Snobistic Forum

1. Tending to patronize, rebuff, or ignore people regarded as social inferiors and imitate, admire, or seek association with people regarded as social superiors.
2. Affecting an offensive air of self-satisfied superiority in matters of taste or intellect.

• Bent on Bonsai: a brief look back at Smarter Bonsai '04.
• Kokufu-Ten Behaving Badly: Ten things to mutter at a bonsai exhibit when confronted with inferior art.
• What Color is your Happi coat? Learn where to place your society lapel pins for maximum effect.

Feature Articles

Wabi and Sabi Explained (in Really Big Words)

An exploration in linguistics and grammar in bonsai art by psycholinguist Dr. B.N.Whardi exposes the paradox in expressing minimalist concepts wabi and sabi in his treatise "Wabi and Sabi Explained (in Really Big Words)."

 

Heuristic Limitations in Bonsai

"The historian discovers the past by the judicious use of such a heuristic device as the ‘ideal type’” (Karl J. Weintraub). The study and application of heuristic methods explores the processes applied to bonsai that lead to the formulation of a new paradigms, challenging assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitute a way of viewing art for the community that appreciates it.

 

Gallery: Quasimodo

Quasimodo can be admired for his own sake.  Weintraub Plotz shows us some of his imaginative interpretations of this obscure French bonsai artist's earlier works.

 

The Principle of the Boneyard

What happens to dead bonsai?  This display of dead and dying trees presents the compositional principle known as the boneyard.

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