circles - tristesse engraved

how soon unaccountable i became tired and sick,
till rising and gliding out i wander’d off by myself,
in the mystical moist night-air,
and from time to time,
look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.*
capturing light - walt whitman -
when i heard the learn’d astonomer

images -
séraphine louis - fruit (frucht)
william langenheim and frederick langenheim - eclipse - 26 may 1854
susan derges - chladni figures - 1985
anders ritter von ettingshausen - section of clematis - 4 march 1840
rosalind franklin and r.c. gosling - x-ray diffraction patterns of a and b forms of sodium salt of dna - 1952
amédée guillemin - polychrome interference patterns, le monde physique - 1882
susan derges - hermetica (detail) - 1993
giuseppe pellizza da volpedo - the rising sun - 1904
alfred stevens - the milky way - 1885-1886

various image selections of mine have been included in the september issue of tristesse engraved - please take a look at it .
(many thanks to jez riley french for his generous efforts in helping to get this all out on time)

music of the spheres

parched with thirst, i crossed
an endless desert sunk in gloom,
and a six-winged seraph * came
where the tracks met and i stood lost.
fingers light as dream he laid
upon my lids; i opened wide
my eagle eyes, and gazed around.
he laid his fingers on my ears
and they were filled with roaring sound:
i heard the music of the spheres,
the flight of angels through the skies,
the beasts that crept beneath the sea,
the heady uprush of the vine....

from a.s. pushkin's the prophet
found in joseph frank's book dostoevsky: a writer in his time

darkness moves

gestures rather than signs
departures

awakening
further awakenings

stroke by stroke

approach, explore stroke by stroke
land stroke by stroke

spread out
transform stroke by stroke

give rise to erect
release stroke by stroke


(text from henri michaux's stroke by stroke [1984] - archipelago books - 2006)
(image found by scrubbing around on quicktime file of leo mccarey's ruggles of red gap - 1935)

dark forests seeing the sky

it's so cold in the mountains
not just now but always
dim ridges eternally suck in snow
dark forests spray mist
plants grow after grain ears
leaves fall before autumn begins
and a long lost traveller here
peers without seeing the sky

.

i've lived on cold mountain now
already a few million years
trusting fate i fled to woods and springs
to linger and gaze where i will
no one comes to the cliffs
white clouds keep them shrouded
fine grass serves as a mattress
blue sky does for a quilt
happy with a rock for a pillow
let heaven and earth transform

the collected songs of cold mountain - translated from chinese by red pine
in relation to brice marden - cold mountain studies 10, from a series of thirty-five sheets, 1988-90
thanks to chester for bringing in book - beautiful dust-jacket and book design

to nothingness do sink

when i have fears that i may cease to be
before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
before high-piled books, in charactery,
hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
when i behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
and think that i may never live to trace
their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
and when i feel, fair creature of an hour,
that i shall never look upon thee more,
never have relish in the faery power
of unreflecting love; then on the shore
of the wide world i stand alone, and think
till love and fame to nothingness do sink.


found in the sculpture and mural decorations of the exposition: a pictorial survey of the art of the panama-pacific international exposition - san francisco - 1915
photo of st. francis

would long ago have become a star

that is, in fact, what i meant to say when i wrote you that what surprises me most in each pastel is the unity of feeling in which the object is every time contained; a unique, tempestuous breath of feeling, a unique gesture of passion has, in one fell swoop, moved it close to the heart; it's a total manumission... and still it is you, oh lover of earth and sky, that i sing! still the strength of your arms and the ineffable glory they take in their obedience to your sovereign heart, to your glorious heart, to your new and ancient heart, to your spring and summer heart, to your heart which, did it not contain that dazzling season of blossoms, would long ago have become a star...

rainer maria rilke's letters to merline 1919-1922 - page 49

a bit like a music of music boxes; stemlets and flowerets

images from the making of the pré by francis ponge
university of missouri press - 1979
translated by lee fahnestock

image 1 - from book jacket
from three prints of grasses - buc'hoz
image 2 & 3 - a bit like a music of music boxes; stemlets and flowerets - harpsichord cadenza - johann sebastian bach
image 4 - 13 july evening (night of 13 to 14) 3
image 5 - first typing, 19 january 1961
image 6 - like the neck of the beauty with the necklace - "the hunt of the unicorn"

the making of the pré may best be described as a poetic manuscript in which francis ponge develops his poem le pré (the meadow).
- from the jacket

