Author Archives: Stephen Futterer

This image reminds me of some of the more stylized opening credit sequences from films and TV of the 60’s and 70’s. Band-like figures moving in different directions which then lock together as a coherent picture. The thrill of disorientation and movement all on a static screen. An entertainment equivalent of tri-colored shag carpeting (whichContinue reading ““Head Games””

Our maternal grandmother volunteered as a docent at the National Portrait Gallery when we were young. She used to gather my middle sister and I for her gallery tours, often depositing us for a spell in the kid’s area. The space was called the Discovery Room or something similar. It was terrific. You could runContinue reading ““The Quiet Man””

My immediate reaction to this scene was to recall the duct motif in one of my favorite films, Terry Gilliam’s dystopian satire “Brazil” (1985). His absurdist Orwellian nightmare only seems to gain in relevance as the decades pass: the insinuating tendrils of corporate and state surveillance encroach; the molder of our infrastructure deepens; the stainContinue reading ““Outsider Art””

The exclamation “Eureka!” (per Wikipedia) is attributed to Archimedes. It is a transliteration of the Greek word heureka, meaning “I have found it!” He reportedly made this spontaneous utterance when stepping into a bath and suddenly he realized that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the body part submerged.Continue reading ““Eureka!””

The eyes report a muffled phrase An upside-down dark masquerade When faces fall, the colors pave As remnants of a ghost parade

“I like unagi, except when soggy” — SF Ogden Nash’s light verse was some of the first poetry I encountered as a kid. My parents had a lovely bound collection of his works that has since been passed on to me. I tended to go for the shorter ones, since I wasn’t much of aContinue reading ““Ode To Ogden’s Eels””