This is sort of rad! I kind of love it!
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
An Arundel Tomb - Philip Larkin
Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd -
The little dogs under their feet.
Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.
They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends would see:
A sculptor's sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.
They would not guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they
Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the glass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-riddled ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,
Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:
Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Ben Selvin & His Orchestra - 1929
You’re the cream in my coffee, You’re the salt in my stew; You will always be my necessity-- I’d be lost without you. You’re the starch in my collar, You’re the lace in my shoe; You will always be my necessity-- I’d be lost without you. Most men tell love tails, And each phrase dovetails. You’ve heard each known way, This way is my own way. You’re the sail of my love boat, You’re the captain and crew; You will always be my necessity-- I’d be lost without you. You give life savor, Bring out its flavor; So this is clear, dear, You’re my worcestershire, dear. You’re the sail of my love boat, You’re the captain and crew; You will always be my necessity-- I’d be lost without you.
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Sunday, November 1, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Philip Larkin.
Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;
And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day;
And the country side not caring:
The place names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheat's restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;
Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word - the men
Leaving gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Howl by Allen Ginsberg
HOWL (an excerpt)
by Allen Ginsberg
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn
looking for an angry fix,
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly
connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night,
who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat
up smoking in the supernatural darkness of
cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities
contemplating jazz,
who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and
saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tenement roofs illuminated,
who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes
hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy
among the scholars of war,
who were expelled from the academies for crazy &
publishing obscene odes on the windows of the skull,
who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear,
burning their money in wastebaskets and listening
to the Terror through the wall,
who got busted in their pubic beards returning through
Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York,
who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in
Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their torsos
night after night with dreams, with drugs,
with waking nightmares, alcohol and cock and endless balls.
The Cats Meow.
"The curse is taking hold of you if you experience the following you see
yourself as the most important person in any room; you accept money as the
strongest force in nature; and finally, your morality vanishes...without a trace."
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Of all the boys I've known, and I've known some.
Of all the boys I've known, and I've known some
Until I first met you, I was lonesome
And when you came in sight, dear, my heart grew light
And this old world seemed new to me
You're really swell, I have to admit you
Deserve expressions that really fit you
And so I've racked my brain, hoping to explain
All the things that you do to me
Bei mir bist du sch"n, please let me explain
Bei mir bist du sch"n means you're grand
Bei mir bist du sch"n, again I'll explain
It means you're the fairest in the land
I could say "Bella, bella", even say "Voonderbar"
Each language only helps me tell you how grand you are
I've tried to explain, bei mir bist du sch"n
So kiss me and say you understand
Until I first met you, I was lonesome
And when you came in sight, dear, my heart grew light
And this old world seemed new to me
You're really swell, I have to admit you
Deserve expressions that really fit you
And so I've racked my brain, hoping to explain
All the things that you do to me
Bei mir bist du sch"n, please let me explain
Bei mir bist du sch"n means you're grand
Bei mir bist du sch"n, again I'll explain
It means you're the fairest in the land
I could say "Bella, bella", even say "Voonderbar"
Each language only helps me tell you how grand you are
I've tried to explain, bei mir bist du sch"n
So kiss me and say you understand
- Ella Fitzgerald.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
The Raven -Edgar Allan Poe
THE RAVEN –EGAR ALLAN POE (an excerpt)
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -Only this, and nothing more.'
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow. From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore - Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtainThrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating`'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -This it is, and nothing more,'
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,`Sir,' said I, `or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,That I scarce was sure I heard you' - here I opened wide the door; -Darkness there, and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, `Lenore!'This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, `Lenore!'Merely this and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.`Surely,' said I, `surely that is something at my window lattice;Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore - Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -'Tis the wind and nothing more!'
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Monday, June 1, 2009
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
SHOCK TACTICS: AND THE PLEASURE OF FLINCHING
by Lex Palmer Bull
“On his way up from the Piraeus outside the north wall, he noticed the bodies of some criminals lying on the ground, with the executioner standing by them. He wanted to go and look at them, but at the same time he was disgusted and tried to turn away. He struggled for some time and covered his eyes, but at last the desire was too much for him. Opening his eyes wide, he ran up to the bodies and cried, “there you are, curse you, feast yourselves on this lovely sight.”
