Please see for yourself here: http://solitude-24.blogspot.fr/
Saturday, November 24, 2012
Solitude 24
I've started a new blog dedicated to architectural photography, co-edited with Julien Konne. Our program is difficult to describe precisely: very generally, we present our own photos of modern buildings, architectural details, and urban spaces that we find notable, collected on our travels in Europe and elsewhere. The architecture of Paris and the Parisian banlieue feature prominently.
Please see for yourself here: http://solitude-24.blogspot.fr/
Please see for yourself here: http://solitude-24.blogspot.fr/
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Additional liner notes for the Happy Stirrup 2LP reissue on New Images
THE HAPPY STIRRUP
Much earlier, somewhat younger, getting through the afternoon.
Ay tero. Trono, tero ko. There is a need followed by a search for satisfaction. Ruby port, tero. I am wary. Towers of cans, nai tero. Gift of necklace, getting through the afternoon, ni kai dai lap gas. Wary of things I am confronted with. Happy just to arrive at nighttime. [A makeshift wooden table, a sleeping bag on a tatami mat, a bottle of whiskey. Sunday in Philadelphia.]
INNER ORGANIZING AGAINST: Khayam. Getting ready for vitriolic expulsion. Seething through piercing glimmers. A hatred so ecstatic as if rooted in love. Searing disgust, madhya, a cleanse through fire. Against (above all) against opposition. An offensive defense: a hating love. DARBARI, the imaginary: a cold, vast stretching. A stretching pavement. A sickly brown evening turning to ill violet night. Mirrored by the mind, the odious world barely glimmers, ringing dull and lifeless. The mind dies and is instantly reborn inside; ghosts of the real await. [A relief to be rid of such—]
A later time, another try: Anlehnung. (Who was there? Peter Howell, Demetrio Stratos, Tony Williams, Tommy Peltier.)
A year passes and improves. In New York, attempting to map my position. Open slate, re-myth, joining, leaving, sinking, rising, aging... Pechorin, Onegin, then Del Dongo and Edelweiss. Proust was always there.
Reflecting on my PAST: Pater Peaks (Mt. Adams to be exact)—1:40, not 11:40 (Field of quartz). Throwing dream-money at a cabbie’s flecked face. European conversion rate. Caught between TWO MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE THINGS, never satisfied with only one.
PRESENT: House of House of House of House of House of House of “How is lack of judgment a lie? Impediment on road towards authenticity. Why make one unit from two? When sense is subdued and loneliness banished... as in friendship also, a relief when solitude is returned. A verbal impasse of thought or simply a distraction from ephemeral beauty? — Buildings as sun sets.” [Thankful to be rid of such—]
FUTURE: Sympathetic slounging / Future movement: what is lost is often found: Coal box calm-downs: Seeing winter in another continent for the first time. Essaouira. [The last of which never happened. My coal oven was, however, a good companion.]
Weeks go by, as they do. They do.
June: HIDING OUT/OVERFULL OF SNUGNESS. Happiness is... When M S J PR Q Puer San Jao uh… MMM. EUDAEMONIA. M. Louis de Saint-Just dans un avion. ("Even up there his lapidary utterances, his icy prowess at the podium remained intact") (i.e. worthy of being carved in stone) [In a West Village cafe, which did not satisfy. They never did, they never do.] Heine/Harris: “When you do all the things you said you never would, but now you find it's the only thing going.” Earthly fulfillment, tangible form, sequestered by powers. The postponement of happiness to the hereafter as playing nicely into hands of the S.Q.: deferral of fulfillment as deference to the way things were.
TO THE HAPPY FEW: The Archangel Of Terror bears witness only to the supplanting of happiness from the holy hereafter of the spirit to that of the ideal state. NOT MUCH, plus ça change... You can tell what a man is like by seeing how he sets out each morning on his chasse au bonheur. [With a smile, a limp, a pocket full of apricots?]
