land between two rivers

the books of anselm kiefer 1969-1990 - george braziller - 1990/1991

was finally able to acquire a copy of the good book (the book of books), though it cost me a weeks pay.
first checked this book out of the massart library as a wee lad, such an influence the good book has had on my life......

some titles
- the heavens
- barren landscapes
- marble landscapes
- shards
- the burning of the rural district of buchen
- piet mondrian - operation "sea lion"
- brandenburg sand
- teutoburg forest
- midsummer's night
- trip through the country
- the rhine
- isis and osiris
- heavy water
- way across the red sea
- through the center of the earth
- the night, when isis weeps
- birth of the sun
- shulamith

october song

requiescat in pace
some albums i enjoy

- bill dixon / archie shepp - bill dixon / archie shepp - savoy - 1964
- cecil taylor - conquistador! - blue note - 1966
- bill dixon - intents and purposes - rca - 1967
- the marzette watts ensemble - the marzette watts ensemble - savoy - 1969
- bill dixon / franz koglmann / steve lacy - opium - between the lines - 1973-1976/2001
- bill dixon - bill dixon in italy volume one - soul note - 1980
- bill dixon - bill dixon in italy volume two - soul note - 1981
- bill dixon - november 1981 - soul note - 1982
- bill dixon - thoughts - soul note - 1985
- bill dixon - son of sisyphus - soul note - 1990
- bill dixon - vade mecum i - soul note - 1993
- bill dixon - vade mecum ii - soul note - 1996
- tony oxley - the enchanted messenger: live from berlin jazz festival - soul note - 1996
- bill dixon & tony oxley - papyrus - volume i - soul note - 1999
- bill dixon & tony oxley - papyrus - volume ii - soul note - 1999
- bill dixon - odyssey: solo works - s/r - 2001
- cecil taylor / bill dixon / tony oxley - s/t - victo - 2002

suspended far up in the sky (distant melodies)

eeaoa033 *

eeaoa031 *

we stood there, listening attentively together. at first i heard only the deep note of the water and the hissings rising from its turbulent surface. the willows, for once, were motionless and silent. then a sound like the humming of a distant gong. it seemed to come across to us in the darkness from the waste of swamps and willows opposite. it was repeated at regular intervals, but it was certainly neither the sound of a bell nor the hooting of a distant steamer. i can liken it to nothing so much as to the sound of an immense gong, suspended far up in the sky, repeating incessantly its muffled metallic note, soft and musical, as it was repeatedly struck. my heart quickened as i listened.

text from the willows, images from 2 new elevator bath recordings, one by keith berry and the other by matt shoemaker, both containing ancient sounds that "seem to increase with the darkness".

the glorification of passive

...in the canonical life of st. sergey is that of the bear that emerged from the woods to come face~to~face with the saint. subdued by the sanctity of the holy man, the animal peacefully accepted some of the bread and water that was st. sergey's only nourishment, returning each subsequent day to share this frugal meal. this friendship between the beast and the saint is depicted among the frescoes on the entrance tower to the monastery, and dostoevsky as a child must have seen it many times.

these stories of the lives of the saints were deeply steeped in the special spirit of russian kenoticism - the glorification of passive, completely nonheroic and nonresisting suffering, the suffering of the despised and humiliated christ - that is so remarkable a feature of the russian religious tradition.... the admiration of the russian common people for "the spirit of asceticism and renunciation, the love of poverty, the craving for self~sacrifice and self~mortification".

pages 26 & 27 from joseph frank's dostoevsky: a writer of his time
images - antonella da messina - st jerome with his friend the lion plus detail

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)

the lusty men

abstraction found in nicholas ray's the lusty men - 1952
from the perspective of the bull rider
slowed down to 50% and looped a few times

the series eye - intense religious emotion

i believe i suffered more than christ. i love life and i want to live, to cry but cannot - i feel such a pain in my soul - a pain which frightens me. my soul is ill. my soul, not my mind. the doctors do not understand my illness... everybody who reads these lines will suffer... my body is not ill, it is my soul that is ill. (from nijinsky's diary - published 1937)

my little girl is singing: 'ah ah ah ah.' i do not understand its meaning, but i feel what she wants to say. she wants to say that everything... is not horror, but joy (from nijinsky's diary)

the outsider's problem is to balance this against van gogh's last words: misery will never end. it is a question no longer of philosophy, but of religion. (colin wilson)

when the voice was heard in the silence i felt my body harden and the nausea vanish; suddenly it was almost unbearable to become so hard, so brilliant... i am in the music. globes of fire turn in the mirrors, encircled by rings of smoke. (from jean-paul satre's la nausée - 1938)

all quotes found in colin wilson's the outsider - 1956
drawings by nijinsky

breugel in film - you yellow dog

you yellow dog
you yellow dog
you yellow dog
you yellow dog
(etcetera)

not a great film, but can't remember the last time i laughed so hard as when watching 1 hour and 2 minutes into mark robson's the harder they fall (1956), with angry breugelian women yelling at corrupt boxer, also of interest - the presence of val avery

g675

a nostrovia to one of the finest - mr. hopper *

- rebel without a cause - 1955
- giant - 1956
- gunfight at the o.k. corral - 1957
- night tide - 1961
- cool hand luke - 1967
- hang 'em high - 1968
- easy rider - 1969
- der amerikanische freund - 1977
- apocalypse now - 1979
- rumble rish - 1983
- blue velvet - 1986
- colors - 1988
- true romance - 1993
- basquiat - 1996

