Photography

Just For Fun

Trivia question: Do you know this girl? Of course you do. But who knew just how contemporary that Mona Lisa smile could be? A stylized, stock expression in Leonardo’s day, it suddenly looks quite current removed from its Renaissance setting and inserted into a post-modern one. The bloody amputation might be a bit over the top, but the figure’s facial mien—part simper, part sneer—would do nicely in a Vogue photo shoot. Not quite as enigmatic as it has been deemed down the centuries. Continue Reading
Art, Still Not Dead!

I CANNOT TELL A LIE, much as I would like to. This wonderful bit of Photoshopping was sent by a reader who calls himself Mr. Eyeballs. I wish I could say I found it myself. // // Who knew just how contemporary that Mona Lisa smile could be? A stylized expression in Leonardo’s day, it suddenly looks quite current removed from a Renaissance setting and inserted into a post-modern one. The bloody amputation might be a bit over the top, but the figure’s facial mien—part simper, part sneer—would do nicely in a Vogue photo shoot. Continue Reading
Weddings Past

SOMEONE JUST GOT MARRIED across the pond. Who exactly? Prince Harry and Kate Moss? No, that’s not right. Andrew, maybe? No, that’s not it either. A quick Google and I’ve got: Prince William and Kate Middleton. There. That’s better. [My apologies for not paying closer attention before coming to the keyboard.] Royal weddings are a bit off my radar screen but I do love weddings. Especially the iconography of weddings that come to us across time and seas. This 4th century mosaic comes from Tunisia.buy Continue Reading
Still More on Olympia's Heirs

PREVIOUS MENTION OF SHERI’S RANCH BROTHEL in Pahrump, Nevada got me wondering. Could this be where Nevada’s annual Cowboy Poetry Festival takes place? Harry Reid was on his feet bemoaning H.R. I, which seeks to defund National Public Broadcasting:
It eliminates the National Endowment of the Humanities, National Endowment of the Arts. These programs create jobs. The National Endowment of the Humanities is the reason we have in northern Nevada every January a cowboy poetry festival. Had that program not been around, the tens of thousands of people who come there every year would not exist. 
Continue Reading