Tigerloaf

bye bye Blogger

2009-06-09T19:15:00.003+01:00

Tigerloaf has moved: http://tigerloaf.wordpress.com/

Also from Kansas

2009-06-06T23:51:00.006+01:00

Louise Brooks, born in Cherryvale, Kansas, November 14, 1906

Kira Roessler

2009-06-06T23:28:00.007+01:00

Black Flag 1983: Kira, Bill, Greg, Henry

Kira at work

Kira Roessler holds her own in the hardest working band in show biz: Black Flag 1983-85.

Stereo Sanctity

2009-06-06T22:58:00.006+01:00

I'm keeping my commission to faith's transmission
Two speakers dream the same and skies turn red
Satellites flashing down orchard and delancey
I can't get laid cuz everyone is dead

Hey - gold connections
Analog soul waving in yr hair
Hey - hylozoic directions
She's talking blue streaks everywhere

Your spirit is time-reversed to your body
Stereographic mix-up field on field
It started growing up the day your body dies
Only apparently, real to irreal

Hey - stereo stations
Perfect image, kneel down
Hey - hypostatic information
Come on let's hear you turn it around

--Thurston Moore

(Phase 4 Stereo information card, from Children in Crisis shop, Abingdon, UK)

écriture automatique à deux

2009-06-06T22:41:00.005+01:00

It sounds as if it hurt this gracile lunatic movement like a woman in her first dress thinking, I must buy more make-up, my face is too large, my legs like a sausage hung up make me shrivel inside a cloth like spelt and seasoning which do not match my temperament of suddenness and swirling. Strike me a match, my head will fall and roll toward the door of the attic where I want to meet the one you have imprisoned there since the Days of Awe. You had it always held up there as a great white hope, a dawning on our faces. The water of life splashes my arse, burning and brilliant beneath the salt foam of life. I would not have it otherwise except the forced mania of the crater, a moon of peril. Bite it off at the root. The soil is full of beetles and rats wear fancy costumes wanting to be crocodiles and appearing in the form of fluorescent lizards in t-shirts of blue with red stitching. Wallingford is a town of coffee where matrons wobble a gesture of bonfemmie because their plants have grown well that year of their domestic symphony. At the time I had no idea what would happen. My years were all green and bending in the wind of the ventilators on the hills of a mechanical tide. The wind was elsewhere. But we were visited by the creature green as glass, little scarlet nothing. She held our hands and said, "Don't cry, the fortune is not yet in store." Then she vanished and lay in our eyes as any creature does that disappears. She was a grey slope on the downs of disparity. She walked off in a huff, trailing tears of tomorrow...

--DTH and CCL

twelvetone

2009-06-06T22:03:00.009+01:00

he had to flee
those clotted luminous landscapes
leidenschaft cloyed

in order to creep

catwise through cities

cubic geometries

he drank the blood of alien women

the air of other worlds

drugged and clarified him

that

like any addict

he knew at least

the one thing he must do

--words by DTH, painting by A. Schoenberg

Pipeline/Kill Time

2009-06-04T08:12:00.011+01:00

stretch me to the point where i stop
run ten thousand miles and then think of me
i think you know the place we should meet
don't worry if it's dark and i'm late

run me out a thin wire
help me to kill this, love
i'll join you tonight at the bottom of the well
feel around in the dark until you get the idea

i'm not moving doesn't mean i can't
flame on in my head
my best friend sucked his wife's blood and shriveled up
he was mistaken for sane

we move and groove and cut loose from fear
we should kill time, we'll shut it down
i've got a pipeline straight to the heart of you
opening in my head

bright glass on a chain being wound around us
the toiling of idle hands
dripping,
with guilt
a secret form of punishment
axes through skulls
shadow of futility
endless revolt
the shifting of light and shadows
dividing each existence

no-one is right
nothing is solid
nothing can be held in my hands for long
discontinuity

sandy beaches
bridges sinking into the sea
beautiful confusion
you're a fading memory

we should kill time

--Lee Ranaldo
(photo from Sonic Death #1)

When It Blows Its Stacks

2009-05-30T09:55:00.011+01:00

Whenever my thoughts turn to my distant native land of Kansas, one of the first and most frequent things that springs to mind is the weather. I don't think most Europeans can even imagine the ferocity of a Kansas summer storm. Tornadoes obliterate entire towns in seconds. The empty plains are a vast arena for the sublime and awful spectacle of the skies. Even J.M.W. Turner might have been at a loss to depict them. Like all true beauty it is also a little terrifying.

Some of these photos are by storm chaser Jim Reed.

In Memoriam - Takashi Shimura

2009-05-27T22:29:00.011+01:00

Toshiro Mifune is rightly celebrated as a lion of the Japanese and even the world's cinema. But for me the true hero of Japanese film is the honourable Takashi Shimura. He must have belonged to an earlier world of stagecraft to be able to communicate so much with the slightest twitch of his odd, plastic face. Seven Samurai, Rashomon, Stray Dog are only perhaps the hightest points of a majestic range of roles and beings. For me he is one of the immortals of art film, one of that select few who truly inhabit a role, mould themselves to it and say more with a glance than most of us could muster in pages of words.

Hannibal

2009-05-24T23:16:00.002+01:00

collage, 2008

In A Station

2009-05-24T00:23:00.005+01:00

Richard Manuel and friends

Once I walked through the halls of a station

Someone called your name

In the street I heard children laughing

They all sound the same

Wonder, could you ever know me

Know the reason why I live

Is there nothing you can show me

Life seems so little to give

Once I climbed up the face of a mountain

And ate the wild fruit there

Fell asleep until the moonlight woke me

And I could taste your hair

Isn't everybody dreaming!

Then the voice I hear is real

Out of all the idle scheming

Can't we have something to feel

Once upon a time leaves me empty

Tomorrow never came

I could sing the sound of your laughter

Still I don't know your name

Must be some way to repay you

Out of all the good you gave

If a rumour should delay you

Love seems so little to save

--Richard Manuel

Tears of Rage

2009-05-24T00:10:00.004+01:00

Richard Manuel and Bob Dylan

We carried you in our arms
On Independence Day,
And now you'd throw us all aside
And put us on our way.
Oh what dear daughter 'neath the sun
Would treat a father so,
To wait upon him hand and foot
And always tell him, "No"?
Tears of rage, tears of grief,
Why must I always be the thief?
Come to me now, you know
We're so alone
And life is brief.

