Wednesday, May 23, 2007

that my memory is broken, i do not wonder

i have examined maps of the city with the greatest care, yet have never again found rue d'auseil. these maps have not been modern maps alone, for i know that names change. i have, on the contrary, delved deeply into all the antiquities of the place; and have personally explored every region, of whatever name, which could possibly answer to the street i knew as the rue d'auseil. but despite all i have done it remains an humiliating fact that i cannot find the house, the street, or even the locality, where, during the last months of my impoverished life as a student of metaphysics at the university, i heard the music of erich zann.
that my memory is broken, i do not wonder; for my health, physical and mental, was gravely disturbed throughtout the period of residence in the rue d'auseil..............

from the music of erich zann, december 1921 by h.p. lovecraft.

this quote had such a profound effect on me, i made a video based on it.
i have started reading lovecraft again (at the mountains of madness). lovecraft writes so well about memory, horror, perception, and melancholia.

h.p. lovecraft (at right) with poet and farmer arthur goodenough

also of note: at the mountains of madness is futher experienced through these posts: polar expeditions, veils of light, you cracked like the ice.... because it takes place in antarctica.

7 comments:

Milena said...

You have dreamed too well, O wise archdreamer, for you have drawn dream's gods away from the world of all men's vision to that which is wholly yours...

*smiles*

Oh yes, it has the same effect on me.

Anonymous said...

Funny that you should blog that quote. I just posted a reading of that story today: http://www.spacetoast.net/STP/podcasts/lovecraft/zann.html

the art of memory said...

"archdreamer" is very nice.
such poetic writing.
glad you like the lovecraft as well.

thanks mr. toast, can't wait to take a listen to the mp3.
looks like we all had the same thing on our mind.....

woolgathersome said...

I'm not sure if you've read Fournier's The Wanderer, but, similarly, it is about a boy who can't find his way back to "a place," a garden, a house in the woods, that affected him very deeply...

the art of memory said...

i was telling t., i never see it in english, i have a french copy, but have been to lazy to get through it (with a dictionary), someday i will get a copy.
joe cornell certainly sold me on it, sounds like an amazing book.

shahn said...

it's funny seeing him in such innocent surroundings. still, his dour look belies the subject matter of his writings.

the art of memory said...

i agree, the poet/farmer looks like mondrian, which makes it more funny for me.