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djaehnig.bsky.social
@djaehnig.bsky.social
22 followers 10 following 390 posts
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djaehnig.bsky.social
Just added a sharp read to your holiday list: my new review of Anna Shechtman’s The Riddles of the Sphinx and the hidden world inside the crossword grid. tinyurl.com/yep533cn
#BookReview #Crosswords #HolidayReading
Between the Black Squares and the Blank Ones
Somewhere between the black squares and the empty ones, Anna Shechtman found a structure she needed long before she understood why.  The Ri...
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November 28, 2025 at 1:43 PM
djaehnig.bsky.social
New piece on Edwin Lord Weeks’ Pearl Mosque, Agra—a study that reveals as much as his Salon masterpiece. Light, heat, and quiet human detail all at work.
tinyurl.com/zekxyk2e
#ArtHistory #VMFA #EdwinLordWeeks
The Pearl Mosque, Agra: Light That Refuses to Sit Still
Some paintings don’t announce themselves. They don’t lean on spectacle or narrative. They simply wait for you to settle into their rhythm, a...
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November 26, 2025 at 4:39 PM
djaehnig.bsky.social
A new look at Glory, the film’s flaws, its weight, and why the 54th Massachusetts still matters. tinyurl.com/yc8j46sb #Glory1989 #54thMassachusetts #FilmHistory
Why Glory Endures Beyond Its Flaws
I’ve always found that certain films don’t meet you where you expect them to. They don’t arrive in a blaze of brilliance or flatten you with...
tinyurl.com
November 24, 2025 at 12:06 PM
djaehnig.bsky.social
K-pop is shaping campus life in places you wouldn’t expect — including Salisbury. My take on Smoking Monster and the cultural shift around it: tinyurl.com/36fv6k9j
#KPop #SalisburyMD #FoodCulture
K-Pop on the Eastern Shore: A Quiet Takeover at Smoking Monster
What struck me first wasn’t the food, though it was solid and unfussy in the way a good kitchen should be. It was the sound. You can hear it...
tinyurl.com
November 23, 2025 at 3:34 PM
djaehnig.bsky.social
A closer look at Viva Las Vegas and why its energy still holds up, two stars, real heat, and a moment when the studio formula slipped.
tinyurl.com/bdctb7ty

#VivaLasVegas #FilmHistory #ElvisPresley #AnnMargret
The One Elvis Movie That Actually Woke Up
There’s a strange honesty to  Viva Las Vegas  that people overlook. It’s disguised as a glossy distraction,  neon lights , chrome, a racecar...
tinyurl.com
November 22, 2025 at 5:14 PM
djaehnig.bsky.social
1950s sci-fi had a wild, fearless energy. I dug into Sentinels From Space and what makes that era’s odd imagination still compelling. tinyurl.com/5y4as5cw #VintageSciFi #GoldenAgeSF
When Science Fiction Wasn’t Afraid to Be Strange: Revisiting Sentinels From Space
There’s something about 1950s science fiction that feels almost extraterrestrial on its own terms, a tone you don’t encounter anywhere else ...
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November 17, 2025 at 12:00 PM
djaehnig.bsky.social
John Biggers’ Coming Home from Work turns a narrow path and a tired walk into a full account of labor and endurance. I unpacked how the painting works and why it still hits hard.
tinyurl.com/4ku7nv8b
#JohnBiggers #VMFA #ArtHistory #AfricanAmericanArt
Where the Day Follows You Home
There is a moment in John Biggers’  Coming Home from Work  when the eye stops searching for the subject and starts feeling the space. You do...
tinyurl.com
November 16, 2025 at 12:14 PM
djaehnig.bsky.social
Hell’s Angels isn’t just an early war film. It shows a young Hollywood with no safety standards, real aerial danger, and a medium struggling through the shift to sound and color. I break down what the film reveals about ambition, risk, and the era in which it was produced.
tinyurl.com/7r8ah287
Danger in the Frame: Rereading Hell’s Angels
Some films survive because of their craft. Others, because of nostalgia.  Hell’s Angels  survives because it’s the closest thing we have to ...
tinyurl.com
November 15, 2025 at 2:06 PM
djaehnig.bsky.social
Sometimes a children’s book says what adults forget.
Maria McSwigan’s Snow Treasure (1942) turns sledding into resistance and innocence into courage.
A quiet lesson in bravery worth rediscovering.
👉 tinyurl.com/38sk9cfd

