If there is an emerging genetic underclass, I could run for class president or class clown. Read more in ![Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]](../wp-content/uploads/2008/04/isle_royale_fog.jpg "Fog at Isle Royale [Source: wildmengoneborneo.com]")
"Brendan, this is what the world looks like all the time to me. Just a little fog. It’s a fine day for boating on the Great Lakes.” Without missing a stroke he turned to dart a skeptical glance at me. Brendan the Navigator. When we named him I didn’t tell his mother everything the legendary Irish name implied. But I imagined him taking on the role of navigator for me. Growing up with Coastal Survey charts and tales of Great Lakes shipwrecks, he came to know Superior as another home. He never doubted the wisdom of canoeing there with a father who was half blind. 
![Charlotte Casiraghi in a red dress. [Source: Stylophile]](../wp-content/uploads/2008/02/charlotte_casiraghi_red_dress.jpg "Charlotte Casiraghi in a red dress. [Source: Stylophile]")
When I figured out who Charlotte Casiraghi was, I realized that I once sent a poem to her mother. 
The legendary Kiki of Montparnasse posed for Man Ray’s 
![Eugène Delacroix. Liberty Leading the People. 1830. Louvre, Paris. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]]](../wp-content/uploads/2008/05/delacroix_liberty_1830_2.jpg "Eugène Delacroix. Liberty Leading the People. 1830. Louvre, Paris. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]]")
Some years back when I read The Difference Engine, the “alternate history” novel by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, I thought Charles Babbage was just a fanciful blip in the authors’ metaverse. Later I learned that Babbage was the real deal, an iconoclastic prophet of modern computer science. The novel’s computing machine chugged and clanked [...]
Cranking Up Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine
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December 10, 2023 at 5:29pm
by Mark Willis
Goya’s Iconography of Provocation & Fear
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September 27, 2023 at 9:00am
by Mark Willis
Francisco Goya. The Third of May 1808. Oil on canvas, 1814. Museo del Prado, Madrid. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]
Babu Kuriakose left a comment recently noting congruencies in Goya’s famous painting and Spartan Girls Provoking Boys by Edgar Degas. Babu has a discerning eye, and his website documents many resonances in contemporary visual rhetoric. His comment led [...]
Flaneur's Gallery Add Your Comment
Flaneur’s Gallery: Paris Street, Rainy Day
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February 8, 2023 at 6:00am
by Mark Willis
Gustave Caillebotte. Paris Street, Rainy Day (La Place de l’Europe, temps de pluie). 1877. Oil on canvas. Art Institute of Chicago. [Source: Wikimedia Commons]
See the permanent page for Gustave Caillebotte: Paris Street, Rainy Day.
Flaneur's Gallery · Imaging Paris · Uncategorized Add Your Comment
Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
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January 20, 2023 at 6:00am
by Mark Willis
This photograph of Lincoln delivering his second inaugural address is the only known photograph of Lincoln giving a speech. Lincoln stands in the center, with papers in his hand. John Wilkes Booth is visible in the photograph, in the top row right of center [Source: Wikipedia/White, The Eloquent President]
On March 4, 1865, Abraham Lincoln stood [...]
#inaug09 · Imaging America · political rhetoric Add Your Comment
Flânerie & Renoir’s “Luncheon of the Boating Party”
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January 4, 2024 at 6:00pm
by Mark Willis
Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Luncheon of the Boating Party. 1880–1881. Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. [Source: Miss.Ramos.Science]
In Susan Vreeland’s novel, Luncheon of the Boating Party, the character of actress Angèle Legault calls the throng of artist’s models together for their second sitting with a toast:
“Since this is to be a painting of la vie moderne, I propose that [...]