Now that he has reached the beach, he no longer needs the candle to show the way. The sea has called to him — no, not the sea, but the dwellers on some islands situated in it. Un- able to be seen, only barely able to be heard; but the song has resonances that float above the water. Soon he will look for a boat he can hire, to take him close to the source of the song. Will take that green leaf he has brought with him on his journey from the interior in the hope he will have a funeral casket to lay it on.
Wednesday, July 09, 2025
#558 Le Chant des Sirènes
Sunday, June 29, 2025
#557 The Rights of Man (2)
So many internal refer- ences — that euphonium on fire; a meteorite, though not suspended but resting on the ground; a cloaked cicerone; the seaside wall. & that just a sample of what the nooks & crannies of the creative mind may contain. Not strictly bricolage; more a selection from what lies be- hind the world around. Not often everyday things, but when they are, are taken out of context, made fresh. Is patently obvious that man — or woman — has the right to ignore copyright should they choose to do so. Change the surroundings to new & often personal worlds. Replace the signatures. Call the familiar by another name. Raise the bowler hat. Salute the clouds.
Monday, June 23, 2025
#556 Dawn in the Antipodes
If a statement appears monstrous but you do not know that it is false, listen, but do not question its vera- city. What misleads us is the inevit- ability of connecting the text to the drawing. It is not enough that the drawing of the pipe so closely re- sembles a pipe. The letters are but the image of letters. Never by word or action notice the defects of another — naïve handwriting, the absence of any other trace of the artist's presence. The story interrupted at every sentence. It reveals discourse's ambiguous power to deny. To take any sentence from the mouth of another person, before he has time to utter it, is the height of ill-breeding. To paint is not to af- firm. Perhaps a swipe of a rag will soon erase the drawing & the text . Sources: This Is Not a Pipe, by Michel Foucault The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette (1860), by Florence Hartley
Saturday, June 21, 2025
#555 Parmi les Bosquets légers
A final resting place for your loved one with maximal light in mind begins with a fellowship meal pre- pared by members of the church — there may even be coffee & cake & fast reliable bitcoin transactions available. It is a hub for learning amongst local shops, with white bottle-brush flowers on bare branches in spring & several road- side attractions nearby creating a unique composition that offers a serene & grounding presence. The location is perfect. To keep it so, machine wash cold with like colors on gentle once the event has passed.
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
#554 Les Deux Soeurs (1925)
The name the same as the few years earlier de Chirico. Different subjects, though the two pairs have a commonality. Both portrayed as if for visual merchandising — which is what they inherently are. The one — the implied mannequins — for dresses. The other for acc- essories, as if for scarves, or necklaces. That's the macro view. The micro? Two sisters — are they really? The de Chirico pair are differently colored, une rouge, une blanc. One fairly featureless — bald, eye-
less; the other with hair & mask-like features, dark open- ings that might serve as eyes. Enigmatic, like a major part of the painter's work, & nothing sisterly-seeming about them. Then the Magritte . . .Closing the eyes. As simple an act. That is what Amiri Baraka wrote years later, about a totally different subject. Are these sisters? Or could they both be Magritte's muse, his wife Georgette? Quite possibly so. But more simply, a question to be asked but never answered.
Saturday, May 17, 2025
#553 Le Double Vue
He is standing in front of a forest. He is wearing a bowler hat, holding a rose in his hand. Those aspects have been used before, but not necessarily all three to- gether. He sees only what is in front of him. The other is standing behind him, the forest obscured or, at best, on the periphery of their vis- ion. Sees mainly the clothing, the bowler hat, the coat, e- nough to recognize who it is in front of them. The rose held up near the right ear they have never seen before. That is the aspect they will remember.
Tuesday, February 11, 2025
Sunday, February 02, 2025
#551 Le Regard Mental (2)
Is said: they don’t build houses now in the way we remember they did. Is said: people involuntarily move their eyes when retrieving an image from memory. Is said: what is that circular object in the background — a ceiling light or a white bowler hat? Is said: the mind plays tricks, but that looks like Mr. Behoover & his Hung- arian friend close by the object. Is said: they’re so small, which means, even allowing for perspective, the house in the foreground must be enormous. Is said: the mind’s gaze defaults to a masculine paradigm.
Monday, January 27, 2025
#550 Le Regard Mental
Look at the build- ing. Think. How do I reach the roof? & which roof should I aim for? & if I do reach a roof, will the entire structure remain up- right or will it tumble over once my weight threatens to send it off balance? Houses upon houses in this one spot. How is the rest of the street likely to look?
Friday, December 20, 2024
#549 La Voie Royale
Once more the war; though now it seems some joy has been permitted to infiltrate the outlook. The Wehrmacht turned back at Stalingrad, enough of a setback to pre- tend a beginning to an end. Hope springs eternal wrote the poet Pope, & the kings — though fewer of them around these days — string along by opening the kingsways up to celebration. No fireworks — gunpowder is strictly mili- tary matériel in times of war — but the dead are plentiful, as are the flowers that feed on them. Picked, & thrown in to the air; &, from a certain perspective, not quite golden apples but, in times of scarcity, perhaps the next best thing.
Saturday, November 30, 2024
#548 La leçon d'anatomie (1943)
In Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson all is dark — the lecturer, the onlookers who look too old to be students, who are in fact doctors who've paid to be in the painting, the cadaver over which Dr. Nicolaes Tulp is carrying out an explanation of the musc- ulature of the human arm. One public dissection permitted each year, held in a theater as if it were a play, with a paying audience, the body to be that of a convicted criminal who has been executed. In Magritte's painting, it is the ab- sence of dark that marks its pre- sence. A war is being fought; but rather than depict that, the painter channels Renoir to let bright light enter. A landscape in a vase, trees in flower, color. An attitudinal turn- around, the visible made invisible.
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