Bob Dylan – Murder Most Foul

Here's a mirror most Americans still don't want to look into, even 56 years later.

Interesting timing and diversion. And, yes, may God be with you.

Lyrics here.

Update: On April 8, Dylan's Murder Most Foul is No. 1 on Billboard's charts.

I ❤️New York

Steve Breen ~ San Diego Union Tribune

New York City Lockdown

Eric Drooker ~ Grand Central Terminal ~ The New Yorker

Martha's Vineyard Says Stay Away

Jeanna Shepard ~ Vineyard Gazette

Over the weekend, the CEOs at Martha's Vineyard Hospital and Nantucket Cottage Hospital issued a joint "statement" to their residents and second-home owner tax base to not threaten the islands' year-round populations and medical capacity. It was certainly in keeping with the national, state, and local government shelter-at-home edicts. We know several neighbors who beat this latest restriction and left their homes in Boston, DC, and New York City for hopefully safer environs on the Vineyard.

As posted on The Steamship Authority website

It's good policy, but Vanity Fair's William Cohan detects the xenophobic underbelly.

"People on the island are worried the early influx of seasonal residents will bring the virus with them and deplete existing food supplies at the two Stop & Shop supermarkets on the island, one of which, islanders have long said, does more than $1 million of revenue a day during peak season. They are worried that if people start panicking and want to leave, the options are limited to (already reduced) ferries and flights. Of course, the private-jet crowd, a staple of life on Nantucket, can always come and go as they please."

P.S. Some things continue unabated. Our Vineyard quarterly town school and property tax bill arrived in today's mail.

Don't Stand So Close to Me

On Living in an Atomic Age ~ C.S. Lewis

Love and temperance in the age of Covid-19. Many words of spiritual wisdom and timely relevance here.

Covid-19 Convenience Store

Roz Chast ~ The New Yorker

Social Distancing

David Sipress ~ The New Yorker

Joe Dator ~ The New Yorker

Avi Steinberg ~ The New Yorker

Abbey Road - Covid-19 Coronavirus Edition

Peter Kuper ~ The New Yorker

Miss Chief Eagle Testickle

During a recent family visit with relatives from Northern California, we spent a few days walking our old neighborhoods in Connecticut and New York City. My sister-in-law was eager to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the first time. Before our arrival, she used her phone to ask Siri, "What's the most famous work of art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art?" The answer surprised me. It was German painter Emanuel Leutze's massive 1851 painting - Washington Crossing the Delaware.

Emanuel Leutze ~ Washington Crossing the Delaware, 1851

As we were leaving The Met through the first floor's Great Hall, we encountered a contemporary reinterpretation of Leutze's work by Cree Indian Kent Monkman, Resurgence of the People. Painted last year, it's described by the artist as an effort "to reflect, at least as an indigenous person, what this Colonial history has meant to us."

Kent Monkman ~ Resurgence of the People, 2019

In the painting, Monkman depicts himself in the heroic role of Washington, now in the persona of Miss Chief Eagle Testickle, naked, mascara streaked, and in stiletto heels, reversing art history's Colonial gaze. Miss Chief or mischief?

More here on YouTube.

The Met 150

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is one of my favorite places on the planet. And it's celebrating its 150th anniversary on April 13 and throughout the year. Bravo.



Need a quick tour?

Bloomberg Goes Boom

Cartoonist Barry Blitt always has his finger on the news of the day. And sometimes a week ahead.

All That Money Can Buy - Barry Blitt ~ The New Yorker

Zamboni

Cartoonist and Vineyarder Paul Karasik puts his keen eye and pen on the Zamboni. And I like his nod to Charles Schulz who was a hockey fan and built the Redwood Empire Ice Arena, aka Snoopy's Home Ice, in Santa Rosa, California.