Annabel Lee
Songs in Our Heart # 7 Annabel Lee (Stevie Nicks) (Written by Edgar Allan Poe, plus Stevie Nicks and Waddy Wachtel; released May 2011) [Edgar A. Poe fable, made more interesting as sung by Miss S.]
Continue Reading →The Fine Arts Party
A Fine Arts Party (Pieter de Hooch)
It being Friday 13th, The Varnished Culture will break from its traditional disdain of party-politics and weigh-in to the current imbroglio. There’s a federal election in Australia set for 2 July 2016, when we will have to watch the skies (it being World UFO Day as well). Recently, P suggested, innocently, that only a terrorist could enthusiastically, seriously, cast a vote for the Greens. Whereupon my two very reasonable and intelligent interlocutors informed me that they would be likely to vote for the Greens. (I am certain they are not terrorists). So ended my brief role as a pundit. Be that as it…
Continue Reading →Perfume (by Patrick Suskind)
The Ointment....
I awaited “The Queen of the Night” impatiently, having read promising advance notices. I pre-ordered it, compared time zones (Adelaide/Seattle) days ahead and then synched my Kindle repeatedly until Alexander Chee’s novel downloaded. And…it’s rubbish. I avoided “Perfume” by Patrick Suskind for years, having decided that it was populist rubbish. I reluctantly opened it with a sneer after it had been praised on the ABC TV Bookshow. And… it’s very good. This I call my “The Crimson Petal and the White” snob-humiliation. We all know the story; Jean-Baptiste Grenouille’s unfortunate mother (who had “almost all her teeth in her mouth and some hair on her head and – except for…
Continue Reading →Salvador, Feliz cumpleaños! 11 May
(photo of Dali, 1939 by Carl Van Vechten)
Salvador Dali was born today, 11 May, 112 years ago. We write about him in Avida Dollars. For now, let’s gaze upon one of his crazy, mixed-up dreams, rendered as ever with his unerring, golden touch, in Museum Ludwig, Cologne:
Continue Reading →The National Gallery, London
Photo by Rudolph Schuba
192 years ago today, the National Gallery opened its doors to a public hungry for culture. Over the 2 centuries since, it has amassed a hoard of art to savour. The Brits were imperialists all right, but the National’s collection developed more by osmosis than through seizure of art hoards via conquest (compare and contrast, arguably, the case of the Elgin Marbles). They started back in the pack compared to the Louvre and the Hermitage but made up for it coming down the straight. For a small example, if you want to see these in the flesh… …
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