once more, making good on his pledge

Thank you, Mr. President. This is one of the main reasons - among the top three out of maybe 1,739 or so - that we elected you. I'm happily getting used to all this hope and promise.

I admire Judge Sotomayor's willingness to acknowledge the important influence of background and experience on a judge's perspective. As she said at Berkeley Law in 2001 (this speech being the source of potential controversy in the upcoming nomination hearings):

"Our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor [Martha] Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." [U.C. Berkeley School of Law, 10/26/2001]

Yeah, baby.

Congratulations, Judge Sotomayor. A big shout out of support and love from your hometown. And good luck on Capitol Hill; that's where the next battle will be fought. I imagine you already know: there goes your summer vacation.

In response to Anonymous's foolhardiness (see Comments), a few thoughts from me. You'll find this addendum in the Comments section as well:

Here at my outpost, we place high value on civil decency and respect. You violated both codes of conduct. You may NOT stoop to name-calling without being brought to task. I came close to deleting your comments altogether, but I wanted to save the responses to your unnecessarily aggressive, rude remarks. Why? I got to know some of my lovely readers a bit better, and I'm the richer for it. I guess I have you to thank for that. Ironic, isn't it?

Regarding all the bluster about Judge Sotomayor: The talking point that conservatives pushed hardest last week — to the alarm finally of some Republican senators — was (presto!) the 2001 speech that I referenced in the original post.

The context matters. It always does. Judge Sotomayor was pointing out that throughout history even esteemed white male justices like Oliver Wendell Holmes voted to uphold race and sex discrimination. She said accidents of birth inform people’s views, but judges must strive to look beyond them. Several justices, including some conservatives, have made similar comments (Alito and Thomas, to name but two). I'm not going to reference these for you; do your own homework.

As is clear, Judge Sotomayor does not talk only of the benefits she derives from her experiences; she also notes the challenge to her as a judge "to be greater than the sum total of my experiences," and "continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate."

A racist? Puh-leez. You have some nerve, Anon. Other than that, you got nothin'.

A final word: Begone.

:image huffington post

light! color! spring!

As we tiptoed through the legion of vari-hued tulips in Central Park over the weekend, I thought of these wondrously vibrant images by photographer Sølve Sundsbø. We had just taken in the Met's Bonnard exhibit for the third and final time (it closed Sunday); there, too, I was rejuvenated by the luminous yellow, turquoise, vermillion and fuschia palette.




This Sundsbø-Bonnard color connection is a thing of beauty in itself.














:sundsbø images, v magazine via foto decadent; pierre bonnard, still life with fruit (1939), met museum

sonia rykiel, alchemist

Do you remember these plumed diaphonous creations from Sonia Rykiel, spring 2008?






What were her influences, I wonder.

The peony?


The rose?



Gertrude McFuzz?



Regardless, I find these gowns so delicious and beautiful, they serve as a mild antidepressant. Even the typically dour models look genuinely joyful. That's saying something.















:ultrathew flickr; gertrude mcfuzz © theodore and audrey geisel

Me too, Margaret. Me too.





:found via ffffound

joan snyder: narrative painting

Flowerfield/Tongue, 1999

In 1974, after working on her 'stroke' paintings – intense swaths of color painted over pencil-drawn grids – Joan Snyder began in earnest to make paintings which had what she referred to as a female sensibility. "In the early 1970s, women were forming groups and talking about things political and personal, and about our art," says Snyder. She says that these dialogues influenced the art world. "Women’s work helped to pump the blood back into what were dry, cold, and minimal years in the art world in the late 1960s."

Paint the House, 1970

Over the four decades of her prolific career, Snyder’s body of work has continually evolved in style and form. Beginning with the stroke paintings, Snyder's works have been essentially narratives of both personal and communal experiences. After abandoning formal grids as the basic structure of her paintings, Snyder’s work became more explicitly gestural and rooted in memory, while at the same time more complex materially.

Cloud Garden, 2003

The MacArthur Foundation profile of Joan Snyder declares that her paintings "mirror her personal experience, but, at the same time, the visual messages she provides through her images convey universal and readily understood emotions. Through a fiercely individual approach and persistent experimentation with technique and materials, Snyder has extended the expressive potential of abstract painting and inspired a generation of emerging artists."

Women Make Lists, 2001

:artnet; nielsen gallery

i have a bird in spring

I have a Bird in spring

Which for myself doth sing —

The spring decoys.

And as the summer nears —

And as the Rose appears,

Robin is gone.

Yet do I not repine

Knowing that Bird of mine

Though flown —

Learneth beyond the sea

Melody new for me

And will return.

. . .

Then will I not repine,

Knowing that Bird of mine

Though flown

Shall in a distant tree

Bright melody for me

Return.