We pointed out the way to go
And scratched your name in sand,
Though you just thought it was nothing more
Than a place for you to stand.
Now, I want you to know that while we watched,
You discover there was no one true.
Most ev'rybody really thought
It was a childish thing to do.
Tears of rage, tears of grief,
Must I always be the thief?
Come to me now, you know
We're so low
And life is brief.

It was all very painless
When you went out to receive
All that false instruction
Which we never could believe.
And now the heart is filled with gold
As if it was a purse.
But, oh, what kind of love is this
Which goes from bad to worse?
Tears of rage, tears of grief,
Must I always be the thief?
Come to me now, you know
We're so low
And life is brief.

--Bob Dylan Copyright ©1968; renewed 1996 Dwarf Music

abingdon fair

2009-05-23T23:54:00.006+01:00

steel glimpse

concrete grip slipping

extinction in effigy

scurrying

target

shelter

burnt paper sandwich

palate teeth tonguetip

sick hungry hangover stink

of cheap hydrocarbon foods

condiments

vinegar

brown sauce

in the rain

better hungry

tea and cake

fag ends in the gutter

run

later

sun

lime leaves are hearts

they yellow and fall

--words and photo by DTH

in summerwind

2009-05-23T23:41:00.009+01:00

gypsy twin

sister plucked from plains of high old summer

mythic childhood space

one day or three

a school year touched

some stretching slim

young animal's awkward grace

and gilded hair on limb

sun-kindled halo crowned

each on each

sun-burnished tint

a mirror in a mirror

Karen and Carrie, Mary

girls of summer

passed into the reach

of memory's summer garden

tended in age

stroked into relief

in every newborn summer's

griefless grief

--words and monoprint by DTH

revised moon

2009-05-23T23:30:00.008+01:00

this wound

that will not spill but thrills still

and dry

awaits the moon

a girl awaits

the blood that will not come

the mouth is closed

the sun

too soon wound round

in cloud awakes no song

no hue

the child is overdue

--words and photocollage by DTH

2009-05-22T07:50:00.003+01:00

"i am a seed in the slippery, silent, blind, breathless dark.
i have no nose or mouth, ears or eyes to see. just a skin
of satin black and a secret green dream deep inside."

Masson - Minotaure

2009-05-21T22:24:00.005+01:00

Bartholomew Griffin

2009-05-21T22:08:00.005+01:00

Sonnet 18 from Fidessa, 1596

O, She must love my sorrows to assuage.
O God ! what joy I felt when She did smile !
Whom killing grief before did cause to rage.
(Beauty is able Sorrow to beguile)
Out, traitor Absence ! thou dost hinder me !
And mak'st my Mistress often to forget,
Causing me to rail upon her cruelty,
Whilst thou my suit injuriously dost let !
Again, her Presence doth astonish me,
And strikes me dumb, as if my Sense were gone.
Oh ! is not this a strange perplexity ?
In presence, dumb ! she hears not absent moan !

Thus absent, presence; present, absence maketh:
That, hearing my poor suit, she it mistaketh !

Wise Old Dada

2009-05-07T09:03:00.003+01:00

VII

je dis comme je vis

je vois comme la voix

je prends comme j'offre

ma vie est ainsi

je ne dois rien à personne

je dois tout à tous les hommes

from Quarante Chansons et Déchansons, Tristan Tzara, 1954

Smoking is Cool

2009-05-07T00:11:00.006+01:00

Last Night's Listening

2009-05-03T09:49:00.003+01:00

I fired up my old Dual 505 record deck last night and with an improvised mess of laptop, computer speakers, bits of wire and cheap stereo jacks bought from Amazon we managed to listen to a few of the survivors of my once great LP collection. Though my days of vinyl fetishism are long past it is lovely to hear again the natural intimate sound of the black disc with just enough snap and crackle to remind one of the old days. These are all quite special recordings in their different ways but Schwanengesang with Hans Hotter and Gerald Moore is a marvel of the age, two immortals making music as though they merely breathed, naturally and truly.

Two Surrealist Altars

2009-05-01T23:06:00.004+01:00

Wifredo Lam, Altar for "La chevelure de Falmer", 1947

Matta, Altar dedicated to Marcel Duchamp's "He who takes care of Gravity", 1947

found here

Speaking of Silence

2009-04-30T18:46:00.004+01:00

Marcel Duchamp at 13

As Rrose Sélavy, photo by Man Ray, 1921

As Adam in Satie's ballet Relâche, 1924

Photo by Victor Obsatz, 1953

Torn-paper self-portrait, 1958

"Marcel Duchamp, having become an aristocrat because of his original Dadaist anarchism, categorically refuses to take part in the contemporary artistic brawl. He does not want to be identified with those who tirelessly continue "barking at the moon," he abandons painting, not as an act of artistic suicide, but because he continues to have swift nudes cross the king and the queen in his thoughts, while playing chess."

--Salvador Dali, Art News, April 1959

Five years after Dali's salute to the sardonic eminence grise of the avant-garde, Joseph Beuys would challenge Duchamp's reputation on behalf of a new generation of socially engaged young artists. "The Silence of Marcel Duchamp is Overrated," he declared in a performance of 1964. I believe the obvious retort has already been made long ago: "The Talking of Joseph Beuys is Overrated!" While there is much I admire in Beuy's work, a little of his prophetic posturing goes a long way. I find much more repose and refreshment in Duchamp's playful economy of sparse gestures, each one of which seems to have launched a new genre and a hundred artistic careers. Where would Beuys himself have been without the example of Duchamp's readymades, which he magnified and multiplied into mountains of earnest kitsch?

Alas for Duchamp, even in retreat he could not escape from the interpretations of his critics and rivals. The game of art once begun could not be resigned. Probably he chuckled at Beuys' rhetoric in silent amusement, if he regarded it at all. Perhaps he even agreed. His absent presence remains a pleasure and a peace in this age of noise, for his silence was not vacancy.

To You

2009-04-22T07:45:00.006+01:00

Whoever you are, I fear you are walking the walks of dreams,
I fear these supposed realities are to melt from under your feet and hands,
Even now your features, joys, speech, house, trade, manners,
troubles, follies, costume, crimes, dissipate away from you,
Your true soul and body appear before me.
They stand forth out of affairs, out of commerce, shops, work,
farms, clothes, the house, buying, selling, eating, drinking,
suffering, dying.

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem,
I whisper with my lips close to your ear.
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.

O I have been dilatory and dumb,
I should have made my way straight to you long ago,
I should have blabb'd nothing but you, I should have chanted nothing
but you.