(and many others)

le fleuve

jean renoir - the river - 1951
cinematography - claude renoir (technicolor)
camera operator - ramananda sen gupta
assistant director - satyajit ray (1 of 4)

"renoir had come to calcutta to scout locations for the river. (satyajit) ray walked into the hotel where renoir was staying and sought a meeting. soon ray was accompanying renoir on his trips in search of locations to outskirts of calcutta during the weekends.

seeing his enthusiasm and knowledge about cinema, renoir asked him if he was thinking of becoming a filmmaker. to his own surprise, ray said yes and gave renoir a brief outline of pather panchali, which he had recently illustrated" 1949 encounter *

lethe catastrophe point forthcoming

forthcoming invisible birds recording near completion
lethe / catastrophe point #7 & #8
letterpress printing - ben owen at middle press

a petal falls. an instant. an age. visionary and everyday

(some books for summer reading)

- carter e. forster - edward hopper - skira - 2009
exhibition catalogue for show in milano, roma, lausanne

- hiroshi sugimoto: nature of light - izu photo museum - 2010
exhibition catalogue for show at the izu photo museum in shizuoka

- john cage - zen ox-herding pictures - george braziller - 2009

- athanasius kircher - athanasius kircher's theatre of the world: the life and work of the last man to search for universal knowledge - inner tradition - 2009

- francois le lionnais - the orion book of time - the orion press - 1959/1960
title from this book - haiku by basho

- donald judd: architecture - hatje cantz - 1991/200
- donald judd: architecture in marfa, texas - birkhauser - 2007
had these around at work and never found it necessary to buy until they went op
another coming out soon on chinati buildings by marianne stockebrand

- roberto schezen (photography) - adolf loos: architecture 1903-1932 - the monacelli press - 1996/2009
(wagner - olbrich - plecnik - hoffmann - loos - wittgenstein - good architects for fine young citizens)

- yukio futagawa (photography) - wooden houses in europe - a.d.a. edita - 1978/1991

- bram stoker - dracula (1897) - everyman's library - 2010

- h.g. wells - the man that could work miracles: the supernatural tales of h.g. wells - tartarus press - 2006

- george eliot - the mill on the floss (1860) - everyman's library - 1908/1992

- j.l. carr - a month in the country (1980) - nyrb - 2000

- italo calvino - fantastic tales: visionary and everyday - random house - 1983/1997

- tarjei vesaas - the boat in the evening (1968) - peter owen modern classics - 2003

- leo tolstoy - the death of ivan ilyich & other stories - alfred a. knopf - 2009
includes the forged coupon, aka, l'argent

- joseph sheridan le fanu - uncle silas (1864) - penguin books - 2000
- joseph sheridan le fanu - best ghost stories of j.s. le fanu - dover publications - 1964

- the haunted looking glass: ghost stories chosen by edward gorey - new york review books - 1959/2001

- three gothic novels: the castle of otranto by horace walpole, vathek by william beckford, the vampyre by john polidori and a fragment of a novel by lord byron - dover publications - 1966

- m.r. james - count mangus and other ghost stories - penguin books - 2005
- m.r. james - the haunted dolls house and other ghost stories - penguin books - 2006

- lord dunsany - in the land of time and other fantasy tales - penguin books - 2004

- cornell woolrich - the black angel (1943) - pegasus books - 2008

- w.f. harvey - the beast with five fingers (1928) - wordsworth editions - 2009

- fredric brown - here comes a candle (1950) - millipede press - 2006

- patricia highsmith - the selected stories of patricia highsmith - norton - 2001

- heinrich von kleist - selected prose of heinrich von kleist - archipelago books - 2009

- larry mcmurtry - dead man's walk - simon & schuster - 1995/2004
- larry mcmurtry - comanche moon - simon & schuster - 1997/2003

- robert walser - the microscripts - new directions - 2010
forthcoming

- h.g. wells - the time machine, the invisible man, the war of the worlds - everyman's library - 2010
forthcoming - read the second 2 last year, truly overwhelming, esp. the war of the worlds
slept with the lights on for a month - also of interest: daphne du maurier's the birds

(thanks to the wool and elevator libraries for many of the novels)

invisible in motion photography

eadweard muybridge - sequenced image of a rotating sulky wheel with muybridge climbing steps - ca. 1887

steven pippin - laundromat - locomotion - walking without trousers - man no. l1999.322 - 1999

image one - found in helios: eadweard muybridge in a time of change - steidl - 2010
coming to the sfmoma
image two - thinking back to pippin's show at the sfmoma some years ago
(muybridge invented the washing machine?)