Howard Pyle / Uncategorized

Pyle on Imagination

 

Delaware Art Museum

 [“We Started to Run Back to the Raft For Our Lives,” Howard Pyle, 1902. Courtesy of the Delaware Art Museum.]

I was looking up this painting by the great American illustrator Howard Pyle, whose centennial I have been honoring in recent posts, when I found a blog devoted to the artist. Under a reproduction of this Pyle illustration of “Sinbad on Burrator” by A. T. Quiller Couch in Scribner’s Magazine for August 1902, the blog’s author Ian Schoenherr quotes this letter from the artist to William Merchant Richardson French, director of the Art Institute of Chicago, in June 22, 1905. These words express what every great artist knows, that though art depicts reality, its main source of knowledge is unseen:

…I think you may easily see that in the making of a successful picture, the artist must compose and arrange his figures and effects altogether from his imagination, and that there is very little opportunity in the making of such a picture for him to copy exactly the position of a model placed before him in the lights and shadows which the studios afford. Nor is it likely that he can find any background to copy accurately and exactly into such an imaginative picture. (more…)

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November 8, 2011
Uncategorized

Laugh Until You Weep

 

cain-accuser 

IF AT LEAST one of the major comedy shows such as Saturday Night Live does not do a send up of yesterday’s press conference by Sharon Bialek then the entire comedy establishment is bankrupt and derelict in its partisan duty to make fun of Republicans.

Here we have a woman effusing sensuality with tousled hair, dangling earrings and heavy make-up who stands before the nation and says that many years before, when she was presumably much more attractive and effusively sensual, she went out on a dinner date alone with a business associate who had just told her he had upgraded her hotel room to a suite. Then – horrors! – after a number of drinks together and a romantic evening in an Italian restaurant, he put his hand up her skirt and moved her head towards him.

“How could this happen to widdle ol’ me?! I was only looking for a job!”

Not only is Cain’s accuser a joke, but Cain himself (if what she says is true, and it appears to be true) is a joke. Who wants a man guilty of such reckless, illicit behavior in the presidency? I don’t.

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November 8, 2011
Literature / Uncategorized

The Theology of Charles Dickens

 

Fagin in his cell; George Cruikshank
Fagin in his cell; George Cruikshank

ONE OF MY favorite works of literary criticism is G.K. Chesterton’s book on Charles Dickens. I recommended it to a reader and in return received this excellent essay. 

Greg Jinkerson writes:

I took you up on the advice to read Chesterton’s Charles Dickens, the Last of the Great Men. What an inspiration. It became obvious after one chapter that I would need to read all of Dickens. There is nothing quite like the experience of having Chesterton point you to the wonders of other writers and areas of thought. His encomium to Dickens is exemplary in this regard. It is almost a hagiography of Dickens; or perhaps I should say a theology of the world Dickens created. (more…)

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November 7, 2011
Uncategorized

“I Hereby Pledge to Be Selfish and Un-Feminine for the Rest of My Life”

 

ipad-art-wide-p5-20god-420x0

ACCORDING to The Sydney Morning Herald, the Girl Guides of Australia are looking to improve their image in the face of declining membership. The organization is seeking advice for changes to its traditional pledge: ”I promise that I will do my best: to do my duty to God, to serve the Queen and my country; to help other people; and to keep the Guide law.

Here’s what I propose instead: “I promise that I will do my best to be selfish and un-feminine; to keep the Guide law and to use this invaluable experience as a credential.”

(more…)

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November 7, 2011
Feminism / Uncategorized

Remaining Steadfast in the Face of Criticism

 

THE HOMEMAKER today, unless she is wealthy, often faces a hostile environment. Not only does society at large continually celebrate careerism and refuse to grant the full-time mother and wife moral support, but friends and relatives may criticize her or refrain from any enthusiasm for her way of life.

At Home Living, Lydia Sherman encourages women at home to turn their minds from all this. She writes: (more…)

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November 7, 2011
Sexual Harassment / Uncategorized

Victims of Sexual Harassment Piling Up in the Streets

  ACCORDING to the American Association of University Women, an organization that neatly refutes the eighteenth century reformer Mary Wollstonecraft's idea that education would elevate women, nearly half of all high school students in America have been subject to "sexual harassment." “It’s pervasive, and almost a normal part of the school day,” Catherine Hill, the director of research at the association, told The New York Times. What will the future hold for the harassed? The university women recommend that each school have a "coordinator." But, I thought Stalin tried that and it didn't work. Schools should shut down immediately to prevent this plague from spreading.

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November 7, 2011
Uncategorized

A Few Words on the Women’s Franchise

 

AT VFR, Lawrence Auster argues that the women’s franchise initially had little noticeable effect on political life, but has been progressively damaging. (The politicization of women, I would add, has deprived natural feminine preoccupations of dignity and led to the trivialization of women’s work.) Mr. Auster writes:

There are many examples of the deleterious effects that the women’s franchise and the assumption of political power by women have had on politics. Think of the mob of Democratic female House members like a bunch of crazed Bacchae climbing the stairs of the U.S. Senate in October 1991 demanding the destruction of Clarence Thomas. (more…)

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November 5, 2011
Howard Pyle / Uncategorized

Pyle on the Rush from the Stock Exchange

  THIS IS Howard Pyle's illustration, The Rush from the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 18, 1873. It appeared in Scribner's Magazine in July, 1895. Pyle, who lived from 1853 to 1911, was one of America's most popular illustrators. His works were featured in Harper’s Monthly, Collier’s Weekly, St. Nicholas, and Scribner’s. He also illustrated works of myth and fiction, including books by Robert Louis Stevenson and Mark Twain. He wrote his own fictional works for children, such as Men of Iron and The Wonder Clock. Vincent Van Gogh wrote to his brother, “Do you know an American magazine Harpers Monthly? There are wonderful sketches in it … which strike me dumb with admiration … by Howard Pyle.” November 9 is the hundredth anniversary of Pyle's death. A major exhibit of his works opens at the Delaware Art Museum on November 12.