I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you,
None has understood you, but I understand you,
None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself,
None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in you,
None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never consent
to subordinate you,
I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God,
beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself.

Painters have painted their swarming groups and the centre-figure of all,
From the head of the centre-figure spreading a nimbus of gold-color'd light,
But I paint myriads of heads, but paint no head without its nimbus
of gold-color'd light,
From my hand from the brain of every man and woman it streams,
effulgently flowing forever.

O I could sing such grandeurs and glories about you!
You have not known what you are, you have slumber'd upon yourself
all your life,
Your eyelids have been the same as closed most of the time,
What you have done returns already in mockeries,
(Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in
mockeries, what is their return?)

The mockeries are not you,
Underneath them and within them I see you lurk,
I pursue you where none else has pursued you,
Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the
accustom'd routine, if these conceal you from others or from
yourself, they do not conceal you from me,
The shaved face, the unsteady eye, the impure complexion, if these
balk others they do not balk me,
The pert apparel, the deform'd attitude, drunkenness, greed,
premature death, all these I part aside.

There is no endowment in man or woman that is not tallied in you,
There is no virtue, no beauty in man or woman, but as good is in you,
No pluck, no endurance in others, but as good is in you,
No pleasure waiting for others, but an equal pleasure waits for you.

As for me, I give nothing to any one except I give the like carefully
to you,
I sing the songs of the glory of none, not God, sooner than I sing
the songs of the glory of you.

Whoever you are! claim your own at any hazard!
These shows of the East and West are tame compared to you,
These immense meadows, these interminable rivers, you are immense
and interminable as they,
These furies, elements, storms, motions of Nature, throes of apparent
dissolution, you are he or she who is master or mistress over them,
Master or mistress in your own right over Nature, elements, pain,
passion, dissolution.

The hopples fall from your ankles, you find an unfailing sufficiency,
Old or young, male or female, rude, low, rejected by the rest,
whatever you are promulges itself,
Through birth, life, death, burial, the means are provided, nothing
is scanted,
Through angers, losses, ambition, ignorance, ennui, what you are
picks its way.

--Walt Whitman

young Bardot

2009-03-09T19:23:00.003Z

Dimitri Mitropoulos

2009-03-04T23:25:00.001Z

(1 March 1896 – November 2, 1960)

I had intended to post this on Maestro Mitropoulos's birthday, but forgot. Consider it the first of my 'Smoking is Cool' posts. Also a great conductor, inspirational musician, etc...

sic semper tyrranis

2009-02-19T21:47:00.005Z

The Akond of Swat

Who, or why, or which, or what, Is the Akond of SWAT?
Is he tall or short, or dark or fair?
Does he sit on a stool or a sofa or a chair,
        or SQUAT,
    The Akond of Swat?

Is he wise or foolish, young or old?
Does he drink his soup and his coffee cold,
        or HOT,
    The Akond of Swat?

Does he sing or whistle, jabber or talk,
And when riding abroad does he gallop or walk
        or TROT,
    The Akond of Swat?

Does he wear a turban, a fez, or a hat?
Does he sleep on a mattress, a bed, or a mat,
        or COT,
    The Akond of Swat?

When he writes a copy in round-hand size,
Does he cross his T's and finish his I's
        with a DOT,
    The Akond of Swat?

Can he write a letter concisely clear
Without a speck or a smudge or smear
        or BLOT,
    The Akond of Swat?

Do his people like him extremely well?
Or do they, whenever they can, rebel,
        or PLOT,
    At the Akond of Swat?

If he catches them then, either old or young,
Does he have them chopped in pieces or hung,
        or SHOT,
    The Akond of Swat?

Do his people prig in the lanes or park?
Or even at times, when days are dark,
        GAROTTE,
    The Akond of Swat?

Does he study the wants of his own dominion?
Or doesn't he care for public opinion
        a JOT,
    The Akond of Swat?

To amuse his mind do his people show him
Pictures, or any one's last new poem,
        or WHAT,
    For the Akond of Swat?

At night if he suddenly screams and wakes,
Do they bring him only a few small cakes,
        or a LOT,
    For the Akond of Swat?

Does he live on turnips, tea, or tripe?
Does he like his shawl to be marked with a stripe,
        or a DOT,
    The Akond of Swat?

Does he like to lie on his back in a boat
Like the lady who lived in that isle remote,
        SHALLOTT,
    The Akond of Swat?

Is he quiet, or always making a fuss?
Is his steward a Swiss or a Swede or Russ,
        or a SCOT,
    The Akond of Swat?

Does he like to sit by the calm blue wave?
Or to sleep and snore in a dark green cave,
        or a GROTT,
    The Akond of Swat?

Does he drink small beer from a silver jug?
Or a bowl? or a glass? or a cup? or a mug?
        or a POT,
    The Akond of Swat?

Does he beat his wife with a gold-topped pipe,
When she lets the gooseberries grow too ripe,
        or ROT,
    The Akond of Swat?

Does he wear a white tie when he dines with friends,
And tie it neat in a bow with ends,
        or a KNOT.
    The Akond of Swat?

Does he like new cream, and hate mince-pies?
When he looks at the sun does he wink his eyes,
        or NOT,
    The Akond of Swat?

Does he teach his subjects to roast and bake?
Does he sail about on an inland lake
        in a YACHT,
    The Akond of Swat?

Some one, or nobody, knows I wot
Who or which or why or what
    Is the Akond of Swat?

strange & beautiful film 4: Italian double feature

2009-02-10T17:56:00.008Z

Matrimonio all'Italiana (1964) and
Ieri, Oggi, Domani (1963)

Not so strange, but very beautiful. De Sica, Mastroianni, Loren, Italy, 1960's: what more needs to be said? Two absolutely sublime films from a golden age.

Daniel Clowes

2008-12-23T16:12:00.006Z

Eightball covers gallery at zines

A heaping helping of modern misery: The complete Mister Wonderful at the New York Times

s & b film of the week 3 - double feature

2008-12-14T23:20:00.018Z

Downtown 81 and Permanent Vacation

These two films should really be watched together, as opposite sides of a debased currency, a good/bad penny coughed up from the dying lungs of the 'underground' circa 1980. One side is shiny mint, the other scuffed and marred. Basquiat's optimistic fantasy plays prelude to fairy tale success and rock star death, while Jarmusch's anonymous antihero pushes off into nowhere. Somewhere along the way art dies and commerce becomes cool...

the poetry of Leif Segerstam

2008-12-12T23:51:00.008Z

Esteemed Finnish conductor and wildman Leif Segerstam has a unique insight into the expressive possibilities of the English language:

"I have words for everything that can be expressed:

Coincidentimently
Embryomalic
Electrifically
Fiveishness
Flimmer
Inexclickable
Fenugrish five things
I am fluxating in 8.
It is a Valsefy."

