Convulsive Beauty

All that is warm and sublime.

2008-04-24T01:37:46Z

The spring is fresh and fearless
And every leaf is new,
The world is brimmed with moonlight,
The lilac brimmed with dew.

Here in the moving shadows
I catch my breath and sing --
My heart is fresh and fearless
And over-brimmed with spring.

Sarah Teasdale

I went out on an April morning
All alone, for my heart was high,
I was a child of the shining meadow,
I was a sister of the sky.

There in the windy flood of morning
Longing lifted its weight from me,
Lost as a sob in the midst of cheering,
Swept as a sea-bird out to sea.

Sara Teasdale

Spring has been such a tease lately. I hope that it stays; I can't endure! I need to be fulfilled...

>

Developments.

2008-01-31T04:13:48Z

I plan to post more, once I buy myself a new laptop.
Constantly, almost daily - epiphones! I really should share.
Soon!

Fiery words illuminate the heart.

2007-12-20T23:00:05Z

Pierre Abélard was one of the most popular teachers and philosophers in Paris during the 12th century.
Abélard met the young and brilliant Heloïse in Notre-Dame, where she was living with her uncle.
Abélard fell in love with her; he sought and gained a place in their home and became a tutor to her.
He wrote of his seduction of Heloïse.

"He entrusted her wholly to my guidance, begging me to give her instruction whensoever I might be
free from the duties of my school, no matter whether by day or by night, and to punish her sternly if ever
I should find her negligent of her tasks. In all this the man's simplicity was nothing short of astounding to
me; I should not have been more smitten with wonder if he had
entrusted a tender lamb to the care of a ravenous wolf....

Under the pretext of study we spent our hours in the happiness of love, and learning held out to us the
secret opportunities that our passion craved. Our speech was more of love than of the books which lay
open before us; our kisses far outnumbered our reasoned words. Our hands sought less the book than
each other's bosoms -- love drew our eyes together far more than the lesson drew them to the pages of
our text. In order that there might be no suspicion, there were, indeed, sometimes blows, but love gave
them, not anger; they were the marks, not of wrath, but of a tenderness surpassing the most fragrant
balm in sweetness. What followed? No degree in love's progress was left untried
by our passion, and if love itself could imagine any wonder as yet unknown, we discovered it. And
our inexperience of such delights made us all the more ardent in our pursuit of them, so that our
thirst for one another was still unquenched."

When their love was discovered by Heloïse's uncle, he became furious and had Abélard castrated.
Abélard became a monk and urged Heloïse to become a nun so that no one else could have her;
she obeyed. She was only in her twenties and her feelings for her lover did not weaken. Through
the years, Heloïse wrote passionate letters to Abélard confessing her still intense desire for him.

"Among the heroic supporters of the Cross I am the slave of a human desire; at the
head of a religious community I am devoted to Abélard alone. I am, I confess, a sinner,
but one who, far from weeping for her sins, weeps only for her lover; far from abhorring her crimes,
longs only to add to them; and who, with a weakness unbecoming my state, please myself continually
with the remembrance of past delights when it is impossible to renew them...

During the quiet night, when my heart ought to be still in that sleep which suspends the greatest cares,
I cannot avoid the illusions of my heart. I dream I am still with my dear Abélard.
I see him, I speak to him and hear him answer. Charmed with each other we forsake our studies and
give ourselves up to love."

Along with her strong feelings of passion, she also told Abélard of her
struggle between her devotion to God and her devotion to her love.

"I know what obligations this veil lays upon me, but I feel more strongly what power an old passion has
over my heart. I am conquered by my feelings; love troubles my mind and disorders my
will. Sometimes I am swayed by the sentiment of piety which arises within me, and then the next
moment I yield up my imagination to all that is amorous and tender...

Irresolute as I am I still love you, and yet I must hope for nothing. I have renounced life, and stript
myself of everything, but I find I neither have nor can renounce my Abélard. Though I have lost my
lover I still preserve my love. O vows! O convent! I have not lost my humanity under your inexorable
discipline! You have not turned me to marble by changing my habit; my heart is not
hardened by my imprisonment; I am still sensible to what has
touched me, though, alas! I ought not to be!