#SnowTreasure #MariaMcSwigan #ArsMendacium #Courage #WWII #Books
The Weight of Gold on Snow
I don’t usually write about children’s books.  They tend to live in a separate shelf of the mind, simpler, lighter, meant to teach lessons r...
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October 26, 2025 at 2:00 PM
djaehnig.bsky.social
What if Pollock’s “freedom” was just the start of art mistaking spectacle for meaning?
My new essay on Number 15, 1948, challenges the myth of the drip.
👉 tinyurl.com/3f2hvpb6
#JacksonPollock #ArtCriticism #ModernArt #AbstractExpressionism #ArsMendacium
The Myth of the Drip: What Jackson Pollock’s Number 15, 1948 Doesn’t Say
There’s a particular hush that settles over a gallery when people stand in front of a Pollock. You can feel it, the reverence, the readiness...
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October 25, 2025 at 12:32 PM
djaehnig.bsky.social
Some music never reaches the stage.
My new essay on Hear Us explores a documentary about three musicians divided by borders—and the silence that says what politics can’t.
🎻 Read here: tinyurl.com/2s3kb9wy
#HearUs #RadaHanana #Documentary #ArtAcrossBorders #FilmEssay #ArsMendacium
The Music That Almost Met: On Unfinished Harmony in Hear Us
Some films end with silence because there’s nothing left to say.  Hear Us  begins with it. The quiet between piano keys, the pause before a ...
tinyurl.com
October 19, 2025 at 2:36 PM
djaehnig.bsky.social
Some stories don’t need grandeur to matter. An Eye for Murder lingers in small ways, memory, curiosity, and quiet truths.
Read my new piece, “The Comfort of Ordinary Secrets.”
👉 tinyurl.com/39tdzn87
#Books #MysteryFiction #LibbyFischerHellmann #ArsMendacium
The Comfort of Ordinary Secrets
On certain nights, when the brain is tired but restless, you don’t want literature; you want company. Not philosophy, not moral weight, just...
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October 18, 2025 at 11:04 AM
djaehnig.bsky.social
Roy Lichtenstein’s Gullscape has no sun, only geometry, gulls, and a calm too precise to be natural. My new essay, “The Geometry of Calm,” looks at irony, longing, and light without a source. 🌊
tinyurl.com/bddtnyan
#PopArt #Lichtenstein #ArtCriticism #VMFA
The Geometry of Calm
There’s something disarming about standing in front of a painting that mocks the very idea of beauty while making it impossible to look away...
tinyurl.com
October 17, 2025 at 11:38 AM
djaehnig.bsky.social
Dinner at Amelia’s Trattoria reminded me that not everything needs reinvention to matter. Good chicken piccata, loud room, a sangria kissed with limoncello, and a reminder that comfort, done well, is its own art.
👉 tinyurl.com/45796hnp
#CambridgeMA #FoodWriting
At the Corner of Familiar and Full: A Night at Amelia’s Trattoria
The sound hits first, not a roar, not quite chatter, but that middle frequency that only exists when a room is full and everyone’s trying to...
tinyurl.com
October 15, 2025 at 12:10 PM
djaehnig.bsky.social
www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVbH...
Commercial We Are America ft John Cena Love Has No Labels Ad Council
YouTube video by Professionally Pretty Model & Talent Agency
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October 13, 2025 at 2:59 PM
djaehnig.bsky.social
Happy 250th Birthday to the U.S. Navy ⚓️ From wooden decks to digital fleets, the mission endures: defend freedom and stand ready. Proud to have served, fair winds and following seas to all who wear the uniform. #USNavy250 #NavyBirthday #Veteran
October 13, 2025 at 2:34 PM
djaehnig.bsky.social
Before Dark Side, Pink Floyd made Meddle, an album born of accidents, long nights, and discovery. It’s the sound of a band learning to listen again.

