The road to creativity (Creativityi út?)

As summer slowly mellows into our mild autumn, I'm enjoying getting lost in a dreamy 1896 lithograph by József Rippl-Rónai called "Village Festival" (right).

A new acquisition of the Cantor Arts Center, the work shows a summer day in the country. I especially love the sway of the woman's golden skirt. It creates motion in the middle of all that peaceful stillness, just a gentle touch of movement.

Am I biased because the artist was Hungarian? Nem, nem. But this all gives me nice memories of walking down Rippl-Rónai utca (street) in Budapest on my way to Hungarian class. It was in the embassy district, stately and leafy.

It's lovely to live in a place where the streets are named after artists. Not another (yawn) Central or University or Main. We get plenty of roads named after plants, which is all well and good. But in Hungary, I lived on the corner of Katona József (playwright), near streets named after Radnóti Miklós (poet), Balzac, and Raoul Wallenberg, who was a sort of artist in his own way. Also nearby was Jaszai Mari square, named after an actress and now a good place to catch a tram over the Danube.

But you can't win 'em all. One of the roads I remember from Budapest has the picturesque name of Ferihegyi Gyorsforgalmi út, which is typically translated as "Way to Ferihegy Airport."

A grim reminder

It's hard to say I enjoyed the exhibit "Inside Terrorism." I felt grim and disgusted, and there was nothing uplifting about it. But it certainly won't let you forget the ordinary people wounded by terrorist attacks.

Currently at Stanford's medical school, this is a collection of X-rays and CT scans taken from two Jerusalem hospitals -- images of victims of terrorists. The ghostly, ghastly views reveal small objects that were never meant to end up in bones and brains. One victim is a 4-year-old child whose skull was penetrated by shrapnel. Another image reveals a suicide bomber's watch that got embedded in a victim's neck.

These are chilling images, even without blood and faces. During a recent visit, I heard another woman repeating "Oh, my gosh" over and over.

Photographer Diane Covert compiled the pictures, hoping to show the broad range of humanity harmed by terrorism. See for yourself through Friday; the exhibit is open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the lobby of Fairchild Auditorium.

Yes, he got permission

That gentleman out painting on the Bloomingdale's windows looks familiar for a reason: It's Menlo Park artist Mitchell Johnson, armed with house paint, creating a mural on the windows facing El Camino. Regular Weekly readers (you never miss a week, do you, dear heart?) will recognize him from our May 18 cover profile.

Mitchell expects to be out there today and tomorrow from 11 to 5, painting his tribute to the abstract Color Field visual movement of the ‘50s and ‘60s. Several of his abstract paintings are also on exhibit inside the store -- you can see them and the mural through the end of September.

Pictured: "Flagpole" by Mitchell Johnson.