I remove to a distance from your person with an intention of avoiding you as an enemy; and yet
I incessantly seek for you in my mind; I recall your image in my memory, and in
different disquietudes I betray and contradict myself. I hate you! I love you!"

Abélard 's first letter to Heloïse was cold, and he urged her to think of him no more.
He tried to purge the memory of romantic love from his mind and replace it with love only for God.

"Write no more to me, Heloïse, write no more to me. Let us no more deceive ourselves with
remembrance of our past pleasures; we but make our lives troubled and spoil the sweets of solitude...

Banish me, for ever from your heart-- it is the best advice I can give you."

Heloïse responded:
"What a fool I am to tell my dreams to you who are insensible to these pleasures. But do you,
Abélard, never see Heloïse in your sleep? How does she appear to you? Do you
entertain her with the same tender language as formerly, and are you glad or sorry when you awake?
Pardon me, Abélard, pardon a mistaken lover. I must no longer expect from you that vivacity which
once marked your every action; no more must I require from you the correspondence of desires."

Heloïs continued to write Abélard, and her words were so moving that he finally expelled the truth to her --
his will was no match for the power she still had over him.

"Heloïse, you make me tremble...

Your letters declare to me that you are enslaved to human love. Your heart still burns with that fatal fire you
cannot extinguish, and mine is full of trouble and unrest. Think not, Heloïse, that I here enjoy a perfect peace;
I will for the last time open my heart to you; I am not yet disengaged from you, and though I fight against my
tenderness for you, in spite of all my endeavours I remain but too sensible of your sorrows and long to share in
them. Your letters have indeed moved me; I could not read with indifference characters written by that dear hand!
I sigh and weep, and all my reason is scarce sufficient to conceal my weakness from my pupils. This, unhappy
Heloïse, is the miserable condition of Abélard. The world, which is generally wrong in its notions, thinks I am at
peace, and imagining that I loved you only for the gratification of the senses, have now forgot you. What a mistake
is this!

How miserable am I! I find myself much more guilty in my thoughts of you, even amidst my tears, than in
possessing you when I was in full liberty. I continually think of you; I continually call to mind
your tenderness...

Heaven is still inexorable because my passion still lives in me; the fire is only covered
over with deceitful ashes, and cannot be extinguished but by extraordinary grace. We deceive men,
but nothing is hid from God.

What means have I not used! I have armed my hands against myself; I have exhausted my strength in constant
exercises; I comment upon St. Paul; I contend with Aristotle: in short, I do all I used to do before I loved you,
but all in vain; nothing can be successful that opposes you. Oh! do not add to my miseries by your constancy;
forget, if you can, your favours and that right which they claim over me; allow me to be indifferent. I envy their
happiness who have never loved; how quiet and easy are they! But the tide of pleasure has always
a reflux of bitterness; I am but too much convinced now of this: but though I am no longer deceived by love, I am
not cured. While my reason condemns it my heart declares for it.

Troublesome riches could never tempt me, but those charms, that beauty, that air, which yet behold at this instant,
have occasioned my fall. Your looks were the beginning of my guilt; your eyes, your
discourse, pierced my heart; and in spite of that ambition and glory which
tried to make a defence, love was soon the master."

From Abélard's last letter:
"I have resolved it: this letter shall be my last fault. Adieu. If I die here I will give orders
that my body be carried to the House of the Paraclete. You shall see me in that condition, to demand
tears from you, for it will be too late; weep, rather for me now and extinguish the fire which burns me.

I hope you will be willing, when you have finished this mortal life, to be buried near me.
Your cold ashes need then fear nothing, and my tomb shall be the more rich and renowned."

I hope that everyone had a merry Halloween.

2007-11-12T00:07:53Z

Tomorrow I will be attending a lecture by Todd Hido. I'm excited!
I have many questions that I would like to ask him, but I certainly do
not want to be a nuisance. So, I think that I will go with "have any
particular films influenced your work?" I wonder if he will mention
David Lynch...

Autumn.

2007-10-18T03:35:55Z

They rank neither with mortals nor with immortals: long indeed do they
live, eating ambrosia and treading the lovely dance among the immortals.

but when the fate of death is near at hand, first those lovely trees wither
where they stand, and the bark shrivels away about them, and the twigs
fall down, and at last the life of the Nymphe and of the tree leave the light
of the sun together.

