Shelly Kraicer
@shellyk.bsky.social
Cinema / film art in China, Hong Kong, & Taiwan especially independent films & films from within the Chinese borderlands (Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Hong Kong…). And I create English subtitles for Chinese-language films.
Renaissance Florence presented itself as being about beauty and humanism. But that’s an ideological mask for complex projections of raw power. The two richest families were Medicis and Strozzis. … 1/2
November 24, 2025 at 10:10 PM
Renaissance Florence presented itself as being about beauty and humanism. But that’s an ideological mask for complex projections of raw power. The two richest families were Medicis and Strozzis. … 1/2
Lessons from a Florence visit. One wants the world to be as Fra Angelico imagined it (as beautiful as possible, transforming idealistic bliss into a tangible real world). But we’re really in Masaccio’s moral universe (the expulsion from Paradise is the core of human experience: unimaginable horror).
November 23, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Lessons from a Florence visit. One wants the world to be as Fra Angelico imagined it (as beautiful as possible, transforming idealistic bliss into a tangible real world). But we’re really in Masaccio’s moral universe (the expulsion from Paradise is the core of human experience: unimaginable horror).
I’m here for the Fra Angelico exhibition at the Strozzi Palace & San Marco. Is his provocative insistence/hypothesis/faith that a perfected or perfectable world is conceivable, visible, maybe even assimilateable to our little world still useful? Does it speak to our degraded, despairing era? 3/3
November 21, 2025 at 8:51 PM
I’m here for the Fra Angelico exhibition at the Strozzi Palace & San Marco. Is his provocative insistence/hypothesis/faith that a perfected or perfectable world is conceivable, visible, maybe even assimilateable to our little world still useful? Does it speak to our degraded, despairing era? 3/3
In Florence, enriched & inspired by Inventing the Renaissance, @adapalmer.bsky.social ‘s amazing book that I’m carrying around in my head. Walking by the Duomo tonight I almost cried (not Stedhalian tears, more bitter). Seeing that impossible Brunelleschi dome actually right there, in our world. 1/
November 21, 2025 at 8:51 PM
In Florence, enriched & inspired by Inventing the Renaissance, @adapalmer.bsky.social ‘s amazing book that I’m carrying around in my head. Walking by the Duomo tonight I almost cried (not Stedhalian tears, more bitter). Seeing that impossible Brunelleschi dome actually right there, in our world. 1/
Another direction. From the Porta Sant’Angelo, in Perugia.
November 20, 2025 at 7:34 PM
Another direction. From the Porta Sant’Angelo, in Perugia.
Umbria. I see these in the backgrounds of Umbrian paintings all the time. Now I get it.
November 20, 2025 at 7:31 PM
Umbria. I see these in the backgrounds of Umbrian paintings all the time. Now I get it.
ANOTHER WORLD 世外 is maximalist philosophical horror: alternate worlds trap endlessly reborn humans in circles of terror. How to stare in the face of an unbearable world and ... flail with abstruse semi-Buddhist self-help/self-harm? dream of solidarity in the face of limitless pessimism?
November 16, 2025 at 3:47 AM
ANOTHER WORLD 世外 is maximalist philosophical horror: alternate worlds trap endlessly reborn humans in circles of terror. How to stare in the face of an unbearable world and ... flail with abstruse semi-Buddhist self-help/self-harm? dream of solidarity in the face of limitless pessimism?
Two new animated features from Hong Kong: THE MIGHTY ADVENTURE 小蟲蟲大冒險 is photo-realist: rigorous, minimalist, dialogue-free insect adventure (nominally set in Taiwan) where in-group solidarity (grasshoppers, spiders, butterflies) defends against out-group enemies (birds, humans).
November 16, 2025 at 3:47 AM
Two new animated features from Hong Kong: THE MIGHTY ADVENTURE 小蟲蟲大冒險 is photo-realist: rigorous, minimalist, dialogue-free insect adventure (nominally set in Taiwan) where in-group solidarity (grasshoppers, spiders, butterflies) defends against out-group enemies (birds, humans).
Ran away to Vancouver for the weekend and, miraculously, it didn’t rain for two days.
November 9, 2025 at 6:06 AM
Ran away to Vancouver for the weekend and, miraculously, it didn’t rain for two days.
There’s an important message embedded in I Love Canada / J’aime Le Canada
November 5, 2025 at 9:54 PM
There’s an important message embedded in I Love Canada / J’aime Le Canada
Can’t leave out the exquisite The Water Quilt
November 5, 2025 at 9:31 PM
Can’t leave out the exquisite The Water Quilt
And here are the Reason Over Passion / La Raison avant la passion quilts. The French version is owned by Margaret Trudeau I think.
November 5, 2025 at 9:27 PM
And here are the Reason Over Passion / La Raison avant la passion quilts. The French version is owned by Margaret Trudeau I think.
Revisiting the Joyce Wieland exhibition at the AGO before we see her Reason over passion tonight at TIFF Cinematheque. This monumental quilt normally spans both tracks on a balcony inside Spadina subway station, at Kendall.
November 5, 2025 at 9:24 PM
Revisiting the Joyce Wieland exhibition at the AGO before we see her Reason over passion tonight at TIFF Cinematheque. This monumental quilt normally spans both tracks on a balcony inside Spadina subway station, at Kendall.
Rida Abu Rass explores, in a fine article in New Lines Magazine, what it's like for a Palestinian-Israeli to return home to Jaffa during the genocide.
newlinesmag.com/first-person...
newlinesmag.com/first-person...
November 5, 2025 at 6:47 PM
Rida Abu Rass explores, in a fine article in New Lines Magazine, what it's like for a Palestinian-Israeli to return home to Jaffa during the genocide.
newlinesmag.com/first-person...
newlinesmag.com/first-person...
