The Infinite Art Tournament, Round One: Sánchez Cotán v. Sargent!

Juan Sánchez Cotán
1561 - 1637
Spanish

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John Singer Sargent
1856 - 1925
American

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Vote for the artist of your choice! Votes go in the comments. Commentary and links to additional work are welcome. Polls open for at least one month past posting.

The Infinite Art Tournament Left Bracket Second-Round Elimination GRUDGE MATCH: Piper v. Pisanello!

John Piper and Pisanello entered the Tournament as First Round opponents last November.  The fifteenth century Italian took that contest, but it was a close one.  Since then, Piper has won two straight, and Pisanello dropped one and then came back with a win.  That sets up today's Grudge Match!  A tie goes to Pisanello on the strength of his original win -- Piper needs an outright majority to survive.

Leaving us today with a victory and two losses apiece are Antonio del Pollaiolo and the late Sigmar Polke.

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John Piper
1903 - 1992
British

• Lost to Pisanello in Round 1 by a two-vote swing.  YOUR VOTE COUNTS!!!
• Beat Florentine master Andrea Pisano in First Round Elimination.
• Beat Sigmar Polke in the Left Bracket Second Round.

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Pisanello
1395ish - 1455ish
Italian

• Beat twentieth century Brit John Piper by a two-vote swing in Round 1. YOUR VOTE COUNTS!!!
• Lost to Camille Pissarro in Round 2.
  
• Made it past Antonio del Pollaiolo in the Left Bracket Second Round by a safe margin.

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Vote for the artist of your choice in the comments, or any other way that works for you. Commentary and links to additional work are welcome. Polls open for at least one month past posting, but likely much longer.

Behind the Scenes at the Game of Reading

Reaction to The Game of Reading among friends of the blog has ranged from thinking it’s a mildly cool idea to a malicious hope that I will trap myself into a joyless, grinding reading experience. Let’s see how things are going!

After last time, I had these cards in my hand:

• 5 "Any New Book" cards from the starting hand
• an "Unrestricted New Book" card (which is the same thing)
• "Non-Fiction"
• For Whom the Bell Tolls (cool!)
• How Literature Works (eh!)
• Behind the Scenes at the Museum (cool!)

And I was worried that it might be hard to keep a steady flow of usable cards for “ear-reading” on audio. Since I will probably want to re-read on paper the books that I listened to the first time around, and because audio reading is faster than eye-reading, I could easily end up without any cards to play on audiobooks if I’m not careful. It would be easy to get trapped with a backlog of ten cards, all of which needed to be played on paper books.

That was the state of play when I finished listening to the surprisingly not-Japanese Howl’s Moving Castle (**** -- 4 of 5 stars on GoodReads), a charming young adult fantasy, on July 6. I burned one of my precious free cards to wallow in detective fiction, firing up Ngaio Marsh’s Death of a Fool (***).

• Card played: 00 - "Any New Book"
• Card drawn: 464 – Re-read something from before you were on GoodReads

I knew immediately what I wanted to do with that draw, so the next morning I plucked Italo Calvino’s 1980 landmark If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler (****) from the stack under my night table.

• Card played: 464 – Re-read something from before you were on GoodReads
• Card drawn: 75 – Strong Poison (Lord Peter Wimsey #6)

On consultation with a bookish associate, I decided to invoke the serial fiction option and read a different Wimsey mystery, one I haven’t already read, and to read it by eye. I reserved it from the library, and went to work on the Calvino.

A few days into the Calvino, a book that I had been looking forward to – How Not to Write a Novel (***) – came in at the library. I jumped into it immediately!

• Card played: 381 - "Non-Fiction"
• Card drawn: 396 - "Non-Fiction"

…which meant I still had a non-fiction card in the hand when I finished the Ngiao Marsh and needed a new audiobook. I didn't want to burn any more free cards, so I needed to listen to something that wasn’t, like, pretend. The only immediately available non-fiction title was Atul Gawande’s somber Being Mortal (*****).

• Card played: 396 - "Non-Fiction"

Time out! Did you notice what just happened there? I had wanted to read Being Mortal for about half a year, but never got around to it. Why not? Because there is always something relatively light-hearted around that can give you an excellent excuse to put off an exploration of the nature of death in our society! But since the structure of the game is based on my theoretically mature and sophisticated long-term reading goals, instead of my demonstrable short-term reading sweet tooth, it pushed me into choosing something Good For Me. THE SYSTEM WORKS!!!

