Friday, September 06, 2024

#547 Among the Groves of Light





It is an analog module in the
open air, a small thing in a
large area, high in bright light, 
low in the dark. Perfectly posit-
ioned to host the most popular 
fund-raising events of the year, 
it reads data from many sources, 
harnesses the continuous vari-
ation aspect of physical pheno-
mena to provide 16 or more 

channels in the same space, uses 
cookies to ensure that it gives the
user the best experience. Unfortu-
nately, in shade, branches will 
wither & drop to the ground; & 
the right stick has an almost 35% 
deadzone, regardless of any set-
tings. Which means in this range 
the in-game camera won't react 
at all to its controller's input.

Wednesday, September 04, 2024

#546 [Untitled]

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Monday, August 19, 2024

#545 Memory of a Journey (1955)




In the
dark I become
accustomed
to the work
of Le Douanier 
Rousseau.

It helps
that I have
a lion
beside me.

Monday, August 05, 2024

#544 La Pensée parfaite (1943)



The war continues in a 
linear fashion. Not so 
the seasons. Here they 
are condensed, all four
evident on the one tree. 
A thumbing of the nose 
to the man-made dam-
age that has, that will, 
be done elsewhere to 
the earth. We are out-
side it, says the tree. We 
have the freedom you 
can only dream about. 

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

#543 Dada Mag (1921)

ADAM DAG

DAMD AGA 

MAGA DAD

AMGD ADA

MAGD AAD

ADGA AMD

DADA MAG


Saturday, June 29, 2024

#542 L'Espoir Rapide


Everything can probably 
be remembered 
but it’s the linkages 
& the lack of space to

keep them near that 
make it difficult. Memory 
is not linear. That’s for
planning the future 

where you write yourself 
preliminary notes & leave
them in strategic places.
So that whenever it is 

you arrive at wherever 
you were going you can
open them up & see what
happened along the way. 

Thursday, June 27, 2024

#541 Excuseer, Juffrouw, is het een sprekende film?

Does that really matter? Even if the film
is silent, the continuity — or discontinuity —
of its contents, the things we are seeing,  
provokes an inner mono- &/or dialogue. 

Not necessarily in words. Could be images,
fragments of a past or figments of a future, 
that have nothing to do with what was en-
visaged by the auteur, but triggered by it

even so.  Could be sounds, birds on the
roof, trains passing in the night, what we
grew up listening to, what we associate
with the wider screen where they appeared.

Or maybe we approach it in the same way
we partake of a day at the races. The colors,
the numbers, known & easily discernable; 
the purpose clear, but not yet the outcome. 

As complement, a gallery full of the works of an
almost contemporary Belgian master which
presents a nominally silent narrative, but has
within it a host of interwoven speaking parts.

Tuesday, May 21, 2024

#540 The Art of Conversation V (1950)


Knit & pearl alternately for four 
rows. Underneath it, in white 
wool, long enough to interest, yet 
not long enough to tire, with the 
words written in a clear, legible 

hand, this note: "This is not a dream."
Written from the heart, the simple
eloquence of the words forces the 
ideogram to arrange itself accor-
ding to the laws of a simultaneous 

form. Avoid postscripts, punctuate 
carefully. Render the outline as a 
thin skin that must be pierced in 
order to follow, word for word, the 
outpouring of its internal text. A 

lie is not locked up in a phrase, but 
must exist, if at all, in the mind of 
the writer. In its millennial tradition
the essence of rhetoric is in allegory.
Never point. It is excessively ill-bred.

Sources:
This Is Not a Pipe, by Michel Foucault
The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette (1860), by Florence Hartley

Wednesday, May 15, 2024

#539 L'Aube à Cayenne (2)


The tree trunk taken, & turned
into a book. Dürer is praying a
miracle may occur — as he has
done for several centuries — & 
the tree become whole again. Yes,
he knows trees reach up to the
sky, but they should have a base
to support them, not be silhou-

etted against the rules of nature.
Now his hands hold a ball of
thread to tether it to the ground
if he can get his magic metal sty-
lus to draw it closer. He has to
hurry, for the candle burns away.

Saturday, May 11, 2024

#538 La Magie Noire (1946)


Antarctic winter imitated. I am
living inside a refrigerator
set up in a cold store. Beside me
there is a bird that would
escape if it could. It is my first
Assumption; & I am trying
to keep it by keeping it
as close to suspended animation
as I can. The bird is unhappy.
It is a summer bird. When
I first felt it fluttering
a few ingested pellets of dry ice
were enough to quieten it.
But as it grew
I was forced to move lodgings,
was forced to move
my chilling mode from
solid boulder blocks to
gaseous intake. Now when I exhale
my frozen breath is fuel
that drives rockets to the
moon. It does not wake the bird
but something inside it
awakens. I sense its struggles
as it recognizes flight, is
driven mad by its proximity.

Saturday, April 27, 2024

#537 L'Avenir


Everything in the distance seems so picture perfect — the stars, the hills in shadow. & those things up close — the open window, the pristine bench with that loaf so fresh you would swear you could smell it — refresh that first impression of perfection. Then doubts start creeping in. Why are there no lights dotting the hillside? Why are there no knick knacks around the house to indicate some evidence of human inhabitation? Who, therefore, baked the loaf? Is it really real? Or is this image of the future a wry obser- vation by the painter that life as we currently know it might eventually vanish from the planet because hu- mankind cannot live by bread alone?