Treacherous Three as you can see / Special K / Sunshine / And Kool Moe Dee / And don’t forget MC Spoonie Gee:

Exhaust or Contrail? I’m not sure. Get your contrail science on over at the appropriately named contrailscience.com

Contrail: streaks of condensed water vapor created in the air by an airplane or rocket at high altitudes.

• Dear Readers,
  Thanks for reading this column about my favorite paintings in New York museums.
  Do you have an inner art-critic dying to get out and get published? Maybe I can help. I’m expanding this article into a book: “An Art-Critic Pick his 100 Favorite Paintings in New York Museums.’ 100 100-word entries. 100 ‘guest’ artists to pick 1-painting & write 100-word entry. Some ‘guest’ critics, curators, dealers, etc.
  This is where YOU come in. If you’re up for it & understand there’s NO MONEY in this WHATSOEVER, take a crack at writing 100 words about a favorite painting of yours that is CURRENTLY in a New York Museum.
  Conditions:
  1. No more than 100 words. No exceptions. Anything over will not be read (you can do it in 35 words if you want.
  2. Do not use the word “I.” This is not about you; it is about the art.
  3. Keep it simple. Don’t use jargon. Write so your grand-parents who don’t know art would understand.
  4. Describe what this work does; why it does this; and HOW IT LOOKS.
  5. Don’t natter on about how “beautiful” or “scary” the painting is. Those words mean very different things to different people.
  6. All entries must be signed.
  7. Write as many entries as you like.
  8. Post your entry in THIS COMMENT thread.
  9. It is OK to write on paintings that others have already written on.
  10. All entries are subject to editing.
  11. I will read entries over the next 12 months. BE PATIENT.
  That’s it. You’d be surprised how once you’re in touch with your inner-art critic how thrilling it is to try to CLEARLY impart to others WHY something turns you on. If your entry is used in the book you’ll be given a by-line. NO MONEY! But that’s the art-criticism business. Hah!
  Thank you,
  Jerry Saltz

I really enjoy moving blocks of color around. It reminds me of the good part of making paintings : using words like facture and watching colorful chemicals interact on stretched canvas i.e. not the part where I was up at 3 am smelling turpentine in a brightly-lit room wondering who I was and what I was doing.

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Verisimiliar
Main Entry: veri·sim·i·lar
Pronunciation: \ˌver-ə-ˈsi-mə-lər, -ˈsim-lər\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin verisimilis
Date: 1681
1 : having the appearance of truth : probable
2 : depicting realism (as in art or literature)
— veri·sim·i·lar·ly a
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The photo above by Henry Wessel Jr is perfectly magical verisimilitude. He couldn’t have described it better. Isn’t the world amazing?

I was thinking about verisimilitude because I wanted to submit a picture to the New York Times Lens blog contest, A Moment in Time with pictures from Sunday, May 2, at 15:00 (U.T.C./G.M.T.).

I didn’t get a chance but enjoyed thinking about this from the FAQ:

• How much may I alter the image?
• Not much.
• You may certainly crop the edges. You may also perform minor adjustments, like color balancing, that are intended to increase the photo’s verisimilitude; in other words, to make the image on your screen resemble the scene that was before your eyes as closely as possible.

I spend a lot of time trying to get the colors in my pictures as close to what I saw as possible but I’ve also been trying to get my camera to see something I can’t without it e.g. depth of field blur, motion blur, lens flare, highlight flare… any kind of “mistake” I can make the camera make. Sometimes I pray–for the record I’m agnostic–that something weirdly magical will happen. I wonder what Henry Wessel Jr was thinking when those birds came into the frame.