Photographs by Anne Brigman.

Back from the sea.

2007-09-01T17:53:43Z

Mom says that I look as if I have cinnomon sprinkled across my
nose. Originally being out in the sun left a bit of pink on my face,
but it soon turned to freckles. Eventually they disappear.

I have a few long scratches on my cheek. It looks as if I had a bit of
a run in with a feline of some sort. Really, it was just the wild crashing
of the waves. I found it actually quite exhilarating to be somewhat
out of control for a moment. There weren't many people in the
water at the time; people are often afraid of things they cannot
control or predict. The vulnerability that I feel in the ocean is one of
the many things that I adore about it. It makes you feel so spectacularly
small. The power of the sea always leaves me in awe.

Guided by phospherescent tracks of snails.

2007-07-30T20:54:29Z

When skies are cloudy and gray,
They're only gray for a day,
So wrap your troubles in dreams,
And dream your troubles away.

Well, that was strange... this entry
decided to post itself prematurely.
I wanted to include pictures that
reminded me of places I have
visited in my dreams...

EugeneAtget

Square America

Josef Sudek

Eugene Atget

Fae dreams.

2007-06-12T21:03:53Z

"Dougherty's works allude to nests, cocoons,
hives, and lairs built by animals, as well as the
manmade forms of huts, haystacks, and
baskets, created by interweaving branches
and twigs together."

Stickwork.net

Another dream...

2007-05-06T22:21:42Z

There was some sort of carnival going on; it was for Halloween. Everything was being held
on these tall, tall, tall boarded walkways. The stilts to hold them up rose high out of water
below. There was no land to be seen. Slides and roller coaster tracks were twisting this
way and that. They created tangled webs that seemed to defy the laws of gravity. I
remember thinking to myself how incredibly easy it would be to get lost or disoriented
amongst all of the screams and chaos. I had no way of knowing where I was heading
towards; it was hard to navigate through the crowds and the paths did not seem to have
any rhyme or reason to them.

There were huge ferris wheels, trains, and all sorts of rides you would expect to be at a
carnival or amusement park. Some people were lining up to dive off of a board on the ledge
of a walkway. It took many, many seconds for them to reach the water. It was so very
high up. I remember there being enormous shadowed creatures under the surface of the
water. They looked to be sharks and manta rays... I wondered what happened to the
people that dove into the water. Even though this was all very ominous, I remember
wanting to dive because it seemed like it would be exhilarating. I was so caught up in
looking at everything around me that I allowed myself to be pushed along by the flow of the
crowd.

I ended up in some sort of haunted house. The house would rearrange itself spontaneously.
People would enter a room and then suddenly the door would disappear, and a sturdy wall
would be in its place. At first the rooms were only slightly creepy, but as I advanced through
the haunted house I realized that they began to become more and more horrifying. Things
began to look old and decayed. There were dusty books on shelves that some people looked
through. Whatever they were seeing was so terrifying that it left them crying or huddled in
places they perceived to be safe. I moved on through the rooms, driven by a curiousity for
the macabre. Along with the books, I remember there being strange things on shelves in jars...
some things I would expect to see in a book of medical curiosities. In one room, I came upon an
open book at the edge of a bed. There seemed to be a person under the covers; they did not
move. The book was in bad shape. The pages of it were thick and felt like old skin. As I turned
the pages of the book, the illustrations became more and more disturbing and bizarre. The
individuals' faces in the book eroded into flesh that had been torn apart. They looked like they
had been victims of horrible accidents. From their horribly eviscerated faces grew thick
tentacles; jagged teeth sprouted from gaping wounds. The illustrations seemed to move and I
remember being completely engrossed in them. It was almost as if I was being hypnotized by the
pulsing of their pain I could almost feel myself. I remember a very distinct smell of something
burning. The pages in the book glowed as if they were on fire... they were hot to the touch.
The writing in the book became soot. When this happened, I was finally able to pull myself
away from the sickening illustrations...

