Art, Film, Photography, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW1

Wood on the Downs

Wood On The Downs After Paul Nash by Martin Malone   We have been here before. Uffington, Hackpen, Grim’s Ditch, Ogbourne St.George, Wayland’s Smithy, Sparshott Firs, Bishopstone and Barbury; all the trodden way from Overton to Beacon Hill. Each place its genius loci, a favourite colour: Ash-Blue, Ochre, Payne’s Grey, Terra-Verte, Lamp Black, Sienna. But today you ditch your winter…

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Art, Film, Photography, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW1

Art and Our Times

How will artists and writers portray this Trumpian time of disillusion, delusion and deception in which we now live? All a poet can do today is warn. That is why the true Poets must be truthful. – Wilfred Owen Perhaps we can find some clues in the extraordinary exhibit World War I and American Art now showing at the the Pennsylvania…

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Art, Film, Photography, Poetry, Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Shirt

March 25th marks the anniversary of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire. In Shirt Robert Pinsky weaves in the Triangle Factory fire as he broods over the purchase of a shirt. He dwells with careful loving attention on the technical terms for shirt-making. His lists of esoteric terms and trades lead to moral digressions on Asian sweatshops, the Triangle fire, Scottish…

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Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Consumed by Hate

Imagine being so consumed with racial hatred that you travel all the way from Maryland specifically on a mission to kill black people. This is what seems to have happened last Monday night when Timothy Caughman suffered a brutal sword attack from a complete stranger apparently intent on targeting black men in New York City. Caughman, who was 66 and lived…

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Art, Film, Photography, Poetry, RattleBag and Rhubarb, WW1

About Suffering They Were Never Wrong

About suffering they were never wrong, The old Masters: how well they understood Its human position: how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;                                                    …

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Killer Apps and Slideshows

Nobody has actually died from watching a slide show presentation. That whole Death by Powerpoint thing was much exaggerated. What’s true is that countless people have been held hostage by interminable presentations often alleged to be a workshop at which nobody actually works and little is learned. And – true confession – I have been as guilty as anyone in…

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Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Time to Make it Happen

I did not attend the NAIS Annual Conference this year – first time for many years – so I don’t have any takeaways to report like Grant Lichtman. But I was in Baltimore for an ICG (Independent Curriculum Group) board meeting and I was at the conference center to pick up a set of attractive little enamel badges (see below)…

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Politics, RattleBag and Rhubarb

The #Resistance is #TheMajority

One of the great pleasures of the age of instant and ubiquitous access to information is being able to re-connect with thinkers you once read but have lost touch with. Instead of remaining that-person-who-wrote-that-book-you-liked it’s possible to continue the connection with their thinking in effortless ways. And even they don’t have a blog or a twitter account you can be…

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Art, Film, Photography, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Siracusa: “My sins are all mortal.”

Caravaggio is one of the bad boys in the history of art with a biography so outlandish it reads like fiction. When he arrived in Sicily in 1608 he was wanted for murder in Rome and had brawled his way across the Mediterranean. There a story of his entering a church in Messina where he was offered a bowl of…

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Art, Film, Photography, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Palermo: No Surface Left Unadorned

The Palatine Chapel is one of those must-see places if ever you have the chance.  It was commissioned by the enlightened Norman King Roger II (Ruggero) and  was consecrated on Palm Sunday 1140. It was designated a UNESCO World heritage site in 2015. It’s inside the palace of the Norman kings of Sicily that now serves as Sicily’s seat of the regional…

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Art, Film, Photography, Education, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Palermo: The Art of Learning

The Gallery of Modern Art is located inside the restored 15th century convent of Sant’Anna and has many works of art from the last 150 years. I always enjoy looking at depictions of schools and classrooms and I was very taken with this large painting – Gli Scolari  (The Schoolchildren) – by Felice Casorati. Five students and a teacher with symbols…

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Art, Film, Photography, Food, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Palermo: Markets and Mosaics

Palermo has three outdoor markets and we managed to hit all of them. Two we found by design while foraging for supplies and the third on our walk back from the Palentine Chapel and on our way to the completely over the top Chiesa del Gesù. So a few scenes from the market and then on to Montreale. Lots of…

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Art, Film, Photography, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Palermo: Puppets and Piazzas

It rarely snows in Palermo but I was pleased to see the universal winter snowflakes on the windows of the elementary school. Our apartment is near the Piazza Marina in the center of which is the Giardino Garibaldi where  enormous fig trees create what must be welcome shade in the summer. The largest tree in Europe was planted here in…

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Art, Film, Photography, RattleBag and Rhubarb

Palermo 2016 into 2017

On the back-end of bronchitis I’ve been hacking, wheezing and coughing my way through Palermo with the long-suffering travel mate. Here’s part of the first day. First impressions: Grit – the sort that swirls around your feet – , garbage and graffiti. Everything seems pitted and pocked and either under construction or crumbling. Narrow streets with washing hanging from the…

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