2011

Elizabeth O'Reilly at George Billis Gallery

MODESTY IS NOT CHARACTERISTIC OF CONTEMPORARY CULTURE. Prevailing emphasis on self-assertion, and the pseudo-profundity that fuels it in the visual arts, leaves little room for the quietude and lucidity that are the hallmarks of Elizabeth O’Reilly’s painting. O’Reilly brings to art an intuitive regard for man’s sense of place. It is a sensibility that makes the locks on the Union Street Bridge, spanning Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal, a significant aspect of home. Under her eye, urban details can as easily approach the wellsprings of serenity as a Douglas fir on Long Island’s North Fork, where O’Reilly spends her weekends. Continue Reading
Hail, Cristoforo Colombo

COLUMBUS’ SEAFARING ACHIEVEMENT HAS BEEN CELEBRATED in various Western nations for different reasons. Here at home, Columbus Day entered the calendar as a day to celebrate the contribution of immigrants—particularly Italian Catholic ones—to the United States. So, please, folks, let us not pull our skirts back from a magnificent mariner, who first set sail at ten, and the glory—down the centuries—of his explorations. // // The consummate historian Samuel Eliot Morison, in his Pulitzer Prize winning Admiral of the Ocean Sea, describes Columbus this way:
Christopher Columbus, Discoverer of the New World, was first and foremost a sailor.
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Gone Fishing

MY APOLOGIES TO READERS who emailed to scold me about the slow pace of postings. (“A blog is supposed to keep going.”) I should have admitted this a full week ago, but I have gone fishing for a few weeks. // // Though not necessarily in the ordinary way. The ancient story Tobias and the Angel comes a bit closer to the mark. Often considered biblical, it is not. The Book of Tobit is part of the Apocrypha, a narrative collection rejected by the early Church Fathers. Continue Reading
Christo Puts the Wraps on Next Door

There is always time to take time out for trivia. Today’s non-event is Christo’s law suit against 433 Broadway Co. for putting up a 6-story building that ruins his view. Okay, I made up that reason. Officially, Christo—sole proprietor of Depaul Realty Corp., which owns 48 Howard Street, his studio since the 1960s—has taken 433 Broadway to County Court because, since March of this year, his new neighbor “has caused and/or permitted gravely unsafe construction activity to take place at 433 Broadway.” Continue Reading