When, in the course of canine events

.. should one discover the dreadful news?










Ideally, when everything else is still new, too -

especially, oneself! 









Geordie ventures next door
18 weeks
Photography, Laurent
Leica M-6
Kodak Ektar 1000, daylight

Beloved Alibi: An Air in Three Variations

"Not everybody agrees with us."


The White House
Washington
Welcoming remarks
  by the President
  of the United States
December 7, 2010 

The fact of Desertion 
I will not dispute; 
But its guilt, as I trust, is removed,
(So far as it relates to the costs of this suit),
By the Alibi which has been proved.

Though an host of men were laid against me,

yet shall my heart not be afraid;

though there rose up war against me,

yet will I put my trust in him.

                      .. But in these cases,

            We still have judgment here; that we but teach

            Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return

            To plague th'inventor: this even-handed Justice

            Commends th'ingredients of our poison'd chalice

            To our own lips.

.. Besides, this Duncan

Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been

So clear in his great office, that his virtues

Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongu’d, against

The deep damnation of his taking-off;

And Pity, like a naked new-born babe,

Striding the blast, or heaven’s Cherubins, hors’d

Upon the sightless couriers of the air,

Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

That tears shall drown the wind.

.. I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself

and falls on th’other.

Yves, oil on canvas, 1991

Joan Mitchell

You Have Been Here Sometime

Lewis Carroll

The Hunting of the Snark

1876

The Annoted Edition

Martin Gardner, editor

Norton, 1962©

The Book of Common Prayer

1662

Georg Frideric Händel

10th Anthem for the Duke of Chandos

1717-18

Harry Christophers

The Sixteen

Chandos Records, Ltd, 1994©

William Shakespeare

The Tragedie of Macbeth

I, vii, 7-28

1606, published 1623

The Arden Shakespeare

Kenneth Muir, editor

Methuen, 1951©

Mr Obama makes yet another deal

Neville Chamberlain,

eat your heart out.

  The soul is undiscovered, 
  though explored forever 
  to a depth beyond report. 

Paul Strand, Wall Street


Heraclitus of Ephesus
Brooks Haxton, translation
Penguin, 2001©


Gustavo Santaolalla
Opening, 'Brokeback Mountain'
Verve Music Group, 2005©

What if Monday's mark

were fresh?  

grateful
to Native Kee and Valéry Lorenzo 

for discussing Fabienne Verdier; 

and to Tassos for skiing. 

All things shining is in Context, 

discovered via the morning paper. 

Lachowski times his own levée.

Franz Josef Haydn

Piano Trio in F, Andante

Beaux Arts Trio

Philips, 1996©

Francisco Lachowski

Eva Truffaut revisits Jean Vigo

Readers may recall a previous entry on Jean Vigo, which pursued an interest in water which he naturally enriched enormously in film. Now, owing entirely to heeding one's own advice, one finds Eva Truffaut celebrating Vigo for his interest in light, if I may be so bold as to put the pillow fight in Zéro de conduite in such simple terms. In any event, she makes a splendid case for this appreciation, with an invaluable entry at a blog I'd possibly never have discovered, but for watching the movements of Valéry Lorenzo, with whom she left a comment allowing us to track her down.

That posting, alone, is priceless for its salvaging of signal images from one of the treasures of world cinema. But this is the work recorded in her blog, and it directly precedes a stunning comment on Hannah Arendt, in cinematic stills. That work is beyond praise and this blog gives an answer to many a filmlover's prayers. It follows that none will ignore this discovery.

Sunday night above the clavicle

How servile is the task to please alone,
Though beauty woo and love inspire the song ..










John Clare
Two Songs 
  and some stanzas
  from child harold
circa 1837
"I am," The Selected
  Poetry of John Clare
Jonathan Bate, editor
FS & G, 2003©

El perro, a conversation

Goya, 1819-23

Paschalis, 2005

Lorenzo, 2010

Red, 1960

Literature has not always led society, but when there has been leadership, literature has furnished it. Other arts, from time to time. History assuredly recalls the election of 1960 as an event of cultural decompression, exorbitantly deferred, foretold in 1936. Of social promise, shiningly exposed. We will not see the election of 2008 in this light, but as 1948, revisited.


Most of the young I know cannot bear to recall the attention they paid to the incumbent's election. They don't know their history. Very well, they were never told: we learn it, before we can be it.


The way up is the way back.

Heraclitus of Ephesus

Brooks Haxton, translation

Fragments

Penguin, 2001©