Grumman taxonomy update

My previous note referencing June 2 was wrong -- it should be June 1. Here's the exact link.

Yahoo spyware

If, like me, you made the mistake of installing Yahoo Messenger version 7.5, and suddenly discovered that it made Yahoo your default search engine, there's a way of fixing it, but it's not easy. You can find the solution at the Simple Thoughts blog, but their solution didn't do the whole job for me. Nick Jones figured out the rest of it, and I added his solution to the "comments" section, so read all the way down.

Carved Sculpture

It was brought to my attention recently that I don't have any examples of Harvey's carved work, either here or on the website. So here are a couple, and I'll be adding them to the website too. These are both stone -- I'll be posting some of the work in wood as well.

Gluttony, 12"x9"x9", travertine. We're not sure of the dates of any of these. A guess on this would be late 40s-early 50s.

Megalomania, 30.5"x7"x4", marble. I'd place this one in the early 50s, possibly carved in 1950 when Harvey and Barbara spent a year in Rome.

Both of these are in my collection, in the house at Opus 40.

Thanks to Cindy Bell for cataloging all the carved pieces we have records of.

Opus 40 in the News

More press coverage of Opus 40. Boston.com, which incorporates the Boston Globe and other media, has picked up the New York Times story. And in this week's Woodstock and Saugerties Times, a very nice article by Paul Smart, about the tribute to Harvey Fite which was held here last week, organized by Lyn Thoman.

Richards Pushes Grumman's Taxonomy to the Breaking Point

Bob Grumman makes his long-awaited exigesis of my hay(na)ku today (well, that link will work if you read it today; otherwise go to his archives and check for June 2), after first wondering

why I don't just junk my taxonomy on the grounds that it must be worthless if it has any problem with an obvious poem like Richards's piece.

But he stays with it, and Grumman as theorist is always weird and interesting. So I recommend it. I think.

A Patrician Baritone

We're in the New York Times today. A very good article, with the odd sidelight that I am described as someone

who speaks in a patrician baritone and resembles a stockier, long-haired George Plimpton.