Arts and culture notes

2003 is the centennial year of Mark Rothko, whose transcendant images belie the personal demons that drove him to commit suicide in 1970. Visiting the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art a few days ago, I sat transfixed before his painting No. 14, 1960 for fifteen minutes. His images encourage this kind of meditative study, such that the final major commission he fulfilled was for work to decorate a non-denominational chapel -- in Houston, of all places. The National Gallery of Art seems to have the largest collection of his work.

Even more transcendant was the performance Cris and I attended last night at the San Francisco Symphony of Shostakovich's 8th Symphony. Led by visiting conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, the orchestra never sounded better. I was riveted for the symphony's 80-minute length.

In other news: Grad students at UC-Davis are plowing through a collection of the papers of poet Gary Snyder, the beat figure who, along with Jack Kerouac and Philip Whalen, was famous for making connections between the beat writers and Zen Buddhism.