- Emily Dickinson

:image from seen, june 2004, via liquid sky arts

the audacity of hope

Stars of Persia, Allium christophii

President Obama's extraordinary, groundbreaking message yesterday to the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran is amazing. Just amazing. On the occasion of Nowruz, the Iranian new year, President Obama offered Iran a new beginning in diplomatic relations and he committed his administration to a future of honest and respectful diplomacy. A long-awaited, bold, hopeful prelude to renewal. Astounding.

On the occasion of your New Year, I want you, the people and leaders of Iran, to understand the future that we seek. It's a future with renewed exchanges among our people, and greater opportunities for partnership and commerce. It's a future where the old divisions are overcome, where you and all of your neighbors and the wider world can live in greater security and greater peace.

I know that this won't be reached easily. There are those who insist that we be defined by our differences. But let us remember the words that were written by the poet Saadi, so many years ago: "The children of Adam are limbs to each other, having been created of one essence."

With the coming of a new season, we're reminded of this precious humanity that we all share. And we can once again call upon this spirit as we seek the promise of a new beginning.

- President Barack Obama

:image kaitymae via deviant art; message transcription via wsj

seasonal dissonance

It's spring. Really? Apparently, the weather didn't get the memo from the calendar.

Far from being an arbitrary indicator of the changing seasons, March 20 is significant for astronomical reasons. Today, at precisely 7:44 a.m. EDT, the Sun crossed directly over the Earth's equator. This moment is known as the vernal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. For the Southern Hemisphere, this is the moment of the autumnal equinox.

Translated literally, equinox means "equal night." Because the sun is positioned above the equator, day and night are about equal in length all over the world during the equinoxes.

Modern astronomy aside, people have recognized the vernal equinox for thousands of years. Many early peoples celebrated for the basic reason that their food supplies would soon be restored. The date is significant in Christianity because Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Early Egyptians built the Great Sphinx so that it points directly toward the rising Sun on the day of the vernal equinox. The first day of spring also marks the beginning of Nowruz, the Persian New Year. The celebration lasts 13 days and is rooted in the 3,000-year-old tradition of Zorastrianism.

:image d:m, memory statue, straus park, nyc

interior analysis

Martin Bergmann, Carnegie Hill

In recent years, Dr. Mark Gerald, a 64-year-old psychoanalyst who practices on Manhattan's Upper West Side (what analyst doesn't?), noticed similarities in other analysts' offices. But Dr. Gerald was more struck by the differences. He remembers, for instance, the office of an analyst who dismissed the notion of basic aggression despite the fact that on the mantelpiece behind him sat a row of hideous masks.

Dr. Gerald has taken advantage of his insider status to tackle a subject previously closed to portrait photography: psychoanalysts in their workplaces. To date, he has photographed 55 analysts, more than half of them representing a legendary breed: the New York psychoanalyst.

Leahn Nguyen, Ph.D., Gramercy Park

Luis Feder, Ph.D., Mexico City

Darlene Ehrenberg, Ph.D., Upper East Side

Dr. Gerald's images are on display in an exhibition titled, “In the Shadow of Freud’s Couch: Photographic Portraits of Psychoanalysts in Their Offices,” at Iptar West, the offices of the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research at 140 West 97th Street. The exhibition runs through April 1.

Joyce McDougall, Ed.D., Paris

:mark gerald, ph.d., nytimes, new york city; posted by diana murphy

fixation: farida batool

I'm spellbound.

In Farida Batool’s photographs, lenticular prints (the image changes with the viewing angle) become a metaphor for complex political realities. In Nai Reesan Shehr Lahore Diyan (There Is No Match of the City Lahore) a girl skips rope in front of burned-out buildings — the aftermath of arsons committed by religious extremists.

Farida's image of a Pakistani girl is becoming iconic. The young woman looks as if she captures or typifies some cross between the ordinary and the divine, the ruin and the ritual. The piece partakes of Farida's commitment to the vernacular and to dialogue between the religious and the secular, between the personal and the city. (Monroe Price, Huffington Post)

Batool's image represents a side of Pakistan and its culture that rarely makes it into the American press. Nai Reesan Shehr Lahore Diyan was most recently on view in an exhibit at New York's Aicon Gallery. It closed January 11 (bah!).



This post serves as a virtual birthday greeting to one of the most glorious bloggeuses in all the land: our darling P. Miss WPM's fierce intelligence and kind heart are but two of her many gifts, not to mention her generosity of spirit. And P loves all things South Asia — this one's for you, P. Happiest of Days.




:image courtesy of farida batool and aicon gallery

someone to watch over you*

Bethesda Fountain is the central feature on the lower level of Bethesda Terrace overlooking The Lake in New York City's Central Park. The pool is centered by a fountain sculpture designed by Emma Stebbins in 1868. Stebbins was the first woman to receive a commission for a major work of art in New York City.




