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The autumn night
is long only in name —
We’ve done no more
than gaze at each other
and it’s already dawn.— Ono no Komachi (via larmoyante)(Source: larmoyante)
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Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as an escape.
— bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions (via larmoyante)(Source: larmoyante)
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Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave
your house or apartment. Go out into the world.It’s all right to carry a notebook but a cheap
one is best, with pages the color of weak tea
and on the front a kitten or a space ship.Avoid any enclosed space where more than
three people are wearing turtlenecks. Beware
any snow-covered chalet with deer tracks
across the muffled tennis courts.Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.
And the perfect place in a library is near an aisle
where a child a year or two old is playing as his
mother browses the ranks of the dead.Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.
The title, the author’s name, the brooding photo
on the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, gray
book on brown, he builds a tower. And the higher
it gets, the wider he grins.You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower
falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody
in the world frowns and says, “Shhhh.”Then start again.
— Ron Koertge, “Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?” (via larmoyante)(Source: larmoyante)
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Digital literacy…has the potential to give birth to new forms of readings that, while reminiscent of earlier practices, are also likely to produce new forms of creativity at the expense of some of the older ones. The book as an object is not likely to disappear anytime soon, but it is also clear that it is no longer the sole or even the primary object for the production of knowledge and its exchange and transmission.
— Milad Doueihi, Digital Cultures (via listenchen)(via teachingliteracy)
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(via dylzo)
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Talking Heads' "Stop Making Sense" liner notes
TIPS FOR PERFORMERS: Playing cards have the top half upside-down to help cheaters. There are a finite number of jokes in the universe. Singing is a trick to get people to listen to music for longer than they wold ordinarily. There is no music in space. People will pay to watch people make sounds. Everything on stage should be larger than in real life.
LIVING WITH OTHER PEOPLE: Violence on television only affects children whose parents act like television personalities. Table manners are for people who have nothing better to do. Civilization is a religion. Civilized people walk funny. There is always a party going on somewhere. People will remember you better if you always wear the same outfit.
LIFE ON EARTH: Men like pastries, women like custards. Scientists have invented a love drug, but it only works on bugs. Animals like earthquakes, tornadoes and volcanic activity. Nuclear weapons can wipe out life on Earth, if used properly. Cats like houses better than people. Dolphins find people amusing, but they don’t want to talk to them. People look ridiculous when they’re in ecstasy. Schools are for training people how to listen to other people. Body odor is the window to the soul. Sound is worth money.
IN THE HOME: There have been cases where people’s shoes got stuck on their feet and could never be removed. The best way to get rid of unwanted flying insects is to have strong body odor. There hasn’t been a good-looking American car in 20 years. There is always something on television. The best length for television programs is either 30 seconds or 8 hours.
THE SPACE PEOPLE: Space People read our mail. The Space People think that TV news programs are comedies, and that soap operas are news. The Space People will contact us when they can make money by doing so. The Space People think factories are musical instruments. They sing along with them. Each song lasts from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. No music on weekends.
MONEY: People will do odd things if you give them money. When everything is worth money, the money is worth nothing. If you keep your money in your shoe, then people will know which bills are yours. If you crumple your money into little balls, it will never stick together. The best way to touch money is by the edges. U.S. money is the worst looking money in the world.
WORLD TRAVEL: Passport pictures are what people really look like. Rich people will travel great distances to look at poor people. Toast is the national dish of Australia. People never travel to look at flat landscapes. People would rather watch things than eat. Looking at postcards is better than looking at the real thing. Looking up is as scary as looking down.
IN THE FUTURE: In the future, women will have breasts all over. In the future, it will be a relief to find a place without culture. In the future, plates of food will have names and titles. In the future, we will all drive standing up. In the future, love will be taught on television and by listening to pop songs.
WORK: Crime is a job. Sex is a job. Growing up is a job. School is a job. Going to parties is a job. Religion is a job. Being creative is a job. -
Untitled (2013)
(Source: razorshapes, via ruineshumaines)
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Talking Heads 1983 backstage pass.
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The image of Yoko’s stepmother working in the kitchen, tightly framed by multiple doorways, highlights the constricting conventional role of a homemaker that Yoko, by choosing to have her child out of wedlock, yearns to reject, and a scene in which the two women have to borrow sake and glasses from Yoko’s next-door neighbor—a request that makes the stepmother, but not Yoko, feel ashamed—elucidates the widening generational gap between the girl and her parents. For Hou, the past and present are constantly engaged in a tug-of-war, and the director captures the oppressive, inexorable march of time weighing down upon Yoko and her friend—a bookstore owner named Hajime (Tadanobu Asano, star of Takashi Miike’s Ichi the Killer)—through a series of stunning sequences: Yoko’s dream about a child’s face turning first wrinkly and then to ice (a nightmare of impending maternity begat by her long-ago reading of Maurice Sendak’s Outside Over There); the vision of a pocket watch set against the front windshield of a moving train; and a computer’s digital clock screensaver seen at the train station Yoko used to depart from as a young student. In the same vein, Hajime’s computer-generated artwork, featuring a fetal version of himself encased in a womb of locomotives, visualizes the inescapable omnipresence of time’s progression, and the young man’s hobby of dutifully recording train noises—an attempt to sonically capture the essence of life in motion—ultimately becomes an understated metaphor for Hou’s tender, observant, contemplative cinema.
Really wanna watch this. Hoping it opens in Toronto this year (if it hasn’t already come and gone).
