What About Clients? (Free subscription) | 28/11/2009
Edward Hopper, Compartment C, Car 293 (1938) Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than a moving plane, ship or train. --Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel (2002)...
Little Hokum Rag (Free subscription) | 27/11/2009
I bought a copy of "The Believer" magazine's 2009 art issue the other day. First of all, the cover has very funny Charles Burns version of an Edward Hopper painting. Inside, there is a huge Jerry Moriarty poster and an interview (by Chris Ware ) of the eccentric artist , illustrated by examples of his paintings. I always liked Moriarty's work, "Jack Survives", back in the days of...
gaskella (Free subscription) | 26/11/2009
Paul Auster I finished reading his latest book Invisible a week or so ago. It was a great novel and it displays many of his favourite tricks and characteristic verve in the writing. I also re-read his first novel The New York Trilogy - a linked set of meta-detective novellas, which I found as dazzling as when I first read it about twenty years ago. I've been musing about what to say about them for...
An Angry White Guy in Chicago (Free subscription) | 26/11/2009
2009 Has Been Quite a Ride Ah, gluttony! Today is the day we partake in overeating on purpose, spending time with family (of either our choosing or the one we were born or married into), and watching steroid-riddled wife-beating, gun-toting athletes earn millions of dollars for television conglomerates owned by arms manufacturers. I don't use Thanksgiving as a wrap-up of the year - that comes in about...
The Adventures of Roberta X (Free subscription) | 26/11/2009
So I'm drivin' home tonight and I think the scene is interesting, in an Edward Hopper kind of way. Having my camera handy, I grab it at the next stoplight and (bein' a good citizen an' all, plus not wanting to have my lights punched out) shut off the flash, then proceed to snap whenever it seems like a good idea. Results are...not entirely expected.... I'm likin' it. This is one of about five that...
Inveresk Street Ingrate (Free subscription) | 12/11/2009
Oh, this is beautifully done. A marrying together of the music of Blue Nile and the art of Edward Hopper. Kudos to music writer, Chris Roberts, and YouTuber, prodriguez, for making magic happen. One caveat, though; the Hopper painting that you see at 3:17 in the video is not how I remember it .
A Daily Dose of Architecture (Free subscription) | 12/11/2009
Opening tomorrow night, Nov. 12, at the Aperture Gallery and Bookstore are "two exhibitions exploring Chicago's past and present:" Michael Wolf: The Transparent City and Barbara Crane: Private Views , each recently released in book form. Wolf's photos -- featured on this blog previously -- are the more architectural of the two exhibitions; his camera captures the Midwestern city's glass high-rises...
Reflections (Free subscription) | 09/11/2009
Echoes of other photographers in our own photographs – do they matter, do they only matter for would-be professional, and not for us amateurs? The first photograph below is a well-known image by William Eggleston. I saw a great exhibition of his work at the Hayward in London. I went round very fast – twice – to gather up the spirit of his work. The feeling from that great set of photographs...
The Sheila Variations (Free subscription) | 08/11/2009
From David Thomson's The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood: Was [Edward] Hopper a realist, or was he dreaming as he painted this picture? Were we asleep at the movies in those days? Did all of us want to get...
STREET STYLE: PICS BY POLKA DOT (Free subscription) | 06/11/2009
The other night, I was on my way to the Texas Embassy to celebrate with ex-pat friends, and was feeling in the mood for Wasabi, a great little joint on Picadilly that serves yummy, fresh, cheap sushi & hot food. As I approached, people rushing home from work in the dark, I saw Yuriko, sitting alone in the window. A great, iconic surreally modern spin on an Edward Hopper image. Which I didn't
Boston Globe (Free subscription) | 04/11/2009
The owners of a home on Cape Cod that once belonged to American artist Edward Hopper say they plan to preserve the house and most of a surrounding plot of land.
Boston Herald (Free subscription) | 04/11/2009
TRURO - After years of controversy over the construction of a 6,500-square-foot house next door, a plan is afoot to protect the South Truro summer house and land that once...
An Angry White Guy in Chicago (Free subscription) | 03/11/2009
The Group Written Play and How the Hell Do you Do That? The (edward) Hopper Project follows in a long line of WNEP Theater productions that employ a fairly difficult technique known as the "group written project." In the past, we've been incredibly successful with this sort of thing from The Armageddon Radio Hour to The Mysteries of Harris Burdick to The Lost Weekend . The process can either...
Gumbo (Free subscription) | 30/10/2009
American artist Edward Hopper (1882 - 1967) was a frequent movie goer, but even in these public settings he portrayed loneliness. This is "New York Movie," painted in 1939. Art critic Peter Schjeldahl has called the typical Hopper painting “the breathless midpoint of an unknown story.” What is the story here?
An Angry White Guy in Chicago (Free subscription) | 29/10/2009
What the Hell Was He Thinking? The following is as close an approximation of the process I personally like best to audition people for a show (scripted.) It certainly has its flaws and I'd much prefer to just do it the way The Group Theatre did in the thirties - rent a resort in the woods for the summer and workshop the plays until a cast emerged but WNEP doesn't have the dough and no actors I know...
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