“so i read and read, a little of everything, haphazard, but books of philosophy especially. heavy stuff, i grant you; but when you get a little of it inside you, you grow light as a feather and begin to touch the clouds. i believe i was always a bit queer in my head. but these readings quite finished me. when i no longer knew what i was about, i would shut up the library, and go off along a little path that led down a steep incline to a solitary strip of seashore. the sight of that monotonous expanse of water filled me with a strange awe that changed little by little into unbearable oppression.” [1]

dag alveng, the photographer shoots himself (1981)

 

this semester started with a bang.  currently catching up with a lot of projects.  hope to post soon.

 

gone for a dip

a young hare

 

 

notes:

[title]     today’s title comes from the book the late mattia pascal by luigi pirandello.  today’s excerpt was taken from the guttenberg press website’s version of the text found here.

[image]     the image today comes from dag alveng.  for more of his photography visit his website… here.

[previous levitation]     s.2011 and f.2011.

“l’esprit est aussi subtil et insaisissable qu’un souffle. il est une energie qui circule entre les etres et les choses. il voyage avec la lumiere, les vents, les nuages ou les vagues, s’immisce dans les pierres, les plantes et animaux. il se manifeste aux frontieres du visible, dans une dimension que seul l’imaginaire peut penetrer.”

 

 

all photographs by henry roy

from top:

es vedra smoking, ibiza (2005)

congo river, brazzaville (2002)

two old men watching, tanger (2008)

 

happy to see henry roy’s book, spirit, published by gottlund verlag is now available at twelve books.  henry couples a series of photographs from across europe and africa with a set of his short stories.  i’m honored to have worked with henry on the translation from french to english.  last year henry roy started a photoblog, portrait lab, which contains his own photographs, as well as, guest contributions.  check it out!

 

happy monday

a young hare

 

 

note:

[title]     today’s title comes from the introduction to henry roy’s book spirit.

“the experience which i am attempting to describe by one tentative approach after another is very precise and is immediately recognizable. but it exists at a level of perception and feeling which is probably preverbal – hence, very much, the difficulty of writing about it.” [1]

michael kenna, forest edge, hokuto, hokkaido, japan (2004)

 

“life is not a walk across an open field” -

russian proverb

shelf of a field, green, within easy reach, the grass on it not yet high, papered with blue sky through which yellow has grown to make pure green, the surface colour of what the basin of the world contains, attendant field, shelf between sky and sea, fronted with a curtain of printed trees, friable at its edges, the corners of it rounded, answering the sun with heat, shelf on a wall through which from time to time a cuckoo is audible, shelf on which she keeps the invisible and intangible jars of her pleasure, field that i have always known, i am lying raised up on one elbow wondering whether in any direction i can see beyond where you stop.  the wire around you is the horizon.

remember what it was like to be sung to sleep.  if you are fortunate, the memory will be more recent than childhood.  the repeated lines of words and music are like paths.  these paths are circular and the rings they make are linked together like those of a chain.  you walk along these paths and are led by them in circles.  the field upon which you walk and upon which the chain is laid is the song.

into the silence, which was also at times a roar, of my thoughts and questions forever returning to myself to search there for an explanation of my life and its purpose, into this concentrated tiny hub of dense silent noise, came the cackle of a hen from a nearby back garden, and at that moment that cackle, its distinct sharp-edged existence beneath a blue sky with white clouds, induced in me an intense awareness of freedom.  the noise of the hen, which i could not even see, was an event (like a dog running or an artichoke flowering) in a field which until then had been awaiting a first event in order to become itself realisable.  i knew that in that field i could listen to all sounds, all music.

from the city centre there are two ways back to the satellite city in which i live: the main road with a lot of traffic, and a side road which goes over a level crossing.  the second is quicker unless you have to wait for a train at the crossing.  during the spring and early summer i invariably take the side road, and i find myself hoping that the level crossing will be shut.  in the angle between the railway lines and the road there is field, surrounded on its other two sides by trees.  the grass is tall in the field and in the evening when the sun is low, the green of the grass divides into light and dark grains of colour – as might happen to a bunch of parsley if lit up by the beam of a powerful lamp at night.  blackbirds hid in the grass and rise up from it.  their coming and going remains quite unaffected by the trains.

this field affords me considerable pleasure.  why then do i not sometimes walk there – it is quite near my flat – instead of relying on being stopped there by the closed level crossing?  it is a question of contingencies overlapping.  the events which take place in the field – two birds chasing one another, a cloud crossing the sun and changing the colour of the green – acquire a special significance because they occur during the minute or two during which i am obliged to wait.  it is as though these minutes fill a certain area of time which exactly fits the spatial area of the field.  time and space conjoin.

- john berger [2]

 

walking in a field

a young hare

 

 

notes:

[1]     berger, john. about looking. new york: pantheon, 1980: p. 192 – 193. print.