(discovered in the library of the printer and book designer jack stauffacher)
((more to come as i spend more time with this book))

invisible birds (tiny feet extending)

what birds plunge through is not the intimate space in which you see all forms intensified. (out in the open, you would be denied your self, would disappear into that vastness.)
space reaches from us and construes the world: to know a tree, in its true element, throw inner space around it, from that pure abundance in you. surround it with restraint. it has no limits. not till it is held in your renouncing is it truly there.

rainer maria rilke - uncollected poems, 1922-1926 - translated by stephen mitchell
page 173

invisible birds (forthcoming)

eugène atget

josef sudek

henry fox talbot

richard long

as if you were the voice that moves up and down the rungs of the world, between earth and sky, never beyond, always in the infinite globe, free but inside it, over there, close at hand, where the silver branches fork, awaiting nothing, fleeing nothing, traveller whom a second's joy, for no reason at all, steals from the journey's movement and leaves perched, at a halt...

from landscapes with absent figures translated by mark treharne

robert bresson, francis ponge, a correspondingly particular sound

ciment: do you like poets like francis ponge? your films remind one of him, and his le parti pris des choses.
bresson: yes. i no longer see ponge, unfortunately, as he has moved to the south. he wrote me some remarkable letters about my films and about cinema. i like his fondness for objects, for inanimate things.*


rain

in the courtyard where i watch it fall
the rain is coming down in widely varied measure.
a filmy discontinuous screen (or tracery) at the center
it's an unrelenting shower
relatively slow but rather sparse
an endless light precipitation
fractional concentration of sheer liquid meteor.
close by the walls to the right and left
heavier individualized
the drops come louder in their fall.
nearby they seem the size of wheat grain
over there a pea elsewhere almost a marble.
on window frames and railings the rain scuds horizontally
while on the undersides it clings in rounded lozenges.
molding to the entire surface of a small tin roof
that's visible below
it trickles in a thing skim moiréd in eddies
from the imperceptible bumps and ripples of the metal sheet.
in the adjoining gutter
it sluices along with all the application of a shallow rivulet gently pitched
then plunges abruptly
an absolutely vertical strand rather loosely tressed
straight to the ground where it shatters
and dashes up in glittering bead-tipped needles.

each of its forms has its own particular pace
a correspondingly particular sound.
it all exists intensely
a complicated mechanism precise as it is fortuitous
like clockwork whose mainspring is the weight of a given
mass of vapor in precipitation.
the chiming of vertical strands against the ground
the gurgle of the gutters
the tiny gong tones
all proliferate and resound together in concert
with no monotony with delicacy.

when the main spring runs down
some few wheels churn on awhile
slower and slowerthen the whole mechanism comes to a halt.
at that point if the sun comes out again
everything soon vanishes
the glittering apparatus evaporates.
it has rained. **

* from i seek not description but vision: robert bresson on l'argent (interview with robert bresson by michel ciment) found in robert bresson edited by james quandt, cinematheque ontario, 1998

** francis ponge, le parti pris des choses, éditions gallimard, 1942
in english as the nature of things, red dust, 2000

angelic language has nothing in common with human language,

classic books (number 2):

imagining language: an anthology, edited by jed jasula and steve mccaffery, mit press 1998



includes:

-richard head and francis kirkman: canting vocabulary, 1665 (compact lexicon of rogue idiolect)

-robert desnos: rrose sélavy, etc., 1923

-john dee and edward kelley: enochian table, 1581-1589 & the enocian call, 1581-1589

-emanuel swedenborg: the angelic language, 1768 (blog entry title)

-thomas more: quatrain in utopian vernacular, 1516

-françois rabelais: from gargantua and pantagruel, 1564 (translated by thomas urquhart and peter le motteaux)

-lewis carroll: stanza of anglo-saxon poetry, 1855

-athanasius kircher: the origin of writing, 1679 & the 72 names of god, 1654 & epilogismus combinationis linearis 1669

-sir thomas urquhart: neaudethaumata, a universal language, 1653
man is called a microcosm, because he may by his conceptions and words contain within him the representatives of what in the whole world is comprehended.

