THE PHILADELPHIA JUNTO.: Letters

Showing posts with label Letters. Show all posts

Wednesday, 6 November 2013

On Paper By Nicholas A. Basbanes

The author, right, with Jackie, left

ON THE PAPER TRAIL
BY JACKIE ATKINS
[WRITERSCLEARINGHOUSE NEWS SERVICE]

Our birth in the world is heralded officially by a small document proclaiming the date, our weight, sex, and parentage. Our death is on notice to the same world by a certificate which states date, more names, and sex. Each milestone in our lives, the graduations, marriages, divorces, driver’s licenses are decreed on other pieces we can hold, show, and offer as proof of our time on earth. Records may also be kept in vast caverns of data banks, but it is those which we can hold in our hands, which we store in our cabinets, and hold close to our hearts that trumpet our own special indenture, our enduring allegiance to paper.

Nicholas A. Basbanes, an investigative reporter, respected book critic, and renowned author of eight previous books on literary matters has decided to put a face on the pages of time, the immutable tablet of scribes, artists, and bean counters of our current and past civilizations.

Kazin Disses O'Hara

Alfred Kazin: Smug vs. Slug

IT'S PERSONAL, REAL PERSONAL

BY RICHARD CARRENO

[WRITERSCLEARINGHOUSE NEWS SERVICE]

Despite his age, seventy nine, literary guru Alfred Kazin is as feisty -- and nasty -- as ever. Since I thought the old cuss was dead, I wasn't expecting that Kazin, now the unofficial heir to the Edmund Wilson mantle of public intellectual, to rise to any occasion, much less one of such loathing that I encountered recently [3 May 1994] when the eminence grise cum greasy geezer showed up at Harvard's Emerson Hall for the first of a series of lectures reviewing his remarkable lit'ry life.

Oh yeah, he still hates John O'Hara. And I mean it's real personal.

I reread On Native Grounds just to refreshen my acquaintance to Kazin's animus for O'Hara. The book came out in 1942. Kazin was twenty-three. My God, this guy been nursing his O'Hara grudge that long! Not very good for the digestion.

But why? Sure, O'Hara was often a difficult party -- often disliked; sometimes hated. Had he, like others, been the butt of one of O'Hara's drunken tear-ass spats? Or, was O'Hara, the master of 'the perceived slight,' simply seeking vengeance? Was this Kazin's revenge?

See 'Kazin Speaks Out of Class' in right gutter for more on the critic's venomous dislike of John O'Hara

Kazin dutifully checked off all the pre-War writers he had known. Check. Check.Check. New Yorker contributors. Check. O'Hara?

'Why didn't I mention O'Hara?' Kazin said, glaring at me. He gripped the lectern. Then standing back, he blurted, 'Why? I'll tell you [the you was meant to equate me with a moronic slug] why? Because O'Hara was a minor writer. That's why!'

Anything personal?

Tuesday, 18 October 2011

Letters to the Editor

Blowing Smoke
Dr. Albert C. Barnes, founder of the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia

Boo Hoo
Darsh Gone, Dr. Barnes
is Still Getting Dissed

(In response to 'Matisse's Revenge,' published in the BroadStreetReview.com and below).

Thanks for your letter. We'll post it soon.
Sincerely,
Dan Rottenberg
Editor

On Oct 17, 2011, at 8:40 PM....

Comments:
I don't understand why so many presumably well informed writers feel it
necessary to slime Albert Barnes and why editors (Dan?) print this trash. In
a comparison of Matisse collections, is it necessary to allege Barnes'
marital infidelity? Do we need to read ONCE AGAIN that Barnes was
"irascible" and etc and etc ad nauseam? The man was an astonishingly
courageous connoisseur who was widely villified by "experts" and yet
assembled the breathtaking collection we all treasure. Show him some
respect!

Donald Eckard
St. Davids, PA 19087

Dan Rottenberg, Editor
Broad Street Review
1315 Walnut St.
Suite 904
Philadelphia PA 19107
Phone: (215) 735-1455Fax: (215) 735-1455
drottenberg@broadstreetreview.com

Thursday, 15 September 2011

Letters

Touchy, Touchy....
A reader in California writes in regards to our recent notice on a cockup at Marseille restaurant:

I went back over this and it appears that you waited only half an hour, you were actually seated, before you started barking at the maitre.

What is wrong with you, d00d? You had to wait half an hour? Shit, that's like the Oakland Burgertown on a Saturday night. Do we all get so touchy as we age? I know I do, but I stifle it.

And did it take you this long to learn not to fuck with an old white-haired Frenchman with a tinge of power to him? Jimmy, they're the worst kind! Back the fuck away and wait!

Also, there is no way this guy figured you were American. Shit, I'm an American with an aging Boston marshmallow face and a name like six presidents, and half the frogs I run into think I'm at least from Moldava because I am simultaneously less stupid and more stupid than your average American. The white-hair guy undoubtedly thought you were Lebanese diaspora, maybe with a few generations run through Cuba.

Of course I could be wrong about all of this. But, on the other hand, they have been out of line ever since Napoleon.

BROADSTREETREVIEW.COM INDEX

Articles by Richard Carreño
Diego Rivera's ghost in Detroit October 15 2013 The city of Detroit may be broke, but the Detroit Institute of Arts owns $2 billion worth of art works. Its most valued pieces, by the Communist Diego Rivera, portray heroic workers triumphing over stoic managers. In the best capitalist tradition, Rivera’s frescoes are now being held hostage by a pair of union-busting Republican politicians.

Dissecting West’s ‘Death of General Wolfe’ August 06 2013 Benjamin West’s Death of General Wolfe was once a hallowed symbol of British imperialism. Now it’s been hijacked by Canadians, whose supply of national icons is otherwise limited. National Gallery of Canada. 380 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. www.gallery.ca/en.