“The Ear Underwater: Hearing Meddle in the Age of Noise” → tinyurl.com/ypne2tpv

#PinkFloyd #Meddle #Echoes
Echoes Beneath the Surface: Listening to Meddle Fifty-Five Years On
When Meddle arrived in November 1971, it wasn’t heralded as a revelation but as a reprieve. Pink Floyd had spent the year touring through ...
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October 13, 2025 at 2:25 PM
djaehnig.bsky.social
Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends captures the quiet violence between people who want to be honest but can’t bear the cost.
Read my full essay → tinyurl.com/4msw7wjk

#SallyRooney #ConversationsWithFriends #LiteraryEssay #ArsMendacium
The Quiet Violence of Knowing: Reading Conversations with Friends
There’s a particular kind of silence that lives between people who believe themselves to be honest. It isn’t empty; it hums with restraint, ...
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October 12, 2025 at 2:06 PM
djaehnig.bsky.social
Robert Cottingham’s Pool (1973) looks flawless until you notice the missing balls and sprung wires. Perfection giving way to truth. A portrait of America’s beautiful decay.

Read → tinyurl.com/29s636fw

#RobertCottingham #VMFA #ArtCriticism #Photorealism #AmericanArt
The Geometry of Decay: Seeing America in Robert Cottingham’s Pool
There’s a peculiar silence in Robert Cottingham’s  Pool,  the kind that hums just after something breaks. At first glance, everything looks ...
tinyurl.com
October 11, 2025 at 12:59 PM
djaehnig.bsky.social
Before California became a state of mind, Beach Party (1963) captured its sunlit absurdity—Frankie, Annette, and a surfing anthropologist in America’s last innocent wave. 🌊

Read more 👉 tinyurl.com/5xwwxpzx

#BeachParty #FilmHistory #60sCinema #VincentPrice #ArsMendacium
Silliness as Survival: Rediscovering Beach Party
Before California became a state of mind, it was an experiment. A laboratory of tan and tune, where the nation’s anxieties were filtered thr...
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October 6, 2025 at 10:51 AM
djaehnig.bsky.social
Before Huckleberry Finn forced America to face its conscience, Tom Sawyer taught it how to fake innocence and smile while doing it.

Read the full essay → tinyurl.com/y7n2f39d

#MarkTwain #TomSawyer #LiteraryEssay #AmericanLiterature #ArsMendacium
Freedom and Guilt: The Rehearsal for Huckleberry Finn
I’ve always thought it strange how easily we forgive Tom Sawyer. Maybe it’s the grin. Maybe it’s because the book feels sun-washed and harml...
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October 5, 2025 at 12:40 PM
djaehnig.bsky.social
In 1977, Barkley Hendricks painted "Sisters" (Susan and Toni), turning absence into recognition and presence into permanence. My new essay: tinyurl.com/5effde2z

#BarkleyHendricks #BlackArt #ArtHistory
The Sisters Who Refused to Fade: Barkley Hendricks and the Art of Recognition
In 1977, the world of American painting was moving away from faces. Abstraction had stripped canvas down to gesture, Minimalism to the grid,...
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October 3, 2025 at 11:29 AM
djaehnig.bsky.social
A forgotten British road movie in stark black & white, soundtracked by Bowie & Kraftwerk. Radio On (1979) isn’t plot—it’s atmosphere, silence, & a country in transition. My essay: tinyurl.com/33jhbybh #FilmEssay #RadioOn #BritishCinema #Sting
Static on the Motorway: Listening to Radio On
It begins in silence and in static. A long stretch of English motorway, black-and-white and endless, spooled across the screen like a half-f...
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October 2, 2025 at 10:11 AM
djaehnig.bsky.social
Peter Gabriel’s “Solsbury Hill” is more than a song—it’s a leap of faith in 7/4 time. A story of risk, release, and finding home. Full essay: tinyurl.com/2ktzswb7 #SolsburyHill #PeterGabriel #MusicAnalysis
The Sound of Departure: Peter Gabriel and the Ascent of Solsbury Hill
There are songs that sound like escape, and there are songs that  are  escape. Peter Gabriel’s  “Solsbury Hill”  feels less like a pop singl...
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September 29, 2025 at 11:42 AM
djaehnig.bsky.social
Heat doesn’t roar, it creeps. Jeff Goodell’s The Heat Will Kill You First shows how our deadliest climate threat is silent, swift, and here. My latest essay: tinyurl.com/yct5naca
#ClimateCrisis #ExtremeHeat #JeffGoodell #ArsMendacium #Nonfiction
This Heat Will Kill You First
All opinions expressed are my own. It starts with a breeze. Nothing terrifying. Nothing warns you of death. It comes through an open window ...
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September 27, 2025 at 5:04 PM