I’ve often wondered in subsequent years whether a career in acting was The Right Thing To Do. I have a complex relationship with my ghost career as a barrister, and often peek over to see how he’s doing.
The Industrial Art of Krupp Stahlwerks, 1912
Two days later he called me and told me he had something I would like to see, so I arranged to meet him. He had a large brown envelope with only a date on it: 1912.
Happy Birthday, Nina Simone
“I feel what they feel. And people who listen to me know that, and it makes them feel like they’re not alone.”
Why I Love: Re-reading Books. And a recipe for Jane Austen’s White Soup
To me, re-reading a story you’ve loved, after a distance of a few years or even decades, is delicious. (And so is this soup!)
Movies of Local People
The footage is beautifully relentless, streams of people in different cities leaving work and school, streams of people smiling at the camera. You wonder about all the thoughts in their head. The fears and loves and worries. You wonder about their lives before and after this moment.
Kevin Specht: Strangers
The recurring faceless figures that can be found across his paintings attest to the felt anonymity of the system we are all a part of.
The ANEW Artists’ Alliance, a Group Show
“If all the people in the world did art, a lot of the problems would be solved…”
Truffaut & Bazin & Renoir (why I love their love for one another)
In his introduction, Truffaut warns, “No one should expect me to introduce this book with caution, detachment, or equanimity. André Bazin and Jean Renoir have meant too much to me for me to be able to speak of them dispassionately.”
Gordon Parks’ The Restraints, Open and Hidden
The way Parks presents his subjects, with so much affection and clarity, we feel that we love them, and this brings home the realities of fear and injustice in a new and powerful manner.
February
A collection of all the articles we’ve published over the past month, for those who like to savor their Magpies’ tidings as an issue.