I remember there being corpses in many of the beds that I saw in different rooms. Sometimes,
especially when a curious person would try to creep closer to get a better look, the corpse would
convulse wildly and let out horrible noises. I never saw any of their faces; they were always
covered by a sheet.

In one of the rooms, there was a mysterious man who looked as if he could have been a Shaman,
perhaps. He sprinkled a group of people with something and then used a sharp stick to write on
their flesh. When he used the stick to mark on them, they said that it did not hurt. He had used
magic to ensure this. Still, he had a strange way about him that made me somewhat wary. He
noticed that he had not used his magic on me yet, so he grabbed my arm forcefully. He assured
me that it would not hurt. First he sprinkled the black dust on me, he then took the sharp twig and
made lines on my forearm that I did not understand. He was very intense while doing this. The
man seemed to want to tell me something very important through his writing. He pressed very
hard and I remember that the process did hurt quite a bit, but I did not say anything. The only
part of the message I could understand was my name. I had thought that he had etched the
strange symbols into my skin, but he had actually burned the symbols into my skin. I could smell
it. I remember the stinging pain very well.

Secret staircases.

2007-04-11T13:28:26Z

I've been remembering my dreams lately and have been making an effort to record them.

Two girls lead me into the woods. They were taking me to a secret place. The woods became
very dense and then we found ourselves at a bog. We struggled to wade through the thick, cold
water; it came up to my chest at one point. Just when I was running out of energy to continue
on, I saw the girls pulling themselves out of the water by grabbing onto the railings of a balcony.
I pulled myself out of the muck as well. As soon as I set foot upon solid ground, I became dry.
The balcony was attached to a small cottage that had one large window. I do not remember
seeing a door. Inside, there was a living room that was very dusty. It did not seem like anyone
had been there in a long while. Behind the cottage was a backyard. The ground was trampled;
it was all dirt... as if many people had gathered there before. I remember there being two
wolves laying next to each other. They were relaxed and I did not feel threatened by them. I
wondered if perhaps they were gaurdians of some sort. I also remember seeing a miniature set
of chairs and a table. There were dolls sitting at the table. It looked as if they were having a tea
party at one point and were interrupted and abandoned. Also in the backyard was a device... it is
somewhat hard to describe. The two girls and I sat in it and it would spin; it was like a strange
carnival ride. As the device spun, it would play eerie music, and as soon as this music began to
play, a being appeared. He had long, white hair... his features were angular, almost feminine.
He looked like someone Yoshitaka Amano would draw. I assumed that this man was an
apparition of some sort because his feet did not touch the ground. He moved without walking;
he glided like a ghost. The spirit did not seem malicious and I was not afraid of him when I saw
him. In fact, I couldn't look away from him! He must have been a king... I thought this because
he wore the most magnificent long, white robe that was adorned with peacock feathers. He didn't
say a word, and he didn't have to... all three of us were transfixed.

Another...

I was staying at a hotel. There were staircases and columns made of white marble... very elegant.
I was there with a group of people that did not remind me of anyone in my waking life. The rooms
were on the second floor of the hotel. Outside of the rooms, you could peer over the railing of the
balcony and see a pool below. The group that I was staying with asked if I would go downstairs
and find out how late the pool area was open. I said that I would. When I got to the balcony, I
remember thinking that the pool looked very beautiful; it glowed and the water looked so smooth.
It was too inviting to resist. After making sure no one was watching, I dove in (swimming is always
better at night!) I glided along slowly under the water to ensure that I would not splash and draw
any attention to myself (I had a feeling the pool would be closed since it was so late.) When I
came to the surface to breath, I wiped my eyes and was shocked to see a man sitting at the edge
of the pool. He was relaxing in a chair and reading a newspaper. I wondered how I could have
not seen him before. He was wearing very old-fashioned clothing... he looked sophisticated, like
he should have been smoking a pipe. The man had dark hair and dark eyes. He was handsome
and seemed to be around forty years of age. Without even looking up fom his newspaper he said,
"That wasn't very lady-like." I did not know how to respond to him. I wanted to tell him that I am
usually very mature and I don't always act so childish. I didn't say a word, though. I felt too silly;
I had climbed out of the pool and was standing there in my dripping pajamas.

Little by little.

