The Space Needle is My Neighbor

EIGHT YEARS AND COUNTING What Have We Learned So Far?
"A mind stretched by a new idea can never go back to its original dimensions." - Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Friday, April 21, 2006

Everything That Rises - A Book Of Convergences



While I'm on the subject of McSweeney's, I have to mention my favorite new book. Lawrence Weschler is the author of 'Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder', an amazing book that I'll let you investigate on your own. His newest book concerns itself with the exploration of the "secret affinities" (Magritte) that are evident through the juxtapostion of a series of very well known images. Weschler advances the theory that certain images are hot-wired into our brains and backs it up by providing pairing after pairing, accompanied by brilliantly written text. Here's an example:

A night time photograph of rescue workers in the smoking bowels of the ruins of the World Trade Center is juxtaposed with Rembrandt's similarly lit 1642 painting of soldiers, The Night Watch.
The photographer, Joel Meyerowitz, says of the scene: "The quality of the glowing light in the center, the assembled men, the kind of smoky background, all the hardware of destruction of it gave me the feeling of those lances and curtains and all that heraldry (painted by Rembrandt). It was a gut reaction. Although I couldn't call up the painting exactly, I just knew this grand assemblage was a powerful image."

1 Comments:

Blogger FancyPants said...

Oh poot. Thank you "scroll mouse".
It was totally unintentional and Management would like to extend deepest apologies for the inconvenience. Even to boys, although sometimes they're icky.
Management is usually very partial to boys, but sometimes they behave in mysterious ways which leave Management feeling lonely and confused and waiting by the phone, but not for long because MANAGEMENT HAS A LIFE, TOO, even if it's not the life that Management had envisioned for itself. Thank you and drive safe.

7:36 PM  

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