Graham Nasby has an extensive archive of Segerstam's astonishing neologisms.

parisian paperback purchases

2008-12-09T21:05:00.005Z

Even on a dark, wintry evening, with a gelid wind blowing along the Seine, one may find the odd stalwart bookseller plying his trade.

far away fluxus

2008-12-06T16:29:00.003Z

The Dream of Fluxus at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art is the largest Fluxus show ever held in Britain, and I would love to see it. Unfortunately the BALTIC is in Gateshead and I can't see myself schlepping so far north, even for an exhibition as interesting as this promises to be. It might as well be at the Pole...

Gottfried Benn - Untergrundbahn (1913)

2008-11-27T21:40:00.003Z

Die weichen Schauer. Blütenfrühe. Wie
aus warmen Fellen kommt es aus den Wäldern.
Ein Rot schwärmt auf. Das große Blut steigt an.

Durch all den Frühling kommt die fremde Frau.
Der Strumpf am Spann ist da. Doch, wo er endet,
ist weit von mir. Ich schluchze auf der Schwelle:
laues Geblühe, fremde Feuchtigkeiten.

Oh, wie ihr Mund die laue Luft verprasst!
Du Rosenhirn, Meer-Blut, du Höherzwielicht,
du Erdenbeet, wie strömen deine Hüften
so kühl den Hauch hervor, in dem du gehst!

Dunkel: nun lebt es unter ihren Kleidern:
nur weißes Tier, gelöst und stummer Duft.

Ein armer Hirnhund, schwer mit Gott behangen.
Ich bin der Stirn so satt. Oh, ein Gerüste
von Blütenkolben löste sanft sie ab
und schwellte mit und schauerte und triefte.

So losgelöst. So müde. Ich will wandern.
Blutlos die Wege. Lieder aus den Gärten.
Schatten und Sintflut. Fernes Glück: ein Sterben
hin in des Meers erlösend tiefes Blau.

mobile home

2008-11-27T21:27:00.003Z

Ilona's Snail House, by night and by day

plus ça change

2008-11-26T22:02:00.005Z

The Boulevard Montparnasse has altered so little since Camille Pissaro depicted its changing, changeless face in 1897. I hope to return soon to Paris...

strange and beautiful film of the week 2

2008-11-16T23:50:00.009Z

Sedmikrasky aka Daisies (dir. Vera Chytilová, 1966)

Delightful document of the short-lived Czech New Wave, in which two thoroughly modern young women embark upon an epic journey of boredom, petty crime, provocation and mockery. A freewheeling romp of extreme montage, sudden shifts, spontaneous installations and special disaffections. Something like the futility of freedom.

let's return to the trees

2008-11-16T10:29:00.002Z

Lioness by Douglas Ross

joshuas by night

2008-11-13T13:43:00.002Z

photos from Lost America

strange and beautiful film of the week

2008-11-08T10:31:00.006Z

Valerie a týden divů (Valerie and Her Week of Wonders) is quite simply one of the most beautiful films ever made and should be seen by all lovers of dreams. Furthermore it is yet another product of that greatest of all years, 1970. Warped Reality has two cues from the original soundtrack, as well as some pleasing samples of the Valerie Project, music inspired by the film. There is a large gallery of screenshots at The Cherry Blossom Girl.

history = remembrance = love

2008-11-02T00:46:00.007Z

Moving images of teenage resistance fighters during the Warsaw Uprising, 2 September 1944. There is a great movie to be made from this story...

(photos by Jerzy Tomaszewski from Wikimedia)

and I still see their faces...

2008-10-31T20:18:00.008Z

A few samples from an amazing photographic archive of Polish Jewry before the Shoah.

seasonal citation

2008-10-31T13:28:00.005Z

"Fall is a great touring show, poetically deceptive, an enormous purple-skinned onion disclosing ever new panoramas under each of its skins. No center can be reached. Behind each wing that is moved and stored away, new and radiant scenes open up, true and alive for a moment, until you realize that they are made of cardboard. All perspectives are painted, and only the smell is authentic, the smell of wilting scenery or theatrical dressing rooms, a pile up of discarded costumes among which you wade endlessly as if through yellow fallen leaves."

Bruno Schulz, "A Second Fall"

auguries of autumn

2008-10-26T20:03:00.008Z

some seasonal scenes by the prolific and rather sweet Tor Lundvall

Under the Shadows of Trees #5, 2001

The Secret Place, 2000

October Moon, 2000

November, 1999

FRÈRE BOIS par TRISTAN TZARA

2008-10-17T22:56:00.004+01:00

frère bois
et sœur pierre
les malins
vont au bois
cueillir des pierres

sur les douves
dans les prés
on ne trouve
que regrets
parait-il

tu ouvres les ailes
pour partir en voyage
tu te moques de nous
cheval
à ton âge

tard levé
tôt couché
soleil frileux
parle-moi de Botticelli

some crows

2008-10-12T08:19:00.004+01:00

Japanese prints, early 20th century

anticipating winter in a warm season

2008-10-12T08:15:00.002+01:00

No Possum, No Sop, No Taters

by Wallace Stevens

He is not here, the old sun,
As absent as if we were asleep.

The field is frozen. The leaves are dry.
Bad is final in this light.

In this bleak air the broken stalks
Have arms without hands. They have trunks

Without legs or, for that, without heads.
They have heads in which a captive cry

Is merely the moving of a tongue.
Snow sparkles like eyesight falling to earth,

Like seeing fallen brightly away.
The leaves hop, scraping on the ground.

It is deep January. The sky is hard.
The stalks are firmly rooted in ice.

It is in this solitude, a syllable,
Out of these gawky flitterings,

Intones its single emptiness,
The savagest hollow of winter-sound.

It is here, in this bad, that we reach
The last purity of the knowledge of good.

The crow looks rusty as he rises up.
Bright is the malice in his eye...

One joins him there for company,
But at a distance, in another tree.

more vintage indolence

2008-08-31T22:14:00.004+01:00

from Paris Magazine, November 1931

(Au carrefour étrange)

Matta 1970

2008-08-20T21:54:00.005+01:00

Je-ographie

Dar a la vida una luz

Blotti sous l'escorpion

Three vast paintings by Matta, from the year of my birth.