In humans there is an innate desire and attraction towards the gruesome, there is a love of the ‘shock’. The art world has always had a courtship with controversy and is continuously embracing the shocking. From Goya to Jake and Dinos Chapman, Egon Schiele to Damien Hirst, Hermannn Nitsch to Rick Gibson art has never failed to erupt into the media and cause controversy and debate. It is clear that people are inherently drawn to the more macabre and consistently embrace the thrill of the shock; this is obvious when eight million people have been to see the ‘Body Worlds’ (Körperwelten) exhibition by Gunther Von Hagens which contains twenty five corpses with one hundred and seventy five body parts arranged in various positions with their internal organs and tissues displayed in an anatomical exhibit of real human bodies. And Tate Modern, a gallery that houses some of the worlds most avant-garde and scandalous pieces, attracts over four million visitors a year. The critics of contemporary art state that the art is only designed to shock and cause a reaction, however, modern art lovers contend that it is exactly these traits that give contemporary art its allure. Director of the Bowes museum in England, Adrian Jenkins states that, “it is the duty of modern art to provoke… Contemporary art knows it’s going to get knocked, but if it causes debate it’s doing its job.” Since the 1800’s avant-garde art has set about undermining, challenging and testing the typical customary ways of viewing life and that has often resulted in art works of a ‘shock horror’ nature. It is often declared that it is becoming harder and harder to shock the public. But that doesn’t detain the growing number of visitors to Tate Modern who are evidently drawn to, and enjoy seeing this art that is so often put to trial by the media, the public and politicians for its ability to incite and horrify. In 1976, a show called ‘Prostitution’ at the ‘Institute of Contemporary Arts’ included a rock music performance by ‘Throbbing Gristle’ accompanied by photographs of Cosey Fanni Tutti working as a stripper and porn model. Some of the other exhibits included used syringes and tampons. This exhibition caused a great stir among British Tory MPs who attacked it and called for its removal. And there have been many other art works that have made it to court for all sorts of reason. One example of an artists being take to court is Rick Gibson who was tried at the Old Bailey in London and found guilty of ‘outraging public decency” when he created a pair of earrings from freeze-dried human fetuses. Gibson was fined five hundred pounds. People love the thrill of the shock and are irresistibly pulled to any show with sensationalist hype. It is human nature to be dissatisfied with being content. To be pushed and shoved into an uncomfortable, horrifying and shocking arena is what human’s crave. As a result of dramatic, surreal films people crave the excitement of Hollywood, they are shown false realities that are so exciting and fast paced that they become discontent with their lives and jump at the opportunity to be thrown from comfort. Art that shocks satisfies, it evokes emotions that aren’t often utilized and becomes addictive and exciting.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Giant dog turd wreaks havoc at Swiss museum
Inflatable artwork blown from moorings and brings down power line
Jenny Percival and agencies
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 August 2008 11.49 BST
A giant inflatable dog turd created by the American artist Paul McCarthy was blown from its moorings at a Swiss museum, bringing down a power line and breaking a window before landing in the grounds of a children's home.
The exhibit, entitled Complex Shit, is the size of a house. It has a safety system that is supposed to deflate it in bad weather, but it did not work on this occasion.
Juri Steiner, the director of the Paul Klee centre, in Berne, told AFP that a sudden gust of wind carried it 200 metres before it fell to the ground, breaking a window of the children's home. The accident happened on July 31, but the details only emerged yesterday.
Steiner said McCarthy had not yet been contacted and the museum was not sure if the piece (pictured here) would be put back on display.
The installation is part of an exhibition called East of Eden: A Garden Show, which features sound sculptures in trees and a football ground without goalposts. The exhibition opened in May and is due to run until October.
The centre's website describes the show as containing "interweaving, diverse, not to say conflictive emphases and a broad spectrum of items to form a dynamic exchange of parallel and self-eclipsing spatial and temporal zones".
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
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