Arts and Letters Links. And Three Black Hearts to go.
on November 1st, 2011Over at my portfolio website, I posted an entire out-of-print short story, “Three Black Hearts”. I’d hoped to find time to color it, but maybe I will leave that task for some new print story collection.
Here’s page one of the tale.
Also, art and business linkage. Cool stuff.
In praise of hand lettering at The New York Times.
On the surface, this riotously raw lettering looks like it was produced by those who are incapable of rendering letters with any semblance of accuracy or finesse. And while this may or may not be true, a decade or so ago, this lettering was a critical reaction to the computer’s cold precision.
10 Reasons Why Prince Valiant is the bestest adventure strip hero ever.
He’s part Errol Flynn, part gritty badass, part Joseph Campbell myth on the make, part nostalgic vessel for our grandparents’ yearning for some more civilized age, part Mel Gibson-style torture survivor, even part MMORPG knight slowly accumulating levels and power and inventory.
He’s my all-time favorite comic. And the only comic I truly collect.
Ten great child geniuses in literature.
…the more compelling characteristic of the child genius is the fact that he is alone in what is many ways a foreign world. After all, alienation, in our digital world, is one of the most defining themes of our generation, something that occupies everyone.
Something you should never do: respond to your critics. Never ever respond to them like this. And don’t let your family do it, either. Michael Chabon’s wife has meltdown on Twitter. V. sad, because I respect the Chabons.
BTW, I really need to clean out my bookmarks.
If someone hasn’t written a book about this yet, I sure wish they would. Reclusive art love/heiress Huguette Clark and her eccentric ways. And to make this story even more frustrating, her art was selling on ebay recently for a song, and I couldn’t afford any of it at the time. I assume people did not recognize her name: her work had a storybook quality. It was quite nice. I imagine a little context would have sent those prices soaring.
The daughter of a disgraced former U.S. senator, Huguette inherited millions from the Montana copper mines, and has lived a solitary life while her three fabulous homes sit empty: a $100 million estate on the Pacific Coast in Santa Barbara, a $24 million country house in Connecticut and a $100 million co-op, the largest apartment on Fifth Avenue overlooking Central Park — all immaculately kept but unoccupied for decades.
As Huguette has just marked her 104th birthday in an ordinary hospital room in New York, there are unanswered questions as well:
Who protects an old lady who secluded herself from the world, limiting her life to a single room, playing dress-up with her dolls and watching cartoons? Who protects an old lady whose Stradivarius violin, the famous one called “The Virgin,” which her mother gave her as a 50th birthday present, has been sold secretly for $6 million? Who protects an old lady whose dearest friend, a social secretary to whom Huguette supposedly gave $10 million, now has Alzheimer’s and is unable to visit anymore? Who protects an old lady who has no children, and whose distant relatives have been prevented from visiting her? Who protects an old lady whose accountant fell behind on his own federal income taxes and is a convicted felon and a registered sex offender?
Two very fine articles with pics at MSNBC.
Fascinating stuff.
Robert Levine, author of Free Ride, at Salon.
The premise of my book is that most online companies rely for their content, and hence for their money, on traditional media companies. If they destroy that business model, it’s unclear what they’re going to have to distribute. If you look at YouTube, eight of the top 10 videos are major-label music videos. If the major labels shrank to the point where they can’t make videos, YouTube isn’t much of a business. It’s still a great social phenomenon, but it’s not much of a business.
Thanks for the heads up about the book “Free Ride”, I added it to my Amazon.com order. Looking forward to reading it. I wonder if he used this site for research?
I remember reading those articles about Huguette Clark. Very fascinating and also so very tragic. I read how she left around $34 million to her nurse (the one person whom she felt actually genuinely cared about her and actually talked with her). Though I can understand the relatives’ concerns over her handlers (who are real pieces of work), I can see why she left them out of her will as well.
I have several of Michael Chabon’s books (great reads in my opinion) and though I can definitely understand coming to the aid of someone you care about (especially with those who “missed the point”), one thing I’ve learned is never argue with those on the Internet; reminds me of the saying “Never argue with a fool, people may not know the difference.”
Reminds me of how Anne Rice went on Amazon and blasted her critics there. That didn’t go over so well.
Colleen, have you gotten any of the “Prince Valiant” collections that Fantagraphics is re-releasing now?
Glad you enjoy the links! I am absolutely fascinated by the Huguette Clark story.
I think I’ve learned to spot unstable behaviors on the internet a lot faster than I used to. I now realize people say provocative things because they truly enjoy the troll role, and it’s just best to say nothing sometimes.
I haven’t gotten the new collections because I am not making any personal purchases right now. I imagine they will still be available in six months.