urban(e) one I now experience each day. Ten years have passed since I left, and in unconscious recognition of the anniversary I went back to visit the spots that, in their—or my—absence, have come…

First-class stamps cost two cents more today, but don’t worry, the USPS “forever stamp” is also making its debut. Few of us still use stamps, but as a fan of snail mail I’m grateful for this concession, even if it’s been created for no other reason than to appease disgruntled postal workers who’re tired of…

I’ve not been reading much about art lately, as I often find reading/analyzing and doing fairly incompatible acts when attempted simultaneously, but I have just read an old essay that turned out to be unexpectedly timely. Published in German in 1766, and first translated into English in 1853, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Laokoon: oder über die…

I had the perfect weekend planned. Although I rarely manage to visit my hometown, the occasional irresistible event does come along. This past weekend that event was a memorial service for Russell Thorn Blackwood, a philosopher, one of my father’s college professors, and one of my own mentors from about the age of four. As…

According to cliché most artists, aside from having the key characteristics of egocentricity and vanity, are also, to a certain degree, liars. I wholeheartedly agree with this, if you can read it in a positive way. Looking at it linguistically, the difference between creative, inventive, innovative, and visionary characters is mere nuance—it’s all just a…