Holiday Cheer: Epiphany

A snowman and a penguin go skiing past a golden angel under the colorful holiday boughs.

Today marks Epiphany, the twelfth day of Christmas. So, I think it's time to end our seasonal celebration. Take down those trees. Toss out the eggnog. Dim those lights. It's been fun, but it's time to turn to other affairs.

I don't generally make a big deal about the holidays, but this year brought a change of pace. I hope you all enjoyed the posts and pictures. And the music, my favorite part of the season.

So, since we're celebrating Epiphany today, let's listen to some appropriate music. ;-)

Half Simpleton, Half God

Late Summer view of the Lily Pond at the Norton Simon Museum


It always amuses me that, whenever I take a vacation from the daily blogging, my readership seems to soar in terms of pageviews. Sometimes, it is because something about which I have written enters into wider consideration. This time it seems just random. It's curious, but I'm happy that some new readers have stumbled upon this humble blog.

As the photo above indicates, I went to visit the Norton Simon Museum over the weekend. They have a pretty good exhibit on still lifes, entitled "Significant Objects: The Spell of Still Life." Now, I'm not a fan of that genre of painting, but it was interesting looking at the huge collection on display, everything from Dutch tulip drawings to Claes Oldenburg's giant soft ketchup bottle. Yeah, it was comprehensive. ;-)

Hopefully, I'll get to write up a review of the show. It'll be tricky, since there is no photography allowed, but most of the images are available on the internet or from my own collection of photographed works. But for now, here's a Lipchitz:

Figure (1926-30) by Jacques Lipchitz

And, for half of this post, let's celebrate the birth date of Anton Bruckner, who was born on this date in 1824. Does this have anything to do with still lifes or my increased vacation readership? No, but incoherence is the name of today's game. ;-)

In the Bleak Midwinter

Christmas Tree ornaments, bulb and lights.

Regular readers of Paideia may have noticed that I've been dealing with a persistent illness for over a month now. It's not something that I've discussed at length here, but I've mentioned it in passing during the Weekly Wraps or when explaining why I didn't stick around longer at an art venue or show. Yet, this illness has made its presence felt by dramatically reducing my writing productivity, as I am constantly feeling fatigued, enervated, and generally debilitated.

This illness has also crashed the blog by keeping me from going out to events about which I would then write. I have missed out on dozens of interesting art show openings in the last month. I haven't even been to Bergamot Station since late October!!! And my Pacific Standard Time explorations have ground to a crawl, although I do hope to have a PST post sometime in the next few days.

Well, why am I going all "drama queen" and writing about my illness today? There are two reasons. First, I want to get this out in the open to explain why I'm not covering the Los Angeles art scene as diligently as I had previously done. Second, I wanted to alert you all to the fact that I might have to reduce my productivity even further, due to extremely overt signs that something is very bad with my health. I hope to get checked up today and, hopefully, given some medication that will fix me up good and fast.

Christmas Tree ornaments, rocking horse and lights.


There are too many exciting and engaging events to miss out on because of some nagging, hacking malaise. ;-)

Dispel All Your Sorrows

Detail of Winter Sunday in Norway, Maine (c.1860) by artist unknown


William Billings is another composer that languishes in obscurity. Given his creative vision and early presence in the American timeline of the arts, you would think he'd be given a special place of prominence within musical history classes, at least in the States. I didn't learn about him until well after I had become familiar with the standard classical repertoire.

Now, it's true that I didn't sing in a church choir, which is where most of his works are currently performed as part of the Sacred Harp tradition. However, a student of classical music gets exposed to numerous choral works from European sources fairly early on in the course of their education. Why does Billings get overlooked in favor for yet another German baroque cantata?

I'm not saying that Billings should bump Handel off the syllabus. But I do think that there is a prejudice at work here that marginalizes "colonial" expressions. This is also true for composers from the Spanish colonies, such as Juan Garcia de Zespedes or Juan Gutierrez de Padilla. So, my position is that maybe a day can be set aside to focus on the works coming out of the European colonies in the New World.

Hieroglyphic of a Christian (1850-75) by artist unknown

Well, I'll get off of my soapbox and let Billings' music defend itself. ;-)