[2]     ibid

“this experience added to my skepticism about the evidence for alleged links between orientations of ancient monuments and astronomical phenomena, for confirming alignments will pleasingly lock right into place if the desired answer is already known.” [1]

chris engman, two squares (2007)

shannon ebner, ampersand (2009)

zander olsen, no mans land (2004)

 

when mappings become evidence, questions of validity promptly arise.  even the simple registration of a mapping in relation to an image may be dubious, a result of alignment-to-please.  i once noticed this effect vividly when trying to align the edge of a large plate for a landscape sculpture toward a due-north marker some distance away.  it was easy to attain exact alignment simply by tilting my head one way or another, a method of instantaneous adjustment of +/- 3 degrees without ever having to move the big heavy plate.  similar parallax effects occur in reading analog gauges.  this experience added to my skepticism about the evidence for alleged links between orientations of ancient monuments and astronomical phenomena, for confirming alignments will pleasingly lock right into place if the desired answer is already known.   even professional land surveyors, in mapping the same piece of land, sometimes produce divergent results depending upon their client’s interests.  mappings become more credible if constructed independently of a favored result.  not all clients, however, wish to finance disinterested measurements and mappings.

- edward tufte [2]

 

astronomical accidents

a young hare

 

 

notes:

[1]     tufte, edward r. beautiful evidence. cheshire, ct: graphics press, 2006. 29. print.

[2]     ibid

“this great ship resembles a vessel lingering on the banks of what once was the lake of texcoco. the ship summoned the first crew members. their ideas, the ideas of many (such as occurs in any an all public works) began inhabiting the galleys, the deck and nearby waters. as often happens with collective, governmental and social works, here it is possible to recognize the efforts of hundreds of hands.”

 

 

 

 

photos credits:

top three photos by pep avila

bottom two from archives of tax

el faro (fabrica de artes y oficios) by alberto kalach of tax (taller de arquitectura x).

on their website tax describe the project as follows:

the challenge was a complex one: to re-conquer a once healthy space now invaded by violence.  the faro (fabrica de artes y oficios) came to live on june 24, 2000, in one of the most impressive events organized by the newly elected government of mexico city.  it opened it’s doors within an urban framework totally apart from the traditional cultural corridor that covers the area from the historic center all the way to university city.

strongly recommend looking through the work of alberto kalach.  some of the most exciting architecture in mexico at the moment.

 

save elephants

a young hare

 

 

notes:

[title]     today’s title comes from the projects description found on the website of taller de arquitectura x.

“the foundation rods (tcu’lüme, n; sa’pu, c) of coiled baskets were gathered when the plants were in their prime, and were stored in bundles or coils for use during the remainder of the year. for certain coiled baskets, rods ten feet long were used. some baskets were coiled clockwise, others contra-clockwise.” [1]

 

 

from top to bottom:

coiled plate-form baskets of single-rod technique

coiled baskets of single-rod technique

coiled baskets of multiple-grass foundation

 

as promised, more plates identifying miwok cultural objects.  for more on the coiled baskets of miwok culture feel free to visit here.

 

see what you find

a young hare

 

 

note:

[1]     today’s title is brought to you from here.

“the most important articles of dance costume were the feather plume, the flicker feather head band, the magpie feather crown, and the feather skirt. with these were used certain auxiliary items, such as paints, ear plugs, nose sticks, bead necklaces, and belts, clouts and skirts. also there were objects carried by the dancers, such as the feather ropes borne by women, and the beads, arrows, feather sticks, and imitation bear claws, carried by the men. the music consisted of songs accompanied by the foot drum, the split stick clapper rattle, and the bone whistle.” [1]

 

 

 

 

from top to bottom:

ceremonial objects

flicker quill headbands

feather dance plumes

feather skirts

feather skirt (rear)

 

found these a long while back.  stumbled upon them yesterday.  the plate with feather dance plumes could almost be a study by cy twombly.  for more on the miwok cultural life visit here.

 

more to follow

a young hare

 

note:

[1]     the posts title was taken from the following website.

“one of the persistent motifs through the book’s sequence is an asterisk and, specifically, one imbued with the legacy of the graphic designer muriel cooper. as the first design director for mit press and the cofounder of the visible language workshop, cooper’s legacy for reorienting and repositioning the direction of an artist’s monograph is imaginatively explored in the creative partnership of dexter sinister and shannon ebner.” [1]

shannon ebner and dexter sinister, cover of the sun as error  (2009)

 

“i am somehow looking to stay in the world of depictive images, by simply asking for more from them through developing a different system, idea, or model of how they might function.”

- shannon ebner [2]

 

rain rain go away

a young hare

 

 

notes:

[1]     today’s title comes from the description of shannon ebner’s monograph the sun as error found here on textfield.

