Lee Harvey Oswald
23 November 1963
A Dallas police mugshot of Lee Harvey Oswald from the 2007 documentary film "Oswald's Ghost," directed by Robert Stone.
30 November 2007
Charles Ray
“Father Figure,” left, and “The New Beetle”
Matthew Marks: 522 West 22nd Street: Chelsea
Through 19 January 2008
Roberta Smith:
Mr. Ray’s first New York gallery exhibition since his 1998 retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art is an obviously costly, deceptively sedate affair in which three very different works are set far apart in a bare, cavernous gallery. They indicate that he is becoming something of a sculptor’s sculptor, parlaying his interests into meditations on sculpture’s presence, above all its stillness and solidity, its ability to mimic yet deny life. Each work is more resonant than the next.
“Chicken” is a life-size porcelain and stainless-steel sculpture of a tiny chick breaking out of an egg. “The New Beetle” is a life-size sculpture, in cast stainless steel painted white that resembles vein-free white marble, of a naked young boy curled on the ground and resting on one hand while he plays with a toy car. The slouchy pose suggests Narcissus, but the boy is just the opposite, oblivious to himself and his nakedness, completely lost in the make-believe of the car, which is more exactly rendered than his face.
Like the fire truck, the third work, “Father Figure,” is a cast plastic toy enlarged to life size, a height of about eight feet. All green except for black tires, it shows a farmer driving a tractor; his head and torso are turned to the right as if to say hello. But the tractor is immensely powerful, and his body is fused with it in a way that seems implicitly monstrous. That the sculpture, which appears to be fairly lightweight unless you touch it, is actually solid stainless steel adds a primal force. This guy is Frankenstein’s monster on wheels, in a good mood for the moment, but don’t push it.
29 November 2007
28 November 2007
Baquba
Photo: Gianluigi Guercia/AFP/Getty
A US soldier from Bravo Company, 1st Battallion, 38th Regiment Infantry, descends the stairs as he searches an Iraqi house for weapons and suspects during a morning patrol in the streets of Baquba, 27 November 2007. Seven Iraqis, among them three women and a child, were reported killed today by the US military, a day after Washington and Baghdad agreed to keep American forces in Iraq beyond 2008.
(via Andrew Sullivan)
27 November 2007
Viktor & Rolf
Photo: Jacques Brinon/AP
The designers Viktor Horsting, left, and Rolf Snoeren, will create a Black Label collection for 2009 for Samsonite.
London Underground
London Transport Museum
Diagram of the Registered Design version of the London Underground roundel, designed in c.1925 by Edward Johnston.
24 November 2007
23 November 2007
Jeff Koons
Photo: Librado Romero/The New York Times
Jeff Koons’s “Rabbit” floated over Times Square during Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. The helium “sculpture” was making its debut.
22 November 2007
21 November 2007
The Death of Lily Bart
Photo: Erik Jacobs for the New York Times
Suicide or accident?
NYTimes:
A letter, recently brought to light, written by Wharton herself, seems to point to the suicide theory. It is dated Dec. 26, 1904, just a month before “The House of Mirth” began appearing in monthly installments in Scribner’s Magazine, and is addressed to Dr. Francis Kinnicutt, a well-known society doctor who specialized in the mental ailments of the well-to-do. The letter was found stuck into a first-edition copy of “The House of Mirth,” along with a poem, dated 1906.
The letter begins by resorting to the timeless disguise of the advice-seeker. “A friend of mine has made up her mind to commit suicide,” Wharton writes, “& has asked me to find out ... the most painless & least unpleasant method of effacing herself.”
Only on the second page does Wharton reveal that her “friend” is in fact a fictional character appearing in the pages of Scribner’s, explaining, “I have heroine to get rid of, and want some points on the best way of disposing of her.”
Suicide or accident?
NYTimes:
A letter, recently brought to light, written by Wharton herself, seems to point to the suicide theory. It is dated Dec. 26, 1904, just a month before “The House of Mirth” began appearing in monthly installments in Scribner’s Magazine, and is addressed to Dr. Francis Kinnicutt, a well-known society doctor who specialized in the mental ailments of the well-to-do. The letter was found stuck into a first-edition copy of “The House of Mirth,” along with a poem, dated 1906.
The letter begins by resorting to the timeless disguise of the advice-seeker. “A friend of mine has made up her mind to commit suicide,” Wharton writes, “& has asked me to find out ... the most painless & least unpleasant method of effacing herself.”
Only on the second page does Wharton reveal that her “friend” is in fact a fictional character appearing in the pages of Scribner’s, explaining, “I have heroine to get rid of, and want some points on the best way of disposing of her.”
19 November 2007
New York City
via NYTimes:
Five developers are competing to buy the development rights over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority railyards that straddle 11th Avenue, between 30th and 33rd Streets. They have submitted billion-dollar offers and elaborate development plans for what would be the largest project in Manhattan, on 26 acres stretching across the equivalent of six city blocks overlooking the Hudson River.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/realestate/19yardsintro.html?hp
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