Friday Links and Stuart Davis

Pounding rain here today. Yesterday we drove up to Crystal Bridges to see the Stuart Davis exhibit before it closed. I didn't expect to like it, and only went because the Kid and Dr. Skull love abstract/expressionism.


But in fact it was a wonderful exhibit. I went from "I don't like abstract/expressionist art" to "Okay, I like this abstract/expressionist art." Also, I learned a lot about Davis, including that he'd been funded by the Federal Arts Project in the 1930s (back when we had a government actually interested in working for the people) and that he was thrown into a terrible depression after his wife died in 1932. (The exhibition didn't say so, but her death was due to complications from one of those illegal abortions the "pro-life" people tell us never happened and certainly never killed women.)

Mu favorite Stuart Davis at the exhibit: Landscape with Garage Lights

Anyway! That's one thing we did with our winter break.

Have some links.

Here's a site a found, called Recommend Me. You go there, and it shows you the first page of a random book. After you read the page, if you like it, at the bottom is a button which will reveal the book's title. If you don't, click NEXT BOOK.

Speaking of books, I installed this little link on my Amazon page -- I think you have to have Chrome to use it -- and now when I search for a book on Amazon, Amazon tells me whether my local library has a copy of the book. If my library does, Amazon lets me put the book on hold, right there from teh Amazon page. I always DID this -- searched my library before I even thought about buying the book -- but this makes the process so much easier.

An interesting discussion over on Crooked Timber

What I like about this is mostly the responses from the daughter

This happened in Canada. Rabid, lunatic xenophobia is not just an American problem.

Poverty in the USA

Trump adviser shocked to find his bullshit won't fly in the academy


This one is only going to be really funny if you're a big SF fan:

This is just to say

I have thrown
the girl
out of
the airlock

who you
were probably hoping
I would
save.

Forgive me
it’s these equations
so contrived
and so cold.

— The Wombat Resists (@UrsulaV) December 7, 2017