• Card drawn: 521 – Return One Card to Deck, Draw Two

Hurray! I could get rid of the book that, as I saw immediately when I checked it out from the library, was even worse than I remembered!

• Discarded: 20 - How Literature Works  (**)
  
• Replacement cards: 202 – Strip Jack (Inspector Rebus #4) and 25 – Otto: the Autobiography of a Teddy Bear

Drawing the Rebus card gave me an obvious light fiction – well, light grim fiction – choice for audio, once I was done learning about death.

• Card played: 202 – Inspector Rebus #10, Dead Souls
• Card drawn: 159 – Eragon.

I’m not really sure I remember what Eragon was, or why I read it in the first place. But, that’s all part of the re-reading experiment.

Otto (****) is a child’s book, but a good one.

• Card played: 25 – Otto: the Autobiography of a Teddy Bear
• Card drawn: 221 – Nice Work

After finishing If on a Winter’s Night I started Kate Atkinson’s Behind the Scenes at the Museum (*****). It is magnificent.

• Card played: 136 - Behind the Scenes at the Museum.
• Card drawn: 502 – Ask Morgan

Morgan’s choice was Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman, a book that I’ve always kind of felt like I should read. THE SYSTEM WORKS!!! Also, it is available on audiobook. Hurrah!

However, it wasn’t instantly available in audiobook, so I had to burn another free card to get something to listen to. I figured I’d use it on something Good For Me, and chose the second book of Laurence Durrell’s monumental, universally respected, and insufferable Alexandria Quartet.

• Card played: 00 – Any New Card.
• Card drawn: 344 – Unrestricted New Book

But it turns out that Balthazar (**), bless its heart, is quite a short little thing. Knowing I would need to burn another free card, but also that audiobook help is more or less on the way, I decided to pick something that would not only be Good For Me, that would not only satisfy my sweet tooth, but that would also last a long time: The Duke’s Children, the last of Anthony Trollope’s six Palliser novels.

• Card played: 00 – Any New Card.
• Card drawn: 213 – Jane Eyre

Finally, finishing the Atkinson, I relaxed into some good old-fashioned Wimsey.

• Card played: 75 – Have His Carcase. (Lord Peter Wimsey #8)
• Card drawn: 135 – A Thousand Acres

Although I praised Jane Smiley’s agricultural setting of King Lear the first time I read it, I praised it awfully faintly, and I confess my heart sank a little to see it come up in my hand now.  But, the point of a game is that it has turns of fate and challenges to be overcome, is it not?

The State of Play

Well, I’ve had a program of summer reading that has been enriching and brought joy to my life!

My current hand seems to be resolving the audio-vs-paper problem pretty nicely. In addition to four unrestricted books, I’ve got three books slated to eye-read: The Hemingway, the Smiley (alas, not available on audio), and Eragon, which I apparently listened to last time. But I’ve also got two books for ear-reading, the Feynman and Jane Eyre (which I eye-read last time). Nice Work, a David Lodge book, could go either way, and is part of a trilogy to boot. So I have plenty of options there.

Basically, I’m totally winning this game so far.

And You?

Read any good books lately?

The Infinite Art Tournament Left Bracket Second-Round Elimination: Piero di Cosimo v. Picabia!

Today we visit a corner of the bracket where, unusually, the four winners of the First Round matches are the four artists still standing.  Patenier and Picasso are duking in our in Round Three, and the opponents they defeated in Round Two -- Piero di Cosimo and Picabia, respectively -- have stayed alive in the Left Bracket to meet here today.

Leaving us, each with records of 1-2, are Perugino and Pietro da Cortona!

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Piero di Cosimo
1461ish - 1521
Florentine

• Skunked Pietro da Cortona in Round 1.
• Lost -- but respectably -- to Pablo Picasso, in Round 2.
• Beat his contemporary Perugino in the Left Bracket Second Round.

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Francis Picabia
1879 - 1953
French

• Crushed Perugino in Round 1.
• Lost to Joachim Patenier in Round 2.
• Pounded Pietro da Cortona in the Left Bracket Second Round.

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Vote for the artist of your choice in the comments, or any other way that works for you. Commentary and links to additional work are welcome. Polls open for at least one month past posting, but likely much longer.

