At the Seahawks-Vikings football game several weeks ago, players exhaled clouds of heat and moisture as they lined up for the snap. Their breaths swelled from their mouths, spread away, and then disappeared into the frigid Minnesota air. Welcome to Jupiter, sportscaster Al Michaels quipped. A galaxy away, at the Henry Art Gallery, artist Demetrius… Read more »
One evening, as he is losing the king’s faith and his own power, Cardinal Wolsey counsels his protégé Thomas Cromwell on their present impasse. King Henry VIII will dissolve his first marriage and take Anne Boleyn as his new bride. Wolsey and Cromwell are to find the means to the king’s end. Confounded, Cromwell questions… Read more »
“Beauty is vapour from the pit of death.” (The Peregrine, p. 180) For the last several months, I’ve been coming to the Henry Art Gallery most Wednesdays to read from a book about a hawk season in the fenlands of eastern England. To describe J.A. Baker’s The Peregrine as only that, though, would be to diminish it. Baker’s… Read more »
Whatever the weather, spring officially begins today, March 20th. Heeding the impending day, I hastened to finish Adam Gopnik’s most recent book, Winter: Five Windows on the Season, before the vernal equinox heralded the new season and winter melted away. In the last months, Gopnik has been a constant companion. I was charmed by his 2001… Read more »