Even as Homer seemed to have grappled with important, sweeping religious questions in his work, he also clearly intended viewers to get lost in the details.
Although I grew up in New York and have lived there for many years, I have a summer studio in Maine. Every summer I pack up and go to paint following the tradition of so many of America's painters from Winslow Homer to Alex Katz.
After catching the morning Jet Blue flight from JFK to Portland, I hopped in a taxi and within 20 minutes I was at the Black Point Inn in the exclusive, seaside community of Prouts Neck.
Now-obscure and critically dismissed author W.J. Cash provides important keys to understanding Obama's troubles connecting with white working voters in the South and Appalachia and elsewhere.