Pittsburgh’s culture quest July 24 2012 The Mellons and the steel mills are gone, but Pittsburgh today boasts first-class museums, music, theaters and universities. The trouble is, they’re all in the wrong part of town.

Discovered: La Salle’s unsung art museum November 14 2011 An obscure museum in a North Philadelphia basement houses world-class treasures by masters like Tintoretto, Edouard Vuillard, Rembrandt Peale, Georges Rouault and Joseph Epstein. Most remarkable of all, admission is free. La Salle University Art Museum. Olney Hall, 1900 W. Olney Ave., lower level. (215) 951-1000 or www.lasalle.edu/museum.

Matisse and Barnes: A tale of two museums October 04 2011 Henri Matisse was one of the three great revolutionary artists (with Picaso and Duchamp) of the early 20th Century; Albert Barnes was a brilliant collector of revolutionary art. They made a great team until Barnes’s insufferable personality drove Matisse away, with consequences that still reverberate today.

‘Picasso and the Paris Avant-Garde’ at the Art Museum February 23 2010 Curator Michael Taylor has unveiled, for the first time in recent memory, the astonishing range, depth, and quality of the Art Museum’s Picasso holdings. But his show falls a few bricks short of an Anne d'Harnoncourt blockbuster. “Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris.” Through May 2, 2010 at Philadelphia Museum of Art, Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 26th St. (215) 763-8100 or http://www.philamuseum.org/.

Antiquity, looters and the Penn Museum November 10 2009 Who are the best stewards of ancient artifacts— enlightened Western curators whose museums stole the loot long ago, or dictators of Third World lands where the treasures were originally found? James Cuno of the Chicago Art Institute (who believes the former) confronts the Penn Museum (which favors the latter). "Iraq’s Ancient Past: Rediscovering Ur’s Royal Cemetery." Through Spring 2010 at University of Pennsylvania Museum, 3260 South St. (215) 898-4000 or www.penn.museum/sites/iraq.

‘American Stories' at the Met in New York October 18 2009 “American Stories,” currently at the Met in New York, reveals an indebtedness to Philadelphia's artistic patrimony. Almost the whole show could have been assembled from Philadelphia holdings or works by Philadelphia artists. So why is the Art Museum so modest about its contributions? “American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915.” Through January 24, 2009 at Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue and 82nd St., New York. 212-535-7710 or http://www.metmuseum.org/. Art

Museum’s admission hike June 29 2009 The Art Museum recently raised its admission fees, a fund-raising model that is strictly 20th-Century. Then it hired as its new director Timothy Rub, a successful advocate of the 21st-Century model: free admission. Does the Art Museum’s left hand know what its right hand is doing?

Venice: Nice place to visit, but…. March 31 2009 There’s no place like Venice to jump-start your romantic gene. But before you move there, remember: The plumbing stinks. And try schlepping groceries, or hauling a suitcase, or finding a doctor or a decent restaurant or a neighbor who’s under 50.

Newspapers and the Internet March 03 2009 In the Internet age, what will happen to fact-based journalism as daily newspapers fold? Contrary to what you hear from print journalists, the quality of coverage could improve. Which would you prefer: The Inquirer, or a Philadelphia edition of the New York Times?

Vidocq: Philadelphia's Sherlock Holmes December 20 2008 Sherlock Holmes, Charlie Chan and Sam Spade are all legendary but fictitious private eyes. But Edgar Allan Poe and Victor Hugo were inspired by a real Philadelphia gumshoe of literary dimensions, as I discovered behind the door of the Vidocq Society in Center City. The Black Tower. By Louis Bayard. William Morrow, 352 pages; $24.95. http://www.louisbayard.com/

Sarah Palin and the ‘C’ word September 13 2008 Thanks to Sarah Palin, the 800-pound gorilla is out of the cage. The 'C' word— class— is the one word in the American lexicon that's even better hidden in polite public discourse than race. And it has little to do with money.

Alfred J. Munnings at Brandywine Museum July 29 2008 A remarkable new show at the Brandywine River museum is a tribute to the great sporting artist Alfred J. Munnings and also to the private collectors of Chester County who’ve accumulated his works without fanfare.“Alfred J. Munnings From Regional Collections.” Through Sept. 1, 2008 at Brandywine River Museum, off U.S. 1, Chadds Ford, Pa. (610) 388-2700 or http://www.brandywinemuseum.org./

The horror of globalization February 16 2008 What is a German discount food chain doing in Philadelphia, pampering its customers and employees alike and otherwise violating cherished local customs? Don’t these foreigners know what we Americans did to the Hessians the last time we got really angry?

George Stubbs paintings at Penn April 17 2007 The English painter George Stubbs is largely forgotten outside racing stables, geezer men’s clubs and faux clubby steakhouses. But he transformed the way artists depicted horses and sporting scenes. Equus Unbound: Fairman Rogers and the Age of the Horse. Through June 15, 2007, at Kamen Gallery, U. of Pennsylvania’s Van-Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, 3420 Walnut St., first floor. Free and open to the public; photo ID required. (800) 390-1829.

Christie’s and ‘The Gross Clinic’ January 03 2007 As a leading art auction house, Christie’s well understands the role of a dummy bidder in jacking up the price of a work. In Jefferson University's recent sale of The Gross Clinic, Christie’s consultants apparently found an unwitting dummy in the Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton. Has Philadelphia’s art community learned anything from this $68 million lesson?

What price admission to the Barnes? August 12 2006 Hefty admisssion increases are the new order of the day at New York's Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum. Derek Gillman, new chief of the Barnes Foundation, may be tempted to follow suit. Here's one hard-nosed reason why he shouldn't.

Celebrating ....