The bronze, eight-foot statue depicts a winged angel touching down upon the top of the fountain, where water spouts and cascades into an upper basin and into the surrounding pool. Beneath her are four four-foot cherubs representing Temperance, Purity, Health and Peace.





The statue is also referred to as The Angel of the Waters, a name taken from the Gospel of John which contains a description of an angel blessing the Pool of Bethesda, giving it healing powers. The angel carries a lily in one hand, representing purity, and with the other hand she blesses the water below.

Did you know? The Bethesda Fountain Terrace Arcade has a Minton tile ceiling, the only known example in the world where Minton encaustic ceramic tiles are used in a suspended ceiling. All 15,876 elaborately patterned tiles were removed for cleaning in 1984 and remained in storage for over 20 years.

After a $7 million effort funded by the Central Park Conservancy, the treasured tiles were restored and the Terrace reopened in spring 2007. Earlier that year, the NY Times published a cool interactive detailing the restoration of the Arcade. The site is still accessible.

What could be more beautiful, I ask you?






*I intended to offer this post before I pulled up stakes a couple of weeks ago. But, alas, so many of my best intentions meet the same fate: indefinite postponement or abandonment. It's a sorry lot. But here I am (at least for now) - and there's no time like the present to cast out something of beauty. One of my favorite NY spots is at the feet of The Angel of the Waters. She never fails to soothe my weary soul.





:santi-jose, mike knight, jenn german, amanda lyra, tim brauhn, daniel avila, nyc parks & recreation

x. o.

Wishing you a weekend filled with love and beauty. Happy Valentine's Day, my sweets.





:we heart it

tea for one

Ceramic artist Jette Arendal Winther creates these sweet pretties. She lives in a cottage on the north coast of Zealand, the main island of Denmark, with her composer husband Niels.

Such lovely living.














:arendal keramik

elizabethan goth

:vogue china
photographer: pierluigi maco; model: vlada roslyakova - via foto decadent

the way they live: jay walker

Jay Walker's house was constructed specifically to accommodate his massive library. To create the space, which was constructed in 2002, Walker (the 52-year-old Internet entrepreneur and founder of Walker Digital) and architect Mark Finlay first built a 7-foot-long model. Then they used miniature cameras to help visualize what it would be like to move around inside.

In a conscious nod to M. C. Escher (whose graphics are echoed in the wood tiling), the labyrinthine platforms seem to float in space, an illusion amplified by the glass-paneled bridges connecting the platforms. Walker commissioned decorative etched glass, dynamic lighting, and even a custom soundtrack that sets the tone for the cerebral adventures hidden in this cabinet of curiosities. "I said to the architect, 'Think of it as a theater, from a lighting and engineering standpoint,'" Walker says. "But it's not a performance space. It's an engagement space."

"What's so wonderful about our knowledge of the human body is how remarkably constrained it has been over time," Walker says. In the center of the table sits the Anatomia universa, an early-19th-century medical masterwork by the Italian illustrator Paolo Mascagni. At front right is a field tool kit for Civil War surgeons. Grasping the box of prosthetic eyeballs at left is the original "Thing" hand from the TV show The Addams Family, signed by the cast. In front of the 19th-century phrenological bust is a book, from about 1500, containing the first published illustrations of surgery on humans. "Pre-anesthesia, of course" Walker says. At the rear are a 300 million-year-old trilobite fossil, a raptor skeleton and a clutch of fossilized dinosaur eggs.

A brand-new One Laptop per Child XO, far left, sits next to a relatively ancient RadioShack TRS-80 Model 100. In back, a 1911 typewriting machine and a 1909 Kent radio. The large contraption at center is the Nazis' supposedly unbreakable Enigma code machine. The book to its left is a copy of Johannes Trithemius' 1518 Polygraphiae, a cryptographic landmark. On the right is an Apple II motherboard signed by Woz. An Edison kinetoscope sits beside an 1890 Edison phonograph (along with three of the wax cylinders it uses for recording). Nearby is a faithful copy of Edison's lightbulb. The gadget with the tubes is an IBM processor circa 1960. In front of it stands a truly ancient storage device, a Sumerian clay cone used to record surplus grain.

:read the wired article and see more photos here; wired

sit down, john

Three things, my friend:

1. Remember that tax breaks do not a stimulus package make. (You know this. I know you do.)
2. Click your heels together three times and recite the following: "That One won. I lost."
3. Watch this.

Sit down, John. For God's sake, John, sit down.



:youtube; 1776; john mccain

Good weekend, everyone. Wherever you may be.




:fabian geyrhalter at the beholder