A Lengthy Intermission (Things To Do, Places To See)

I will be here for the next couple of months:

http://postcardstoalina.blogspot.com/

Le Comte de Lulli

Because Some Rise By Sin, And Some By Virtue Fall*

Fig. 1. José de Madrazo - La muerte de Viriato, 1807


Justice without might is helpless; might without justice is tyrannical.

Blaise Pascal

* Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall. (William Shakespeare - Measure for Measure, Act II, Scene i)

Untitled (When No Means Saying Yes To Narration)*

Fig. 1. Lenin (Vilnius, Lithuania), 1991


Photography implies that we know about the world if we accept it as the camera records it. But this is the opposite of understanding, which starts from not accepting the world as it looks. All possibility of understanding is rooted in the ability to say no.

Susan Sontag

* Only that which narrates can make us understand. (Susan Sontag)

Relatively Recent: Leo And His Sky Of Many Colours

Fig. 1. Leo Villareal - Sky, 2009


The sacred has no face, only masks.

It Is Happening A Day At A Time ... And Not At All ...

Fig. 1. Damien Hirst - For The Love Of God, 2007


Every death is a miniature extinction.

To Those Few Friendships That Should Have Lasted

Fig. 1. Caspar David Friedrich - Evening Landscape With Two Men, c. 1830-35


To be unexpectedly (and suddenly) abandoned by a long-standing friend is not only the pinnacle of cruelty, it is also the ultimate act of kindness: one for which so few of us, in our abject, self-pitying grief, are capable of giving thanks - as we should.

Voltaire's Monkey Learns To Plant His Own Garden

Fig. 1. Georges Seurat - Casseur de pierres à la brouette, Le Raincy, 1882


We are always happier when cultivating a life of our own choosing.

The Irreplaceable Charm Of Homemade Menageries

Fig. 1. Alexander Calder - Calder's Circus (Lion and Cage), 1926-31


She told me the best of stories about the worst of things. Not from a book, but from memory. Sometimes I would ask to hear a story again, simply to see of she could tell it exactly the same way twice. Well, she could - and not just twice! ... Now that she is gone, just once would do. I wouldn't be listening to catch her out, but, rather, to catch myself in the act of listening to a tale only my grandmother could tell.

Once Upon A Time There Was An Artist Who Wasn't

Fig. 1. Marina Abramović - Performing Joseph Beuys’ How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965) at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on Nov. 13, 2005


All great impersonators strive for a degree of imperfection. This is how they sign their work.

Places & Spaces That Exist Because We Think Them

Fig. 1. Etienne-Louis Boullée - Perspective View of the Interior of a Metropolitan Church, 1780-81


Space is as much a figment of the imagination as it is a verity of sensory perception.

Nostalgia Can Sometimes Make The Familiar Invisible

Fig. 1. Roy Lichtenstein - Bedroom at Arles, 1992


Occasionally it is necessary to reinvent an image in order to see it for the first time.

Within Reach, But Only If You Let Her Be Your Venus

Fig. 1. Pompeo Batoni - Diana and Cupid, 1761


Touching - be it verbally or bodily - is a dangerous business. Done in the right manner, and at the right time, it is a caressing, seductive zephyr: done in the wrong way, and at the wrong time, it is a barbarous, bond-shattering gust. … Intimacy is correspondence by other means. It challenges us to know more than simply how to conjure closeness. It also requires us (as Julia Kristeva has wisely observed) to '[know] how to handle distances'.

The Sunday Six: Things Animal, Vegetable, & Mineral

Fig. 1. Charles Ray - Family Romance, 1993

Fig. 2. Axel Hütte - Audubon Swamp, 2005

Fig. 3. Goshka Macuga - Madame Blavatsky, 2007

Fig. 4. Jill Magid - Vetting Box, 2008

Fig. 5. Israel Hershberg - Todi from Afar, 2009

Fig. 6. Louise Hearman - Untitled #1298, 2009

We stalk the infinite by means of its finite becomings - the very same means it uses to evade us.

A Not Very Grand Tour ... A Not Very Grand Traveller

When travelling, one is always arriving or departing - even when stationary.

For Times When There Is No Such Thing As Normal

Fig. 1. Nicolai Abildgaard - The Archangel Michael and Satan Disputing about the Body of Moses, c. 1782

I have lost more arguments to myself than to just about anyone.

Untitled (Ooooooh! ... Dat Waskily Wabbit Twikt Me!)

Fig. 1. Jeff Koons - Rabbit, 1986


You can't copyright a self-image.