Category: Painting

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The Metaphysics of Food: Kitchen Scenes With Spinoza, Brillat-Savarin And Def Leppard.

A four-mile walk from Nacka to Kungsträdgården, brings me face to face with Joachim Beuckelaer’s Kitchen Scene With Christ in the House of Martha and Mary (1565) in the Nationalmuseum. Words are exchanged between us and a conversation about the metaphysics of food ensues. Examining the fundamental nature of reality, the relationship between mind and … Continue reading The Metaphysics of Food: Kitchen Scenes With Spinoza, Brillat-Savarin And Def Leppard.

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It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Lovecraft’s America: Victor LaValle’s “The Ballad Of Black Tom” And “The Thing In The White House” Is A Shoggoth. Episode 1.

With HBO’s Lovecraft Country based on Matt Ruff’s novel of the same name offering a new episode each week, and Black Americans and protestors being shot and villainized as speakers at the Republican National Convention and pundits at Fox News call for more “law and order” (i.e. targeting Black Americans and the #BlackLivesMatter movement), it’s … Continue reading It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Lovecraft’s America: Victor LaValle’s “The Ballad Of Black Tom” And “The Thing In The White House” Is A Shoggoth. Episode 1.

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An Island In The Middle Of A Lake, And Yes, I’m Thinking About Rousseau And Bachelard And Jung, While Contemplating Roasted Salmon And W.G. Sebald’s “A Place In The Country” As Pan Appears With James Hillman And A Nymph And Everything Stops.

In Rousseau’s Fifth Walk, he writes about time spent on a small island in the middle of Lake Bienne in Switzerland. On the island there is only a single house, but a large, pleasant and comfortable one which, like the island, belongs to Bern Hospital and in which a tax collector lives with his family … Continue reading An Island In The Middle Of A Lake, And Yes, I’m Thinking About Rousseau And Bachelard And Jung, While Contemplating Roasted Salmon And W.G. Sebald’s “A Place In The Country” As Pan Appears With James Hillman And A Nymph And Everything Stops.

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Roasted Spring Lamb And Veg With Several Calls To The Suicide Prevention Hotline.

Five hours roasting at 150 Celsius or about 300 Fahrenheit and Maillard Reactions abound as lamb bone, flesh and skin browns, fat melts and a wondrous dark, umami aroma fills the kitchen and house.  Carbohydrate molecules and amino acids change and change in dry heat as colors and taste merge.  Fat molecules with the aid … Continue reading Roasted Spring Lamb And Veg With Several Calls To The Suicide Prevention Hotline.

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Traveling Through Winter Dark and Light With Samuel Beckett And Assorted Food Options.

Hours from now I’ll look at my aisle window and believe it’s Venice instead of Stockholm, eighteen-hundred and forty-six instead of two thousand and nineteen, and I’m navigating channels on a gondola in the “City of Water” on my way to a ball in ‘Going to the Ball (San Martino)’.  Also, my name is Joseph … Continue reading Traveling Through Winter Dark and Light With Samuel Beckett And Assorted Food Options.

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Cooking the Bog. Day Two With Rust Cohle And Bosnian Rainbows. Darkness In The Wetlands.

Outside the winter wetlands of Sweden continue to breakdown animal and vegetal matter into a rich loam feeding tree, deer, duck and wandering humans.  Inside, I continue to enhance the decay of the world in a pot. A crucial step in the final bog, that rich gumbo broth, occurs with the making of a roux, … Continue reading Cooking the Bog. Day Two With Rust Cohle And Bosnian Rainbows. Darkness In The Wetlands.

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Bishop’s Barrel #21 Lifts Me To Heaven, While God Remains Ever Out Of Reach. Part Two:Wings.

Another Eduard von Grützner painting and another pour of beer.  He’s a happy looking monk isn’t he, well so am I, and so are bishops, monks don’t just have all the fun.  And yet when it comes to reaching the Lord, of course, he, she, it, them remain forever out of reach despite voices in our … Continue reading Bishop’s Barrel #21 Lifts Me To Heaven, While God Remains Ever Out Of Reach. Part Two:Wings.

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“And Malt Does More Than Milton Can To Justify God’s Ways To Man:” Theological Speculation With Many Great Brews. Part One: Death And Kokytus.

A.E. Housman in “Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff” from A Shropshire Lad has much wisdom to impart, but none of more magnitude and maltiness than the above lines; while Eduard von Grützner oil painting of Monks Drinking Beer In A Cellar portrays our current post out quite nicely–beer and God.  Let’s start down below; let’s start with … Continue reading “And Malt Does More Than Milton Can To Justify God’s Ways To Man:” Theological Speculation With Many Great Brews. Part One: Death And Kokytus.

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Sausages And Cooking Murder.

Louis Vincent Palliere renders in bright colors the infamous Slaughter of the Suitors” by Odysseus and Telemachus, note those gorgeous capes tripping hues between orange and red. I love cooking sausages.  All sorts of sausage.  Beef, chicken, lamb and pig; andouille, bloedwurst, boudin, bratwurst, chorizo, hot dogs, kielbasa, knackwurst, linguiça, longaniza, merguez, morcilla, saucisson, soppressata,  … Continue reading Sausages And Cooking Murder.