Daniel A. Rabuzzi's Blog, page 18

Sunday Morning Coffee: KAHIBA; Gossart

[Jan Gossart, The Deposition, c. 1520; oil on panel; The Hermitage, St. Petersburg]


[Gossart, St. Anthony with a Donor, c. 1508; oil on panel; Galleria Doria-Pamphilis, Rome]


[Gossart, Jesus, The Virgin & the Baptist, c. 1510-1515; oil on panel; Prado, Madrid]


[Gossart, St. Luke Painting the Virgin, c. 1520-1525; oil on panel; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna]



["Rejoycing" by KAHIBA, 2008]

A gentle river, filled with one- and two-masted tall ships, the great black-backed gulls patrolling the marina and promenade, wings outstretched in a mild blue sky...the grace notes of summer's out-procession...

(The German-Swiss-Austrian trio KAHIBA plays music to fit the season in-between, a Mitteleuropaische village dance tune with jazz overtonings, lively as we bring in the gourds and beans, with the saxophone reminding us of winter to come.]

Fabulous show opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC last week: Man, Myth, and Sensual Pleasures: Jan Gossart's Renaissance. As the Metropolitan describes it:

"The first major exhibition in forty-five years devoted to the Burgundian Netherlandish artist Jan Gossart (ca. 1478-1532) brings together Gossart's paintings, drawings, and prints and places them in the context of the art and artists that influenced his transformation from Late Gothic Mannerism to the new Renaissance mode."

(For more on Gossart from the Met, click here, then scroll down second item on the left. For Roberta Smith's strong review in the New York Times, click here.)

One of the most deliciously exhausting shows we have seen in years, overflowing with embellishment and detail. The oil paintings transport the viewer with their vivid and innovative colors (not least the polychrome wings of Gossart's angels), the flesh you are certain you could touch, the folds of velvet and satin that you are certain you can see shift and rustle. Deborah said Gossart was "drunk on architecture," that we can "almost smell the fresh air" emanating from his paintings.

Gossart is a genius at expressing religious passion-- not through anguished faces and gouts of blood-- but through composition, gesture, and the contours of the flesh.

As impressive as the oil paintings are, Gossart's ink/chalk drawings draw a viewer into a teeming, ornamented world that repays close inspection. "The Conversion of Saul" (from the 1520s) is a thunder of horsemen, "The Lamentation" (also c. 1520s)a quiet study of grief.

The show at the Met is large, and includes not only many of Gossart's master-works on loan from collections across the world, but many smaller pieces rarely seen. I especially liked the sketches of "standing warriors in fantastic arms," with their wildly bouffant sleeves, exaggerated plumes and epaulettes, their encrusted breastplates.

The show runs through January 17, 2011.Daniel A. Rabuzzi is author of the fantasy novel "The Choir Boats," available from ChiZine Publications in September 2009.
"The Choir Boats" explores issues of race, gender, sin, and salvation, and includes a mysterious letter, knuckledogs, carkodrillos, smilax root,
goat stew, and one very fierce golden cat.

(www.danielarabuzzi.com). Daniel blogs at Lobster & Canary about speculative fiction, poetry, history and the arts.

Sunday Morning Coffee: The Queen of Elfland's Drummer, at Cabinet des Fees

Cabinet des Fees (and its offspring, Scheherezade's Bequest and Demeter's Spicebox) is a must-read if you love fairytale, folklore and myth, especially as reworked, re-configured, and re-imagined for modern times.

Last week the Cabinet des Fees blog featured a longish piece by me entitled "The Queen of Elfland's Drummer."

The essay starts this way:

"Music is a compass and pass-key to Faerie. We keep an ear cocked hoping to catch the notes of "a far distant post-horn across the silent, starlit land" as von Eichendorff put it…sometimes we are fortunate, most times we are not. Still, we persevere, seeking ever the chords to both express and guide our Sehnsucht. The kind of music is irrelevant – any and all kinds can take one beyond the fields we know (music of whatever sort poorly played is, of course, another matter altogether). Many conveyances, the same destination…"

To read more, and to add a comment to the blog thread (oh, oh, please do!), click here to the CdF main page and scroll down to find my essay on the left-hand side.Daniel A. Rabuzzi is author of the fantasy novel "The Choir Boats," available from ChiZine Publications in September 2009.
"The Choir Boats" explores issues of race, gender, sin, and salvation, and includes a mysterious letter, knuckledogs, carkodrillos, smilax root,
goat stew, and one very fierce golden cat.

(www.danielarabuzzi.com). Daniel blogs at Lobster & Canary about speculative fiction, poetry, history and the arts.