L'apologie de la paresse

2008-08-19T19:39:00.004+01:00

Pictures of old-time poppy enthusiasts from Histoire de l'Oeil

a home for dreamers

2008-07-30T08:15:00.004+01:00

Ukrainian sky ship. More photos here.

Zu Abend mein Herz

2008-07-16T00:50:00.003+01:00

Am Abend hört man den Schrei der Fledermäuse.
Zwei Rappen springen auf der Wiese.
Der rote Ahorn rauscht.
Dem Wanderer erscheint die kleine Schenke am Weg.
Herrlich schmecken junger Wein und Nüsse.
Herrlich: betrunken zu taumeln in dämmernden Wald.
Durch schwarzes Geäst tönen schmerzliche Glocken.
Auf das Gesicht tropft Tau.

--Georg Trakl, 1913

Vintage album art

2008-07-14T21:14:00.014+01:00

Ted Coconis, Album cover for RCA Records, c. 1971

Kitsch but striking sleeve art for my favourite Shostakovich symphony, in a sort of Klimt meets Hammer Horror style. I'm not sure about the big skull, which appears to have been painted with toothpaste, but I like the interlocking nudes and crosses just below and to the right of it:

A quick Google search reveals that illustrator Ted Coconis is still around, though his recent paintings lack the period charm of works like this Jefferson Airplane sleeve, featuring a clever parody of Hugo van der Goes' Fall of Man:

Ted Coconis, Album cover for RCA Records (detail), date unknown

A film poster, Dorian Gray, yields this characteristic detail, which would have made an excellent, if trashy, cover for Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita:

Ted Coconis, Film poster for Dorian Gray (detail), c. 1973

Bulgakov brings us back round to Russia and Shostakovich's 14th Symphony, a harrowing, death-wracked song-cycle for soprano, bass, strings and percussion. Composed in 1969, it sets poems by Lorca, Apollinaire and Rilke. Much as I admire it, I can only bring myself to listen to it every two or three years, so tormented and tormenting is it. Perhaps I'm due another hearing.

The Isle of the Dead

2008-07-13T22:07:00.009+01:00

1883

All day I have been listening obsessively to Rachmaninoff's symphonic poem "The Isle of the Dead", the composer's response to the famous painting by the idiosyncratic Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin. Rachmaninoff was obsessed with and terrified by death, and his music is mournful and doom-laden enough. Böcklin's intentions were perhaps somewhat different. He did not give the painting its title, and declared that he painted in order to make people dream: “Just as it is poetry's task to express feelings, painting must provoke them too. A picture must give the spectator as much food for thought as a poem and must make the same kind of impression as a piece of music. Who would ever have been able to anticipate the effect of music before having heard it? Painting should pervade the soul in the same way, and as long as it does not do this it is nothing more than a brainless handicraft. There is no end to the poetry of the beautiful.”

I have indeed dreamt long over these depictions of what seem, in my gloomier moments, ideal places of exile. If it is not, after all, a tomb-island, it would make a perfect retreat. I have left off the customary titles so as not to impede the dreaming.

1878

1886

In every dream home a heartache

2008-07-12T23:56:00.009+01:00

Since childhood I've been fascinated by abandoned houses, and I dream of them frequently. Here are some magnificent examples from Russia, which would once have made fine settings for the stories of Tolstoy or Chekhov. It's extraordinary how these houses have sat empty and slowly decaying, perhaps since 1917, while the world has rushed on. So many human projects that could not be sustained, lost in time.

Siesta, or the Joys of Tigerloafing

2008-07-06T22:50:00.007+01:00

Frederick Arthur Bridgman, The Siesta, 1878

In my lengthy search for a suitable image to accompany my translation of Govoni's "Peonies", failing to find a satisfactory painting of that flower, I began to look instead at odalisques, and gradually became somewhat obsessed with the motif of languidly reclining woman, so favoured by 19th century painters. I find this work especially soothing; the mild play of light and shade, the harmonious array of complementary colours, the glimpse of lush mediterranean greenery. I could spend days on this sofa, provided some discreet familiar to regularly refill pipe and teapot. Perhaps the monkey would oblige.

I can no longer read novels

2008-07-05T22:52:00.006+01:00

Many years ago a dear friend of mine, a poet, declared that he did not read many novels. They were, in his words "dilute poetry". I was not at that time inclined to agree with him, but of late I find a great weariness creeps over me at the thought of reading fiction, a weariness which becomes overwhelming on actually opening a novel and reading a first line. I find myself much in accord with this passage from André Breton's 1924 Manifesto of Surrealism:

...the realistic attitude, inspired by positivism, from Saint Thomas Aquinas to Anatole France, clearly seems to me to be hostile to any intellectual or moral advancement. I loathe it, for it is made up of mediocrity, hate, and dull conceit. It is this attitude which today gives birth to these ridiculous books, these insulting plays. It constantly feeds on and derives strength from the newspapers and stultifies both science and art by assiduously flattering the lowest of tastes; clarity bordering on stupidity, a dog’s life. The activity of the best minds feels the effects of it; the law of the lowest common denominator finally prevails upon them as it does upon the others. An amusing result of this state of affairs, in literature for example, is the generous supply of novels. Each person adds his personal little "observation" to the whole. As a cleansing antidote to all this, M. Paul Valéry recently suggested that an anthology be compiled in which the largest possible number of opening passages from novels be offered; the resulting insanity, he predicted, would be a source of considerable edification. The most famous authors would be included. Such a thought reflects great credit on Paul Valéry who, some time ago, speaking of novels, assured me that, so far as he was concerned, he would continue to refrain from writing: "The Marquise went out at five." But has he kept his word?

