Wes Anderson is one of the most vital, personal, and distinctive American filmmakers of his generation, an exacting auteur whose florid signature blazes across his work. Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling . . . . Continue Reading »
Announcing the the Art of the Beautiful Lecture Series. The Catholic Artists Society and the Thomistic Institute present a series of lectures on a Catholic understanding of the Arts. Eminent artists, theologians, and writers will be exploring the nature of art and its role in society. Continue Reading »
The motives for tattoos are many, but they all have a common subtext. A tattoo can mark a group identitysailors, soldiers, inmates, gangs, motorcyclists. It can memorialize a person or event, as in a virtual archive of snapshots of tattoos showing names and faces of deceased loved ones (I attended a presentation of the archive by two academics in Toronto last year). Sometimes they happen by blunt peer pressure, a set of 20-year-olds on Saturday night getting drunk, knowing not what to do until one of them blurts, “Let’s go get a tat and a ring!” (a good friend tells me of pulling out just as his turn came up). Continue Reading »
“Street artyou mean vandalism? No, thank you.” That was the response of a friend when I invited him to join me at the Museum of the City of New York for their recent exhibit, “City as Canvas.” His scruple was understandable but a little out-of-date.” Continue Reading »
Martha Bayless expertise, which besides her punchy prose is the main attraction of her Hole In Our Soul , extends beyond the ps and qs of American popular music, but also covers the impact various theories of modernism and art had upon the musics development. She is . . . . Continue Reading »
Terry Teachout, the drama critic for The Wall Street Journal, wrote a fascinating article that was buried in the weekend edition of the June 26th newspaper, “Too Complicated for Words: Are our brains big enough to untangle modern art?” Here is a condensed version:The novels of [James] . . . . Continue Reading »
Start your week off right with some headlines and other items (not all tongue-in-cheek) from around the internet: Canonization Images at Catholic Eye CandyAdvent Preview: Watchman, Tell Us, What the Heck Is That Blue-and-Yellow Explosion Meant to Be? Unitarian Universalists Embrace Moral . . . . Continue Reading »
The Anchoress offers a meditation by Pope St. Gregory the Great: You should be aware that the word “angel” denotes a function rather than a nature. Those holy spirits of heaven have indeed always been spirits. They can only be called angels when they deliver some message. Moreover, those . . . . Continue Reading »
Bought two posters depicting the Holy Trinity yesterday for my First Communion class. This first one, the “Old Testament Trinity Icon,” I know well and love. I especially love the idea of the Trinity’s quiet intervention, as mysterious guests, to set in motion a history which will . . . . Continue Reading »