Saturday, May 17, 2003

 
Notes from the Matisse/Picasso show at MOMA:



Gertrude Stein says of their exchange of art in the summer of 1907, that each "had purposefully chosen a bad, uninteresting work by the other," out of spite.

--Wall text



and from Warhol's Screen Tests, also at MOMA:



Sound film is filmed at 24 frames per second, while silent film is projected at 16 frames per second. In Warhol's Screen Tests, he filmed at 24 and projected at 16 for a delicately graceful rhythm. Now apply this to sound--



Old notes, which I had just found, from a visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum:



Chintz as fetish commodity, mediating object between India and England in 1700s

--eventually outlawed by England so as not to compete with Industrial Revolution fabrics

--flowered patterns esp. appealed to Dutch aesthetics, perhaps resonating with Dutch flower still-lives

posted by Open Mouth 12:37 AM

Wednesday, May 14, 2003

 
Tomorrow I have to return Joseph Brodsky's So Forth (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux: 1996) to the library. The one poem which imprinted itself most strongly in my visceral memory reminded me of my grandmother. Really, the one line--the last line--that comes after the mundane litany is what claws my heart.



You arose--I dreamt so last night--and left for

Australia. The voice, with a triple echo,

ebbed and flowed, complaining about climate,

grime, that the deal with the flat is stymied,

pity it's not downtown, though near the ocean,

no elevator but the bathtub's indeed an option,

ankles keep swelling. "Looks like I've lost my slippers"

came through rapt yet clear via satellite.

And at once the receiver burst into howling "Adelaide! Adelaide!"--

into rattling and crackling, as if a shutter,

ripped off its hinges, were pounding the wall with inhuman power.



Still, better this than the silky powder

canned by the crematorium, than the voucher--

better these snatches of voice, this patchwork

monologue of a recluse tring to play a genie



for the first time since you formed a cloud above a chimney.



--"In Memory of My Father: Australia," 1989



I had read this shortly after returning from Taiwan.
posted by Open Mouth 3:32 AM

Tuesday, May 13, 2003

 
And yet Celan is too sparse, too heavy, too introverted for me. The words barely expand beyond themselves, like a very dry inkspot trying to stretch beyond its means. But that is because I still use imagery as the measure, whereas I know Celan is purely language, most noticeably to me in his neologisms.



Sprich--

Doch scheide das Nein nicht vom Ja.

Gib deinem Spruch auch den Sinn:

gib ihm den Schatten.



Speak--

But keep yes and no unsplit.

And give your say this meaning:

give it the shade.



--from Paul Celan's "Sprich Auch Du/Speak, You Also" of Von Schwelle zu Schwelle (1955) as translated by Michael Hamburger in the revised and expanded edition of Poems of Paul Celan (New York: Persea Books, 2002).
posted by Open Mouth 2:08 AM

Monday, May 12, 2003

 
I can't help myself; I have to write about Celan's words.



All throughout Matthew Barney's masturbatory exhibit at the Guggenheim, the beginning lines of Celan's "Death Fugue"/"Todesfuge" were rocking my head. I couldn't believe that I, and so many other people, were giving this little boy so much attention for putting on elaborate stage show. Even if he makes fantasy fun and dangerous, his art is just cheap, excessive, gaudy without enough horror for gravitas or enough superficiality for transcendence. But that's probably the inflection of Celan in my head: For the first time I am conscious of the workings of language as words, just words, not words-that-make-images:



Schwarze Milch der Fruhe wir trinken sie abends

wir trinken sie mittags und morgens wir trinken sie nachts

wir trinken und trinken

wir schaufeln ein Grab in den Luften da liegt man nicht eng



Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundown

we drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night

we drink and we drink it

we dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined



The rhythm in both English and German is the same, giving off the same sense of dread. Whatever black milk is, it isn't good, especially if this thing that belongs to the morning is drunk at night. Simple. Effective.
posted by Open Mouth 5:10 AM

 
These past few days have been heavy. But instead of talking about the intersection of that heaviness and Paul Celan's poems about breath, eyes, and hearts, I want to say that I just took the Ilovepucca.com quiz and I am a:




Who's your Pucca Character? Take the quiz! Brought to you by Lovepucca.net!
posted by Open Mouth 4:57 AM