#574 Nocturne (2)

A curtain is drawn back
to expose a house that is
burning. It is night, which
makes the flames more
vivid. A bilboquet that
thinks it's a cello watches 
on but makes no attempt
to help or to cover up the
scene by drawing the curt-
ain closed. A bird cut from
some similar cloth is flying 
away. It has nowhere to go.

#573 Sometimes / the name / of an object . . .

Why did I see coffins where Manet saw pale figures?
René Magritte, in a letter to Michel Foucault.
Simplicity is a great charm in letter-
writing. Everything is solidly anchored 
within a pedagogic space, where a word 
can take the place of an object in reality. 
The gaze encounters words as if they had 

strayed to the heart of things. To cumber 
epistles with quotations, similes, flowery 
language, & a stilted, pedantic style, is 
in bad taste, much like a text written by
a zealous instructor. A phrase may, by 

the addition or omission of one word, 
or by the alteration of one punctuation 
mark, convey to the reader an entirely 
different idea from that intended by 
the writer. In the thin space separating 

the mirror's polished, reflection capt-
uring surface & the opaque surface of 
the wall that catches only shadows, there 
is nothing. Says all that is necessary, in 
plain, distinct language, & says no more.


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

#572 La Parure De L’Orage

This is a landscape, even though
the sea is the backdrop & the front
is taken up by what looks like a red
wood floor. On which gather cut-
out characters, painted, but made 
to look like cut paper collage. Hard-
edged despite the indentations. Hard 
to tell which way they are looking, 
what they are there for. Gathered 
to observe the ocean, or gathered 
to talk among themselves while 
the wind whips around them & 
probably whips their words away? 
Or have they come to revel in dis-
aster? It's somewhat difficult to 
see, but there's a ship out there, 
wrecked by the violence of the 
storm, deposited onto the shore.