Wise Old Dada

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

l'Atelier de Georges Braque

"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."

Short Talk On Housing

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.

Never trust poets

A City inside the TV

Parlors of Heaven

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