What are you reading now? (books, authors)

A bit more about Temple Grandin and this book. As far as I've read. she talked about wolves and dogs, about their emotions and behaviors, and how to fit dogs into our family. She mentions cats a time of two, then give cats much more space, talking of their emotions, needs, reactions, whys, and how to help our animals. Now she's discussing horses, and then she goes on to several other animals. Actually interesting reading. For me, even at this time in my life, somewhat useful. I find it's very readable.
 
James Herbert, Domain Book 3 in the series. Can't say I'm enjoying the story but it is well written. Mostly. That, combined with an usual year have contributed to last night's abstract. On paper, A3, pen, pencil, acrylic both opaque and transparent; in three layers. I feel another layer coming on. If rats are not your thing, avoid this one.
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I'm currently re-reading a book by Dr. Larry Dossey called One Mind, and Dean Radin, PhD's latest book called Real Magic. Fascinating books. Absolutely fascinating! One of Dossey's older books is called Healing Words and one of Radin's older ones is The Conscious Universe if anyone is familiar with those. These deal with psi and quantum theory and stuff. These latest two books are awesome.

And I'm also interested in deviant psychology, forensics and Criminal Justice so I've just read The New Evil by Dr. Gary Brucato. I was an English major, Criminal Justice minor in college.

There are more, but I'm such a nerdly nut that I don't think there are many who would understand why I'd read this kind of stuff instead of fiction so I won't bore you. But to me, this kind of stuff is just spell-binding. I follow current trials on YouTube---currently the Kohberger case and the Daybell/Vallow cases over in Idaho are some I'm interested in. Watching a trial can, at some points, be like watching paint dry, but I still find them fascinating.

Anyhow, those books by Dossey and Radin are the ones on my night stand right now, for what it's worth.
 
Finally! Summer Break is here and I have plenty of time for making art and reading. As usual... my choices in reading... like my choices in art and music... are all over the place: "high" and "low".

I've recently been reading once again some of my favorite poetry:

T.S. Eliot's Wasteland, Four Quartets, Ash Wednesday, The Hollow Men, etc...

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I'm also reading some older translations of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal... quite possibly my favorite collection of poetry.

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Yet at the same time, I'm reading a slew of comic books:

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I've long been fascinated with art that blurs the divide between the "high" and the "low". I would argue that many of the comic book superheroes, faerie tale characters, etc... are rooted in classical art and literature. As an adolescent, I first really developed a passion for drawing the human figure based upon the superheroes in the comics I read. When I started to explore art history in depth I could not help but recognize that the superhuman bodies, dramatic poses, and saturated colors of the Greco-Roman gods and goddesses in Renaissance and Baroque art were not so far removed from the same found in comic books.
 
stlukesguild said:
Finally! Summer Break is here and I have plenty of time for making art and reading. As usual... my choices in reading... like my choices in art and music... are all over the place: "high" and "low".

I've recently been reading once again some of my favorite poetry:

T.S. Eliot's Wasteland, Four Quartets, Ash Wednesday, The Hollow Men, etc...

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I'm also reading some older translations of Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal... quite possibly my favorite collection of poetry.

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Yet at the same time, I'm reading a slew of comic books:

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I've long been fascinated with art that blurs the divide between the "high" and the "low". I would argue that many of the comic book superheroes, faerie tale characters, etc... are rooted in classical art and literature. As an adolescent, I first really developed a passion for drawing the human figure based upon the superheroes in the comics I read. When I started to explore art history in depth I could not help but recognize that the superhuman bodies, dramatic poses, and saturated colors of the Greco-Roman gods and goddesses in Renaissance and Baroque art were not so far removed from the same found in comic books.
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Had Michelangelo lived today, he may well have been a comic book illustrator. I have long thought that this kind of thing would fit neatly into a graphic novel:

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returned “what’s bred in the bone” by Robert Davies and picked up these four gems from library this morning. One of them is a fictional stories by Neil Gaiman, an author I haven’t read but have heard good things about his “American gods”
Mostly going to read about acrylic techniques and broaden my skills in expression and artistry for abstracts. I read about a quarter of “the art of abstract painting” and it’s nice. The other books are “Rethinking Acrylics” and “ Dynamic Acrylics” haven’t looked at them yet, will today, it’s raining.
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I mostly read shorter literary forms: short stories, poetry, and frame stories... larger works in which the over-arching narrative frames a collection of shorter narratives. Think the Bible, Dante's Comedia, the Arabian Nights, etc... Currently, I'm perusing a new well-regarded translation (Stephanie McCarter) of Ovid's Metamorphoses which may have been the most influential work of literature on artists after the Bible. It is essentially a collection of tales rooted in Greco-Roman legend. Shorter narratives and the polished language of poetry strike me as having more in common with painting than the character development and complex and multilayered narrative development of novel.

