I have decided that I need an education in Visual history. So I have put together a list of books that I wanna read (or at least take a look to decide whether I want to really read them!). This was shamelessly culled from the art book recommendations in the Nov. issue of Artnews. Now that I have put it together, it feels a little intimidating. Please chime in if you know of a great art book that is a must read or if you have any thoughts about these books.

Story of art by E. H. Gombrich
Art and illusion by E. H. Gombrich
Foundations of modern art by Amedee Ozenfant
Passages in modern sculpture by Rosalind Krauss
Languages of art: An approach to a theory of symbols by Nelson Goodman
Other criteria: Confrontations with twentieth century art by Leo Steinberg
About modern art by David Sylvester
Modern art and the object: A century of changing attitudes by Ellen Johnson
In Praise of shadows by Junichero Tanizaki
Likeness and presence: A history of the image before the era of art by Hans Belting
Stanley Spencer by Keith Ball
Vision and design: Roger Fry
Velasquiz by Jose Ortega y Gasset
Transformations in late eighteenth century art by Robert Rosenblum

Unrelated: A list of 10 art books that you want for Christmas

It started snowing late last night. In the morning when we woke up, everything was covered in a fesh coat of snow. Across the road, the church steeples coated in white looks very pretty. It is the shovelling snow off the windshield of your car whenever you go out that I don't like about snowing this early.

There were very few people at work today. Most have either taken the day off or are 'working from home'. One of my colleagues, an orthodox jew, has brought food and lights to office to celebrate Chanukah.

On sunday afternoon, there was a balloon parade in downtown. Now the trees beside the roads are all lit up in the evenings. It looks a lot more festive than east Bay are did before Christmas.

I am looking forward to watching lots of movies and catching up on reading during the long weekend.

Back from L.A. Still catching up with work, offline life etc.
Will be back online after the weekend ....

I really need to go out of circulation and meet some rather bad deadlines. But in the meantime,

From the folks that made furniture stores sexy: Unboring

Some great locales for sex

And finally, I am glad that someone has now put together an encyclopedia of comic artists (via Purse lip square jaw)

Have a great week. I am busy for the rest of the week. I'll be in LA from 18th to 20th. If you guys know of anything interesting going on in LA (in the evenings) during that time, please let me know.

I saw on my logs that some people had been looking for a contact page. It doesn't exist. My e-mail address is banerjee_kaushik AT hotmail.com. I had forgotten to add the e-mail address to the template when I moved to MT last month. I had been meaning to put up an about page for almost one year!

I am slightly embarassed to admit that I first read of Cavafy in a spy thriller. The old and jaded, but brilliant spy master was fond of quoting Cavafy. I was quite taken by his poems. I had forgotten all about it, until I read the awesome Cavafy translations in Languagehat. Cavafy was homosexual. Some of his lyrics have homoerotic intent. It is interesting how different translators interpret that differently.

Here are the other links to Cavafy's poems on the net:

Thrace
Barbanis
Marios

Nestor Almendros in conversation with Dennis Schaefer and Larry Salvato in the book Masters of Light:

I know it is a rather old movie. But it was one of the best movies that I watched in my final year of college. I still remember it vividly. I hope to post some stuff on Hockney later tomorrow. Don't know anything about Piero della Francesca. Incidentally, 'Masters of Light' seems to be an awesome book (just started it).

Piece unique gallery is a comprehensive collection of Vietnam war photographs by some of the most well known war photographers from that era. The photos are categorized by photographers and have accompanying photographer bios and interviews. I feel slightly uncomfortable about the shopping cart in every page.

Update: Catherine Leroy of Pieceunique reminded me on an e-mail that part of the proceeds from the sale of the prints is going to the Vietnam Veterans Assistance fund. (For some reason, she had not been able to post the comment to this post. I'll try to figure that out when I have some time ....)

In Igby goes down, Igby tells a girl that he is supposed to go to New Jersey but has been putting it off. She says, "that's procrastination." He says, "Not to go to New Jersey is not procrastination.". Now I know ...

Last thursday night, driving back through New Jerse turn pike, I had pulled into into a Grover Cleveland rest area. As I backed out of my parting spot, I realized that the guy in the next spot was going to back out into me before I could drive away. I honked. In the split second that realization dawned that he was not gonna stop and I tried to reverse my truck further, he banged against my front bumper.

