(1) A Supreme Confidence: A level-headed leader of men and nations—Eisenhower is revered today by both conservatives and liberals (WSJ) “Despite the spate of revisionist histories in recent decades, Eisenhower remains an enigma: A quiet man projecting an image of almost leisurely detachment whose leadership won a global war and helped secure for America its [...]
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(1) Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1373 (2) Fantastic hyperrealistic oil paintings by Steve Mills (3) Ways to Manage an Image (WSJ) (3a) The Art and Soul of Disney (4) Jean Nouvel: The Pritzker-winning French architect checks in on hotels, carousels and burning down the house (WSJ) (5) Nintendo Introduces Free Airport Hotspots For 3DS Users (5a) [...]
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This is the second pamphlet/brochure from the train show and this one is in fantastic shape. This is a promotional piece (12 panels) for the second year of the 1939/1940 NY World’s Fair and includes an advertisement for New Railroads on Parade. This dramatic musical extravaganza was presented by the Eastern Railroads. The pamphlet/brochure is [...]
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Quote 1 …only revolutions offer up spontaneous futures like 194X, and usually at the cost of great memory loss – heads must roll in order to usher in Véndemiaire, the first month of the French Revolutionary calendar (page seventeen). Quote 2 …as the lingua franca of modernists, abstraction was seen as ameliorative, instrumental, and revelatory. [...]
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(1) Tacita Dean Reflects on Time (WSJ) (2) Walt Disney and the Founding Mouse (3) The Insidious Evils of ‘Like’ Culture: In our age of online view counts and retweets, conformity is becoming the rule (WSJ) “Because it’s so easy to medicate our need for self-worth by pandering to win followers, “likes” and view counts, [...]
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“Decaying and dilapidated architecture resonates as loss, as evidence of the irreversible passage of time, yet architectural ruins emanate past grandeur.” — Daniel Worden, On Modernism’s Ruins: The Architecture of “Building Stories” and Lost Buildings Related Roman military frontiers and fortifications
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(1) Ed Ruscha “Standard Station” (1a) On the Road With Painter Ed Ruscha “The 73-year-old, Los Angeles-based Mr. Ruscha is known for adding cryptic phrases to his austere landscapes of the West, such as his 1983 depiction of a flat horizon laced with red letters that read, “We would have a travel agency except no [...]
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The blogger with many visions™ is thawing. I just finished The Fighting Temeraire by Sam Willis. This book is more than a dry historical reprint; it is a graphic re-telling written concisely and colorfully and interwoven by the brushstrokes of J. M. W. Turner. I was particularly moved by this passage because of its present-day [...]
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How Obama Thinks While the senior Obama called for Africa to free itself from the neocolonial influence of Europe and specifically Britain, he knew when he came to America in 1959 that the global balance of power was shifting. Even then, he recognized what has become a new tenet of anticolonialist ideology: Today’s neocolonial leader [...]
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“According to William Knox, one of Germain’s undersecretaries, his lordship was on his way to the country when he stopped by the office to sign his mail and was reminded that nothing had been written to Howe specifying what action was expected of him. Lord George was annoyed. His carriage was waiting, he did not [...]
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