Saturday, October 18, 2014

breathless in ny

so, no, I can't keep up, but that is nice too.. have spent these last , what four weeks, preparing the critics's page for The Brooklyn Rail, november issue, during which I got to invite essays from various brilliant friends on the topic i chose, which was Translating Art... and off they (and I) went... my introductory essay I won't resume here, but I can say it is about communities, like the one we formed in writing these essays, like those who accepted, like what they chose... and I have to say the Brooklyn Rail feels like one largish community but who can gather... so to get to the meeting I was supposed to arrive during, to have my picture taken so that Phong Bui can do my portrait  for that issue, and I LOVED the grouping of people, all informal, everyone talking, everyone having pizza and wine after, ah, terrific, only very far for those of us dwelling in Manhattan -- I got on the wrong direction of the subway, and was rescued by Susan Bee, with whom and whose husband Charles Bernstein, I have been in friendly and happy close contact for years... and we ARRIVED at the BR, and , yes, I loved it all.

And yes, we went to St. Matthew Passion,  rehearsal at the armory, with Simon Rattle and Peter Sellars (he rushing up and down and getting the boy's chorus and the real chorus to go into the ailes, so we were all a part of it all -- such music, of course, the summit of music I never concentrated on before like that, and then a lots of other assemblies , less sublime, but they were all heightened by that Armory Experience... I gave a talk out in Woodstock on Georges Malkine, having talked the night before on Joseph Cornell at the New School, and then, I will just attach what I didn't want to add to my introductory essay to the Brooklyn Rail, too personal (it, after all, goes to 20,000 readers)
but I really loved being with Kathy Ruttenberg, so I'll add it here:

Back in the city this past Thursday, I had seen some large and surrealizing baroque sculptures of  the animalist  artist Kathy Ruttenberg,  in the Stux gallery on 57th street, and then on Sunday, I had the ultimate joy of making a surrealist romp through her working place and inspiration: her woods, studio, and amazing rare varieties of rabbits, pigs, pigeons, and goats, near Woodstock. Some animals were interior: Trixie the pig, who agreeably grunted when we stirred her blanket, and who had her own corner with pig paintings and drawings all around, like  an altar: various gorgeous rabbits like Ozone, all fluffy white hair, and, I loved Ozone and one other rabbit of darker hair hue, and we played with chickens and rode in a pony cart with Mercury, not exactly fleet-footed, but adorable, and then returned to the city, animalized in a good sense. 

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