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November 5, 2011
Nature / Uncategorized

Winter in Autumn

  THE NORTHEAST storm I wrote about earlier this week was unquestionably one of the most unusual weather events in recorded history of the region. As a reader describes here, some people have been without power for the entire week. The heavy snow destroyed or damaged many trees.

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November 5, 2011
Uncategorized

More on Life Outside (and Inside) the Mainstream

 

A.M. writes:

It seems impossible to be genuinely traditionalist without attacking that to which contemporary society gives unanimous assent. For instance, we often hear of some “pro-family” organization protesting a television show. That television can be anything but anti-family is a farce; it has been known as a “vast wasteland” for over a half century, yet these clowns go on owning sets and vainly trying to sanitize their content. They buy a viper and then have the audacity to complain that it has a venomous bite.

I am reminded of a personal episode, where I was not truly friends with anyone around me; I started to ask, “what is wrong with me?” Of course, I could’ve very well been to blame. But as soon as I changed my choice of company, I began to make friends. As long as I had remained, however, I felt bizarre and odd. As with your comment about parades, we live in a society where we must pay tribute to the macabre, and disdain the good and the beautiful. If we don’t, we are, mongoloids, philistines, or fascists. (more…)

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November 5, 2011
Sexual Harassment / Uncategorized

Sexual Harrassment and Cain

 

ANN COULTER’S column on the controversy over Herman Cain is very entertaining. She writes:

To have been accused of sexual harassment in the 1990s is like having been accused of molesting children at preschools in the 1980s or accused of being a witch in Massachusetts in the 1690s. (more…)

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November 3, 2011
Lesbianism / Uncategorized

The Mother as Kidnapper

WHAT CAN one say about a society in which a "family" court seriously entertains a child custody dispute between two women and then grants sole custody of the child to the non-mother, thus inciting the mother to flee with her daughter to a foreign country, risking arrest for kidnapping her own child and causing the Christian missionary who arranged her flight to be arrested as a kidnapper too? Such is the tyranny of state institutions over the family. The mainstreaming of lesbianism inevitably results in the mainstreaming of ugly lesbian battles.

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November 3, 2011
Howard Pyle / Uncategorized

Pyle with His Children

  HERE is the famous American illustrator Howard Pyle on the beach with his children in 1897. I will be featuring more of his illustrations in the next few days in honor of the hundredth anniversary of his death on Nov. 9.

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November 3, 2011
Architecture / Small Houses / Uncategorized

Homes on Three Continents

 

MR. T. writes:

I have been reading your delightful blog for many months, but this is my first comment.

Your post and thread on small houses resonated deeply with me. I grew up in the U.S.A., in a medium-sized house, but have lived most of my adult life in Hong Kong. Property here is expensive in a way only people in the ritziest environs of Manhattan can imagine. My wife, daughter and I live in a flat that’s listed at about 900 square feet, but all Hong Kong people know that’s a fiction. The ‘building area’ for a Hong Kong flat includes a share of the elevator lobby, windowsills, walls, and other unusable space. Our actual living area is closer to 600 square feet.

In this space, which might well fit in toto within a McMansion’s living room, we have a kitchen, two bathrooms, a living room and three bedrooms. As you can imagine, none of these rooms is very big, and a couple of our bedrooms would be derided as inadequate as closets in the U.S.A. (more…)

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November 3, 2011
Small Houses / Uncategorized

When Small is Beautiful

  

MARY K. writes:

When my husband and I were ready to purchase our first house two years ago, we deliberately looked for a “small” house, exactly for the benefits you describe. We could have easily gotten a bigger and cheaper house, and many people tried to persuade us to do just that. No regrets here, even when we have family flooding in for Thanksgiving and camping out in the only bathroom! (more…)

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November 2, 2011
American politics / Feminism / Uncategorized / Women's franchise

Female Politicians: Pin-ups and Nice Girls

 

LAWRENCE AUSTER writes on the vanity of female politicians:

If you have a society in which men are running things and enforcing male standards of conduct in the public sphere, you can have an occasional woman in high public office and it will not harm the society. But once the appointment of women to conspicuous political positions becomes routine and expected, and once female standards of public conduct become normalized, thus pushing aside male standards, then you have things like this.

I would add two points. One, a woman in power has more incentive to flaunt her physical assets precisely because they may be all she has left of her femininity. This is why we see more and more cleavage. The essence has vanished with the pursuit of power.

Second, a society’s understanding of authority also weakens when a significant number of women enter elective public office. Eileen Behr, pictured below, is running for sheriff in suburban Philadelphia. She seems like a perfectly nice, competent woman, but her face changes the very definition of the office. She looks too nice to write a parking ticket.

373720_264103386959577_1819848464_n

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November 2, 2011