In a 1935 letter to his New York gallerist, Wassily Kandinsky made a bold claim: “Indeed,” he wrote of a 1911 work, “it’s the world’s first ever abstract picture, because back then not one single painter was painting in an abstract style. A ‘historic painting’, in other words.”

But is it true? Probably not. Swedish painter Hilma af Klint “worked with abstract imagery as early as 1906, arguably several years before Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Kazimir Malevich, Robert Delaunay and Frantisek Kupka, long considered the trailblazers of the movement”:

“Kandinsky was actively campaigning for himself as being the first abstract artist, constantly writing his gallery and saying, ‘Hey, you know, I was the first! I painted the first abstract painting in 1911!'” said Julia Voss, an art historian and art critic for the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “He was obviously successful, as he’s widely considered the father of 20th-century abstraction. But all the while, af Klint, much more privately, had already been creating these striking, abstract visuals for years.”

Stockholm’s Moderna Museet is featuring 230 of her works in the exhibition Hilma af Klint—A Pioneer of Abstraction. You know, if you find yourself in Sweden any time soon.

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Someone has finally deciphered the Voynich manuscript! Or…has he?

“Long ago, in the ancient city of Cyrene, there was a herb called silphium. It didn’t look like much—with stout roots, stumpy leaves and bunches of small yellow flowers—but it oozed with an odiferous sap that was so delicious and useful, the plant was eventually worth its weight in gold.” So what happened to it?

David Ferry has given us a new translation of the Aeneid. At 93 years of age.

Don’t tell your hippy-dippy baby boomer friends, but “the 1950s were among the most intellectually and creatively provocative periods of the twentieth century.”

A history of victimhood.

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Echo is on display at the University of Northern Colorado’s Mariana Gallery—and it’s pretty amazing. Artist Dylan Gebbia-Richards covered the walls of an enclosed room with layers of wax so dense that it actually absorbs sound. According to the press release, “[t]he lack of ambient noise within the chamber deliberately reduces the auditory stimuli in effort to focus on the visual senses.” Apparently, the effect has something to do with what’s called chromesthesia:

The title of the exhibition references the acoustic effect that occurs when sound reflects off of bare, close fitting walls and distantly repeats. Gebbia-Richards explores the possibility of inverting this principal into a “visual echo,” by encompassing the viewer in a 30′ x 20.5′, double ellipse room. The sloped, wave-like walls of what the artist calls “the chamber,” immerses the viewer in a life-size, textured painting made from 4,128 pounds of melted wax.

The exhibition runs through December 11. If you’re anywhere even remotely near Greeley, you really ought to check it out.

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When Skooch told me about this, I didn’t believe him. Nobody, I said, is that dumb—nobody. Turns out I grossly underestimated humanity’s capacity for stupidity.

Speaking of stupidity, our ruthless pursuit of self-aggrandizement appears to have reached a whole new level.

About time someone put the final nail in the coffin of “emotional intelligence.”

The world is going to hell: first came the hurricane, then the flooding, then the floating colonies of fire ants. And now this. Next up, probably: rivers of blood and a plague of locusts.

And when it’s all said and done, civilization will look pretty much like this.

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Clearly, the good folks over at the Guardian read this blog. I mean, how else would you explain this, published just three days after I posted this? Let’s just say that it’s getting increasingly difficult to type these days, what with one finger on the pulse of international popular culture.

Oh—and do buy Mr. Wilson’s album, would you? It really is quite good. Be prepared to make some room in your music library, though (you do have one of those, right?), because you’ll be wanting everything he’s ever done.

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Went hiking last week with a couple of old friends. And, as middle-aged guys are wont to do, we spent some time complaining about the current state of affairs re politics, education, and pretty much anyone younger than us.

At one point during a conversation about music, someone asked, “Is anyone even making good pop music anymore?” (I should mention here that, at one point in our lives, we were all professional musicians; the other two still have careers in music.) “As a matter of fact,” I began…then told them both about my long-time love affair with the work of Steven Wilson.

Wilson released a new album last Friday—To the Bone—and it’s exquisite. I’d go on in greater detail, but Daniel Cordova over at Metal Injection says it all in just a single paragraph:

This record reminds me a lot of another prog giant that also dabbled in pop. Fight me if you want, but that dude’s name is Peter Gabriel. Like Wilson, Gabriel started out in a progressive band before going solo. Each of his solo albums expanded his sonic pallet with a variety of instrumentation, influences, and effects. Peter Gabriel tapped Tony Levin and Robert Fripp (King Crimson) and Kate Bush to play on various releases. Over the years, Wilson recruited Marco Minneman, Guthrie Goven, Nick Beggs (Kajagoogoo), Adam Holzman and recently Craig Blundell and David Killar. In 1986, Peter Gabriel dropped the goliath album So which featured tracks like “Red Rain,” “Sledgehammer,” “In Your Eyes,” and many more great proggy and poppy tracks. It took a while to get here, but the point is that To The Bone is Steven Wilson’s So. Albeit, the state of music as a whole is in an entirely different place than it was when So dropped. To The Bone doesn’t have the chance to be the international best seller So is, but it is on the same creative level.

Be sure to check out Cordova’s entire review. Then go over to Wilson’s YouTube channel, where he’s uploaded three videos from the new album. Then, of course, buy the damn record.

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Thanks to a drier than normal summer, the huckleberries weren’t nearly as big—nor as plentiful—as in years past. And for a Wednesday, there was a surprising number of people on the trail. But Harrison Lake was still its usual glorious self, and the huckleberries were still tasty.

Side note: Yes, the water looks refreshing after a fairly steep climb. No, it’s not warm. Not at all. The feeling returned to my extremities some time around 3:00 this morning.

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