The Second Stone (blog)

An Uncommonplace Book - A Work in Progress

September 13, 2023
These are a series of phrases I’ve collected and strung on thread (using the colorful letter-beads sold usually for kids to make name bracelets and such), planning to arrange them embedded in resin, as I’ve done already with a few others. (See the section ”Objects in Resin“ already…

My Annie Sullivan Moment

August 13, 2023
When I was about 26 I was going with a young lady of 23 or so, Lynne, who had never ridden a bicycle, and of course she regretted it. She explained that when she was born, it was a somewhat rough forceps delivery, which damaged a nerve on the side…

Ted Mooney

July 19, 2023
I wrote most of this back in June 2022, and submitted it for publication to Columbia Magazine (the magazine for all Columbia University alumnae and alumni) as well as Columbia College Today, thinking it a suitable item for either, given that Ted was a writer of considerable note. But I…

Anal-Olecranon Confusion, an Epidemic

July 19, 2023
Anal-Olecranon Confusion I wrote recently to the American Psychiatric Association to comment un the inexplicable absence from the D.S.M. - the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of psychiatric disorders - of anal-olecranon confusion, by no means a rare ailment. I’ve known of the syndrome from the experience of a friend. Here’s…

La Stampa Fotografica Alternativa - la Stampa al Carbone

July 18, 2023
Alternate Processes - Carbon Printing Una risposta al video YouTube di Giacomo Barazzoni sulla Stampa al Carbone Molto interessante. L’ho guardato per curiosità e un po’ di nostalgia, visto che non ho intenzione di impegnarmi con la stampa al carbone. In passato ho lavorato tra i mezzi alternativi tecnicamente meno…

The Idle Brain

May 27, 2023
“The idle brain is the devil’s playground.” That’s a good thing. My best ideas come from an idle brain. This is not a prescription for mental laziness, but something quite different. It’s the habit of thinking freely, a habit that must be cultivated. Rigidity of thought is a guarantee against…

Human Resources - a Sketch

March 2, 2023
“Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it’s the other way around.” Alfred E. Neuman, MAD Magazine, ca. 1960. I had this idea some years ago for a sketch – not a comic sketch, but something that people may take as the setup for a comic situation, but…

Courtly Love in 1982

February 20, 2023
Long before #MeToo, I knew how a gentleman was supposed to conduct himself with a lady. As an adjunct professor of photography in a community college, I was absolutely scrupulous in not taking advantage of my position to “get anywhere” with my female students. Although there were of course many…

Mister Rogers and the Quiet Joys of Brotherhood

January 8, 2023
A Wonderful Day in the Neighborhood I’ve made a couple of small objects in resin inspired by Mr. Rogers’ well-known episode in which, on a hot summer day, he invited Officer Clemmons to share his foot bath. This, in 1969, was at a time of controversy over the racial integration…

A Kookoolele for Krazy Kat

January 5, 2023
In honor of the great cartoonist George Herriman and his immortal creation Krazy Kat, I have made a crude musical instrument, embellishing it with a haiku I composed, an illustration of Krazy playing the banjo and singing, and an emblem indicating that bricks are forbidden. My reproduction of Krazy was…

Leonardo’s Turbine Voodoo Missile

December 18, 2022
The anal sphincter, drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, ca. 1508-09 (detail). My salute to Vladimir Putin. In my spare time this past spring of 2022, I made a few small sculptures out of scrap wood, as I’ve done now and then in the past. They aren’t bad, if I say…

Andrea Brooks - Drawings

October 22, 2022
Where are you, Andrea Brooks? I’ve got your sketchbooks, and I want to return them - better late than never. I also have two of those autograph books that kids get when they graduate from elementary or junior high school. I’ve had all these things 1973, when I graduated from…

Oliver K. Zipp - Drawings for Islip Bowl

October 9, 2022
This article extends what I featured of the artwork of my uncle Oliver in an earlier blog entry, the Big Islip Bowl Bowling Alley Pencil. My source for this is mainly a set of large photocopies that my father made and sent to me in the late 1990s. He was…

