Sunday 31 March 2013


"One day, as I viewed the faded portrait of a young girl in an album, someone passed who spoke a name...
"And so I knew you; having heard your name, you, I shall dream of you."

- Edourard Dujardin (Antonia, 1891).

Picture: My photo detail of Jelly d'Aranyi from a photo of the three d'Aranyi sisters.

Tuesday 26 March 2013


Joseph Macleod - To an Unborn Child (1957).

One of my favourite poets. I would not say this poem is particularly representative of his poetry but it is the only recording I have come across. Well worth taking the time to seek out his work.
Good sources: 




Saturday 16 March 2013


‎"If you are on your own for a long time and get used to being alone and are more or less trained in loneliness, then you begin to discover more and more in places which, for normal people, are essentially bare. On the wall you discover cracks, fine cracks, uneven patches, vermin. There is a tremendous movement on the walls. In actual fact the wall and the page of a book completely resemble one another."

- Thomas Bernhard (Three Days, in The Italians, 1972).

Picture: "The Wall" by Yevgeny Rukhin (1962-63).


Words etched in Russian read "Sasha is a jerk" and "Prick"


Friday 8 March 2013



Midnight Groover + Pierrot = Christiane Colletin - Four a Chabon la.

"Masculinity and femininity, as they are usually understood, are obstacles to humanity¹ [...] Only a gentle masculinity, only an autonomous femininity are right, true and beautiful. And if this is so, one must not further exaggerate the character of the sex in any way [...] but rather seek to soften it by means of counter-measures, so that everyone in what is proper to him or her, is able to find a space as boundless as possible in which to move freely, according to pleasure and love, in the entire sphere of humanity"

- Friedrich Schlegel (On Philosophy - To Dorothea. An open letter to Brendel Veit in Volume 2 (1) of his Athenaeum journal, 1799).

Picture: "Penthésilée – Pentesiléia" by Raul Ubac (1937).
(Penthesilea was the Amazon Queen who went to die in the Trojan war after killing Hippolyta)

1. This first part of the quote is widely attributed online to Karoline von Günderrode, pretty much wherever her name is mentioned, from Wikipedia onwards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karoline_von_Günderrode). Whilst the idea would no doubt fit her writing I can find no evidence in my books or online that she actually wrote it, and those that quote it do not indicate a source. I am certain, on the other hand, though that Schlegel committed the lines to paper in the place cited. I have a correction/query pending with Wikipedia etc but if anyone happens to have a better knowledge of Karoline von Günderrode's work and can set me straight then please do. Till then I am chalking it up as another in my win column in the battle of Me v Internet.




Monday 4 March 2013