art to be treasured

So I went, with a friend art historian, to see Howard Hodgkin's exhibition at the Gagosian. Beautiful, with all the inframing and globs of paint, some left on as dabs, so surrounding. Dark Evening I especially loved, ith its sea inside, and the small yellow brightness in a burst at the lower left, and next to it, the red allover of FlowersIt feels like what you feel like when you see or smell some happily-scented flowers, and that is the way most of these work...You see something called Breakfast and against a space, just a brownish slab, and you feel: oh, there is the toast. Or then you see Early Morning, and feel just the open kind of possibilisation that means: I felt Early Morning about this one. Some are more explicit, like Opera, with its clearly recessed stage, or After Whistler, with its blues and less blue blues dragged across, so you see Whistler's seashores.
And then I remembered, and went back to see, "Stieglitz and his Artists" at the Met, and felt the same way about the John Marin interior framing. But then I have always loved John Marin, early and late. His face, his hat, his shock of hair, his sailboats, the word "Pertaining," as in Pertaining to Stonington. but who else could USE that word, without being all stuffy?

Reading, teaching, going to jazz

So I keep passing around my copy of The Hare with Amber Eyes to various friends, and so far, my women friends have been FAR more enthusiastic than the men... what does this mean, I wonder? but I don't have time to wonder very long, have to go give a seminar on Mallarme, Whistler, and the rest of those great writers and painters (I love Whistler's writing in The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, to say nothing of his Nocturnes and beach scenes) but hope to say lots about them, and show some, so my super students can react... Each has to choose something of Mallarme's to react to, and they will... Who wouldn't? the most 21st century poet around, I often think.
Then to see friends from France and to the Blue Note, because they want to hear some jazz. I have lived in New York for Years and Years and have never ever been to the Blue Note!