POLITICS and HAPPINESS: the wars and alarms (and glory) of the Napoleonic period were over, reaction had set in, the narrow self-interests of burgeoning capitalism had taken center stage: politics was boring. “Do not imagine you know where the happiness of your life really lay until you are about to die.” Métilde Dembowski: 'I shall love you for the rest of my life, nothing you do will ever change the idea which strikes upon my soul, the idea that I am made for the happiness of being loved by you, or the contempt which this gives me for any other sort happiness...,’ which might be betrayed by being written down — (too late).
A useless young man once again. Saint-Just: Happiness is a new idea in Europe— New idea/ Earthly satisfaction/ this is as good as it gets/ doing the things you said you never would / because it's all there is that's good and that's good things a list of good things. A happy idea in Europe — Falling into sturdy elderberry bush, wondering how much is this great beer. Hazy, sleepless, squinting at patriarchal clouds and expanses of antique green. The old world of new ideas. On Stargarderstraße wondering what is the smartest idea an animal has ever had; or wondering what is the causal link between neurosis and harmony. “In accordance with right functioning.” Anger fades to melancholy and amusement. [Good memories of bad times] You are looking out the window of an airplane; it's a solemn, awesome sight; you are staring seriously but you can't help grinning, almost laughing. Slimer: “In the yin-yang breeze of dream temples passed.”
Then came August. Drinking strong Rosamonte from a gourd, spiked with herbal powder brought from Brazil (worried I added too much, my heart pounding through my Flamengo kit). Later on, playing repetitive guitar lines, my foot on the volume pedal gently shifting the overtones of internal feedback; my eyes closed, I had a sort of trance vision of a desert scene, with camels, men wearing turbans, the sun setting. It was a hot evening in Brooklyn, Alex was playing the drums, Brian was on bass, and I was still playing the guitar. “Blueberries”
Later, a gray, rainy, melancholy, peaceful Sunday: Underwater Life Reflections Reflective Thinking. “Hey mein Freibeuter...”
“Nimm mich mit,” and the rain lets up. Exeunt, the asphalt swiftly drying, steering my bicycle west through Bed-Stuy, towards Ft. Greene Park, over Manhattan Bridge, ending up in Chinatown (all three places seemed infected by the aura of novelty I succeeded in creating by taking the less-traveled side streets of Bed-Stuy). Sat in a noodle shop and read a bit: “Truth and life are very difficult to fathom, and I retained of them, without really having got to know them, an impression in which sadness was perhaps actually eclipsed by exhaustion.” Exhaustion and sorrow allayed by music, beverages, fictional life reflections. So passed the summer.
Who am I forgetting? Valéry, Vanay. Neri Cardozo, Rodrigo Palacio, Juan Román Riquelme. Franco Falsini was always there, as was Pinhas, Lô, and El Flaco Spinetta. Caetano, Cathal, Lawrence. A pine tree in a sunny clearing. “A Man leaning on a stick gazed fixedly upon this scene. He could not remove his eyes from it.” As Piero says, “Las cosas se cuentan solas / solo hay que saber mirar.” [San Telmo Market several months prior] Do you know how to look at this?
Innocent delights, a harmless dog. Miles was singing and playing the drums, and Sam was playing a keyboard on the floor. A wild show at the Redemption Center. We played last, most of the crowd leaves. Miles starts asking the stragglers, “Where does the trash go?”
Soon after, I left New York.
“Blest who was youthful in his youth, blest who matured at the right time. Who gradually the chill of life with years was able to withstand. Who never was addicted to strange dreams, who did not shun the fashionable rabble. Who was at twenty fop or blade, and then at thirty, profitably married. Who rid himself at fifty of private and of other debts, who fame, money, and rank in due course calmly gained. About whom lifelong one kept saying: X.X. is an excellent man.