The New Monday Quiz, Summer Edition

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Another Quiz in the lighter, more relaxed summer NMQ format, with questions written specifically for your warm-weather enjoyment! 

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1. In 1600, an English sailor arrives in Japan and has many, many adventures. That's that basic premise of what 1975 best-seller?

2. Name the 1978 Summer blockbuster!

3. What artist painted these?

4. She is famous on the internet, ironically enough, for writing “You cannot find peace by avoiding life." That wasn't really something she said, though; those are words put in her mouth by the book and movie The Hours. But she did write “I am made and remade continually. Different people draw different words from me,” in her 1931 novel The Waves. Name the made and remade author!

5. Here's a geological map. What's the country?

6. Here's a famous painting!  Do you know the artist, the title, or anything else interesting about it?

7. I took the name of the city off of this postcard to make it harder to tell where it's from!  Where's it from?

8. There's only one well-known 40th Symphony, and it was completed 228 years ago today. It's still in heavy rotation, in classical music circles! Who was the composer?

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Last week's Summer Quiz answers were: Dune, Shrek, Cezanne, Dostoevsky, Morocco, Botticelli's Venus and Mars, London, and Brazil. We're going to give initial joint custody of the Summer Quiz Cup to DrSchnell and pfly, for their basically-perfect slates.

The Infinite Art Tournament, Round One: Ryman v. Salviati!

Robert Ryman
Born 1930
American

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Francesco Salviati
1510 - 1563
Florentine

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Vote for the artist of your choice! Votes go in the comments. Commentary and links to additional work are welcome. Polls open for at least one month past posting.

Third Thursday Semi-Finals: El Greco v. Hals!

Third Thursday: Bringing big names to your mid-month!

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"Semifinals" designates the Fourth to Seventh Rounds of the Infinite Art Tournament.  This is a Left Bracket Fourth Round Match between El Greco (4-1-1, 39-32, .549) and Franz Hals (3-1, 29-19, .604).  Hugo van der Goes (4-2, 36-36, .500) leaves the Tournament after a close loss to El Greco.

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El Greco
1541 - 1614
Greek; worked in Italy and Spain

• Defeated Florentine master Benozzo Gozzoli in Round 1 in a contest that went down to the last vote. YOUR VOTE COUNTS!!!
• Tied with Francisco Goya in Round 2. YOUR VOTE COUNTS!
• Stunned Paul Gauguin in a lopsided Round 2 tiebreaker.
• Lost to somebody called Vincent van Gogh in Round 3.
• Easily beat Giulio Romano in the Left Bracket Third Round.
• Defeated Hugo van der Goes in Left Bracket Third Round Elimination by a two-vote swing. YOUR VOTE COUNTS!!!

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Frans Hals
1581 - 1666
Dutch

• Outpaced American Philip Guston Round 1.
• Edged out the great Dane Wilhelm Hammershoi in Round 2 by a single vote. YOUR VOTE COUNTS!!!
• Laid a beating on Childe Hassam, even though everybody LIKES Childe Hassam, in Round 3.
• Upset by Atkinson Grimshaw in Round 4.

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Michael5000 Swaddles Again!

Hey, I finished another quilt!

This is a child-size piece made from outtake blocks from a full-size blanket that I'm still finishing up.  You can catch all of the details on my quilt blog, if reading my quilt blog doesn't threaten your traditional notions of gender identity.  And if you don't find reading about other peoples' craft projects kind of dull.

The Specs

Title: Raisa's Quilt


Serial Number: 77

Dimensions: 52" x 40"

Batting: Pieced commercial batting.

Backing: Pieced scrap flannel.

Quilting: Loose, squiggly machine-quilted grid.

Begun: May 2016 (from existing blocks).

Finished: May 22, 2016.

Intended Use/Display: Child's blanket.


Provenance: In use as intended.

The Infinite Art Tournament, Round Two: Rosa v. Rosenquist!

Salvator Rosa
1615 - 1673
Italian

Beat George Romney easily in Round 1.

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James Rosenquist
Born 1933
American

Defeated Cosimo Rosselli in Round 1.

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Vote for the artist of your choice in the comments, or any other way that works for you. Commentary and links to additional work are welcome. Polls open for at least one month past posting.