-francis lodwick: the forms of distinctional marks, 1647
the actor (drinker), the action (drinking), the object (drink), the inclination (drunkard), the abstract of the demonstrative adjective (drunkenness), and the place of action (drinking house).

-richard grey: from memoria technica, 1730
(is the last in a long line of artificial memory systems)

-jonathan swift: anglo-latin letter to dr. sheridan, c. 1725 & a project for improving speculative knowledge, 1726 & a litteralial scheme of writing, c. 1725

-marcel duchamp: conditions of a language, 1934

-john cage: writing for the second time through finnegans wake, 1979

-jorge luis borges: funes the memorius, 1942

-juan de celaya: the geometry of the mind, 1525

-jacob boehme: from mysterium magnum, 1623

-victor hugo: a hieroglyphic alphabet, 1839

-sir francis bacon: biliteral cipher, 1613

-john wilkins: the somatic production of sounds, 1668

-christian bök: crystal systems, 1994

-novalis: monologue, c. 1798

(et cetera)

athanasius kircher: epilogismus combinationis linearis

(an example of fraenkel's "stylizations" of mallarmé's poem + michaux)

sir francis bacon: biliteral cipher

john wilkins : the somatic production of sound

there amid murmurs, insinuations, visual thunder

stéphane mallarmé, photograph by félix nadar

it seemed to me that i was looking at the form and patterns of a thought, placed for the first time in finite space.  here space itself truly spoke, dreamed, and gave birth to temporal forms.  expectancy, doubt, consternation, all were visible things....  there amid murmurs, insinuations, visual thunder, a whole spiritual tempest carried page by page to the extremes of thought, to a point of ineffable rupture - there the marble took place; there on the very paper some indescribable scintillation of final stars trembled infinitely pure in an inter-conscious void; and there on the same void with them, like some new form of matter arranged in systems or masses or trailing lines, coexisted the word!  i was struck dumb by this unprecedented arrangement.  it was as if a new asterism had proffered itself in the heavens; as if a constellation had at last assumed a meaning.  was i not witnessing an event of universal importance, and was it not, in some measure, an ideal enactment of the creation of language that was being presented to me on this table at the last minute, by this individual, this rash explorer, this mild and simple man who was so unaffectedly noble and charming by nature?

 

("on 'a throw of the dice,'") paul valéry - page 265-266

from stephane mallarmé: collected poems, translated and with a commentary by henry weinfield, university of california press 1995

*

un coup de dés jamais n'abolira le hasard, 1897

at last a new dawn, three rooms, cello recycling/cello drowning & breizhiselad described by paul celan

musical examples of melancholia and the divine:

peter wright: at last a new dawn, 2007 *

"peter wright plays disconnected avant guitar gloop distilled through a series of electronic filters and single malt, heavily influenced by guitar pop, free jazz/improv, atonal guitar noise, cats and city trash.. he was born at 43.3170s, 172.6330e and currently lives at 51.4450n, 0.1510w.
(some) influences: saul bass, sergio leone, akira kurosawa, stanley kubrick, the kinks, tape loops, radiohead, john coltrane, bowie with eno, andrei tarkovsky, jim jarmusch, twin peaks."

"this is the sound of misery and death, and ultimately, of hope and redemption"
from his site.

discography (select):
-at last a new dawn, 2007
-crater lake, 2007
-folk songs and blackness, 2006
-air guitar 7", 2006
-red lion, 2006
-unvarnished, untreated, unzipped, 2006
-pariahs sing om (3cd set), 2006
-desolation beauty violence, 2005
-yellow horizon, 2005
-red lion 'tour edition', 2005
-distant bombs, 2004


paul celan, inhabited, dishabited from threadsuns, 1968
(pierre joris):

inhabited, dishabited,

indishabited,

the obedient darkness: three
bloodhours behind the
gaze-spring,

the coldlight-ocells, s-
mothered by blinding,

the thirteen-
plumby nothing:
over you, with
the luckskin,
it folds itself

during
the ascent.