2007-02-26T06:57:48Z

Curtains
Originally uploaded by Convulsive Beauty.

A friend of mine gave me a book by David Lynch. It has really been a delight to read. I can relate to some of it...

"It would be great if the entire film came all at once. But it comes, for me, in fragments...
In Blue Velvet, it was red lips, green lawns, and the song - Bobby Vinton's version of "Blue Velvet."

I see many things in fragments. My poems come in fragments. Some memories come in fragments... visions...

Lynch really stresses the impact that meditation has had on his life. I have meditated before, but I do not do it very often. The way he describes the clarity he gains by doing this makes me want to attempt to reach a meditative state more often.

He mentions the "fourth state" of consciousness and the "unified field" and the "atman." It is all very interesting to consider.

He describes the "fourth state" as "a round white room that has yellow, red, and blue curtains covering the white wall. The curtains are three states of consciousness: waking, sleeping, and dreaming. But in the gap between each curtain, you can see the white of the Absolute - the pure bliss consciousness. You can transcend in that little piece of white."

“If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy...

2006-12-22T17:16:59Z

...if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things in nature have a message you understand, Rejoice, for your soul is alive.”
- Eleanora Duse

Photo of Joseph Cornell by Duane Michals

"From his home in New York, Joseph Cornell would sally forth on small
voyages of discovery, scavenging for relics of the past in junk shops
and flea markets. To others, these deposits might be refuse, but to
Cornell they were the strata of repressed memory, a jumble of
elements waiting to be grafted and mated to one another."

"The quiet storm of Cornell's art arose from a conflict of universal significance: the clash between his spiritual aspirations and sensual compulsions."

Joseph Cornell was a bachelor who developed romantic attachments
to numerous women (many were celebrities and dancers that he had
never met.) He became infatuated with waitresses and shopgirls...
Many of the boxes he created as presents for little girls, or for the
young actresses and ballerinas whom Cornell adored from a distance.

Cornell's muses.

In Taglioni's Jewel Casket, small glass cubes lie in a wood box.
Beneath them, and under blue glass, necklaces, sand, crystal, and
rhinestones rest on a mirrored surface. This romantic scene of ice and
jewels relates to an event in the life of the legendary
nineteenth-century ballerina Marie Taglioni. A label in the box's lid tells
the story: "On a moonlight night in the winter of 1835 the carriage of
Marie Taglioni was halted by a Russian highwayman, and that enchanting
creature commanded to dance for this audience of one upon a panther's
skin spread over the snow beneath the stars. From this actuality arose
the legend that to keep alive the memory of this adventure so precious to
her, Taglioni formed the habit of placing a piece of artificial ice in her jewel
casket or dressing table where, melting among the sparkling stones, there
was evoked a hint of the atmosphere of the starlit heavens over the
ice-covered landscape."

On the day he died, he said to his sister "I wish I had not been so reserved."

If any of you live in the Washington D.C. area, there is a Joseph Cornell exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. It will be up until the 19th of February.
Link: slideshow of Cornell's work.
Link: Smithsonian American Art Museum.

I love how fall transforms the world.

2006-10-25T20:13:43Z

Leaf dropping straight
In the windless midnight:
The dreams of change

The sky is still empty,
The rose is still
On the typewriter keys

When the moon sinks
Down to the power line
I'll go in

The Angel's hair
Trailed on my chin
Like a cobweb

The droopy constellation
On the grassy hill -
Emily Dickinson's Tomb

Wet fog
Shining
In lamplit leaves

Looking up at the stars,
Feeling sad,
Going "tsk tsk tsk"

A long island
In the sky
The Milky Way

Protected by the clouds,
The moon
Sleeps sailing

If someone passes away and has unfinished business on earth, then they come back as a ghost. What happens if you have unfinished business with someone who has already gone?
I've been trying to focus on simpler thoughts rather than engrossing myslef in issues that are much too heavy...

^Photographs: Uta Barth

I bet you can see more stars in the desert than in L.A.

2006-09-19T04:29:19Z

Los Angeles feels so very hopeless.
It seems like people go there to fade away.
I would like to go back someday, though...
as long as I could keep driving
past the billboards and the lights.
Back to where I was born;
the desert.
Away from the vapidness.
There, I would settle
with someone who
would adore my small hands so much
that he would have to take many pictures of them...
and I would make paintings of the sky.