Taking pleasure where you can find it in the NYT:
November 5, 2025 at 2:47 AM
Taking pleasure where you can find it in the NYT:
New York Times news update writers need some editing. I can help:
"[Mamdani] is a 34-year-old democratic socialist with a broad and ambitious platform who seeks to tax the extremely wealthy to finance necessary new social programs and who refuses to support Jewish supremacist ideology in Israel."
"[Mamdani] is a 34-year-old democratic socialist with a broad and ambitious platform who seeks to tax the extremely wealthy to finance necessary new social programs and who refuses to support Jewish supremacist ideology in Israel."
November 4, 2025 at 6:39 PM
New York Times news update writers need some editing. I can help:
"[Mamdani] is a 34-year-old democratic socialist with a broad and ambitious platform who seeks to tax the extremely wealthy to finance necessary new social programs and who refuses to support Jewish supremacist ideology in Israel."
"[Mamdani] is a 34-year-old democratic socialist with a broad and ambitious platform who seeks to tax the extremely wealthy to finance necessary new social programs and who refuses to support Jewish supremacist ideology in Israel."
This is an amazing paragraph from @josephtorigian.bsky.social ‘s biography of Xi Zhongxun: “The Party’s Interests Come First”. I want to know more about Puyi and Xi’s social interactions. One wonders exactly what they talked about. (Zhou here is Zhou Enlai).
October 26, 2025 at 3:58 PM
This is an amazing paragraph from @josephtorigian.bsky.social ‘s biography of Xi Zhongxun: “The Party’s Interests Come First”. I want to know more about Puyi and Xi’s social interactions. One wonders exactly what they talked about. (Zhou here is Zhou Enlai).
Immersed in @josephtorigian.bsky.social 's always fascinating THE PARTY'S INTERESTS COME FIRST. It's exactly the kind of work that deepens and enriches my engagement w China: whose realities lie in the details of loyalty to Party, exercise of power, and not-always-scrupulous attention to morality.
October 25, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Immersed in @josephtorigian.bsky.social 's always fascinating THE PARTY'S INTERESTS COME FIRST. It's exactly the kind of work that deepens and enriches my engagement w China: whose realities lie in the details of loyalty to Party, exercise of power, and not-always-scrupulous attention to morality.
I'll be at the Joyce Wieland shorts tonight at Cinematheque/Light Box. There are still seats available. Goes great with the amazing Wieland show "Heart On" at the AGO. ago.ca/exhibitions/...
October 22, 2025 at 1:35 PM
I'll be at the Joyce Wieland shorts tonight at Cinematheque/Light Box. There are still seats available. Goes great with the amazing Wieland show "Heart On" at the AGO. ago.ca/exhibitions/...
Early 16mm films by Joyce Wieland @ Innis Town Hall, intro’d by Jim Shedden & Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof. The phallo-patriotic wieners in PATRIOTISM were a kick. LARRY’S RECENT BEHAVIOUR is tough to watch & impossible not to. WATER SARK is bewitchingly intense. And HANDTINTING is a masterpiece
October 21, 2025 at 4:10 AM
Early 16mm films by Joyce Wieland @ Innis Town Hall, intro’d by Jim Shedden & Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof. The phallo-patriotic wieners in PATRIOTISM were a kick. LARRY’S RECENT BEHAVIOUR is tough to watch & impossible not to. WATER SARK is bewitchingly intense. And HANDTINTING is a masterpiece
More unsolicited advice: if you have time for an unusual off-the-beaten-track walk, try this circled zone in the Quartier de la Mouzaïa. Apparently they could only build cottages since the ground underneath is former gypsum quarries. Super atmospheric! Near Metro Danube. Buttes-Chaumont park nearby.
October 20, 2025 at 12:54 PM
More unsolicited advice: if you have time for an unusual off-the-beaten-track walk, try this circled zone in the Quartier de la Mouzaïa. Apparently they could only build cottages since the ground underneath is former gypsum quarries. Super atmospheric! Near Metro Danube. Buttes-Chaumont park nearby.
Matthias Goerne & Daniil Trifonov performed Schubert’s Winterreise cycle tonight in Toronto @ Koerner Hall @royalconservatory.bsky.social Their approach was more theatrical than introspective... 1/
[Image: Winterreise etching by Inken Stabell from www.inkenstabell.com/winterreise-... ]
[Image: Winterreise etching by Inken Stabell from www.inkenstabell.com/winterreise-... ]
October 17, 2025 at 1:48 AM
Matthias Goerne & Daniil Trifonov performed Schubert’s Winterreise cycle tonight in Toronto @ Koerner Hall @royalconservatory.bsky.social Their approach was more theatrical than introspective... 1/
[Image: Winterreise etching by Inken Stabell from www.inkenstabell.com/winterreise-... ]
[Image: Winterreise etching by Inken Stabell from www.inkenstabell.com/winterreise-... ]
Top funny thing from @adapalmer.bsky.social ‘s INVENTING THE RENAISSANCE: “Filippino Lippi’s Saint Thomas Aquinas Interrupts the Annunciation to Introduce the Virgin Mary to Cardinal Carafa who paid for the painting, while patient Archangel Gabriel just has to wait.”
www.wga.hu/support/view...
www.wga.hu/support/view...
October 12, 2025 at 10:02 PM
Top funny thing from @adapalmer.bsky.social ‘s INVENTING THE RENAISSANCE: “Filippino Lippi’s Saint Thomas Aquinas Interrupts the Annunciation to Introduce the Virgin Mary to Cardinal Carafa who paid for the painting, while patient Archangel Gabriel just has to wait.”
www.wga.hu/support/view...
www.wga.hu/support/view...