Jackson Pollock, Echo (Number 25), 1951
Happy New Year!
1. I've been deeply diving into Lord Kinross' book The Ottoman Centuries, a project that extended from when I read the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire a few years ago. It is an embarrassment of riches with some intense, fantastic cameos. Suleiman the Magnificent not only had his portrait painted by Porte visitor Giovanni Bellini, but also ran into none other than the historical Dracula (Vlad Dracul) in the 15th century in ancient Wallachia, greeted by 20,000 of his soldiers being displayed on spikes. Miguel de Cervantes appears and fights in the Battle Lepanto, and later, as the Greeks fought for their independence, Lord Bryon writes verse in support. It was the Greek battle for independence in the early 20th century that led me to the Klephts, mountain tribesmen in Greece that refused to yield to the Ottomans for centuries. They lived off of raids, which is how they got their name (Klep as a root meaning "thief" as in Kleptomaniac). Apparently, they were so noted for stealing lambs, so much so that this recipe is attributed to them and is still made to today:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/lamb-kleftiko
I am going to steal a lamb and try it out.
2. Speaking of ancient reading geek indulgences, next up is Tacitus. I just have a toe in the water thus far, but it is enough to unearth the bizarre claim of Tacitus that modern Asberg, Germany (north of Stuttgart) was founded by Odysseus himself on his travels. That, in an of itself, is enough to keep reading. As it happens when a historical figure breaks through to your stubborn mind, you see the figure everywhere. I stumbled across a great Clive James piece on Tacitus, and now this from the weekly standard:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/tacitus-the-great/article/2000374
3. I fully agree with Christopher Knight that the Dallas Museum of Art's Pollock: Blind Spots is a wonderful, enlightening show. It has been a long time since I visited an exhibition of a well known artist that was so full of oddity and items that I had never seen before. Specifically, there is a room of Pollock's drawings that is downright bizarre, and if I didn't know better, a few of the drawings even demonstrated some conceptual interests of repetition and copying and authenticity that you do not usually (or ever) attribute to Pollock. I look forward to the catalogue, which I hope will illuminate some of these mysteries. For me, Joan Miro was the elephant in the room in the show, his imaginary powerful creatures flashing in and out of shapes and abstract forms.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-knight-pollock-review-20151223-column.html
4. The story told in images of Iran's slow awaking to the "gadget" of photography is a fascinating one, a case where the photos themselves offer in their artlessness the clumsy imposition of a modern device onto a people still governed by medieval throwbacks:
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/01/05/qajar-photography-court-at-twilight/
Poem for the Week
5. Not sure why I thought of it, but today's poem for the week must be W.H. Auden's "Herman Melville." One of the best entries in the canon of "Poetry about other Writers," Auden imagines a particular late moment in Melville's life, after Billy Budd, when the old writer sits down again to write. The poem not only captures the sweep of Melville's life and work but presents a case for writing as a way to live, as a way to increasing learn lessons about the world and come to grips with some of its more impenetrable mysteries. There is a deeper current here as well. Auden is speculating on Melville's upcoming death and whether or not the truth that Melville has found will be enough to stop the horror of death's massive void. Auden suggests that it will not be enough, that the hope for one more story will have to do, for the moment, to stem the rushing tide:
http://www.davidlavery.net/Courses/Moby-Dick/Auden_Melville.htm