I spent a week at the ocean.

2006-08-15T16:15:43Z

I pondered quite a bit while searching for and collecting shells on the shore.
I wish I could have taken them all home with me, but I could never carry
them all and I wouldn't want to be greedy. It's funny that such beautiful
treasures are left scattered on the beach, but if (for whatever reason)
ten-dollar bills were to suddenly wash up onto the sand I'm sure they
would be snatched up immediately. I wish more people valued beauty.
I think that they would perhaps be more content if that were the case.

I hope that everyone is enjoying their summer!

Psst... check out vintagephoto if you haven't already.

Even amidst fierce flames, the golden lotus can be planted.

2006-07-14T02:27:48Z

Latest fixations:

1) Salvador Dalí's museum house.

2) The art of Peter Callesen.

3) People I will never know.

[All images from Square America.]

Somewhere...the waves creep cool.

2006-06-08T18:07:23Z

She seem'd, at once, some penanced lady elf,
Some demon's mistress, or the demon's self.

From "Lamia" by John Keats

Isobel Lilian Gloag

[This image is by John William Waterhouse, and this one is by Frederick Lord Leighton.]

The Lamia is a malevolent water sprite. Sometimes she is depicted as a beautiful woman with a serpent tail.
She seduces her victims, and in some legends she drinks the blood of her human captives. In Greek
mythology, Lamia was given the ability to remove her eyes. In Latin, Lamia means "witch" or "vampire."
Lamia is the Arabic word for "fiend."

F. Cayley Robinson

[Another image by Julius Hubner here.]

Melusina is a female water sprite who lives in fresh water. She can
change into a beautiful woman. Humans are often tempted to spy
on her while she bathes to see her in her part-woman part-serpent
form. If Melusina catches an intruder, she may lash out.

John Collier

[Another image by William Bouguereau.]

Ondine was a water nymph. A knight, Sir Lawrence, fell deeply in love with her. She agreed that she
would marry him as long as he vowed that his every waking breath shall be his pledge of love and
faithfulness to her. They were married and Ondine gave birth to their child. This caused her to lose her
immortality. She began to age, and Sir Lawrence lost interest in his wife. Ondine caught him in the arms
of another woman and cursed him. She said, "As long as you are awake, you shall have your breath,
but should you ever fall asleep, then that breath will be taken from you and you will die!"

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The Lorelei is a rock in the Rhine River. It is named for the legendary maiden that threw herself from the
rock. She turned into a nixe (a siren); she uses her beautiful voice to lure fishermen to their death.

"Die Lorelay"

I don’t know what it could mean,

that I’m so sad: I find,

A fairy-tale, from times unseen,

Won’t vanish from my mind.

The air is cool and it darkens,

And quiet flows the Rhine:

The tops of the mountains sparkle,

In evening’s after-shine.

The loveliest of maidens,

She’s wonderful, sits there,

Her golden jewels glisten,

She combs her golden hair.

She combs it with a comb of gold,

And sings a song as well:

Its strangeness too is old

And casts a powerful spell.

It grips the boatman in his boat

With a wild pang of woe:

He only looks up to the heights,

Can’t see the rocks below.

The waves end by swallowing

The boat and its boatman,

That’s what, by her singing,

The Lorelei has done.

Heinrich Heine

Naiads [Nymphs who live in rivers and streams.]

John William Waterhouse

Nereids [Nymphs who live in the sea.]

John William Waterhouse

Collier Smithers

Look! I picked this up at the used bookstore.
It came all the way from the Oregon Coast Aquarium to find me.

This one is by Sara Teasdale...

"Sea Longing"

A thousand miles beyond this sun-steeped wall

Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand,

The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land

With the old murmur, long and musical;

The windy waves mount up and curve and fall,

And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow -

Tho' I am inland far, I hear and know,

For I was born the sea's eternal thrall

I would that I were there and over me

The cold insistence of the tide would roll,

Quenching this burning thing men call a soul, -

Then with the ebbing I should drift and be

Less than the smallest shell along the shoal,

Less than the seagulls calling to the sea.