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I've also been delving once again into the fantasmagorical worlds of Lewis Carroll's "Alice" books through this marvelous annotated and illustrated edition:

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stlukesguild said:
I mostly read shorter literary forms: short stories, poetry, and frame stories... larger works in which the over-arching narrative frames a collection of shorter narratives.
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As I have noted in the past, I find most 19th century literature absolutely unreadable. But there's a very curious (or perhaps not so curious?) exception: I am increasingly enamored of 19th century poetry, which unlike a lot of modern poetry, actually rhymes and is mostly not difficult to "get." Perhaps it actually just once again demonstrates my lack of literary sophistication. :)
 
The Metamorphoses is an epic poem comprised of dozens... if not hundreds... of tales within a frame story structure. It is composed in dactylic hexameter, the meter of both the ancient Iliad and Odyssey, and the more contemporary epic Aeneid. It follows a set rhythmic structure but doesn't employ rhyme... as is true of most Greco-Roman poetry. As with much of Shakespeare, it employs a rhythmic form that you sense as a reader... but isn't as obvious as rhyme. I was just listening to a brief audio post by a contemporary painter who stated that when a viewer asked to explain the work or tell what it meant, he refused. He felt by doing so he reduced the work solely to his interpretation. I find most poetry... new or old... (or literature in general)... not difficult "to get" as long as you don't assume a single correct "meaning" or definition.

I just read (again... having read several other translations) the narrative of Apollo & Daphne... which inspired numerous artists... none with as great a result as Bernini:

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Just finished Baudolino by Umberto Eco, probably my favourite author. And I'm on and off poetry by Catullus. My reading tends to gravitate towards historical subjects.
 
Artyczar said:
That's what you've been reading? I have that.
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Long story short: I never took a course on how to draw so back in the early spring of 2021 I tried "Drawabox". 7 lessons, each of 3 parts. I couldn't finish the first third of the first lesson due to my Essential Tremor.

This was a trigger point for me. I quit painting and started to learn and looking for a solution to my ET. I learned enough to enable me to build an electrical neurostimulation device which gives about an hour or so of tremor free life after 15 to 40 minutes of treatment.

It's "Open Source" so you can build your own copy for about $250 USD. I am also working on a tremor mouse and I am continuing my studies of Essential Tremor.

AMA
 
Claude J Greengrass said:
Long story short: I never took a course on how to draw so back in the early spring of 2021 I tried "Drawabox". 7 lessons, each of 3 parts. I couldn't finish the first third of the first lesson due to my Essential Tremor.

This was a trigger point for me. I quit painting and started to learn and looking for a solution to my ET. I learned enough to enable me to build an electrical neurostimulation device which gives about an hour or so of tremor free life after 15 to 40 minutes of treatment.

It's "Open Source" so you can build your own copy for about $250 USD. I am also working on a tremor mouse and I am continuing my studies of Essential Tremor.

AMA
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Very interesting. At one point, I was given very high doses of Topomax, but it barely worked. It had bad side effects, so I eventually stopped taking it. I wound up embracing the tremor--the way my drawing looked with uneven, crooked line work as a "feature," instead of a failure. I can get around it sometimes by speeding up the drawing to make "straighter" lines, using a ruler, or even drawing at certain times of the day.

Is yours a symptom of some other ailment? Mine is from a polyneuropathy.
 
I am "re-reading" Aldous Huxley's novel Crome Yellow after many years. I put it in quotes because it's actually an audiobook and I listen to a few chapters in my car whenever I have to drive somewhere. I became obsessed with Huxley when I was thirteen and didn't rest until I had read all his novels, which I enjoyed very much. I also tried some of his nonfiction, but I was just too young to really understand much of it. Still, I am convinced that it had a huge influence on my development and outlook on life.

A few months ago I also finished listening to three of the books in Proust's great In Search of Lost Time. I don't have the time to sit down to read all of Proust in printed form, so it was great to listen to the excellent BBC produced audiobooks.
 
Artyczar said:
Very interesting. At one point, I was given very high doses of Topomax, but it barely worked. It had bad side effects, so I eventually stopped taking it. I wound up embracing the tremor--the way my drawing looked with uneven, crooked line work as a "feature," instead of a failure. I can get around it sometimes by speeding up the drawing to make "straighter" lines, using a ruler, or even drawing at certain times of the day.

Is yours a symptom of some other ailment? Mine is from a polyneuropathy.
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A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. ...and with a little knowledge about tremor and neurology I self-diagnosed Parkinson's due to the timing on one of the tremor in my forearm. Saw my PCP shortly there after and he put me through a moderately through diagnosis and concluded no Parkinson's and mild to moderate Essential Tremor. I've since seen a neurologists who confirmed ET.

I used to be able to "get around it" with 40mg of Propranolol, a beta blocker, but I had a medical scare last autumn and checked into ET with a heart rate of 25. The triage nurse who did my check-in EKG mentioned 'a block' to no one in particular. I have visions of stints being inserted. My good humor was further tested when after I was in bed with a continuous monitor that was skipping almost every other heart beat another nurse applied defibrillation pads. Thankfully they were never used. In the end, the beta blocker level dropped enough for my heart rate to return to 'normal' and I was discharged. A followup with a Cardiologists confirmed; "no more beta blockers", so I shake a lot and have limited drawing/painting abilities. Such is life with Essential Tremor.

I continue my own personal research and have participated in 3 clinical trials so far search for a treatment for ET with no promising results so far.

Edit: I had a very brief look a PNP. Oddly, Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) is recommended as a treatment option. The odd bit to me is TENS is what I use to power my ET treatment device.
 
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Fascinating account of how a British couple took their unprofitable farm and returned it to nature. From what I read and see on social media, Britain is a scene of widespread and almost complete ecological devastation, with even some species that were once very common slipping towards endangered status or extinction. This account gives one some hope... :)
 
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