The Big Islip Bowl Bowling Alley Pencil

December 17, 2020
This work started by chance. In the fall of 2018 we had a couple of guys come over to do a job terracing our vegetable garden. It’s not very big, but the ground slopes down at a pretty steep angle, so there are basically three levels. The terracing is done…

Tom Rapp’s “Fourth Day of July”, a Great Independence Day Song

July 4, 2020
Tom Rapp’s ”Fourth Day of July” is an antiwar song without equal. Known mostly to Rapp’s loyal fans of fifty years ago, it deserves more attention, especially on the occasion of Independence Day, and as much in 2020 as in 1972 when the song was released on Rapp’s…

Robert Frank, Harry Lunn, Paul Katz, and collector Arthur Penn

February 24, 2020
A personal research into the story of the photographer Robert Frank and the dealer Harry Lunn brought me to a few pages from R.J. Smith’s biography American Witness: The Art and Life of Robert Frank. There I read of how Frank soured on the deal he had made with…

Allen Ginsberg and Archy and Mehitabel

February 19, 2020
Did Allen Ginsberg read Don Marquis’s Archy and Mehitabel? Me-OWL! Was Allen Ginsberg influenced in some small way by the poetry of Don Marquis? One poem in particular, “archy declares war”, reminds me powerfully of “Howl” and certain other poems by Ginsberg. It is a…

Nude Photography on a Secluded Beach in Greece

September 10, 2019
Some places let you really get in touch with your body, mind, and spirit – or wherever those three things come together as one. The beach is that kind of place, warm and sunny, with the hypnotic, rhythmic noise of the waves, where the amniotic sea reminds us subconsciously of…

Donald Trump, Cross-Dresser?

August 7, 2019
Many people will have read of the allegations of sexual abuse by Donald Trump, the account that advice columnist E. Jean Carroll gave in late June 2019 after over 20 years of silence – that Trump had assaulted her in the fitting rooms at Bergdorf Goodman’s. (A report soon to…

The Blue Meanies Have Taken Over the World!

July 19, 2019
In recent years it has occurred to me more and more that the recent trouble in the world can be explained by the simple fact that most of the planet has been taken over by the Blue Meanies. Surely no one who ever saw the Beatles’ 1968 film Yellow Submarine…

Pietre d’Inciampo - Lest We Forget

May 14, 2019
As an act of homage, I’ve been photographing all the “pietre d’inciampo” or “Stolpersteine” – the stumbling blocks or tripping stones – that have been installed around Torino in recent years to commemorate some of the people who were arrested by the Fascist government or by…

Paris, Nov. 13, 2015, 11e Arrondissement

March 9, 2016
I Love Paris – in the springtime, I Love Paris – in the fall… despite everything. We happened to take accommodations just a short distance from Le Comptoir Voltaire, one of the targets of the terror attacks of the evening of the 13th of November, and just a few…

A Rather Queer Banknote

February 18, 2016
An old Brazilian banknote represents a grand, historic scene, but reveals a surprising detail: what appears to be a hermaphrodite. Want to see? Sorry to pitch like a sideshow barker, but we’re all grownups here, and there’s nothing wrong with curiosity. Besides, I have a more legitimate theme or two…

Io Leggo - I Read - a Declaration of Love

February 1, 2016
A letter I sent to the New York Review of Books in March 2013. The subject is a text (not mine), part riff, part rant, and part love letter. It’s about books and the passion for reading, and it’s something worth sharing. Warm thanks to ”Il Circolo dei Lettori”…

Humor versus Terror: Lord Buckley’s H-Bomb

January 14, 2016
Soon after the terror attacks in Paris of Nov. 13, 2015, I wanted to share with Charlie Hebdo (and now with all) the inspiring reflection of Lord Buckley on the role of humor in confronting terror. In H-Bomb, Buckley suggested how we could learn to stop worrying, and just …

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