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I believe I heard about this book when it was first published and it was something that intrigued me. I had dabbled in listening to twentieth-century classical music in my twenties, but didn’t really start digging deeply until I began singing with the choir at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago. The choir director at the time, […]

Picking something out of photography seemed a bit of a bore and I ended up going with this book as an option. Of course, since I’m over a year behind in these write ups, I don’t remember much of the book other than it was not notable in either positive or negative terms so I’m going […]

2021 continues to be a good year for writing. It was even a good year for physical fitness for a while with my hitting my move goal every day until we had an extended cold spell this month which broke my streak.  On the novel, I finished a first draft of chapter 25 and am almost […]

Nestled in the 760s, “Printmaking and Prints,” I found this book which talked about the background of the artists of Terezin as well as showing their work. Terezin was a former fortress city which the Nazis took over to use as a “model ghetto.” Living conditions were as awful as in other Jewish ghettos under […]

Growing up in Chicago, I’ve had the good fortune of easy access to what’s arguably the best collection of impressionist artwork in the work at the Art Institute (I remember visiting the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and realizing that they had fewer pieces than the Art Institute and many of the best pieces of the […]

Comics are covered in the Dewey Decimal system under “Graphic arts & decorative arts.” There was little chance that I would read anything else when I got to this part of the Dewey Decimals, but I had originally thought I’d read some collection of newspaper strips. With the wealth of options available, I ended up deciding […]

I’ve always wanted to learn to sculpt. The whole concept of creating three-dimensional art has always fascinated me. So when I got to the 730s, “Sculpture, ceramics & metalwork” I was sure this was going to be my chance to finally learn this skill. Nope. I picked up this book hoping it would be about sculpting […]

I’ve grown accustomed to odd things popping up in my Goodreads recommendations, but this is a weird one: Because I’ve begun reading Stephanie (Stephen at the time of publication) Burt’s Close Calls with Nonsense, Goodreads has recommended not one, but two books about Jeffrey Dahmer. There’s no index in the book, but a glimpse over the […]

Bertrand Goldberg’s Marina City has always been a fixture of my perception of downtown Chicago. As a child I attended a broadcast of the local children’s television program, BJ and Dirty Dragon from the Marina City TV studios (now the House of Blues), saw Steve McQueen chase the bad guys through the parking garage until they crashed […]