[2]     text originally found in an old walker art center catalog… which has gone missing.  shannon’s work shown as  a part of the walker’s exhibition the spectacular of the vernacular.

“because i don’t make drawings i wanted to find a way of making marks, but without the subjectivity of moving the pen across the page…. rather than turning the pen kind of in its correct orientation the pens are now stood upright on the table so their tips are kind of in the air.” – daniel eatok

 

great playful prints from daniel eatok.

 

a simple transformation

a young hare

“you can never predict what it will be, but over time some kind of pattern emerges, a trend or rhythm. tonight’s background fits, somehow, as she reads. there’s not any real forwardness to it. you don’t sense it’s straining to get anywhere. the thing it makes you see as she reads is something heavy swinging slowly at the end of a long rope.” [1]

a pot will boil, whether or not you watch it.  when people say that a watched one won’t, they mean (1) that things don’t always happen when you want them to, and (2) that you shouldn’t stand around like an idiot, waiting for a thing to happen – in this case, for still water to become, as the chinese say, a rope of pearls.  they mean do something better with your time.  feed the fish, alphabetize the spice rack, tweet.

what if there were a device telling you how much time it would take for the pot to boil? might knowing that the water will come to a boil in say, a hundred and thirty eight seconds actually dispose you to watch it do so?  the feeling here is that it would.  once you know exactly when the pot will boil, there’s no longer any harm in staring at it until it does.  it’s easier to waste time when you know how much time there is left to waste.

such a device does not yet exist, buts equivalents are everywhere.  technology has brought a proliferation of countdowns.  it’s an egg-timer world.  l.e.d. displays on the subway platform tell you how many minutes until the next train pulls in.  pedestrian-crosswalk signals tick off the seconds before the light turns yellow.  automobile navigation systems and airplane-cabin monitors count down to arrival.  click on a vid or download an app, and the time kicks in.  (if apps were eggs, they’d be soft-boiled.)  the times square new year’s eve ball drop, the pullout from iraq, the end of the world, as per the mayans: tick, tick, tick.  your video will resume in :12, :11, :10.  clearview expressway: seven minutes.  we are eleventh in line for takeoff.

an n.f.l. quarterback has to pay attention to a game clock, a play clock, and the so-called clock in his head, which ticks off the seconds between the snap and the likely arrival, on his blind side, of a defensive end.  a q.b.’s life seems tranquil, by comparison.  still, it’s hard to complain.  studies have shown that people – in a hospital waiting room, a restaurant, a traffic jam – would rather know what they-re in for.  the subway updates, for example, save you from the pointless ritual of leaning over the tracks again and again to peer into the tunnel in the hope of a headlight.

and yet those agitated peeks into the dark inevitably bring the sudden quicksilver dance of light up the rails – a touch of delight that you forgo if you know that a brooklyn-bound local train will be arriving in two minutes.  (would jimi hendrix have written “hear my train a-coming’” if he’d known when his was going to come?) as annoying as it is to hear children ask, “when are we gonna be there?,” it is oddly pleasing to answer them with little lies – to bend the time to manipulate the mood.  the curmudgeon might say that the push to optimize every second chops the day into discrete, bounded blocks of time and drains them of possibility.  it makes an assembly line of time and cheats us of opportunities for revelation or surprise.  put another way: would any of us really want to know how many days we have until we die?

in 1927, thomas parnell, a physics professor at the university of queensland, in australia, designed an experiment to show his students how viscous a fluid could be.  he poured hot pitch into a glass funnel, let it cool, and then waited.  [ladies and gentlemen, we'll be arriving at the rhetorical purpose of this example in a hundred and sixty-two words.]  eight years later, the first drop fell.  after another nine years, the second one fell.  the pitch drop experiment is now the world’s longest-running lab experiment.  there have been a total of eight drops, occurring at an average interval of ten years.  the drop takes about a tenth of a second.  no one has ever actually seen a drop fall.

john mainstone, the professor who has overseen the experiment since 1961, is eagerly awaiting the ninth drop of pitch, which he expects will occur sometime in 2013.  ”unpredictability is one of the great things about nature,” he said the other day.  ”it’s the spice of life.  just look at the due dates of babies.  we so rarely get even that right.”  the pitch drop doesn’t accommodate countdowns, he said.  ”i’ve been around long enough that i just see time before and time after.  it’s only when the drop has happened that what has gone before makes sense in the flow of time.  that is, i don’t become aware of what was going on just before the drop until after the drop occurs.”

 

happy friday

a young hare

 

 

notes:

[1]     wallace, david foster. infinite jest: a novel. boston: back bay books, 1996: p. 190. print

[image]     the pitch drop experiment circa the fifth drop (via atlas obscura)

[text]     paumgarten, nick. “dept. of predictions” the new yorker jan 2 (2011): p. 20-21. print.