Posts by Jay Barksdale

Who doesn't like a skyscraper? Acrophobists. But who else can resist those clean (usually) lines, impressive (always) feats of engineering, massive symbols of power (the jury's out on that one)?  New Yorkers are lucky that we have, still have, so very many admirable ones about. Perhaps my favorite is one close to the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building — the Springs Building.

To get ready for the upcoming Symposium on Frankenstein, or, Everybody Loves the Creature, I’ve been re-reading (yes, re-reading thank you) Shelley’s The Last Man.  Sometimes it is billed as science fiction, because in 2056 the world is ravished by plague and we get down to, yes, the last man.  But besides being spared any inkling of what 2011 would be like, lucky creature, let alone 2056, Shelly writes pretty much of her own time.  Yes, England is a Republic, but there is still a royal faction in the wings, plotting a come-back.  There is quite a bit of roman à clef about it.  Lionel, our narrator and LM, is Shelley herself; Adrian, 

We're off and running.  Today was fascinating.  Professor Matt spoke convincingly about the various solutions, or non-solutions, to the end of the sonnets.  At each sonnet's end, at the end of the 'young man' sonnets, or the 'dark lady's' sonnets, or the end of the set, or the end with "A Lover's Complaint" to follow?  All indeterminate, false and tricksy.  The sonnets seem to invite that.  But what was really fun was John Benson (no, not Ben Jonson - one can't make these things up) and his re-ordering and regrouping of the sonnets into a storied sequence.  Professor Matt approves, thinking the sonnets cried out for this.  And 

Five Dayes! Beginning Monday!  Abandon thine drabbe chores aynd Come ye too heare the Great One explained.

William Doyle, a writer in residence in the Library's Allen Room, thinks so.  His new book A Soldier's Dream explores the question of whether one young American soldier helped change the course of the Iraq War? 

Who hasn't had a fascination with a camera?  Mine was long ago with an Olympus when I was young and snobbish and only snapped black and white.  Perhaps the most successful series was Medicine Cabinets, sometimes taken surreptiously.  My two favorites were those of my friend F___ , whose didn't change, at all, from year to year, and that of a cataloger.  I don't even remember her name, but aspirin was in the upper left and Zantac in the lower right.  

New York in the 1970s, without cellphones, the internet, globalization, etc., was a very different place and arguably more vibrant (though I'm glad Central Park isn't like it used to be.)  Photographer extraordinaire Peter Moore tirelessly went about the City capturing just about everyone and everything, and became particularly known for his thorough photojournalism of the avant-garde scene, which included such influential groups as Fluxus and the Judson Dance Theater.  Tuesday will feature one facet of this multi-talented man's enormous body of work—The Avant Garde Festivals of Charlotte Moorman.

Tuesday is the second of the Wertheim Study scholars' lecture series: Singular and Collective: Radical Women Artists [in NYC during the 1970s].  This one, by Dr. Aseel Sawalha, is the collective part.  She's going to examine the scene from the perspective of anthropology, focusing on two women's arts collectives: The New York Feminist Art Institute (still going strong) and Heresies, which was both a school and a magazine, available at the Library and at home with a library card.   I'll bring the bound printed journal on Tuesday.

I'm looking forward to Tuesday.  Wouldn't you like to meet an artist who draws herself with bunny ears?

Together at last!  Two Worthies from the Study, Jean Mills & Anne Fernald, and Isaac Gewirtz, Curator of NYPL's Berg Collection (and doctors all), will present three lectures this coming Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, in the South Court Auditorium at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, on the one and only Virginia Woolf, of whom I am afraid. 

Gentle Reader,

Every so often I keep a yearly log of what I read.  Why?  'Cuz it's fun, mama, 'cuz it's fun.  Besides, it's no big deal—you read, I read, everyone we know reads.  So here it is.  The titles in bold are by the wonderful folks of the Research Study Rooms (Allen Room and Wertheim Study).  If you keep a list, I would enjoy seeing it posted here, as a reply.  If not, why not start and get in touch this time next year.  If the Fates allow, I'll be here.

Free public lectures in the South Court Auditorium by the writers and scholars of the Research Study Rooms began last week, and with a bang.

I'm so jealous of my reading that when anyone recommends a book, even though I say thank you, in my dark heart I throw it to the ground and go back to the dead ones, usually Balzac, Dickens or Sylvia Townsend Warner (who?)

But lately, as factotum to the Research Study Rooms, i.e. Allen Room and Wertheim Study, I've had a change of reading habits and switched to LIVING AUTHORS!

The Wertheim Study is a hidden gem at The New York Public Library, though certainly treasured by the writers and scholars that use it.  But who was Maurice Wertheim?

Enough of the oceanic understanding of Dickens, the truth and tragedy of Balzac, the flawless technique of Sylvia Townsend Warner (who?) - let's get some joy and light and ROMANCE into the mix.  The Juliet Club by Suzanne Harper, a writer of The Wertheim Study at The New York Public Library does this perfettamente.  It's one of those reads where you take the bus to have more reading time, pause a while before the end to let it linger, then, alone, finish in one happy rush.

I read dead people - Dickens, Balzac, Sylvia Townsend Warner (who?), etc.  But once in a while I visit the quick. This time I'm glad I did, for The Orphan Game by Ann Darby is one mighty fine novel, written with great control and intensity.