Month: February 2014
1998
A Message to the Universe by Kazuo Ohno, 1998:
“On the verge of death one revisits the joyful moments of a lifetime.
One’s eyes are opened wide-gazing into the palm, seeing death, life, joy and sorrow with a sense of tranquillity.
This daily studying of the soul, is this the beginning of the journey ?
I sit bewildered in the playground of the dead. Here I wish to dance and dance and dance and dance, the life of the wild grass.
I see the wild grass, I am the wild grass, I become one with the universe. That metamorphosis is the cosmology and studying of the soul.
In the abundance of nature I see the foundation of dance. Is this because my soul wants to physically touch the truth ?
When my mother was dying I caressed her hair all night long without being able to speak one word of comfort. Afterwards, I realized that I was not taking care of her, but that she was taking care of me.
The palms of my mother’s hands are precious wild grass to me.
I wish to dance the dance of wild grass to the utmost of my heart.”
nude
sentimental landscapes
When I’m driving, I sometimes turn on the radio and I find very often that what I’m listening to is a discussion of sports. These are telephone conversations. People call in and have long and intricate discussions, and it’s plain that quite a high degree of thought and analysis is going into that. People know a tremendous amount. They know all sorts of complicated details and enter into far-reaching discussion about whether the coach made the right decision yesterday and so on. These are ordinary people, not professionals, who are applying their intelligence and analytic skills in these areas and accumulating quite a lot of knowledge and, for all I know, understanding.
Noam Chomsky.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/04/book-changed-me-colin-wilson-outsider
the autodiktat generally seems to look for connections in the world which seem to be ridiculous to the seasoned academic. Not to say that Colin Wilson wasn’t occasionally ridiculous; but that seemed to have more to do with his own myth building (or narcissism? i didn’t get to meet him so i don’t know). colin wilson is an example. but i wonder at why it is terry eagelton pours scorn on the man for looking for links amongst great men.s’not like serious academia doesn’t myth build.
fraudulent painting iv
The Phoenix and the Turtle by William Shakespeare
The Phoenix and the Turtle
Let the bird of loudest lay,
On the sole Arabian tree,
Herald sad and trumpet be,
To whose sound chaste wings obey.
But thou, shrieking harbinger,
Foul pre-currer of the fiend,
Augur of the fever’s end,
To this troop come thou not near.
From this session interdict
Every fowl of tyrant wing,
Save the eagle, feather’d king:
Keep the obsequy so strict.
Let the priest in surplice white,
That defunctive music can,
Be the death-divining swan,
Lest the requiem lack his right.
And thou, treble-dated crow,
That thy sable gender mak’st
With the breath thou giv’st and tak’st,
‘Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.
Here the anthem doth commence:
Love and constancy is dead;
Phoenix and the turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence.
So they lov’d, as love in twain
Had the essence but in one;
Two distincts, division none:
Number there in love was slain.
Hearts remote, yet not asunder;
Distance, and no space was seen
‘Twixt the turtle and his queen;
But in them it were a wonder.
So between them love did shine,
That the turtle saw his right
Flaming in the phoenix’ sight:
Either was the other’s mine.
Property was thus appall’d,
That the self was not the same;
Single nature’s double name
Neither two nor one was call’d.
Reason, in itself confounded,
Saw division grow together;
To themselves yet either-neither,
Simple were so well compounded
That it cried how true a twain
Seemeth this concordant one!
Love hath reason, reason none
If what parts can so remain.
Whereupon it made this threne
To the phoenix and the dove,
Co-supreme and stars of love;
As chorus to their tragic scene.
THRENOS.
Beauty, truth, and rarity.
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclos’d in cinders lie.
Death is now the phoenix’ nest;
And the turtle’s loyal breast
To eternity doth rest,
Leaving no posterity:–
‘Twas not their infirmity,
It was married chastity.
Truth may seem, but cannot be:
Beauty brag, but ’tis not she;
Truth and beauty buried be.
To this urn let those repair
That are either true or fair;
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.
by William Shakespeare
fraudulant paintings — part iii — the king
our perspective on the material world; small though it is, we find importance in it. work hard to study it’s significance. our rule and our solace
and prisons, structures zig-zagging across the landscape forming blocks and framing routine.
briefly i was contemplating the fate of the ‘elgin’ marbles, i would not say that i have a problem with them being returned likewise i figure that i would be just as happy with them remaining. plus i could draw them. my thought was a thought on the way empires regard the empires preceding them.
the knowledge
When knowledge becomes rigid, it stops living.
Anselm Keifer
it often seems to me that i am having to start from scratch. but it is an illusion. and a daft one at that.
fraudulent painting ii
o 