Jay Abel
AN AMERICAN EMBARRASSED or MR. HOLT, BOLTS...
The new great American dream, for a lot of us anyway, is to get the hell out of America before the landlord doubles the rent, again, ...
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Jay Abel
- May 14
- 4 min
REVIEW - ASHLEY HOLT, A BLACKBELT IN QUITTING The Non-Virtue of Positive Inaction
Ashley Holt, mild mannered ex-librarian of a great metropolitan university, is fighting a never ending battle to explain himself and his...
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Jay Abel
- Apr 28
- 4 min
"WILL QUIT FOR FOOD" Guest Blog by Ashley Holt
INTRODUCTION - My first encounter with the esteemed Mr. Holt was as a fellow nomad, wandering Facebook’s great digital wasteland between...
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Jay Abel
- Apr 16
- 4 min
DOWNTOWN HOOVERVILLE
My brief but intense romance with the American museum establishment began in 2013 and ended in 2014. It has been 10 years since one or...
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Jay Abel
- Mar 26
- 3 min
AI and the TRIUMPH of STUPIDITY
“When machines can do everything you will see a generation of idiots” Einstein The media pimps did a little more crank last week and...
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Jay Abel
- Mar 1
- 4 min
GET A JOB !
I’m a collector of old detritus, god help me, a complete set of 1963 MAD magazines, a tattered family photograph of uncle Don playing...
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Jay Abel
- Feb 24
- 4 min
The APOTHEOSIS of ST. ANDY and the CULT of INSTANT FAME
J. Daniel Abel - Andy Warhol, 2023 I have often marveled at the shear fecklessness of modern American fame. In 1962, Andy Warhol, an...
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Jay Abel
- Feb 19
- 3 min
1/25 of a second in 1957
It is sobering to think that I am now 2 years older than my dad was when he died. Here he is in 1957, when he hoisted a 3 year old me up...
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Jay Abel
- Feb 15
- 4 min
the UNVARNISHED REALITY of the ART GALLERY
I’m sort of down on gallery shows these days, and that’s the main reason I went into book publishing. I'm not actually bitter about the...
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Jay Abel
- Feb 13
- 3 min
RICK GEARY and the GENTLEMAN'S ART OF MURDER
I knew Rick Geary back in the day, late 1980s. Both of us were grinding out weekly illustrations for the pulps, the San Diego Reader and...
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Jay Abel
- Feb 11
- 4 min
PAUL GAUGUIN vs FRED FLINTSTONE - a millenial analysis
I read a post the other day from a fellow traveler, one professor X, who told me that his millennial art history and graphic design kids...
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Jay Abel
- Feb 9
- 3 min
MARY K. BROWN - CALM CENTER OF THE IRRATIONAL UNIVERSE
I have been smitten with Mary K. Brown, from afar, for almost 50 years, ever since High school. When I actually made contact with her,...
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Jay Abel
- Feb 6
- 4 min
The RISE and FALL of GEORGE ROUAULT
A few years before George Rouault died in 1958, after a lifetime of modest labor, his star was ascending. Interviews were published,...
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Jay Abel
- Jan 31
- 4 min
AI vs the GATEKEEPERS - A cranky old fart yells at those new kids next door...
The trending debate right now is between analog vs art generated by artificial intelligence. It's actually the end of another debate,...
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Jay Abel
- Jan 23
- 2 min
THE YOUNG MAN MAD ABOUT DRAWING
Most of my time in 2021, after the great pandemic lifted in June, was dedicated to sorting through the towering stack of drawings left...
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Jay Abel
- Jan 17
- 2 min
THE NEW LAST WORD
“The last Word” was my 2nd graphic novel, for lack of a better term, penned in 2007, though it is, in fact, just a long chain of...
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Jay Abel
- Jan 8
- 2 min
IS HARDCOPY DEAD?
I’m not going to slam the brave new world of digital tech in this blog. I have found it to be profoundly useful. I can teach a class in...
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Jay Abel
- Jan 5
- 3 min
THE TRAGEDY of ARTIST X
About 35 years ago artist X was my friend. He was wise, funny, quiet, empathetic, and something of a Buddhist. A consummate...
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Jay Abel
- Jan 4
- 2 min
ART BOOKS and THE BOOK AS ART
THE ART BOOK and THE BOOK AS ART Goya - Dark Visions of Things to Come, 1806 Traditionally Art books have been some kind of catalog for...
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Jay Abel
- Jan 2
- 2 min
DEAD DOGS vs THE GRAND MANNER
I had a disagreement with another Art historian the other day. I hold this person in high regard, but in fact my peers and I hardly...
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