Art & Ideas

The painting below, The Schoolmistress by John Opie, 40 by 50 inches, exhibited in London in 1784, was stolen from a New Jersey home in 1969. According to an AP article by Matthew Brown, the work was taken by three men working at the direction of former New Jersey state Sen. Anthony Imperiale! Shades of Bob Menedez and the other thieves who have been running the Garden State in perpetuity. The piece wound up in the Utah home of a mobster, who sold the house and painting in 1989. When the buyer died, an accounting firm ran a check on the art, estimated to be worth at least a million. All those involved in the heist have passed. Photo from Google Images:

It’s Pop Art Day. Here’s Girl with Hair Ribbon, 1965, by Roy Lichtenstein, my favorite artist. His work is so eye-catching. From GI:

Elsewhere in the art world, know-it-alls strike again, headline from newsmax.com: “Climate Activists Splash Soup on Mona Lisa.” May they get food poisoning.

The enemy within, headline from nypost.com: “Radical protesters threaten to burn homes of mourners leaving Henry Kissinger memorial service: video.”

From NYP: “Making waves: World’s largest cruise ship that’s the size of nearly four city blocks to set sail.” Here’s the Icon of the Seas, photo from GI:

Iran has thrown the ball into Quid Pro Joe’s court. How will he respond? How ‘bout another billion-dollar bribe to behave?

I banked my latest short story in the Google Docs file, which is now less than 16,000 words, still woefully short of book length.

The floating book shop was rained out. I failed to accomplish what I’d planned, as my T-Mobile connection, which had been very reliable the past two months, has suddenly slowed to early dial-up speed — except in the AM. The links I usually post at the end of the blog are currently inaccessible.