December 2010
November 2010
“The eyelid has its storms.”
—via harpy
“And the width of the waters, the hush
Of the grey expanse where he floats,
Freshening its current and spotted with foam
As it draws to the Ocean, may strike
Peace to the soul of the man on its breast—
As the pale waste widens around him,
As the banks fade dimmer away,
As the stars come out, and the night-wind
Brings up the stream
Murmurs and scents of the infinite sea.” —Matthew Arnold, from The Future
via aubade
Of the grey expanse where he floats,
Freshening its current and spotted with foam
As it draws to the Ocean, may strike
Peace to the soul of the man on its breast—
As the pale waste widens around him,
As the banks fade dimmer away,
As the stars come out, and the night-wind
Brings up the stream
Murmurs and scents of the infinite sea.” —Matthew Arnold, from The Future
via aubade
“Of Landscapes.
The colours of the shadows in mountains at a great distance take a most lovely blue, much purer than their illuminated portions.” —Leonardo da Vinci, from Journals, p. 463
via aubade
The colours of the shadows in mountains at a great distance take a most lovely blue, much purer than their illuminated portions.” —Leonardo da Vinci, from Journals, p. 463
via aubade
Like an unbored pearl from the ocean of sanctity
is every point that came from his pearl-scattering pen.
‘Abd Allah Murvarid, 1491-92
“The pen is the fetter of the intellect. Handwriting is the deployment of the senses, and the desire of the soul is attained through it.”
—Plato
“All the being and the doing, expansive, glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one shrunk, with a sense of solemnity”
—Virginia Woolf
Writing, as I know it, has no territory of its own. The act of writing is nothing except the act of approaching the experience written about; just as, hopefully, the act of reading the written text is a comparable act of approach…. To approach experience, however, is not like approaching a house. ‘Life,’ as the Russian proverb says, ‘is not a walk across an open field.’ Experience is indivisible and continuous, at least within a single lifetime and perhaps over many lifetimes. I never have the impression that my experience is entirely my own, and it often seems to me that it preceded me. In any case experience folds upon itself, refers backwards and forwards to itself through the referents of hope and fear; and, by the use of metaphor, which is at the origin of language, it is continually comparing like with unlike, what is small with what is large, what is near with what is distant. And so the act of approaching a given moment of experience involves both scrutiny (closeness) and the capacity to connect (distance). The movement of writing resembles that of a shuttle on a loom: repeatedly it approaches and withdraws, closes in and takes its distance. Unlike a shuttle, it is not fixed to a static frame. As the movement of writing repeats itself, its intimacy with the experience increases. Finally, if one is fortunate, meaning is the fruit of this intimacy.
John Berger
via falsemirror, tobia
“the text is plural. which is not simply to say that it has several meanings, but that it accomplishes the very plural of meaning: an irreducible (and not merely an acceptable) plural. the text is not a co-existence of meanings but a passage, an overcrossing; thus it answers not to an interpretation, even a liberal one, but to an explosion, a dissemination.”
—Roland Barthes, from work to text, proposition #4 (1971)
via nosex
via nosex
somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands
E.E. Cummings, somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
via harpy, thenoobyorker
“A darkened heart needs love so that it may become bright. If the candle does not see fire, how can it become illuminated? But even if a hundred thousand candles are kindled, without your beautiful face. How can my heart become bright from that candle which belongs to thousands?”
—Inscription on a Mash’al (candlestick)
Iran, engraved bronze (cast) late 16th century
Iran, engraved bronze (cast) late 16th century