“But it is sad to think that to no purpose youth was given us, that we betrayed it every hour, that it duped us. That our best wishes, that our fresh dreamings, in quick succession have decayed like leaves in putrid autumn. It is unbearable to see before one only of dinners a long series, to look on life as on a rite, and in the wake of the decorous crowd to go, not sharing with it either general views, or passions.”
ERNST IST DAS LEBEN, HEITER IST DIE KUNST — And then, and then...
Much earlier, somewhat younger, getting through the afternoon.
Ay tero. Trono, tero ko. There is a need followed by a search for satisfaction. Ruby port, tero. I am wary. Towers of cans, nai tero. Gift of necklace, getting through the afternoon, ni kai dai lap gas. Wary of things I am confronted with. Happy just to arrive at nighttime. [A makeshift wooden table, a sleeping bag on a tatami mat, a bottle of whiskey. Sunday in Philadelphia.]
INNER ORGANIZING AGAINST: Khayam. Getting ready for vitriolic expulsion. Seething through piercing glimmers. A hatred so ecstatic as if rooted in love. Searing disgust, madhya, a cleanse through fire. Against (above all) against opposition. An offensive defense: a hating love. DARBARI, the imaginary: a cold, vast stretching. A stretching pavement. A sickly brown evening turning to ill violet night. Mirrored by the mind, the odious world barely glimmers, ringing dull and lifeless. The mind dies and is instantly reborn inside; ghosts of the real await. [A relief to be rid of such—]
A later time, another try: Anlehnung. (Who was there? Peter Howell, Demetrio Stratos, Tony Williams, Tommy Peltier.)
A year passes and improves. In New York, attempting to map my position. Open slate, re-myth, joining, leaving, sinking, rising, aging... Pechorin, Onegin, then Del Dongo and Edelweiss. Proust was always there.
Reflecting on my PAST: Pater Peaks (Mt. Adams to be exact)—1:40, not 11:40 (Field of quartz). Throwing dream-money at a cabbie’s flecked face. European conversion rate. Caught between TWO MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE THINGS, never satisfied with only one.
PRESENT: House of House of House of House of House of House of “How is lack of judgment a lie? Impediment on road towards authenticity. Why make one unit from two? When sense is subdued and loneliness banished... as in friendship also, a relief when solitude is returned. A verbal impasse of thought or simply a distraction from ephemeral beauty? — Buildings as sun sets.” [Thankful to be rid of such—]
FUTURE: Sympathetic slounging / Future movement: what is lost is often found: Coal box calm-downs: Seeing winter in another continent for the first time. Essaouira. [The last of which never happened. My coal oven was, however, a good companion.]
Weeks go by, as they do. They do.
June: HIDING OUT/OVERFULL OF SNUGNESS. Happiness is... When M S J PR Q Puer San Jao uh… MMM. EUDAEMONIA. M. Louis de Saint-Just dans un avion. ("Even up there his lapidary utterances, his icy prowess at the podium remained intact") (i.e. worthy of being carved in stone) [In a West Village cafe, which did not satisfy. They never did, they never do.] Heine/Harris: “When you do all the things you said you never would, but now you find it's the only thing going.” Earthly fulfillment, tangible form, sequestered by powers. The postponement of happiness to the hereafter as playing nicely into hands of the S.Q.: deferral of fulfillment as deference to the way things were.
TO THE HAPPY FEW: The Archangel Of Terror bears witness only to the supplanting of happiness from the holy hereafter of the spirit to that of the ideal state. NOT MUCH, plus ça change... You can tell what a man is like by seeing how he sets out each morning on his chasse au bonheur. [With a smile, a limp, a pocket full of apricots?]
POLITICS and HAPPINESS: the wars and alarms (and glory) of the Napoleonic period were over, reaction had set in, the narrow self-interests of burgeoning capitalism had taken center stage: politics was boring. “Do not imagine you know where the happiness of your life really lay until you are about to die.” Métilde Dembowski: 'I shall love you for the rest of my life, nothing you do will ever change the idea which strikes upon my soul, the idea that I am made for the happiness of being loved by you, or the contempt which this gives me for any other sort happiness...,’ which might be betrayed by being written down — (too late).