We both got out of our cars. I was trying hard to remain civil.
"You just backed out into my truck!"
"Oh, I am sorry! I didn't realize ..."
"I was honking all the time!"
"I didn't hear you. ...But ...there is no damage."

I pointed disbelievingly behind him where he was shielding the front bumper which had completely gone inside.

"Oh yeah, I am sorry. Didn't realize.."

It was deserted. I said, "Let us get your insurance information first." He said, "Yeah, sure." Then, as I watched incrdulously, he walked to his car, quickly got inside and drove away fast.

One lone guy I hadn't noticed before, pulled his head out of the phone booth to tell me, "It'll take him some time to get off the turn pike. Call 911".

this sounded like a good idea. I called 911, feeling vaguely guilty about calling since no doubt they were all busy chasing serial killers and domestic abusers. The dispatcher was brisk and efficient. She took down my location and asked me to wait for the police to arrive.

The guy who talked to me on the phone was a trucker. He was very helpful in describing what happened to the cops. In fact, he was much better at it than I was. I gave the policeman that van's registration no and description. It didn't look like that the cops were going to chase that idiot. He gave me a slip of paper which advised me that I can get the incident report on payment of $1.50 on money order to New Jersey state police. he looked on as I I tried unsuccessfully to pull the front bumper back and directed me to the local 24 hour garage in case I need help in getting the bumper pulled away from the tire.

I drove up to the garage. They refused to do anything short of body work. They also looked underemployed. It was almost 9 at night. I didn't want to towed. So, I tried very hard to look in dire need of help as I kept mightily pulling at the bumper. Eventually, they got tired of the charade and straightened it out for me.

No one seems surprised to hear the story. New Jersey has the highest car insurance rate in USA (I think).

Update: Here is the NJ turnpike < a href="http://www.state.nj.us/turnpike/crash.htm">annual accident rate statistics. It doesn't look too bad.

Had a rather hectic week at work. Its a bit of a mess.
Hope to start posting again by tomorrow.

I watched Blue last week. And White. And Double life of Veronique.

I was left depressed by White. I had watched ?Red? first (Yeah, I know). So I made the wrong assumption that Keislowski is essentially an optimist at heart. But ?White? brought out the pessimist in Kieslowski. In the end, it left me disturbed the way ?One flew over the cuckoo?s nest? did. There is no redemption in either.

I felt Tadeusz Miczka reached closest to the truth in his appraisal of Kieslowski:

He was shaped by his experiences in communist Poland in which he grew up where you could try to make life incrementally better, but you could never completely escape the shackles of communism. The post communist Poland in which Kieslowski died was also deeply corrupt. Kieslowski talking about himself,

Yet, he seemed to had been a deeply moral man, who was tormented by his responsibilities to his viewers:

I also loved Preisner?s score for Blue. (He has a personal site here)

Incidentally, Tom Tykwer (the director of ?Run Lola Run and apparently one of Europe?s hottest properties right now) was chosen to direct the movie ?Heaven? (based on the screenplay left behind by Kieslowski). I loved ?Run, Lola Run?. But, I feel that Tykwer?s movie persona is entirely different from that of Kieslowski. I am sure he has made a royal hash of it. But with Kate Winslet in it, how bad can it get?

Don?t be surprised if I subject you again to another Kieslowski rant in a few months.

There are now huge piles fallen leaves every day beside the roads. They still have color in them.

This is our first fall in east coast. And I am probably going uncharectaristically gaga over it.

The other day, it was raining, when we we drove past New Paltz, beyond the handwritten scrawl that announced in big bold letters 'Weapons of Mass Destruction Survival Guide sold here'; past the farms and up the hill where the trees form a canopy over the single lane road. The trees surrounding Lake Minnewaska were awash in color. Down by the lake, it was only us and another young woman with her kid as the fog slowly enveloped it.

I also managed to sneak out to the Pepsico corporate office in Purchase, NY. There, spread over 168 acres on a garden originally designed by Russel Page, are 45 outdooor sculptures of some of the best known twentieth century sculptors including Louise Nevelson, Alexander Calder, Auguste Rodin, Henri Laurens, Henry Moore, Alberto etc. (If you ever come to this side, it worth checking out. It is free, accessible between 9 AM to 5 PM. and is one of the little known treasures of upstate New York).

It got almost pitch dark by 5 PM last evening. Depressing.