Present Joys

amnhnyc:

It’s Tuesday’s peek into the archives: Mr. Neimeyer colors grasses for use in a diorama, 1934.

For more, check out the Picturing the Museum collection.

© AMNH Library/#281044

I am a connoisseur of golden-era painting smocks. This one looks like it’s got a sailor’s collar. Fantastic.

Here are some stills from the movie Edge of Fury, a 1958 thriller starring Michael Higgins (no, I hadn’t heard of him either). Apparently this movie was hard-to-find for a long time, though it’s now available on Netflix Instant. If the world were fair, this would be a cult classic.

The protagonist is hilarious and creepy; the film’s setting is beautiful and its ending is delightfully grotesque. You owe it to yourself to watch this great movie. I don’t say that very often.

The campy-listening thing, I think, is false. I don’t think that there is any such thing, actually. This happens with age, that at some point you might have told yourself and others that you listened to the Backstreet Boys because it was funny. But in fact, you were enjoying it; it’s just a different kind of enjoyment for you. But I don’t think that ironic-distance appreciation is actually a different or lesser appreciation. I think most of that irony is an attempt to say, ‘These aren’t exactly my kind of people, and I don’t picture myself sounding like that, but I still like it.’ I don’t believe in ironic appreciation. I think if you like something, the core of it is you like it.

Ford Maddox Brown. Eglon assassinated by Ehud. 1908.

This is a great illustration of Ehud killing King Eglon from Judges 3. A great artist, a great illustration, and a great story.