*

steve peters: three rooms, 2007

"originally composed as sound installations, these three delicate pieces - or rooms, as the title states - are the result of very personal investigation regarding the interaction between physical spaces and the experience of listening. the selected compositions on the disc seem to emanate themselves from these spaces to continuously create room(s) for the listener, intensifying quietly and subtly our awareness"

discography (select):
-three rooms
-from shelter
-with my back to the world: agnes martin (DVD)
-here-ings: a sonic geo-history (CD/book)
-in memory of the four winds
-emanations


paul celan, whitesounds from threadsuns, 1968
(pierre joris):

whitesounds, bundled,
ray-
passages
over the table
with the bottle post hence.

(it listens to itself, listens
to a sea, drinks it
too, unveils
the roadheavy
mouths.)

the one secret
butts forever into the word.
(whoever falls off that, rolls
under the leafless tree.)

all the
shadowclasps
on all the
shadowjoints
audible-inaudible
that announce themselves now.

*

aaron martin & machinefabriek: cello recycling/cello drowning, 2007 * *

"the ‘cello recycling’ project was originally commissioned for use in an art gallery; zuydervelt took cello improvisations from aaron martin and built them into the slow-burning post-ambient monster that is ‘cello recycling’. however here we see the original piece accompanied by aaron martin’s take on rutger’s work, where he ‘drowns’ the original piece in a bath of murky water taking into submerged directions it has never before drifted. the two pieces together are perfectly complimentary showing two sides to a tarnished coin – one giving us pent up emotion, fizzing and shuffling awkwardly until it explodes majestically, the other giving us peaceful reflection as seen through the eyes of a serial killer who has just completed his final gift to the world. an inventive and incredibly beautiful look at the cello as an instrument and noise making tool."


paul celan, in the noises from threadsuns, 1968
(pierre joris):

in the noises, like our beginning,
in the ravine,
where you fell to me,
i wind it up again, the
musical box-you
know: the invisible,
the
inaudible one.

*

eric cordier: breizhiselad, 2006 * *

".....masterpieces of the traditional music of french brittany. apart a few field recordings all the material on this record originates in extracts from two songs of the a side of a 10" 1960s reissue of a 78rpm. the story begins when a breton cousin discovered the record at his grandmother's house. on first listening, i found it to be horrible - but a work of genius. horrible because of the catechism-like vocal arrangements but a work of genius in terms of the beauty of the melody and the conviction of the singers. another particularity is the importance of the disc itself, whose vinyl surface is nearly erased, polished under a sea of cracks. my project has been to transpose this traditional music into the tape music medium with a view to preserving what is strong in the source material and erasing the sugary, churchy treatment of these originally popular songs." eric cordier


paul celan, speechwalls from threadsuns, 1968
(pierre joris):

speechwalls, space inwards-
spooled in upon yourself,
you holler yourself through all the way to the lastwall.

the fogs are burning.

the heat hangs itself inside you.


(in terms of a review; read paul celan's descriptions (they are more than suitable), and run right out to buy these, they are beyond my words)

dreaming out of windows

joseph cornell's dreams

december 18, 1965:

dreaming out of windows


march 8, 1968:

surprise span of the night - going on 5 am
vs. earlier awakenings in halluc. experience...

eggs + nest converted into children


november 15, 1969:

field mouse
dream of mouse
live coals walking right into them unscathed

new book of catherine corman's anthology of dream entries from cornell's diaries, published by exact change of cambridge mass.