A useless young man once again. Saint-Just: Happiness is a new idea in Europe— New idea/ Earthly satisfaction/ this is as good as it gets/ doing the things you said you never would / because it's all there is that's good and that's good things a list of good things. A happy idea in Europe — Falling into sturdy elderberry bush, wondering how much is this great beer. Hazy, sleepless, squinting at patriarchal clouds and expanses of antique green. The old world of new ideas. On Stargarderstraße wondering what is the smartest idea an animal has ever had; or wondering what is the causal link between neurosis and harmony. “In accordance with right functioning.” Anger fades to melancholy and amusement. [Good memories of bad times] You are looking out the window of an airplane; it's a solemn, awesome sight; you are staring seriously but you can't help grinning, almost laughing. Slimer: “In the yin-yang breeze of dream temples passed.”
Then came August. Drinking strong Rosamonte from a gourd, spiked with herbal powder brought from Brazil (worried I added too much, my heart pounding through my Flamengo kit). Later on, playing repetitive guitar lines, my foot on the volume pedal gently shifting the overtones of internal feedback; my eyes closed, I had a sort of trance vision of a desert scene, with camels, men wearing turbans, the sun setting. It was a hot evening in Brooklyn, Alex was playing the drums, Brian was on bass, and I was still playing the guitar. “Blueberries”
Later, a gray, rainy, melancholy, peaceful Sunday: Underwater Life Reflections Reflective Thinking. “Hey mein Freibeuter...”
“Nimm mich mit,” and the rain lets up. Exeunt, the asphalt swiftly drying, steering my bicycle west through Bed-Stuy, towards Ft. Greene Park, over Manhattan Bridge, ending up in Chinatown (all three places seemed infected by the aura of novelty I succeeded in creating by taking the less-traveled side streets of Bed-Stuy). Sat in a noodle shop and read a bit: “Truth and life are very difficult to fathom, and I retained of them, without really having got to know them, an impression in which sadness was perhaps actually eclipsed by exhaustion.” Exhaustion and sorrow allayed by music, beverages, fictional life reflections. So passed the summer.
Who am I forgetting? Valéry, Vanay. Neri Cardozo, Rodrigo Palacio, Juan Román Riquelme. Franco Falsini was always there, as was Pinhas, Lô, and El Flaco Spinetta. Caetano, Cathal, Lawrence. A pine tree in a sunny clearing. “A Man leaning on a stick gazed fixedly upon this scene. He could not remove his eyes from it.” As Piero says, “Las cosas se cuentan solas / solo hay que saber mirar.” [San Telmo Market several months prior] Do you know how to look at this?
Innocent delights, a harmless dog. Miles was singing and playing the drums, and Sam was playing a keyboard on the floor. A wild show at the Redemption Center. We played last, most of the crowd leaves. Miles starts asking the stragglers, “Where does the trash go?”
Soon after, I left New York.
“Blest who was youthful in his youth, blest who matured at the right time. Who gradually the chill of life with years was able to withstand. Who never was addicted to strange dreams, who did not shun the fashionable rabble. Who was at twenty fop or blade, and then at thirty, profitably married. Who rid himself at fifty of private and of other debts, who fame, money, and rank in due course calmly gained. About whom lifelong one kept saying: X.X. is an excellent man.
“But it is sad to think that to no purpose youth was given us, that we betrayed it every hour, that it duped us. That our best wishes, that our fresh dreamings, in quick succession have decayed like leaves in putrid autumn. It is unbearable to see before one only of dinners a long series, to look on life as on a rite, and in the wake of the decorous crowd to go, not sharing with it either general views, or passions.”
ERNST IST DAS LEBEN, HEITER IST DIE KUNST — And then, and then...
N.D. / Paris, August 2012
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