If the purely informative style, of which the sentence just quoted is a prime example, is virtually the rule rather than the exception in the novel form, it is because, in all fairness, the author’s ambition is severely circumscribed. The circumstantial, needlessly specific nature of each of their notations leads me to believe that they are perpetrating a joke at my expense. I am spared not even one of the character’s slightest vacillations: will he be fairhaired? what will his name be? will we first meet him during the summer? So many questions resolved once and for all, as chance directs; the only discretionary power left me is to close the book, which I am careful to do somewhere in the vicinity of the first page. And the descriptions! There is nothing to which their vacuity can be compared; they are nothing but so many superimposed images taken from some stock catalogue, which the author utilizes more and more whenever he chooses; he seizes the opportunity to slip me his postcards, he tries to make me agree with him about the clichés:

The small room into which the young man was shown was covered with yellow wallpaper: there were geraniums in the windows, which were covered with muslin curtains; the setting sun cast a harsh light over the entire setting... There was nothing special about the room. The furniture, of yellow wood, was all very old. A sofa with a tall back turned down, an oval table opposite the sofa, a dressing table and a mirror set against the pierglass, some chairs along the walls, two or three etchings of no value portraying some German girls with birds in their hands – such were the furnishings. (Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment)

I am in no mood to admit that the mind is interested in occupying itself with such matters, even fleetingly. It may be argued that this school-boy description has its place, and that at this juncture of the book the author has his reasons for burdening me. Nevertheless he is wasting his time, for I refuse to go into his room. Others’ laziness or fatigue does not interest me. I have too unstable a notion of the continuity of life to equate or compare my moments of depression or weakness with my best moments. When one ceases to feel, I am of the opinion one should keep quiet. And I would like it understood that I am not accusing or condemning lack of originality as such. I am only saying that I do not take particular note of the empty moments of my life, that it may be unworthy for any man to crystallize those which seem to him to be so. I shall, with your permission, ignore the description of that room, and many more like it.

Peonies

2008-06-22T21:47:00.004+01:00

paraphrase from the Italian of Corrado Govoni

Peony, exaggerate rose, rose
Dionysiac, rose in crinolines
Rose proud as a princeling
Posing in the mirror

Odalisque bathing nude
And voluptuous, between mirrors
In precious majolica vases
Impassive as a Grand Eunuch

Rose pregnant with red (O
Dimpled womb of ecstasy!) your faint scent
Spreads like the fresh, cool feeling

Of a languid twilight, roseate
After the rain, when a cock crows;
Or of a placid crystal mirror.

--DTH

l'Atelier de Georges Braque

2008-06-21T18:37:00.006+01:00

"In Art there is only one thing that counts; the thing you can't explain."

Atelier II, 1949

"We will never have repose. The present is perpetual."

Atelier V, 1949-50

"It is the unforeseeable that creates the event."

Atelier VI, 1950-51

"I don’t do as I want, I do as I can."

André Breton. L'union libre (1931)

2008-06-21T15:10:00.009+01:00

Ma femme à la chevelure de feu de bois

Aux pensées d'éclairs de chaleur

A la taille de sablier

Ma femme à la taille de loutre entre les dents du tigre

Ma femme à la bouche de cocarde et de bouquet d'étoiles de dernière grandeur

Aux dents d'empreintes de souris blanche sur la terre blanche

A la langue d'ambre et de verre frottés

Ma femme à la langue d'hostie poignardée

A la langue de poupée qui ouvre et ferme les yeux

A la langue de pierre incroyable

Ma femme aux cils de bâtons d'écriture d'enfant

Aux sourcils de bord de nid d'hirondelle

Ma femme aux tempes d'ardoise de toit de serre

Et de buée aux vitres

Ma femme aux épaules de champagne

Et de fontaine à têtes de dauphins sous la glace

Ma femme aux poignets d'allumettes

Ma femme aux doigts de hasard et d'as de coeur

Aux doigts de foin coupé

Ma femme aux aisselles de martre et de fênes

De nuit de la Saint-Jean

De troène et de nid de scalares

Aux bras d'écume de mer et d'écluse

Et de mélange du blé et du moulin

Ma femme aux jambes de fusée

Aux mouvements d'horlogerie et de désespoir

Ma femme aux mollets de moelle de sureau

Ma femme aux pieds d'initiales

Aux pieds de trousseaux de clés aux pieds de calfats qui boivent

Ma femme au cou d'orge imperlé

Ma femme à la gorge de Val d'or

De rendez-vous dans le lit même du torrent

Aux seins de nuit

Ma femme aux seins de taupinière marine

Ma femme aux seins de creuset du rubis

Aux seins de spectre de la rose sous la rosée

Ma femme au ventre de dépliement d'éventail des jours

Au ventre de griffe géante

Ma femme au dos d'oiseau qui fuit vertical

Au dos de vif-argent

Au dos de lumière

A la nuque de pierre roulée et de craie mouillée

Et de chute d'un verre dans lequel on vient de boire

Ma femme aux hanches de nacelle

Aux hanches de lustre et de pennes de flèche

Et de tiges de plumes de paon blanc

De balance insensible

Ma femme aux fesses de grès et d'amiante

Ma femme aux fesses de dos de cygne

Ma femme aux fesses de printemps

Au sexe de glaïeul

Ma femme au sexe de placer et d'ornithorynque

Ma femme au sexe d'algue et de bonbons anciens

Ma femme au sexe de miroir

Ma femme aux yeux pleins de larmes

Aux yeux de panoplie violette et d'aiguille aimantée

Ma femme aux yeux de savane

Ma femme aux yeux d'eau pour boire en prison

Ma femme aux yeux de bois toujours sous la hache

Aux yeux de niveau d'eau de niveau d'air de terre et de feu.

:: I would very much like to translate this poem but unfortunately some key words like "fesses" and indeed "femme" lack pleasing equivalents in English. Perhaps I will attempt a sort of paraphrase...

Arshile Gorky

2008-06-01T23:55:00.007+01:00

One Year the Milkweed, 1944

The Plough and the Song, 1947

Agony, 1947

Today there are new formulae for time and space. We travel fast and must master these new formulae before they master us. Today nothing is too fantastic for the body or for the spirit. And so perhaps, bringing with us a fraction of Gorky's devotion, we should attempt a new flight of the perceptions towards the more rapid recognition, the almost instantaneous comprehension - not of everything new but of anything great.