Sunday Morning Coffee: The Art Instinct; Herbie Hancock; Roy Hargrove; Frank Zappa; Jean-Luc Ponty; Dave Matthews

[Herbie Hancock & the Headhunters, "Chameleon", 1973:]

[Roy Hargrove & RH Factor, "Riff," live 2005:]

[Frank Zappa, with Jean-Luc Ponty, "Greggary Peccary Suite," live 1973:]

[Dave Matthews Band, "You & Me," 2009:]

Ever read a book that you agree with heartily...right up until the final few pages? Denis Dutton's The Art Instinct; Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution (Bloomsbury, 2009)is that book for me right now. I recommend The Art Instinct-- it is cogent, thought-provoking, stylish (Dutto...

Sunday Morning Coffee: Romanticism in Pomerania; Teofilo Olivieri; Graham Franciose

[Caspar David Friedrich, Greifswald in Moonlight, 1816/17:]




[Three by Teofilo Olivieri:]



[Two by Graham Franciose:]

Fall is here at last in New York City: shadows ever longer, goldenrod coming into bloom on Chelsea Piers, the sun still fierce but knowing her power is waning, fleets of Monarch Butterflies sailing by (as far up as thirty stories)...

It is autumn in Pomerania too, along the southern shores of the Baltic, where I lived for over a year. The Pomeranian State Museum in Greifswald (where I...

Sunday Evening Soup: Brooklyn Book Festival

Today the lobster and the canary enjoyed the fifth annual Brooklyn Book Festival, undeterred by a mizzle of rain.

Was good to talk with the ever-jovial Gavin Grant, staffing the booth at Small Beer Press.

Ditto our good friends at Brooklyn's own Greenlight Bookstore.

We also spoke with (and bought books from!) the good folks at:

* NY Review of Books Classics

* Archipelago Books

* Coffee House Press

* Poetry Society of America

* New Directions

* Europa Editions

If you are in or aro...

Sunday Morning Coffee: Visual Arts in NYC This Fall

[Jocelyn Hobbie, Pilgrim:]

[TM Davy, untitled:]

[Louise Despont, moonface & his carrier birds:]

[Dante Horoiwa, Distracted, We'll Win:]

[Alex Gross, Discrepancies:]

[Flor Echevarria, Torres:]

[Hugo Martinez Rapari, La Tierra Sopla-Tormenta! Earth Blows: Sand Storm!]

[Fred Tomaselli, Big Raven (2008):]

First cool breezes off the Hudson, the first slants of sunshine in Central Park this weekend...fall is on its way.

Some exhibitions we are looking forward to this autumn in the city:

* Fred Tomaselli at the B...

Sunday Morning Coffee: Herbie Hancock/ The Imagine Project; Fall Reading List

[Herbie Hancock, The Imagine Project, released June 21, 2010.:]

Herbie Hancock does it again, finding the beauty and strength in our differences, while reaffirming and celebrating our unity. "Peace through global collaboration," he says. "Perhaps you could say the recording studio is a model for peace, camaraderie and mutual respect."

Hancock creates thoughtful happiness, blending ingredients from many cultures judiciously, effectively. He's joined here by-- among many others-- Anoushka...

Sunday Morning Coffee: Long Live Literature in the Digital Age!

In the midst of worries about the future of fiction in a digital age, literature (still) matters enough that Jonathan Franzen made the cover of Time two weeks ago. Click here for Lev Grossman's article on Franzen, and Franzen's notes on the novels that most influenced him.

Denis Dutton -- in The Art Instinct: Beauty, Pleasure & Human Evolution (Bloomsbury, 2009; out now in pb)-- argues that fiction is a crucial adaptation for our survival:

"The basic themes and situations of fiction are a pr...

Sunday Morning Coffee: Sybil's Garage; Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet; Greer Gilman (Readercon20)

Lobster & Canary happily subscribe to Sybil's Garage (from Senses Five Press) and to Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet (from Small Beer Press). We encourage you to do the same.

The latest Sybil's (no. 7, arrived last week) is the biggest ever at nearly 200 pages, and is as well produced as always. We're still reading our way through, but so far we are impressed. For instance, check out "The Unbeing of Once-Leela" by Swapna Kishore, and "An Orange Tree Framed Your Body," by Alex Dally...

Daniel A. Rabuzzi is author of the fantasy novel "The Cho...

Daniel A. Rabuzzi is author of the fantasy novel "The Choir Boats," available from ChiZine Publications in September 2009.
"The Choir Boats" explores issues of race, gender, sin, and salvation, and includes a mysterious letter, knuckledogs, carkodrillos, smilax root,
goat stew, and one very fierce golden cat.

(www.danielarabuzzi.com). Daniel blogs at Lobster & Canary about speculative fiction, poetry, history and the arts.