January 13th, 2010
Flight is good
January 2nd, 2010
2010
Wishing good eating, good loving, fame, fortune, etc. etc., to all except evildoers and my enemies — you know who you are — who I curse with doubt, pox, pain, terror and of course, artistic failure.
November 24th, 2009
The Year 2000, according to 1900
From Bunch of Nerds: Visionary pictures of life in the year 2000, according to chocolate manufacturers in the year 1900.
Arctic vacation:
Balloons:
Submarine:
Walking on water:
November 23rd, 2009
Abbey library at St. Gallen
In operation since the 8th century. One of the oldest libraries in the world, located in the UNESCO Heritage town of St. Gallen in Switzerland.
November 9th, 2009
Lafcadio Hearn on Howling
From the chapter “Ululation” in IN GHOSTLY JAPAN by Lafcadio Hearn:
I have only one fault to find with her: she howls at night. Howling is one of the few pathetic pleasures of her existence. At first I tried to frighten her out of the habit; but finding that she refused to take me seriously, I concluded to let her howl. It would have been monstrous to beat her.
Yet I detest her howl. It always gives me a feeling of vague disquiet, like the uneasiness that precedes the horror of nightmare. It makes me afraid, — indefinably, superstitiously afraid. Perhaps what I am writing will seem to you absurd; but you would not think it absurd if you once heard her howl. She does not howl like the common street-dogs. She belongs to some ruder Northern breed, much more wolfish, and retaining wild traits of a very peculiar kind. And her howl is also peculiar. It is incomparably weirder than the howl of any European dog; and I fancy that it is incomparably older. It may represent the original primitive cry of her species, — totally unmodified by centuries of domestication.
It begins with a stifled moan, like the moan of a bad dream, — mounts into a long, long wail, like a wailing of wind, — sinks quavering into a chuckle, — rises again to a wail, very much higher and wilder than before, — breaks suddenly into a kind of atrocious laughter, — and finally sobs itself out in a plaint like the crying of a little child. The ghastliness of the performance is chiefly — though not entirely — in the goblin mockery of the laughing tones as contrasted with the piteous agony of the wailing ones: an incongruity that makes you think of madness. And I imagine a corresponding incongruity in the soul of the creature. I know that she loves me, — that she would throw away her poor life for me at an instant’s notice. I am sure that she would grieve if I were to die. But she would not think about the matter like other dogs, — like a dog with hanging ears, for example. She is too savagely close to Nature for that. Were she to find herself alone with my corpse in some desolate place, she would first mourn wildly for her friend; but, this duty performed, she would proceed to ease her sorrow in the simplest way possible, — by eating him, — by cracking his bones between those long wolf’s teeth of hers. And thereafter, with spotless conscience, she would sit down and utter to the moon the funeral cry of her ancestors.
November 8th, 2009
Charles Burchfield, Swamp Thing
There’s a great Charles Burchfield show on at the Hammer Museum in LA right now. And because his mad, magnificent watercolors of swamps and nightscapes don’t reproduce that well on computer screens or in newsprint, I’ve jotted down some of his notes to give you a sense of his vision. (This picture, the only one of this enormous watercolor I could find online, is piteously small. You have to squint hard to see the startling little blue bird nearly hidden in the center left of the frame. It’s a touch of brightness that David Lynch would very much admire.)
Song of the Telegraph Pole
Watercolor, painted 1917-1952
Listen long to the singing of the telegraph poles. It sounds more weird and beautiful by moonlight…
Each pole has a distinct tone. A steady throbbing sound — the poles, once trees, still are full of life which is expressed in this pulsating sound.
Seems a voice from the center of the earth.
Charles Burchfield
Salem, August 4, 1914
