Spinozablue: An Eclectic Journal of the Arts

Posted on: January 1, 2013

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How to Do Urban, by New Yorker of Choice

Two young women, art stu­dents, fun­nel into the bleak and lead-​​​​like dreary light of the sub­way car grasp­ing in their hands, by the frames on which they have been crafted, small­ish paint­ings (maybe 12 by 16).  Apparitions they are, the young artists, and hold­ings of the imag­i­na­tion, their fin­ished images that I may never have the oppor­tu­nity to observe again.

In New York City one can still think of oppor­tu­ni­ties not as tear­less moments to rebuild upon destruc­tion and demo­li­tion, but rather as the unex­pected and nor­mal con­tin­u­ance of spirit, (per­haps still) unlike any ema­na­tion of spirit any­where else in the world.  An asser­tion of this kind cries out hotly to be con­tested, but it more or less stands, if the cur­rent exhi­bi­tion of Anna Shukeylo’s Urban Diaries, at the Morningside Heights Branch of the New York Public Library through January 3, 2013, gives its indication.…

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Posted on: September 1, 2012

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Why Did You Write That?

Anyone who has writ­ten fic­tion or poetry prob­a­bly has been asked at one time or another, “Why did you write that?” I’ve been asked that ques­tion and I have never been able to pro­vide an answer.

Some writ­ers may set out to write a poem that will address an impor­tant ques­tion about life, such as who we are as human beings and what pur­pose, if any, we have on Earth. I have never tried to write a poem like that. Nor have I ever writ­ten a poem know­ing in advance what it might say. I just write down “words” that come to me, pro­vided I like the way they sound and like their “rhythm” when heard together.

I might be sit­ting in a diner or in my liv­ing room and “hear” a few words that sound as though they belong together and so I jot them down, often on a nap­kin or scrap paper.…

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Posted on: September 18, 2011

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Bang on the Chasm

by Robert Mueller

I am won­der­ing about new jazz and new art music, and sep­a­rat­ing them entirely for the con­ve­nience of enter­tain­ing these thoughts. I am think­ing about con­sort­ing with a dif­fer­ence even though what I have to say about one has to be true of the other (again assum­ing for the pur­pose that they are sep­a­rate). Specifically as a mat­ter of degree I want to dis­tin­guish new jazz as a liv­ing pro­duc­tion that arrives cur­rently, spon­ta­neously in the club or spon­ta­neously also at a jam ses­sion or record­ing ses­sion, from the same sce­nario for new art music, which comes to us as a prod­uct, or object, that, when it arrives, may arrive in a pub­lic per­for­mance, but not cur­rently.…

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