“You could look at it forever”

“Film is such a potent medium that its greatest artists were often astonished by the power of their own creations. “You could look at it forever,” Hitchcock said of one of his own compositions. Hitchcock created forms so eloquent they could bridge the gap between a warped genius and a mainstream audience; his screen world of polished surfaces, neurotic tension, concealed meaning and latent menace seemed vaguely familiar to most of us, if only from our dreams.”

—Hal Crowther, “Movies, Mules and Music,” from the collection Gathering at the river: notes from the post-millenial south, LSU Press, 2005.

Tommy Thompson

“I remember watching him and thinking, if I had to describe a Shakespearean character, it would be Tommy. He was big then, and he had that kind of Falstaff quality to him—red hair, and a red beard. He was amazing looking, and the word that comes to mind is probably charismatic. You looked at him, and you had to look back, because he had such a presence, he just exuded this personality.”

—original Red Clay Rambler pianist Mike Craver, on the father of the band, Tommy Thompson. Quoted by Hal Crowther in “The Last Song of Father Banjo,” from the collection Gathering at the river: notes from the post-millenial south, LSU Press, 2005.

Black and white

“The truth—which we’ve always known—is that race as an exclusive category is pure (or impure) fantasy in America. Black and white are words of pride and racist convenience, not scientific observation. They describe artificial tribes, and they’re a sorry legacy from slavery and its hideous offspring, Jim Crow.”

—Hal Crowther, “Who’s Your Daddy?,” from the collection Gathering at the river: notes from the post-millenial south, LSU Press, 2005.

a phenomenon that begs to be investigated

“In antiquity, around the Mediterranean basin the color blue did not exist. Historian Michel Pastoureau explains that people saw it—the Greeks and Romans were not visually impaired as some historians have suggested—but they did not perceive it as a color, nor did they have a specific word for it. Even the sea and sky, so blue in that part of the globe, looked white, gold, or red to them. For Olafur Eliasson, the 39-year-old Danish installation artist whose main media are light and color, cultural blindness like this is a phenomenon that begs to be investigated.”

—Veronique Vienne, from the article Optical Magic, Metropolis magazine, May 2006.

visual cocktails of ivory, chalky, icy, creamy, milky, and pearly lights

“One of [Olafur Eliasson’s] most recent pieces is a direct attack on the universality of the white cube (The Light Setup). Installed at the Malmo Konsthall, in Sweden, the 16,145-square-foot exhibition was set in an empty hall illuminated by 1,500 fluorescent lights behind giant screens—some on the walls, some on the ceilings—programmed to deliver different shades of white light, each affecting the way people moved across space. ‘I developed a system that allowed me to take a spectrographic reading of the exact quality of the white light in different parts of the world, at different hours of the day, and during different seasons,’ Eliasson explains. Much like a perfumer mixing high-tech fragrance notes replicating natural ones, he was able to create visual cocktails of ivory, chalky, icy, creamy, milky, and pearly lights, debunking the idea that there is such a thing as “pure” white.”

—Veronique Vienne, from the article Optical Magic, Metropolis magazine, May 2006.

Double Sunset, 1999

A yellow corrugated iron disk lit with floodlights mirrors an actual sunset in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

—from Optical Magic, an article on installation artist Olafur Eliasson, by Veronique Vienne. Metropolis magazine, May 2006.

good morning class!

Lawmakers Pass Key Lime Pie Bill After Fierce Debate

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — House lawmakers were locked in a tense debate that Wednesday threatened to rock the chamber. Voices rose. Fists went into the air. Brows were furrowed.

The question: what should be Florida’s official pie? . . .

“Ol’ nasty key lime pie,” said Rep. Dwight Stansel, R-Live Oak. “I can’t understand how anyone in the world can present a bill making a state pie from a fruit that’s not even grown in Florida.”

Stansel’s passion aside, the tangy dessert prevailed, 106–14.

“Let’s bring key limes back to Florida—and bring sunshine back to the state,” said Rep. Mitch Needelman, R-Melbourne.

—Local6.com, Central Florida, May 3, 2006. From the Associated Press.

Feel sunshine sparkle pink and blue

“All through the morning rain
I gaze—the sun doesn’t shine—
Rainbows and waterfalls run through my mind

In the garden—I see west
Purple shower, bells and tea
Orange birds and river cousins dressed in green

Pretty music I hear—so happy
And loud—blue flower echo
From a cherry cloud

Feel sunshine sparkle pink and blue
Playgrounds will laugh if you try to ask
Is it cool? Is it cool?”

—Strawberry Letter 23, most famously recorded by The Brothers Johson in 1977. Written by Johnny Otis, Jr. at the age of 17 and recorded by him in 1971. According to someone on the internet: “Otis wrote it for his girlfriend, who liked to send him letters written on strawberry scented paper. The song describes the feelings evoked by “Strawberry Letter 22,” the title indicating the hope of another letter.”

Abstract No. One

“In 1952, Abstract No. One, a cubist still life, was awarded third prize at a San Francisco-area art show. After the competition, it was revealed that the richly colored artwork had been painted from a paint-by-number kit. An exhibition of kit paintings at the Smithsonian in 2001 and the accompanying book by William L. Bird, Jr. cite this competition as the start of the paint-by-number craze.”

—Eric Alberta, from Paint by Number, a 2003 calendar from Workman Publishing, New York.