(forgive my multiple entries)

after long silence

speech after long silence; it is right,
all other lovers being estranged or dead,
unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
the curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,
that we descant and yet again descant
upon the supreme theme of art and song:
bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
we loved each other and were ignorant.

w.b. yeats from words for music perhaps, 1932.

to hear jorge luis borges read this, take a listen to:
j.l. borges: this craft of verse. borges, in his own voice. the complete norton lectures delivered at harvard university.

wonderous and divine (of or pertaining to a god, esp. the supreme being)

"he would pull these songs out of nowhere," robbie robertson said. "we didn't know if he wrote them or if he remembered them. when he sang them, you couldn't tell." that, in the basement tapes laboratory, is the alchemy, and in that alchemy is an undiscovered country, like the purloined letter hiding in plain site.
from greil marcus', the old, weird america: the world of bob dylan's basement tapes, 1997.

highway 61 revisited 1965

...you never understood that it ain't no good, you shouldn't let other people get your kicks for you....like a rolling stone.

blonde on blonde 1966

...and your saintlike face and your ghostlike soul, oh, who among them do you think could destroy you sad-eyed lady of the lowlands, where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes, my warehouse eyes, my arabian drums, should I leave them by your gate, or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?....sad-eyed lady of the lowlands.

john wesley harding 1967

i dreamed i saw st. augustine, alive as you or me, tearing through these quarters, in the utmost misery, with a blanket underneath his arm, and a coat of solid gold, searching for the very souls whom already have been sold....i dreamed i saw st. augustine.

nashville skyline 1969

...please see for me if her hair hangs long, if it rolls and flows all down her breast. please see for me if her hair hangs long, that's the way I remember her best....girl of the north country.

almost went to see elvis nashville 1969, new york 1970

(bootleg, 1969 material includes: carl perkins, johnny cash, billy wotten, marshall grant, w.s. holland.)
(1970 sessions include: george harrison, charlie daniels, billy mundi, *bob johnson).

self portrait 1970

all the tired horses in the sun, how'm i supposed to get any ridin' done?....all the tired horses.

new morning 1970

...time passes slowly when you're lost in a dream....time passes slowly.



pat garrett & billy the kid 1973
mama, take this badge off of me i can't use it anymore. it's gettin' dark, too dark for me to see....knockin' on heaven's door.

planet waves 1974

...on a night like this, i can't get any sleep, the air is so cold outside, and the snow's so deep....on a night like this.

blood on the tracks 1975

...in a little hilltop village, they gambled for my clothes, i bargained for salvation an' they gave me a lethal dose. i offered up my innocence and got repaid with scorn. "come in," she said, "i'll give you shelter from the storm."...shelter from the storm.

the basement tapes 1975

...it was all very painless, when you went out to receive, all that false instruction, which we never could believe. and now the heart is filled with gold, as if it was a purse. but, oh, what kind of love is this, which goes from bad to worse? tears of rage, tears of grief, must I always be the thief? come to me now, you know, we're so low, and life is brief....tears of rage with richard manuel.

desire 1976

...i can still hear the sounds of those methodist bells, i'd taken the cure and had just gotten through, stayin' up for days in the chelsea hotel, writin' "sad-eyed lady of the lowlands" for you....sara.

the bootleg series, vols. 1-3 : rare and unreleased, 1961-1991 1991

...farewell angelina, the sky is on fire, and I must go....farewell angelina.

world gone wrong 1993

...he layed his head on a pillow of down. kisses she gave him three. with a penny knife that she held in her hand, she murdered mortal he....love henry.

time out of mind 1997

...last night I danced with a stranger, but she just reminded me you were the one, you left me standing in the doorway crying, in the dark land of the sun...i'll eat when I'm hungry, drink when i'm dry....standing in the doorway.

love and theft 2001

...the dusky light, the day is losing, orchids, poppies, black-eyed susan, the earth and sky that melts with flesh and bone, won't you meet me out in the moonlight alone?....moonlight.

no direction home: the soundtrack (the bootleg series vol. 7) 2005

modern times 2006

...as I walked out tonight in the mystic garden, the wounded flowers were dangling from the vines, i was passing by yon cool and crystal fountain, someone hit me from behind. ain't talkin', just walkin', through this weary world of woe, heart burnin', still yearnin', no one on earth would ever know....ain't talkin'.

return to me (dean martin), from the sopranos

return to me, oh, my dear i'm so lonely, hurry back, hurry back, oh my love, hurry back, i am yours....

dylan listening to donovan in dont look back 1967 (d.a. pennebaker)