A great intro to modern art; a free judging mp3 worth every penny of it; the high points of Big Jake 2008

Why a Painting is Like a Pizza: A Guide to Understanding and Enjoying Modern Art by Nancy G. Heller is today’s pick hit. I read this over the weekend and found it easily the best book I’ve seen so far for the lay audience on appreciating modern art (and it does go beyond just, literally, painting). I’ve read a bunch of theory and whatnot, but mostly I’ve acquired my feel for art by going and looking at it, whatever it is, which has to be the starting place for any art appreciation. You have to behold it before you can grok it. Your first reactions to any work will probably be emotional, perhaps an aesthetic enjoyment (or lack thereof) of a work’s beauty, but you can always go further than that if you learn something about the particular work and the artist, including of course the position of the work in its time and place, which is probably different from the time and place you’re seeing it. Fra Angelicas look a lot different on the walls of monasteries than in the harsh light of a museum gallery, Caravaggio means a lot more if you know the art he sprung from, and come to think of it, what will some future generation make of Warhol images of Liza Minnelli, when the first question they will ask is, Who is Liza Minnelli? (The second question may or may not be, Who is Andy Warhol?) Heller’s book starts with easier works and moves toward more difficult ones, all pretty much from the 20th century. Why is Pollock not just random stuff anyone could replicate? What is the point of white on white? Two-dimensional scultptures? What is the composition of a Mondrian? Not only does Heller talk about things that are informative and interesting, but she also writes well, one of those great rarities nowadays. Anyone who is interested in the art portion of our program, or who has suffered through studied Caveman, will get something out of this work. I’m adding it to the recommended list over on the right. If you read no other work about art, read this one.

When I wasn’t reading RSS updates over the weekend from WTF on who was scratching whose chin in their bonus week, also known as the Will It Never End Session, I was recording a lecture on LD judging for new parents. I think I’ve mentioned that giving this lecture in person to Sailor parents has been a project of diminishing returns, and lately we’ve been giving our training hands-on at MHLs and CFLs. Still, it seemed like a good idea to warm people up a bit in preparation for an event, so I put down my normal spiel into an MP3, and put it on the MHL page along with the rest of the how-to-judge materials. There’s not much more we can do, I think, except toss the old folks into the rounds and let the chips fall where they may. If the MP3 doesn’t scare them away, nothing will.

O’C has sent a note that Big Jake registration opens this Friday. He’s also wondering when Bump registration opens. [Sigh.] I figured I’d start attacking our invitation next week, but I don’t expect to open registration until, I don’t know, maybe October. It’s not as if the usual suspects are going to be surprised that we’re having our usual tournament on the usual weekend, at the usual place, with pretty much the usual hoop-di-do, except for the predictable one or two new wrinkles that always seem to be required in an attempt to improve things. Likewise Big Jake will be offering all its usual hoop-di-do, including the March of the Animatronic Traveling Trophies (featuring music especially written by John Philip Sousa for the occasion), the Richard B. Sodikow Look-Alike Contest, the Foods of the Worlds Unite Uprising ("You have nothing to lose but your ketchup"), and the annual highlight, a game of Where’s O’C?, when himself disappears into the bowels of the Jake building for three hours on Saturday afternoon with nothing but a Swiss army knife, a battery-depleted walkie-talkie and a battered VHS tape of Howard the Duck Part 17: Revenge of the Ohioans, and Ryan and Kaz and I throw up our hands and say the hell with it and get a cab down to Midtown for a mojito chugging contest, leaving Joga Zola (their French Pfffft coach) to sort things out while throwing Jiffy Sub sandwiches at anybody who looks at him funny.

Meanwhile I’ve now got 2 LDers, 1 PF team and a Speecho-American in a pear tree lined up for Yale. At this rate, we might have to take 2 cars.