A few new books.
The University of Chicago Graham School’s short course on The Moonstone concludes tonight, and I’ve finished Cervantes’ Don Quixote, an Open Yale Courses program. In the coming months, I will participate in Victober and two APS Together book clubs, take a deep dive into the work of E.B. White, and conduct a close reading of The Magic Mountain. Latin and music will round out my fall and winter studies.
The images above are my photos of detail from the following paintings in Remedios Varo: Science Fiction:
■ “Discovery,” 1956
■ “The Flutist,” 1955
■ “Woman Leaving the Psychoanalyst (Could Be Juliana),” 1960
■ “Creation of the Birds,” 1957
Yesterday at the conservation area.
These are two of the photos I took yesterday at Among Friends and Rivals: Caravaggio in Rome: “Martha and Mary Magdalene,” about 1598, and “The Cardsharps,” about 1595.
Yesterday, at the Art Institute.
The images above are my photos of detail from the following paintings:
■ “David Garrick as King Lear” by Richard Westall; about 1815
■ “The Penitent Saint Peter” by Jusepe de Ribera; about 1630
■ “Study Head of a Bearded Man” by Frans Floris; about 1565
■ “The Captive Slave (Ira Aldridge)” by John Philip Simpson; 1827
We attended member hours to to see Among Friends and Rivals: Caravaggio in Rome, but what really captured our imaginations was Remedios Varo: Science Fictions.
After brunching / snacking at Taste of Chicago, we headed to the Printer’s Row Lit Fest, events we haven’t attended since we lived in Chicago.
The first image is from our walk on Saturday at the state park. The next two images were taken yesterday at a favorite conservation area; the last three, today, same location.
A few new books.
No alarm; a beautiful hike at a state park; Chapter 4 of Absalom, Absalom; music practice; a bizarre chat with a customer service representative; two episodes of Only Murders in the Building; delicious luncheon; Bananagrams; and now? More of The Moonstone.
Recent acquisitions.
Although I had hoped to finish sooner, I only just listened to Lecture 17 of Cervantes’ Don Quixote, an Open Yale Courses program, this morning. (The course comprises twenty-four lectures delivered by Professor Roberto González Echevarría. Absolutely excellent.)
Somehow I finished Nights of Plague in time for a wonderful book discussion last night. I began reading as soon as I finished The Republic earlier this month but was happily sidetracked by an invitation to a reading group tackling Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd; then family came into town for several days. Finishing Orhan Pamuk’s tome really was a feat, then, given how little time I had.
Naturally, although I followed the #FaulknerinAugust discussion, I needed to set aside the book for most of the month, but I am back to a chapter a day in Absalom, Absalom.
I’m also reading Adrienne Brodeur’s Little Monsters.
After only three rehearsals, we have a break from band this coming week, so for the next few music practices, I’m focused primarily on my current étude, the Mozart duet, and the middle of the second movement of the Stamitz concerto. (I spent much less time on this over the last two months than originally planned.)
And though my Latin studies stalled in the second week of the month, after a vocabulary review, I’ve cracked open the next unit.
At the conservation district this morning.
Nerdishly 