Sunday, October 30, 2011

KID ICARUS

           
           
        

May foliage over the traintracks in Adams, Tennessee; an invitation happening to contain my birthdate (did you know May 13th was the original Roman date of All Souls' Day? Called Lemuria, festivities included eating a "soul cake", clanging brass pots, and tossing black beans over your shoulder at midnight while reciting an incantation);good shoes and socks and floor from god knows where; a lovely painting gleaned from Emersonmerrick; Ysabel's feet beneath a bush as she picked Moonflowers this past July on a roadtrip we took.

I thought of a poem today by W.H. Auden. The second half of it is a theme in the film/book The Man Who Fell to Earth, and it's called "Musée des Beaux Arts":

"In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the foresaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something extraordinary, a boy falling out the the sky,
Had somewhere to go to and sailed calmly on."

Last night I was reading an anthology of Shakespeare's works and came across the following plate, with the best caption. I am going to get it framed:
                                   
"He stripped himself naked and chose to live with the wild beasts."

Monday, October 17, 2011

MOON OF THE CENTURY, CAMARALZAMAN












Good shop window in Montreal; close-up of same odd shop window; back of a street sign in New York with the paint wearing away from the wood; the best thing at the Wall Street protests, a fantastic off-white velvet-upholstered chair with Sharpie graffiti; detail of chair back; Becky planking TV sets in Chelsea; great hair idea on the shopgirl at IF in SoHo; fantastic Isabel Marant display; I Pop Pills! sign; good tattoos on a cool chick at Fresh Salt (my new favorite hangout spot in NYC); me and Ysabel in front of a strange stairstepped plant wall in Montreal somewhere in the Plateau. I guess I'm drawn more recently to fur, hair, off-white, old, dirty textural objects. Been reading Arabian Nights before bed, having crazy dreams and getting good ideas. India in exactly one month. Whaaaaaat.

P.S. I am 55% sure that I spotted Stephin Merritt in Chelsea, baseball cap and all... I had a mini-freakout but determined not to say anything. I just watched Strange Powers and am glad I chose not to. I highly recommend finding the torrent...