beautiful, beautiful marilyn

From the NYTimes:  “There is a sublime silliness to Halsman’s images that can make you laugh or at least smile regardless of how often you see them. They may offer incontrovertible proof of Schiller’s claim that ‘all art is dedicated to joy.’ Evidently the simple act of getting off the ground requires giving in to something like joy. You have to let go.  One of the purest examples of this joy is an image of Halsman himself, holding hands with a smiling Marilyn Monroe several feet off the ground. Facing his partner, he seems ecstatic, as if he cannot believe his luck.”   Credit: The Estate of Philippe Halsman/Laurence Miller Gallery

Second: this line from Nabokov, which has haunted me since I read it yesterday.  “The breaking of a wave cannot explain the whole sea.”

And third, one minkey down, one to go:

one minkey down, one to go!

And a bonus thing that made me smile and feel all sorts of things, courtesy of an email from Marnie:

“have you seen marina abramovic’s endurance performance “the artist is present,” where she sits in chair for the entire length of her retrospective. there is a chair opposite her, and visitors sit and look at her and she looks back. the flickr group is so compelling: about 1/4 of the people are in tears.”

Here’s to an interesting Wednesday.