Skip directly to content

Evan Connell

Happy New Year!

on Sun, 01/25/2004 - 00:00

This past Thursday was the first day of the lunar new year, the Year of the Monkey. Today Master Lee and the rest of our kung fu school participated in festivities at the East Garden Buffet. There was much good food and much good cameraderie. Master Lee gave new swords to all of the instructors, and one of the instructors, Nancy, gave me a matted photo of me performing a tai chi sword routine at the edge of a lake.

So now I have a great photo of myself, and another sword for my collection. At last count I have eight tai chi swords, one kung fu sword, a kwan dao, a fan, an axe and four daggers.

I am approaching the last new pages of the Goya book. At first it bothered me a little that so much of the first half says nothing about Goya himself. On reflection I realize that Connell wrote the book so that at each stage of his subjects life, the focus is on that which was most important or influential. And what was most influential to Goya's life was not always Goya.

This Halo Lies!

on Fri, 01/23/2004 - 00:00

Yesterday as I was leaving work I noticed this thing:

varnum-halo

. Normally halos signify holy things, but the building in the center of the photo is full of lawyers.

I am approaching the end of Evan Connell's wonderful book on Goya (link in the books section). My only complaint is that, other than the cover, there is none of Goya's work in the book. Not so surprising; the book is about Goya in history, rather than Goya the artist. So I went to the best collection of art on the internet and found all the Goya one could reasonably hope for, assembled in chronological order.