Leave traces of warm lily.

2006-05-06T06:00:36Z

Images by Jane Fulton

[From "The Gypsy And The Wind"]

Playing her parchment moon
Precosia comes
Along a watery path of laurels and crystal lights.
The starless silence, fleeing
From her rhythmic tambourine,
Falls where the sea whips and sings,
His night filled with silvery swarms.

And gypsies of the water
For their pleasure erect
Little castles of conch shells
And arbors of greening pine.

Gypsy, let me lift your skirt
And have a look at you.
Open in my ancient fingers
The blue rose of your womb.

Words by: Federico García Lorca

I've been completely swallowed up...lost in visions and thoughts.
I apologize for my absence...but I can't help it! There's just so
much. I hope that this summer is good to me [and to you, too.]
I have so much to share! But...where to start...hmmm...

A little about Federico García Lorca - he was involved with the
avant-garde community in Spain and was friends with Salvador
Dalí and Luis Buñuel. Some even think that Lorca and Dalí may
have been lovers...interesting. I've been reading up on Dalí quite
a bit lately [The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí should be arriving
in the mail soon!]

I've been watching experimental Dada films lately. I can't get enough!
Un Chien Andalou is an obvious favorite...but another film has also
captured my heart - Man Ray's L'etoile de Mer. L'etoile de Mer stars
Kiki de Montparnasse [Alice Prin] and Mr. Robert Desnos!

You should definitely watch L'etoile de Mer... & here is Hans Richter's
Vormittagsspuk [Ghosts Before Breakfast.] It's a perfect example of an
experimental film during the 1920's and 1930's. It's about 6 and a half
minutes long. Oh, and, here's one more treat from Salvador Dalí...hehe...

So behind shut lids I float awhile...

2006-04-21T16:40:39Z

The motherly pulse of the sea...

Where the winds are all asleep;
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,
Where the salt weed sways in the stream,
Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round,
Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground;
Where the sea-snakes coil and twine,
Dry their mail and bask in the brine;
Where great whales come sailing by,
Sail and sail, with unshut eye,
Round the world for ever and aye...

[Excerpt from "Forsaken Merman" by Matthew Arnold.]

Like a deep woman, it hid a good deal; it had many faces, many delicate, terrible veils. When I was learning to creep, my mother set me down on the beach to see what I thought of it. I crawled straight for the coming wave and was just through the wall of green when she caught my heels.
I often wonder what would have happened if I had managed to pierce that looking-glass. Would my infant gills have taken over, the salt in my blood? For a time I believed not in God nor Santa Claus, but in mermaids. They seemed as logical and possible to me as the brittle twig of a seahorse in the Zoo aquarium or the skates lugged up on the lines of cursing Sunday fisherman - skates the shape of old pillowslips with the full, coy lips of women.

[Excerpt from Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams which is a collection of short stories and essays by Sylvia Plath. Thanks, faeofluna, for letting me borrow it.]

Artist: Gustav Klimt

Wake up

2006-03-25T20:26:05Z

Let all of life be an unfettered howl. Like the crowd greeting the
gladiator. Don't stop to think, don't interrupt the scream, exhale,
release life's rapture. Everything is blooming. Everything is flying.
Everything is screaming, choking on its screams. Laughter. Running.
Let-down hair. That is all there is to life.

Vladimir Nabokov

I'm still alive.

Brain worms.

2006-02-27T20:49:13Z

Photo by: Nazif Topçuoglu

The image above actually relates very well to the horror that I am about to speak of.
The other day I watched a program called Eaten Alive. It was about parasites. One
woman went to go use the bathroom after feeling something cold in her underwear.
When she pulled down her panties, out flopped a slimy tentacle worm-like creature
[this seemed very Lynch-esque to me.] I didn't know that sort of thing really
happened!!! Another person told of his experience with a tapeworm. He explained
that while he was cleaning up in the bathroom, he felt something dangling from his
bum. It turned out to be a worm. He pulled on this worm, and pulled, and pulled,
until he could pull no more! The worm did not want to budge. It liked living in his
intestines too much. The worm turned out to be about 2 feet in length. He had to
have his wife come into the bathroom with a pair of scissors and cut the tapeworm...
but they are not that easy to get rid of! As long as the tapeworm's head is intact, it
can grow more segments. One unfortunate woman ate food that had parasite eggs in
it; the eggs became embedded in her brain and caused cysts. She said she could hear
them squirming when they hatched!!! Another individual consumed parasite eggs, but
in his case the eggs made their way to his liver where they formed a giant cyst full of
eggs. It was bigger than a grapefruit...they showed footage of it being removed...
Another type of parasite mentioned was the Loa loa. Basically, Loa loa is a worm that
can be found in the eye. Ahhhh!!!

