soft drinks and the boredom

Having a Coke with You

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some marvellous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling you about it



Dream Song 14

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatedly) 'Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no

Inner Resources.' I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as achilles,

Who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.

Words

"A grapefruit is a lemon that had a chance and took advantage of it." Oscar Wilde

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." Mark Twain

"Most people don't know what they want or feel. And for everyone, myself included, It's very difficult to say what you mean when what you mean is painful. The most difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to express what you have to... As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all, we must dare to fail. You must have the courage to be bad - to be willing to risk everything to really express it all." John Cassavettes

"Try. Fail. Try Again. Fail Again. Fail Better. " Samuel Becket

Los Ojos de Ana

el espiritu de la colmena, 1973


cria cuervos, 1975

beyond the grave

Noel Coward

Blithe Spirit

1945



Federico Fellini

Guglietta Degli Spiriti

1965

Not like blades of grass, grains of rice, peas in a pod

But

like leaves in a forest, all dissimilar in their similarity

On Women As Mediums

There seem to be an abundance of images of women in the midst of Ectoplasm 'episodes'. Some are quite eerie, and haunting, almost grotesque, others are sexual, and yet others are almost comedic (and some are all these things). Overall I find them if anything arresting...at the very least they are inspiring in an unsettling way (or unsettling in an inspiring way). They seem to offer an in; their ephemeral aura projecting a sort of loose reality (or loose fantasy).

The word ectoplasm itself conjures up a very corporeal experience; secretions, oozings...plasma! The nature of the materialization that occurs mirrors women as portals, vessels, et al for life (and in this case for the dead, the undead, or the physical manifestation of messages from beyond the grave).

This summer I started going through a bank of saved images I had collected over the years on mediums, hauntings, etc etc. I think every teenage girl at some point delves into these 'occult' things (who doesn't love magic), these interests of course are transient like the very subject matter itself. I came accross the Book Vanishing Women: Magic, Film and Feminism. But... I haven't ordered it online or come across it at any bookstore. From the previews the images are quite nice and I like the tone of the passages I read..

perriand wants

1. Bloc Bahut, Perriand, 1959


2. Wall Mounted Bookshelves, Perriand, 1950


3. Mexique Bookshelf, Perriand and Prouve, 1952


4. Kitchen Cabinet, Perriand and Le Corbusier, 1947


5. Living Space, Perriand and Le Corbusier


6. Chaise Longue, Perriand, 1928 (Charlotte on her famous chair)




Charlotte Perriand made beautiful things I wish I could fill my apartment with. She was also a bit of a rebel rouser which I always appreciate and find endearing.

Eileen Screen

I was feeling antsy about my move into an apartment in which the large living room will also be my bedroom. Antsyness turned into worry given the lack of of desirable room dividers, then I remembered the swinging transcendent sheen of Eileen Gray's Block Screen, 1922...(now I just need the $7000 or someone itching to make one with me). To give the blocks of wood that luxurious shimmering blackness she uses a Japanese lacquering technique she first became interested in Soho and later studied for years in Paris. Gray is also responsible for that fantastic unabashed romantic gesture that is E-1027,...but that's for another day.

RIP

Sky Saxon died today. This song gives me shivers.

birchbark canoe

After watching this awkward little film, I am in love with the birchbark canoe.

It's a beautiful construction, and the stitching (Watan Sewn Gunwales) which follows the mid-section and wraps around the top edges of the canoe, really got me. The method for building the canoe calls for using materials available in the forest (basically all that's used is a birch tree, the thread are spruce roots, some binding goo made by boiling spruce resin) and the tools are minimal: an axe. I wasn't aware of the unique properties of birch to split into these thin flexible 'sheets' of wood. I am a little blown away by the whole process of production and the finished product.

The Algonquin tribe are responsible for the creation of the birchbark canoe, being nomadic peoples their livelihood was dependent on the quality of their transportation; necessity, as such, lead to the development of these beautiful high caliber objects.

more spring/summer

last fall this spring

Jutta, Kim and Miranda. Front Row last September for Spring 09 MBFW

the return of the cropped top

\

art joke of the day

how many surrealists does it take to screw in a light bulb?





fish.

masculin femenin

Potence, Jean Prouve, 1950




Swing Jib, Charlotte Perriand, 1938

lessons in charm

I can't get enough of this romantic synth pop.

Le Premier Bonheur Du Jeur