JULIEN LEVY Paris, 1962

Crying Raincoat

2008-05-28T20:36:00.003+01:00

again Tzara again

2008-05-24T21:11:00.014+01:00

the great la-
ment of my
obscurity one

cold whirlpool zigzag of blood
i have no soul cascade with no
friends no talents lord
i don't always receive
my mother's letters
which must pass through Russia
through Norway and through England
memories in red spirals
burn my brain on the rows
of the amphitheatre
and like a luminous advertisement
of my soul, misfortune gushed from
the sphere
tower of light teeming ring
of blue ants
nimbus searing drought of
afflictions

come close to me so the prayer
won't annoy you it descends in
the earth like diving suits
yet to be invented
then iron obscurity will change
to wine and salt
simplicity lightning rod of our
plants take care
lightning rods that form
a spider
thus i become the crown of an
enormous christ
formless land voltaic arc

snow eagles will come
to feed the rock
where deep clay will become
milk
and the milk will trouble the night the
chains will ring
the rain will make heavy
chains
will form wheels in space
rays
the sceptre in the middle among
branches
old newspapers tapestries
a paralytic
nimbus drought
teeming ring of blue ants
lord golden finger furnace
sphingerie
why strangle it why
after the thunderclap the military
march will burst out
my despair tinny iron tube
but why oh why?
thus thus always but the road
you must be my rain my
obscurity my metal my
circuit my pharmacy weep
no more weep no more
if you wish

TRANSLATION DTH 24MAY08

amours poulpes

2008-05-14T22:59:00.010+01:00

belly heap of snakes
little tufted chaos

toca te
they take you by the palms
around the palms
around the waist around
the neck

pink-freckled breasts of flesh-eating swans
bloody foam flecks nacreous beaks

dans l'air une poule énorme
toute nue entraîne des gros
bijoux
des coléoptères couleur jaune
chromium
carapace pourpre aux quatre seins

traceries of coral jelly
blue-eyed daisies

pinces griffent
polypes grimpent

--DTH

Jindřich Ulrich, Prague's Alchemist of Tiny

2008-05-13T21:04:00.003+01:00

The Golem and His Creator

arousal and surprise

2008-05-09T11:54:00.003+01:00

Le navire perdu, Alberto Savinio, 1926

pupils widen mouth o
tits nip buds and hop
leaf litter of poems fallen
faded under sun

gilded under belly
morning streaked through
words through clouds unread until
pulled in a second maidenhead
of gut and throat
sung rut and groan

drowning in earth we
less than puppets which
never sleep nor lie
mute eloquence we know not
hands doves fluttering to the door
our waking by the tree
in the dew in the dawn

--DTH

I would just like to be with you

2008-05-02T01:43:00.001+01:00

Giorgio for Gini

2008-05-01T12:53:00.007+01:00

The Song of Love 1913

Return, O my first happiness!
Joy inhabits the strange cities,
A new magic
has descended to earth
City of undreamed dreams,
Constructed by daemons
with such patience,
Faithful to you I will sing!
One day I too will be a
man of stone,
Bridegroom, widower on an Etruscan tomb...
That day,
maternal goddess, hold me tight
In your great embrace, of stone

-- Giorgio de Chirico, Ferrara 1917

The Disquieting Muses 1917

Great Metaphysical Interior 1917

from Vingt-Cinq Poèmes de Tristan Tzara

2008-04-30T13:59:00.011+01:00

the leprous white

giant of the landscape

salt groups itself in constellation

of birds on the tumour of wadding

in its lungs starfish and

drawing pins balance

microbes crystallize in

palm trees of muscles seesaws

hello without a cigarette tzantzantza

ganga

bouzdouc zdouc nfoùnfa mbaah

mbaah nfoùnfa

macrocystis perifera to embrace the

boats surgeon of boats

clean humid scar

idleness of brilliant lights

the boats nfoùnfa nfoùnfa

nfoùnfa

i force candles into his

ears gangànfah helicon and

boxer on the balcony the violin

of the hotel in baobabs of flames

the flames develop in

sponge formation

the flames are sponges

ngànga and strike

the ladders climb like

blood gangà

the ferns toward the woolen

steppes my chance toward the cas-

cades

the flames sponges of glass the
mattresses wounds mattresses
the mattresses fall wancanca
aha bzdouc the butterflies
the scissors the scissors the scissors
and the shadows
the scissors and the clouds the sci-
ssors the ships
the thermometer considers the ultra-
red gmbabàba
berthe my education my tail
is cold and monochromatic
nfoua loua la
the mushrooms oranges and the
family of sounds beyond the starboard
in the beginning in the beginning the triangle
and the tree of voyagers in the beginning

my brains depart for hy-
perbole
the kaolin swarms in its cranial
box
dalibouli obok and tòmbo and tòmbo
his belly is a big cashbox
here intervene the drum major
and the clapper
for there are zigzags on his
soul the reader begins to shout
he begins to shout begins to
shout then in the shout there are
flutes that multiply - some
corals
the reader wants to die perhaps
or dance and begins to shout
he's a skinny dirty idiot he doesn't un-
derstand my verse he shouts
he's one-eyed
he has zigzags on his soul
and lots of rrrrrrr
nbaze baze look at the submarine
tiara that unravels in golden
seaweeds
hozondrac trac

nfoùnda nbabàba nfoùnda tatan

babàba

TRANSLATION DTH 30APR08

or we could just live in a yurt....

2008-04-23T05:12:00.001+01:00

home on the range

2008-04-18T01:11:00.004+01:00

Compared to North Dakota my native state of Kansas is a bustling metropolis, yet still I feel these lost and empty places, these huge skies, to the soles of my feet. Forty years ago my parents once augmented their meager income by raiding such lost homesteads as these, haunted and wary of rattlensnakes. In Kansas there are some 3,000 ghost towns, but in North Dakota are there any living towns?

This is the landscape of my dreams; by night I wander these plains and try to live in such shells of habitations. Here I am at home. As the lady says, “I love it here... It’s my own little corner of the world.”

From such a fundament of bleakness the only way is up, this is a tabula rasa primed for any mark. The frontier is not tamed, it lives wild, and the photographer retraces pioneer steps and guides us through territories so much emptier for having once been inhabitated.

Meet you there.

underwaterpeople

2008-04-09T18:40:00.000+01:00

Wanderlust

2008-04-07T22:17:00.012+01:00

How to make musk oxen

Short Talk On Housing

2008-03-25T01:35:00.002Z

Anne Carson

Here is one thing you can do if you
have no house. Wear several hats -
maybe three, four. In the event of rain
or snow, remove the one(s) that get(s)
wet. Secondly, to be a householder is
a matter of rituals. Rituals function
chiefly to differentiate horizontal from
vertical. To begin the day in your house
is to 'get up'. At night you will 'lie
down'. When old Tio Pedro comes
over for tea you will 'speak up', for
these days his hearing is 'on the
decline'. If his wife is with him you
will be sure to have 'cleaned up' the
kitchen and parlour so as not to 'fall'
in her opinion. Watching the two of
them, as they sit side by side on the
couch smoking one cigarette, you feel
your 'heart lift'. These patterns of up
and down can be imitated, outside the
house, in vertical and horizontal
designs upon the clothing. The lines
are not hard to make. Hats do not
need to be so decorated for they will
'pile up' on your head, in and of them-
selves, qua hats, if you have understood
my original instruction.

look out my window

2008-03-23T22:15:00.003Z

Wake up you sleepy head
Put on some clothes, shake up your bed
Put another log on the fire for me
I've made some breakfast and coffee
Look out my window what do I see
A crack in the sky and a hand reaching down to me
All the nightmares came today
And it looks as though they're here to stay

Heteroteuthis hawaiiensis

2008-03-13T23:34:00.001Z

On second thought, I'd rather be this one...

love your squid

2008-03-06T22:52:00.001Z

click the pic for the whole touching story...

