English Rules |

Time 2020-09-25 21:04:28

Web Name: English Rules |

WebSite: http://www.englishrules.com

ID:59685

Keywords:

English,Rules,

Description:

A friend of mine recently posted a picture of a painting hanging in her home on Instagram. She explained that a number of people had commented on it during zoom meetings, so she thought she d provide some background information. When someone then suggested more home art tours, I figured I d run with the idea. As we re all quarantined by the Coronavirus, I thought it was only fitting to dash off a quick post featuring some of the things I look at all day, every day.The first painting, of Ben and Lucy in the kitchen, is hard to miss if you ever walk inside our front door. It was too large for me to capture all of it in the photo, so it s cropped here a bit on the right and bottom. The artist was a star student of mine back when I taught high school. She got a BFA in art at Calvin College before going on to University of Michigan for a master s degree in architecture. While at Calvin, she was Ben and Lucy s nanny for a couple years. One day after she graduated, she stopped by our house with a couple paintings and asked if we wanted any of them before she threw them out. We, of course, took them both and get great joy from seeing them grace our walls.Sara and I bought this next painting when we featured the artist in our coffeehouse, and it has been hanging in our living room for the past 20 years. I often stare at it and wonder what the young woman is thinking. I love the painting for its calming influence, the distorted perspectives, and the bird s eye.The third and final piece in this little tour was painted by my great-uncle, George Hamilton Green, a world-renowned xylophonist, as well as a cartoonist and artist. We found it, along with a stash of other paintings, a couple years ago in my mom s attic. It reminds me of something I might see on a New Yorker magazine cover. It s kind of weird that he signed it GORGA. I don t recall anyone else referring to him as Gorga. In fact, the only nickname I heard family use for him was Rigger, a name he got because he sat so much in his old chair that it was as if rigor mortis had set in. So that s it — three paintings that hang on our walls. Depending on how this post is received, I might feature some more art later. Let me know what you think in the comments. If, like me, you re struggling with anxiety over the coronavirus or filled with despair over our political situation, I hope these songs will bring you joy. Even though I ve made thousands of lattes over the past 25 years, both for myself and for others, I ve never come close to mastering latte art. Some days as I pour the velvety-smooth milk over the espresso, it takes on Continuereading Of all my character flaws, the one that bothers me the most is the way I easily succumb to inertia. Sometimes, I tell myself, this inertia isn t so bad. Routine and ritual can be healthy, right? When I find something Continuereading Some people have a hard time getting rid of things in their houses or apartments. Some people let their email inboxes pile up. One such person, whom I know and love dearly, has both of those problems—with hundreds if not Continuereading Like most technology-addled people these days, and especially those who share the burden of AD(H)D, I find my mind flits around a forest of ideas without ever alighting on a single branch. Still, occasionally something seems so compelling, whether attractive Continuereading Sometimes it s hard to let go. For a few years after I stopped teaching English, I kept a section of this site dedicated to writing-related topics. Somehow, people from all over the world found what I had written and started Continuereading When I first read this poem back in college, I loved it so much that I committed it to memory. It s funny to think I had time to do things like that back then. And I m glad I did, because Continuereading A few years ago while spelunking in my mother s basement, looking for long-forgotten family treasure, I came across a stack of photocopied newspaper articles from the 1980s fastened together by a rusty paperclip. The articles, both fascinating and horrifying, reported Continuereading As I headed out to the gym the other day, with my progressive-lens glasses, high-tech crutches, and stormtrooper stabilizing boot, it occurred to me that I looked a little like a cyborg—which got me thinking about my friend Sara Hendren Continuereading

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