it is as if he had stolen it

joseph cornell - rose hobart - 1936

sound, sound design, music in film

classic drone series - joseph cornell - rose hobart
music - nestor amaral and orchestra, looped

(link expired)

(thanks to sofia d'église for capturing sound)

los angeles, california, from monday, december 10, 1962

poster for joseph cornell's ferus exhibition
image found in the ferus gallery: a place to begin - steidl - 2009

...songs are sung

some new items:

-edvard munch: the complete graphic works by gerd woll (harry n. abrams 2001)
-joseph cornell and the ballet by sandra leonard starr (castelli feigen corcoran 1983)
-joseph cornell by diane waldman (george braziller 1977)
-george de la tour by jacques thuillier and fabia claris (flammarion 1993)
-anni albers: pictorial weavings (mit 1959)
-austerlitz by w.g. sebald
-the shadow-line: a confession by joseph conrad
-the woman in the dunes by kobo abe

*****

-henryk gorecki: string quartet no. 3...songs are sung (kronos quartet)
-nico, the frozen borderline: 1968-1970 (the marble index 1969 & desertshore 1970)

było ciemno, gdy noc w cieniach (pogrążona), it was dark as night in shadows

joseph cornell: box with bird's nest and oak galls
cornell study center
from joseph cornell navigating the imagination

dirty skylight window (or rainy day effect dim light)-
then very conscious of mechanics of light coming thru
or by a table very bright...

stained hands with black ink not minding

(page 15)


-also a sequence of being on a couch and looking out
as though over a river at night & up at the constellations
-but as though they were seen in a picture book

(page 19)


standing gazing into open space rural- exquisitely
quintessential atmosphere of indian summer light...

-this one fragment best recalled mystical- akin to
eakins' painting of the scull tower

(page 50)


same very pale blue a gauzy opaque smoke grey- mass
overheard something from last night's dream almost
forming an image- soft mystical light on things helped
by the dirty windows

(page 56)


last night- a dream sequence about observing the city
in some phen. light- color- old + new- an image too
much to grasp in words- children looking out with me
something flowered from a large window frame

(page 67)


dream remembered- the sublime ones
too elusive detail only- large slices of snow

(page 68)


incident of a batch of pencils being sharpened much
lost

(page 76)


brace of dreams into clear
catching a rabbit looking more like a fox
in hand goes to sleep
wakes up close-up
turns into my hand

(page 79)


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

(page 93)


i go into the modest dwelling- "business" of a
labyrinthine wandering through the rooms...

beaut. music was going on non-vocal- one cd not
discern the source-

(page 103)


całe pozycje od joseph cornell's dreams zredagowany przez catherine corman
(tytułują od strony 4)
alt. title: to był ciemne jak (ponieważ) wieczór późny w cieniach

certain (of) the good humour of the duck

duck hunter falls out of boat; drowns , goop joe's poultry pages by joseph cornell (made for his family) on view at the sfmoma

humour and the sublime. the noise was quite rambunctious at the cornell show, so i put on my headphones and i persuaded my ipod to act randomly by blindly pushing the buttons, and she chose to play akira rabelais/harold budd's as long as i can hold my breath, which i was very thankful for.

navigating the berlin alexanderplatz

the first image from rainer werner fassbinder's berlin alexanderplatz, 1980

joseph cornell: navigating the imagination by lynda roscoe hartigan

this week (and last), i was able to aquire two of the greatest items imaginable, (and to see the joseph cornell exhibition at the sfmoma).
both this film and cornell's work have been guiding lights for me over the last 15 years or so (berlin alexanderplatz has been one of my favourite films, that i have never seen), and it is nice that they both arrived simultaneously.
mark lapore, one of the most inspiring teachers i had, would always say that reading about andy warhol's films was the biggest influence on his own work and aesthetic, even though he had not seen the films until later on in his life. that the idea of warhol's films was so overwhelming for him (of course seeing them later on, further inspired him), has always been such a beautiful concept for me, and berlin alexanderplatz has been that unseen film for me.
more posts to come on each as i spend more time with them.

(please excuse this old pole's uncouth english, it is not his native language...nor is polish)

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)

following the ring

milos forman: loves of a blonde, 1965

joseph cornell rose hobart, 1936

milos forman: loves of a blonde, 1965
sequence where married man looking to meet young girl, takes off his ring, puts it in his pocket, but then it falls out as he is talking with her and he follows it under a table.
i watched this sequence over and over this weekend, much of the appeal for me was the music forman used. it added such a dry humor and absurdity to the events, the scene became one of those perfect examples of movie magic.
the use of music reminded me of the 2 songs used by joseph cornell in his film rose hobart, 1936. here cornell played with absurdity and repetition, and strangely also dealt with a ring. i use to have a cassette of these two songs, and would listen to them over and over again for hours, and everything that took place before my eyes had such a bizarreness and artificiality, the film (and the world) took on new dimensions.
it also seems interesting to reduce moments in a film to frames, and how this abstraction gives new meaning when the frames are viewed like a list.
glenn gould said the playing of the music was unnecessary if you could read the score. it was just done for people that lacked the ability to read.