Venus Heard Me Sigh This Song*

Fig. 1. Erika Kohut (Isabelle Huppert) - La Pianiste, 2001 (d. Michael Haneke)

Witchcraft By A Picture

I fix mine eye on thine, and there
Pity my picture burning in thine eye;
My picture drown'd in a transparent tear,
When I look lower I espy;
Hadst thou the wicked skill
By pictures made and marr'd, to kill,
How many ways mightst thou perform thy will?

But now I've drunk thy sweet salt tears,
And though thou pour more, I'll depart;
My picture vanished, vanish all fears
That I can be endamaged by that art;
Though thou retain of me
One picture more, yet that will be,
Being in thine own heart, from all malice free.

John Donne

* From The Indifferent by John Donne.

Your Ears Will Orgasm #12: Black Venus (MixPod Player)

1. Amy Winehouse - Love Is A Losing Game
2. Betty Davis - Anti Love Song
3. Fiona Apple - Not About Love
4. Nouvelle Vague - This Is Not A Love Song
5. Jacques Brel - Ne Me Quitte Pas
6. Patti Smith - Everybody Hurts

Between Chaos And The Perfect Compendium

Fig. 1. Giovanni Paolo Panini - Ancient Rome, 1757


'Thus the life of a collector maintains a dialectical tension between the poles of disorder and order.'

Walter Benjamin

The Endless Night Of Paper Shadows

Fig. 1. Frank Miller - Sin City, 1990s


‘Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: “here are our monsters”, without immediately turning the monsters into pets.’

Jacques Derrida

Addendum: I Shadow Boxers

Fig. 2. Mischa Merz at Doherty's Gym, November 2008

The Sad Aristocracy Of Mild-Mannered Ascetics

Fig. 1. Monsieur Hulot (Jacques Tati) - Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot, 1953


'Real misanthropes are not found in solitude, but in the world; since it is experience of life, and not philosophy, which produces real hatred of mankind.'

Giacomo Leopardi

Addendum: The Sunday Six: Part One (Relatively Recent)

Fig. 2. Eduardo Costa - Lygia Sleeping and Dreaming (Portrait of Lygia Pape), 1997-8

Fig. 3. Erwin Redl - Matrix II, 2000-3

Fig. 4. Philippe Parreno - The Writer, 2007

Fig. 5. Tadashi Kawamata - Catedral de Cadeiras, Ville de Reims, 2007

Fig. 6. Lottie Davies - Quints, 2008

Fig. 7. Marco Perego - The Only Good Rock Star Is A Dead Rock Star, 2008

If I Only Had A Heart

Fig. 1. Paris Bordon - Venus, Mars, and Cupid Crowned by Victory, c. 1550

'Laetitia

circonscrire/to circumscribe

To reduce his wretchedness, the subject pins his hope on a method of control which permits him to circumscribe the pleasures afforded by the amorous relation: on the one hand, to keep these pleasures, to take full advantage of them, and on the other hand, to place within a parenthesis of the unthinkable those broad depressive zones which separate such pleasures: "to forget" the loved being outside of the pleasures that being bestows.'

Roland Barthes (A Lover's Discourse)

Your Ears Will Orgasm #11: LOVE (MixPod Player)

1. Cat Power - I Found A Reason
2. The Brunettes - Mars Loves Venus
3. Ladytron - The Way That I Found You
4. Virginie Leydoyen - Mon Amour, Mon Ami
5. Catatonia - Mulder and Scully
6. Sinéad O'Connor - The Singing Bird
7. Feist - Feel It All
8. Beth Orton - I Love How You Love Me
9. Björk - All Is Full Of Love
10. Ute Lemper - Tango Ballad
11. Color Filter - Satellite Of Love
12. Leonard Cohen - A Thousand Kisses Deep

Shuffle, Shuffle, Shuffle

Fig. 1. Philip Guston - Painting, Smoking, Eating, 1972-3

'Where do you put a form? It will move all around, bellow out and shrink, and sometimes it winds up where it was in the first place. But at the end, it feels different, and it had to make the voyage. I am a moralist and cannot accept what has not been paid for, or a form that has not been lived through.'

Philip Guston

Your Ears Will Orgasm #10: Relatively New (MixPod Player)

1. Goldfrapp - A&E
2. The Ting Tings - Be The One
3. Vampire Weekend - Everywhere
4. Feist - Sea Lion Woman
5. Deerhoof - The Tears And Music Of Love
6. Hot Chip - Ready For The Floor

All Of The Magic, None Of The Tricks

Fig. 1. Caspar David Friedrich - Man and Woman Contemplating the Moon, 1824

'Longing is the umbilical cord of the higher life.'

Søren Kierkegaard

Your Ears Will Orgasm #9: Olivier Messiaen - Oraison (MixPod Player)

Addendum:

The following poem was sent to me by Katie, a regular reader and commenter, as a response to Caspar David Friedrich's image. I am posting it here for the benefit of those who do not normally peek into the comments box - and, needless to say, as a way of expressing my thanks for her spontaneous contribution.

Mist in the Valley

These hills, to hurt me more,
Than I am hurt already enough,--
Having left the sea behind,
Having turned suddenly and left the shore
That I loved beyond all words, even a song’s words, to convey,

And built me a house on upland acres,
Sweet with the pinxter, bright and rough
With the rusty blackbird long before the winter’s done,
But smelling never of bayberry hot in the sun,
Nor ever loud with the pounding of the long white breakers,--

These hills, beneath the October moon,
Sit in the valley white with mist
Like islands in a quiet bay,

Jut out from shore into the mist,
Wooded with poplar dark as pine,
Like points of land into a quiet bay,
(Just in that way
The harbour met the bay)

Stricken too sore for tears,
I stand, remembering the islands and the sea’s lost sound...
Life at its best no longer than the sand-peep’s cry,
And I two years, two years,
Tilling an upland ground!

E.S.V. Millay