Cosmic Beam
Francesco Lupica for The Thin Red Line soundtrack
“And yet you were not freer from the chain of things, nor your diamond body safer from misfortune than your body of flesh and filth. Perhaps, unhappy woman, dishonored traveler of every road, you are about to attain that which has no shape. … Desire has taught you the emptiness of desire; regret has shown you the uselessness of regret. Be patient, Error of which we are all a part, Imperfect creature thanks to whom perfection becomes aware of itself, O Lust which is not necessarily immortal…”— Fragment from Marguerite Yourcenar’s “Kali Beheaded”
I met a man who loved everything… And he died in a flood of shit.
“Possession,” Andrzej Zulawski (1981)
蒸留反応 ❀ Distillation Response
森田童子❀ Morita Doji
From 夜想曲 ❀ Nocturne (1982)
A long scarf
Wrapped around the two us
Your numbed
Small hands
In my pockets
They’re so cold and it feels so nice
Let it snow* - Hmmm
Let it snow - Hmmm
Like your T-Shirt
From last summer
Covering all over in pure white
Everywhere
I squint my eyes
It’s so bright and it feels so nice
Let it snow - Hmmm
Let it snow - Hmmm
Beyond the whiteness
Even whiter
On your eyelashes
The fallen snowflakes seem heavy
With my lips
I’ll melt it away - it feels so nice
Let it snow - Hmmm
Let it snow - Hmmm
Both of our footsteps
Will be erased by the snow
I feel so cold
You feel cold
Our teeth start to chatter
Isn’t it funny? - It feels so nice
Let it snow - Hmmm
Let it snow - Hmmm
You and I
Become buried in the snow
Can’t see anything anymore
A world of pure white
Oh, isn’t it so pretty
It’s so pretty - it feels so nice
Let it snow - Hmmm
Let it snow - Hmmm
*Alternative: Snow, come down
Snow, fall down
Let the snow come down
Hmmm - humming
“Les pleurs”.1926.
Gouache on paper.
38.5 x 28.3 cm.Art by Erté.(1892-1990).
I make all my decisions on intuition. But then I must know why I made that decision. I throw a spear into the darkness. That is intuition. Then I must send an army into the darkness to find the spear. That is intellect.
Ingmar Bergman, "Ingmar Bergman Confides in Students" New York Times, May 7, 1981.
The technique of a great seducer requires a facility and an indifference in passing from one object of affection to another which I could never have; however that may be, my loves have left me more often than I have left them, for I have never been able to understand how one could have enough of any beloved. The desire to count up exactly the riches which each new love brings us, and to see it change, and perhaps watch it grow old, accords ill with multiplicity of conquests.
Marguerite Yourcenar, “Memoirs of Hadrian”
An Arrowhead from the ancient Battlefield of Ch’ang-p’ing
By Li Ho
Lacquer dust and powdered bone and red cinnabar grains:
From the spurt of ancient blood the bronze has flowered.
White feathers and gilt shaft have melted away in the rain,
Leaving only this triple-cornered broken wolf’s tooth.
I was searching the plain, riding with two horses,
In the stony fields east of the post-station, on a bank
where bamboos sprouted,
After long winds and brief daylight, beneath the dreary stars,
Damped by a black flag of cloud which hung in the empty night.
To left and right, in the air, in the earth, ghosts shrieked from wasted flesh.
The curds drained from my upturned jar, mutton victuals were my sacrifice.
Insects settled, the wild geese swooned, the buds were blight-reddened on the reeds,
The whirlwind was my escort, puffing sinister fires.
In tears, seeker of ancient things, I picked up this barb
With snapped point and russet flaws, which once pierced through flesh.
In the east quarter on South Street a pedlar on horseback
Talked me into bartering the metal for a votive basket.
Maria Callas photographs from the sessions for the cover of “Medea” at Teatro Alla Scala, Conducted by Tullio Serafin
Greguoli Venini
“It could be a religious fascination, and there is indeed a
religious dimension to her work, except that what fascinates her is discovered little by little. Indeed, I think that she herself is in the process of
discovering it or allowing it to be discovered. It’s a mixture of
eroticism that involves women’s flesh and then death. It runs the gamut
of that overwhelming and beautiful something that is indefinable in
women. And it all merges together. Then it’s lost again. It’s as if
death has swallowed life and beauty with the terrible tenderness of
love. It’s as if death loved life.”
Hélène Cixous in conversation with Michel Foucault on Marguerite Duras’ writing and film
penguin café orchestra - the sound of someone you love who’s going away and it doesn’t matter
“La vie est faite de morceaux qui ne se joignent pas.”— Muriel from Les Deux Anglaises et le Continent (François Truffaut, 1971)
Fragment from Françoise Hardy’s memoir, “The Despair of Monkeys and Other Trifles”
I have identified four trees that I have arbitrarily established as my friends. First there is the holly on a little side lane; further on, the weeping beech that hangs over the pond and faces a gigantic purple beech on the other side. I regularly say hello to them and give them my compliments. If there is no one in sight, I embrace the powerful trunks of each of these trees, one after the other, so they can give me a little of their energy if it is in their power to do so, and I thank them when I leave.
But my favorite tree stands discreetly apart and does not look like any other tree, most likely because it comes from somewhere far away. Its fairly slender trunk supports a multitude of long, thin branches that gracefully curve above the ground. It is surely for protection that they are studded with hard, sharp leaves. It is called the “Despair of Monkeys,” and I do not know whether I am attracted to it because I am almost a member of its family or because it reminds me of men who have caused me despair. They, too, discourage people from getting too close by making themselves inaccessible or by casting thorns. Fragile as they were, how could they have done otherwise?