Things I was grateful for in May 2023:
Little Girl Gone by Chinchilla, LUSH Rose Jam shower gel, Rose Jam solid perfume, and a Rosy Cheeks fresh face mask, Artelice Patisserie’s mango cruffin, a trip to the Norton Simon with Hol, a trip to The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens with Katie, a Frostbeard Studios Pemberly Gardens candle, The Great season three, Sprinkles lemon meringue cupcakes, Black Milk Take My Monet floral pants, and an Effin’ Birds ‘I AM A GODDAMNED DELIGHT’ t-shirt.
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Went to the Norton Simon in Pasadena with an art student I’m mentoring. Here’s a quick sketch of Cezanne’s tulips. It was a good day.
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2023's Best Books
I meant to do this a few days ago so there was more time before the holidays, but here's a quick list of the best books that I read that were released in 2023. Obviously, I didn't read every book that came out this year, and I'm only listing the best books I read that were actually released in the 2023 calendar year.
In my opinion, the two very best books released in 2023 were An Ordinary Man: The Surprising Life and Historic Presidency of Gerald R. Ford by Richard Norton Smith (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO), and True West: Sam Shepard's Life, Work, and Times by Robert Greenfield (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO).
(The rest of this list is in no particular order)
President Garfield: From Radical to Unifier
C.W. Goodyear (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
The World: A Family History of Humanity
Simon Sebag Montefiore (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
France On Trial: The Case of Marshal Pétain
Julian Jackson (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
The Last Island: Discovery, Defiance, and the Most Elusive Tribe on Earth
Adam Goodheart (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World
Mary Beard (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
City of Echoes: A New History of Rome, Its Popes, and Its People
Jessica Wärnberg (BOOK | KINDLE)
We Are Your Soldiers: How Gamal Abdel Nasser Remade the Arab World
Alex Rowell (BOOK | KINDLE)
Edison's Ghosts: The Untold Weirdness of History's Greatest Geniuses
Katie Spalding (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
Waco Rising: David Koresh, the FBI, and the Birth of America's Modern Militias
Kevin Cook (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
The Summer of 1876: Outlaws, Lawmen, and Legends in the Season That Defined the American West
Chris Wimmer (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
King: A Life
Jonathan Eig (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
LBJ's America: The Life and Legacies of Lyndon Baines Johnson
Edited by Mark Atwood Lawrence and Mark K. Updegrove (BOOK | KINDLE)
Who Believes Is Not Alone: My Life Beside Benedict XVI
Georg Gänswein with Saverio Gaeta (BOOK | KINDLE)
Eighteen Days in October: The Yom Kippur War and How It Created the Modern Middle East
Uri Kaufman (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
The Rough Rider and the Professor: Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, and the Friendship That Changed American History
Laurence Jurdem (BOOK | KINDLE)
White House Wild Child: How Alice Roosevelt Broke All the Rules and Won the Heart of America
Shelley Fraser Mickle (BOOK | KINDLE)
Romney: A Reckoning
McKay Coppins (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
Founding Partisans: Hamilton, Madison, Jefferson, Adams and the Brawling Birth of American Politics
H.W. Brands (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
The Earth Transformed: An Untold History
Peter Frankopan (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
LeBron
Jeff Benedict (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
Ringmaster: Vince McMahon and the Unmaking of America
Abraham Riesman (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden's White House
Chris Whipple (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)
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Guido Cagnacci (Italian, 1601–1663), The Repentant Magdalene, detail, circa 1660.
Norton Simon Museum.
The event depicted in the elegant space of this canvas is an episode from the life of Mary Magdalene, the courtesan who renounced her sinful ways and converted to Christianity, following her encounter with Christ in the temple. Mary is shown on the floor, having discarded her luxurious clothes and jewels; her face is reddened from remorse and her body barely covered by a white sheet. Her sister Martha sits on a cushion, calming her, while behind them two servants are leaving the room after having witnessed their mistress’s emotional scene. Cagnacci has also included two allegorical figures to the left. A standing angel banishes a levitating devil, complete with horns and a tail. He lurches toward the window as he flees the room. The combatant figures represent Virtue and Vice as they battle for Mary’s soul at the moment she chooses to embrace her virtuous new Christian life. (x)
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Things I was grateful for in September 2022:
Solo trips to The Broad, the Norton Simon, and The Getty, Melt liquid lipstick in Dreamboy, a Frostbeard Studio Campsite Reads Candle, The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, Supergiant Games’ Hades, a Hades t-shirt, a Cerberus pin, a Cerberus plush, fresh squash, Trader Joe’s autumnal harvest pasta sauce and honey roasted pumpkin ravioli, NARS lipstick in Paint it Black, and watching The Hobbit trilogy during weekly movie dates with Katie.
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Little color study based on a Jawlensky painting at the Norton Simon in Pasadena. I'm switching back to gouache this month after a couple of months of watercolor. Why not?
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