Author Archives: dbv

october 1–october 15

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Films

  • Faces, directed by John Cassavetes
  • Made in U.S.A., dir. Jean-Luc Godard
  • La decima vittima (The Tenth Victim), dir. Elio Petri
  • Serial Mom, dir. John Waters
  • Mars Attacks, dir. Tim Burton
  • Beetlejuice, dir. Tim Burton
  • Head, dir. Bob Rafelson
  • Harriet Craig, dir. Vincent Sherman

Exhibits

  • “Echoes of the Past: The Buddhist Cave Temples of Xiangtangshan,” Institute for the Study of the Ancient World
  • “Robert Adams: On Any Given Day in Spring and Light Balances,” Matthew Marks
  • “Jackson Pollock & Tony Smith: Sculpture An Exhibition on the Centennial of their Births,” Matthew Marks
  • “Richard Tuttle: Systems, VIII–XII,” Pace
  • “Robert Irwin: Dotting the i’s & Crossing the t’s: Part II,” Pace
  • “Dorothea Rockburne Works 1967–1972,” Craig F. Starr
  • “A Visual Essay on Gutai,” Hauser & Wirth
  • “Gego: Origin and Encounter, Mastering the Space,” Americas Society
  • “Chris Ware: Building Stories,” Adam Baumgold
  • “Duchamp Brothers & Sister,” Francis M. Naumann
  • Gerhard Richter, Marian Goodman
  • “We the People,” Robert Rauschenberg Foundation
  • “Mark Flood: Art Star,” Zack Feuer
  • “Zoe Leonard,” Murray Guy
  • “Ai Weiwei: Fairytale Chairs/New York Photographs,” Carolina Nitsch Project Room
  • “Þórdís Aðalsteinsdóttir: Call on Me with Your Softness,” Stefan Stux Gallery
  • “Leonardo Drew,” Sikkema Jenkins & Co.
  • “Bernini: Sculpting in Clay,” Met

september 16–september 30

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Books

  • Jean-Cristophe Valtat, 03, translated by Mitzi Angel
  • Max Frisch, Montauk, trans. Geoffrey Skelton
  • Italo Calvino, The Watcher and Other Stories, trans. William Weaver & Archibald Colquhoun
  • Elizabeth Smart, The Assumption of the Rogues & Rascals
  • Sophie Calle, The Address Book, trans. Pauline Baggio
  • Benjamin Anastas, Too Good to Be True

Films

  • Le tombeau d’Alexandre (The Last Bolshevik), directed by Chris Marker
  • Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera, dir. Mark Obenhaus
  • Magritte, dir. Adrian Maben
  • Cosmopolis, dir. David Cronenberg
  • Boxing Helena, dir. Jennifer Chambers Lynch

Exhibits

  • “Josef Albers in America: Painting on Paper,” Morgan Library
  • “Robert Wilson/Philip Glass: Einstein on the Beach,” Morgan Library
  • “Materializing ‘Six Years’: Lucy R. Lippard and the Emergence of Conceptual Art,” Brooklyn Museum

the story of our life

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“Once upon a time there was a woman who was just like all women. And she married a man who was just like all men. And they had some children who were just like all children. And it rained all day.

The woman had to skewer the hole in the kitchen sink, when it was blocked up.

The man went to the pub every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The other nights he mended his broken bicycle, did the pool coupons, and longed for money and power.

The woman read love stories and longed for things to be different.

The children fought and yelled and played and had scabs on their knees.

In the end they all died.”

(Elizabeth Smart, The Assumption of the Rogues & Rascals, p. 81.)

a sparkle even if synthetic

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“When Jericho fell, weeping was permitted, and in Babylon it was fashionable to make a memorable moan by the retreating waters. But here you must go to your office, looking spritely, with a sparkle even if synthetic in your eye. For who dares to stand up and say ‘We are weary! O Christ but we are weary!’ ”

(Elizabeth Smart, The Assumption of the Rogues & Rascals, p. 23.)

the price of books

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“83. When Fust, or Faustus, sold at Paris his first printed bibles as manuscripts, the price of a parchment copy was reduced from four or five hundred to sixty, fifty, and forty crowns. The public was at first pleased with the cheapness, and at length provoked by the discovery of the fraud. (Mattaire, Annal. Typograph. tom. i. p. 12.; first edition).”

(Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. IV, chapter XLIV; p. 802 in volume 2 of the Penguin edition.)

a proposal for reforming congress

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“The Decemvirs had neglected to impart the sanction of Zaleucus, which so long maintained the integrity of his republic. A Locrian who proposed any new law, stood forth in the assembly of the people with a cord round his neck, and if the law was rejected, the innovator was instantly strangled.”

(Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. IV, chapter XLI;V pp. 783–4 in volume 2 of the Penguin edition.)

september 1–september 15

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Books

  • Fleur Jaeggy, Sweet Days of Discipline, translated by Tim Parks
  • Michal Ajvaz, The Other City, trans. Gerald Turner
  • Gore Vidal, Julian
  • China Miéville, The City & The City
  • Félix Fénéon, Novels in Three Lines, trans. Luc Sante
  • Jean-Phillipe Toussaint, Running Away, trans. Matthew B. Smith
  • Jean-Phillipe Toussaint, Making Love, trans. Linda Coverdale
  • Sergio Chejfec, My Two Worlds, trans. Margaret B. Carson

Films

  • Le petit soldat, directed by Jean-Luc Godard
  • Les Carabiniers, dir. Jean-Luc Godard
  • La Chinoise, dir. Jean-Luc Godard
  • Plague Summer, dir. Chester Kessler
  • La mort du cerf: une chasse à courre à Villiers-Cotterets, dir. Dimitri Kirsanoff
  • Image in the Snow, dir. Willard Maas
  • Celery Stalks at Midnight, dir. John Whitney
  • The Voices, dir. John E. Schmitz
  • Episodes in the Life of a Gin Bottle, dir. Bela von Block
  • Schichlegruber doing the Lambeth Walk, dir. Charles A. Ridley
  • Falling Pink, dir. Robert H. Spring
  • Beasts of the Southern Wild, dir. Benh Zeitlin

Exhibits

  • “Luis Camnitzer,” Alexander Gray Associates
  • “The Feverish Library,” Friedrich Petzel Gallery
  • “Penny Slinger: An Exorcism Revisited,” Broadway 1602
  • “Yayoi Kusama: Drawings from the mid-50s,” D’Amelio Gallery

august 16–august 31

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Books

  • Fleur Jaeggy, S.S. Proleterka, trans. Alastair McEwen
  • Bruce Kellner, Kiss Me Again: An Invitation to a Group of Noble Dames
  • Edouard Levé, Suicide, trans. Jan Steyn
  • Jorge Luis Borges & Adolfo Bioy-Casares, Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi, trans. Norman Thomas di Giovanni
  • Roberto Arlt, The Seven Madmen, trans. Nick Caistor
  • John O’Hara, Butterfield 8
  • Claudio Magris, A Different Sea, trans. M. S. Spurr
  • Adriano Spatola, The Porthole, trans. Beppe Cavatorta & Polly Geller

Films

  • What About Bob?, directed by Frank Oz
  • Margaret, dir. Kenneth Lonergan
  • Godard in America, dir. Ralph Thanhauser
  • BUtterfield 8, dir. Daniel Mann
  • Flying Deuces, dir. A. Edward Sutherland
  • The Broadway Melody, dir. Harry Beaumont
  • Sons of the Desert, dir. William A. Seiter
  • The Black Cat, dir. Edgar G. Ulmer

august 1–august 15

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Books

  • Luis Vaz de Camões, The Lusíads, translated by Landeg White
  • Rose Macaulay, They Went to Portugal Too
  • Carlotta Monti & Cy Rice, W. C. Fields & Me
  • René Belletto, Coda, trans. Alyson Waters

Films

  • Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, directed by Frank Tashlin

Exhibits

  • Museu Monográfico de Conimbriga, Condeixa-a-Nova, Portugal
  • Núcleo Museológico, Castelo de São Jorge, Lisbon, Portugal

anglo-lusitanian mistreatment of baboons, continued

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“Such pretty details as this [Nathaniel] Wraxall missed; also details less pretty, such as two men whom [Richard] Twiss observed when ‘strolling one day about Lisbon in search of new objects’, who had each a large baboon on his shoulders, freeing his head from vermin; it seems they were hired out for this purpose. ‘They seem’, says Twiss, ‘to be the lousiest people I know of, especially the women, who have an enormous quantity of hair.’ ”

(Rose Macaulay, They Went to Portugal Too, pp. 176–7.)