Hope everyone's doing well. Hehe.

Sublimation.

2006-02-11T17:44:35Z

I've been bursting at the seams with this cryptic energy.
It's nice to be back in the darkroom.
I've been writing more too...

White hot
Your fiery spark
Fills me
Inside

You

Feel like

A god

Would envy
Your potent power
To release
A being from

The body

Explodes...
And the heat
Rises like a
Dream.

^ This was inspired by a dream.
The sensations melted together,
that's what I have tried to portray
in words here.

Image of Edward Weston and Margarethe Mather by Imogen Cunningham

Imogen Cunningham

Edward Weston

Imogen Cunningham

I accept the kisses of cyclone drunkenness.

2006-01-27T18:22:48Z

"Far from me a shooting star lands in the poet's nightly bottle. He promptly corks it up again, and for a
long time afterwards gazes through its glass at the captive star, glimpsing constellations
forming within its walls, far from me, you're that far from me..."

How simple and strange everything is.

Yvonne George photographed by Man Ray

I've been meaning to update. My capriciousness has gotten the best of me...I've been tumbling about like
the leaves...a bit careless...but delightfully so.

There have been some gloomy days lately, but I can't help but to fall in love. Not with people, mind you...
You can fall in love with anything. I do it every day, many times. Sometimes it's the particular colors in the
sky.

Robert Desnos: he was a bad student, but fell in love with literature and began publishing poems. In 1922, he
began practising automatic writing, notably under hypnosis. He fell in love with the singer Yvonne George,
but the crowds of fans also obsessed with her ensured that his love was impossible. His unanswered love for
her was so strong it became for some time the only inspiration of his poetry.

"I've dreamed of you so much that you're losing your reality.
Is it already too late for me to embrace your literal, living and breathing physical body
and to kiss that mouth which is the birthplace of that voice which is so dear to me?
I've dreamed of you so much that my arms -- which have become accustomed to lying crossed
upon my own chest after attempting to encircle your shadow -- might not be able to unfold again
to embrace the contours of your literal form, perhaps
So that coming face-to-face with the actual incarnation of what has haunted me and ruled me
and dominated my life for so many days and years
Might very well turn me into a shadow.
Oh equilibriums of the emotional scales!
I've dreamed of you so much that it might be too late for me to ever wake up again.
I sleep on my feet, body confronting all the usual phenomena of life and love and yet
when it comes to you -- you, the only being on the planet who matters to me now--
I can no more touch your face and lips than I can those of the next random passerby.
I've dreamed of you so much, have walked and talked and slept so much with your
phantom presence that perhaps the only thing left for me to do now
Is to become a phantom among phantoms, a shadow a hundred times more shadowy
than that shifting shape which moves and which will go on moving,
stepping lightly and happily across the sundial of your life."

"If you only knew how I love you and -- even though you don't love me -- how happy I've become,
how empowered and proud, for being able with your image in my mind to step out into this world,
and able even to step out of this entire universe,
And for being so happy, moreover, even to die for this.
If you only knew how I've conquered the world.
And you, so beautiful, and so seemingly unconquerable too, how completely you've become my prisoner.
Oh you, who from so far away, completely conquor me!
If you only knew."

I'm calling loves and lovers
I'm calling the living and the dead
I'm calling the gravediggers I'm calling the murderers
I'm calling the executioners I'm calling the pilots the masons the architects
I'm calling the flesh...

Leave everything.

2005-12-30T05:33:04Z

Imogen Cunningham

Poetry is made in a bed like love.
Its rumpled sheets are the dawn
of things.