Metasepia pfefferi

2008-03-01T23:44:00.003Z

This is who I'd like to be today...

a squid eating shrimp is fast and bulbous

2008-02-15T19:00:00.003Z

mini miniature mouse

2008-02-13T23:02:00.009Z

we ride into the sunset now, yes?

A Little Neuroscience

2008-02-07T08:38:00.000Z

Never trust poets

2008-02-05T21:18:00.001Z

A City inside the TV

I found a place where we can live

2008-01-28T22:19:00.000Z

A place for us to live where we can see the sky and the water and watch the sun melt into the waves.

2008-01-08T19:30:00.000Z

A pilgrimage to a self.

Almond trees.

John Atkinson Grimshaw

2008-01-06T00:01:00.002Z

Liverpool from Wapping, c. 1875

Mr. John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893) had an uncanny talent for capturing the sodden atmospheres of this delightful island kingdom. One feels the ooze between the cobblestones, the vague weather, damp, neither warm nor cold, and somewhere up above, the moon...

He was at his best with these contemporary subjects, unromanticized glimpses of everyday scenes, infused with a stark poetry, the heroism of modern life...

More paintings here

The Genius of Will Oldham

2008-01-04T20:22:00.000Z

One of my heroes these days...

"Can't Take That Away From Me" - a Mariah, uh, Carey cover of all things. Not sure about the song but the vid is real pretty

"Workhorse" - brilliantly simple video directed by Harmony Korine

"Lay and Love" - song and story splendid

Iron & Wine - Lion's Mane

2007-12-06T23:16:00.000Z

run like a race for family
when you hear like you're alone
the rusty gears of morning
and faceless, busy phones
we gladly run in circles
but the shape we meant to make is gone

and love is a tired symphony
you hum when you're awake
and love is a crying baby
mama warned you not to shake
and love's the best sensation
hiding in the lion's mane

so i'll clear the road, the gravel
and the thornbush in your path
that burns a scented oil
that i'll drip into your bath
the water's there to warm you
and the earth is warmer when you laugh

and love is the scene i render
when you catch me wide awake
and love is the dream you enter
though i shake and shake and shake you
and love's the best endeavor
waiting in the lion's mane

The Love of Three Oranges

2007-12-02T02:20:00.001Z

Magnificent Gypsy Fiddle for Romantic Nomads

Roby Lakatos

Two by Stevens

2007-11-30T08:47:00.000Z

A RABBIT AS KING OF THE GHOSTS

The difficulty to think at the end of day,
When the shapeless shadow covers the sun
And nothing is left except light on your fur—

There was the cat slopping its milk all day,
Fat cat, red tongue, green mind, white milk
And August the most peaceful month.

To be, in the grass, in the peacefullest time,
Without that monument of cat,
The cat forgotten on the moon;

And to feel that the light is a rabbit-light
In which everything is meant for you
And nothing need be explained;

Then there is nothing to think of. It comes of itself;
And east rushes west and west rushes down,
No matter. The grass is full

And full of yourself. The trees around are for you,
The whole of the wideness of night is for you,
A self that touches all edges,

You become a self that fills the four corners of night.
The red cat hides away in the fur-light
And there you are humped high, humped up,

You are humped higher and higher, black as stone—
You sit with your head like a carving in space
And the little green cat is a bug in the grass.

THE DWARF

Now it is September and the web is woven.
The web is woven and you have to wear it.

The winter is made and you have to bear it,
The winter web, the winter woven, wind and wind,

For all the thoughts of summer that go with it
In the mind, pupa of straw, moppet of rags.

It is the mind that is woven, the mind that was jerked
And tufted in straggling thunder and shattered sun.

It is all that you are, the final dwarf of you,
That is woven and woven and waiting to be worn,

Neither as mask nor as garment but as a being,
Torn from insipid summer, for the mirror of cold,

Sitting beside your lamp, there citron to nibble
And coffee dribble ... Frost is in the stubble.

Parlors of Heaven

2007-11-25T16:51:00.000Z

Star Cluster Pismis 24, from the Hubble Space Telescope

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars,

And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,

And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest,

And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,

And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,

And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue,

And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.

--Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

Kunstformen der Natur

2007-11-25T12:47:00.000Z

One of many extraordinary pages from this wonderful online book. Permanent link at right.

Seasonal Squid

2007-11-23T18:29:00.001Z

Click the pic to see more views of the 'Squidtivity'. The shepherd is my favourite.

Beautifully Creeped-Out Scenarios

2007-11-23T02:11:00.000Z

William Schaff
check out his other stuffs there too
always as beautiful as the saddest rainstorm

Extreme Origami

2007-11-22T07:54:00.000Z

The Innocence Mission continues

2007-11-19T17:58:00.001Z

The Innocence Mission

2007-11-19T16:49:00.000Z

current obsessions and multimedia blogging experiments

download lovely track 'Brave'

see lovely video 'Bright as Yellow'

Fern Hill

2007-11-16T09:22:00.000Z

Effervescing Elephant

2007-11-14T08:55:00.000Z

Bound by Tones of Dirt and Bone

2007-11-13T15:34:00.005Z







Lucy Lovely, Rockaway Railways & The Polaroid Kidd

A Purring Lion

2007-11-12T21:05:00.000Z

Yesterday, because I was a lion
I was purring a tune in the jungle
As all the stars began to fall
All together.
And my body was burnt all over
Every time I trod on the moonlight.
And the skin was scraped
From the tip of my nose
And my life was charred with love.
My mane gave itself to the wind
And left me with no idea of where to go --
To the past, to the future, or to death
Nor will my tail and ears ever come back to me.

Today on my way from school
I walked straight through the front of the mirror shop.
That's why I remember nothing but this:
Because I left my tweezers in the jungle,
I will never be able to recover
Anything but the words of my purring.

-- Kazuko Shiraishi