Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Still Life With Businessman

There is something wonderfully straightforward about still life. It asks the viewer to make sense of the adjacence of unrelated things. Because they are arranged like a place setting are they to eat? Should the head of a businessman be eaten with a salad fork or a garden trowel? What does Emily Post say? I used the same kind of principle to arrange the entries in A Book of Ages (Harmony,2008/Three Rivers Press,2010), without comment, without footnotes, hoping the reader would see the ironies that emerged. I may have been too subtle about it. (The book remains the perfect gift item for your hard-to-amuse brother-in-law and every bookish person on your list.)

2 comments:

  1. I so have enjoyed A Book of Ages and read it over and over again. I especially love to compare where and what I was doing at particular ages both past and current. I bought it for myself, but agree that it makes a perfect gift for anyone of any age. Also .... about the still life .... misterbusinessman never looked more delicious!

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