I have received three good gun books lately, and I think I can almost see a narrative thread between them. They are not, as so many magazine articles seem to be today, advertisements in the form of product reviews. The first, Hemingway’s Guns, by Silvio Calabi, Steve Helsey, and Roger Songer, is a scholarly but …
Tag: Art
Chinese Tazis Continued
When I wrote about old tazis in Asia recently one commenter sneered and asked if I thought Chinese “sheepheads” were ancient too, meaning the roman- nosed tazis of northwestern China (colloquially, “thin dogs”). I replied with this image from Prince Xanghui’s 8th Century tomb. Here is a recent photo of a similar hound, a male …
Joel
Our friend and sometimes neighbor Joel Becktell– we say “sometimes” only because he is a full time freelance cellist and though he has lived here for years travels every month of the year, somehow managing to maintain a garden and cook good meals for his friends, and staying up with me all too late to …
Prince Xanghui
I have seen black and white line drawings of a falconer with a tazi from Prince Xanghui’s tomb in Xian, on the far eastern end of the Silk Road. Though I used one on my letterhead, the hawk was unidentifiable. I assumed it was a Goshawk which is still flown in the area and throughout …
Modern Fears
From Schneier on Security: the winning entry in contest he suggested, a litany of modern fears, in the style of the late great Edward Gorey: The Gashlycrumb Terrors, by Laura A is for anthrax, so deadly and white. B is for burglars who break in at night. C is for cars that, with minds of …
Dennis Hopper RIP
He was never quite like anybody else— hipster visionary and “admittedly unorthodox Kansas Republican”; drug- addled loon and serious art collector; someone with more “second acts” than Scott Fitzgerald could have conceived; finally, gracefully stoic at his hard end. He was an archtypical American artist. (Rod Dreher goes a bit off- subject, but has some …
The Girls
Pennsylvania artist and pigeon man Hans Windgassen saw a pic of Ataika and Lashyn and wanted to paint them. I sent him more photos and this is the result. I think it captures Taik’s arrogance and Lashyn’s often worried look. He calls it “Les Girls”
Caddis Art
Really! The French artist Hubert Duprat gave gold, turquoise, and other precious metals and stones, to caddis larvae to build their “houses. The results are astonishing. The article gets a bit into “artspeak” but it is worth a look. HT Malinda Chouinard.
Mammoth Art
An incredible artifact, a piece of bone with an image of a mammoth carved in it, has been found in Vero Beach. It may be as old as 14,000 years. “No similar carved figure has ever been authenticated in the United States, or anywhere in this hemisphere. (Snip) “Etched into the bone by a highly …
New Carel Video
Carel Brest van Kempen has a new time lapse YouTube here,, of a painting of a brown anole. I love these things. You are supposed to vote but I can’t figure out how. If you can, please do– not everyone is as cybernetically inept as I am. Update: here is a link to vote.