“High high in the hills , high in a pine tree bed.
She’s tracing the wind with that old hand, counting the clouds with that old chant,
Three geese in a flock
one flew east
one flew west
one flew over the cuckoo’s nest”
― Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
1931 saw the publication of a remarkable detective novel. The Floating Admiral had been written by 12 members of the Detection Club, London’s society of mystery writers:
They had written a chapter apiece, serially, without communicating. Each inherited the manuscript from the last and had to make some private sense of the story, including their own complications, before passing it on to the next contributor. To ensure fair play, each writer had to supply a satisfactory solution to the snowballing mystery when they turned in their own chapter.
Amazingly, it worked. Jacques Barzun wrote, “These members of the (London) Detection Club collaborate with skill in a piece of detection rather more tight-knit than one had a right to expect. There is enough to amuse and to stimulate detection; and the Introduction by Dorothy Sayers and supplements by critics and solvers give an insight into the writers’ thoughts and modes of work.”
The Shape of Paris is a balletic short film of skateboarder Andy Anderson zooming, grinding, spinning, and floating around Paris in the summertime. It is also beautifully shot by Brett Novak; Paris has never looked better.
NB: if the video does not open in your browser, click HERE.
I recently had a sad conversation with my sister about someone who we both loved who took his own life many years ago. It reminded me of this moving poem by Pulitzer-winning poet Galway Kinnell addressed to a student of his who was contemplating suicide. Originally published in Kinnell’s 1980 collection Mortal Acts, Mortal Words, it was later included in A New Selected Poems.
WAIT
Wait, for now.
Distrust everything, if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven’t they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become lovely again.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again,
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. And the desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.
Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a while and listen.
Music of hair,
Music of pain,
music of looms weaving all our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear,
the flute of your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.
Urban Artist Julien Malland became Seth Globepainter in the 90s when he began to paint in the streets of Paris. Looking to open doors to people’s unconsciousness, their youth and their dreams, Malland’s works feature a reoccurring theme of childhood. Seth travels the world, collaborating with local artists to highlight their traditional practices and exchange ideas. Drawing inspiration from his surroundings, he incorporates cultural elements into his art and turns the children into messengers of his investigations. Malland says he puts his characters into difficult social, political or geographical contexts to raise awareness on said issues around the world. ‘Rabbit Hole’ is located in Le Mans, France. It took Seth and 5 assistants 3 weeks to realize this beautiful, anamorphic artwork.
NB: If the video above fails to launch, please click HERE.
These postcards of the ancient landmarks of Rome were created using the Photochrom process, which adds precise gradations of artificial color to black and white photos. Invented by Swiss printer Orell Gessner Fussli, the process involved creating lithographic stone from the negatives—Up to 15 different tinted stones could be involved in the production of a single picture, but the result was remarkably lifelike color at a time when true color photography was still in its infancy.
The Library of Congress hosts forty eight of these images in their online catalog, all downloadable as high quality jpegs or tiffs. In most of these images—with their otherworldly coloration—we can imagine Rome the way it looked not only in 1890, but also how it might have looked in the 17th and 18th centuries—and to passionate Romantic poets in the early 19th, a place of raw natural grandeur and sublime man-made decay. See the Library of Congress online catalog to view and download all forty-eight of these postcards.
Come Together: 3,000 Years of Stories and Storytelling is running at The Morgan Library & Museum focusing on the rich history of storytelling through 140 literary works and other objects from its own collection alongside loans.
On view through May 3, it highlights a variety of narratives from the Babylonian, which is among the earliest literary works preserved in written form, to works by writers and artists inspired by New York City, featuring printed books, manuscripts, films, artifacts, comics, drawings, paintings, and photographs.
Highlights include:
BE ANGRY AT THE SUN
Robinson Jeffers
That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept
Like the historical republics corruption and empire
Has been known for years.
Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn,
They are all bound on the wheel, these people, those warriors.
This republic, Europe, Asia.
Observe them gesticulating,
Observe them going down. The gang serves lies, the passionate
Man plays his part; the cold passion for truth
Hunts in no pack.
You are not Catullus, you know,
To lampoon these crude sketches of Caesar. You are far
From Dante’s feet, but even farther from his dirty
Political hatreds.
Let boys want pleasure, and men
Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
And the servile to serve a Leader and the dupes to be duped.
Yours is not theirs.
Travel Between The Pages 