Cheer up slaves; horrify foreign despots.

"It is, it seems, a social crime to desire solitude. After a piece of work, I flee. I seek new..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 21:04:53 +0300

“It is, it seems, a social crime to desire solitude. After a piece of work, I flee. I seek new territory. I fear the slackness of habit. I want to be free of techniques, of experience — clumsy. That is to be a trifler, a traitor, an acrobat, a fantaisiste. To be complimentary: a magician. A wave of the wand and the books are written, the film is shot, the pen draws, the play is staged.
It is very simple. Magician. That word makes everything easy. No need to labour at our work. It all happens of its own accord.”

- Jean Cocteau, The Difficulty of Being

RIP Ray Manzarek, founding member of The Doors

Tue, 21 May 2013 01:12:00 +0300

RIP Ray Manzarek, founding member of The Doors:

Today marks a very sad loss for the music world. Ray Manzarek, founding member of The Doors, passed away an hour and a half ago in Germany.

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Tue, 21 May 2013 00:55:36 +0300

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Tue, 21 May 2013 00:54:39 +0300

nannajane: in 7 years its going to be the 20s again so we can bring back swing music and the...

Mon, 20 May 2013 18:46:23 +0300

nannajane:

in 7 years its going to be the 20s again so we can bring back swing music and the aesthetics of that era but keep modern values who’s with me

“Happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose, and...

Sun, 19 May 2013 22:00:55 +0300

“Happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose, and conflict; those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war.”
— William S. Burroughs

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Sun, 19 May 2013 20:55:47 +0300

“My worst fault, like almost everything in me, springs...

Sun, 19 May 2013 20:30:11 +0300

“My worst fault, like almost everything in me, springs from childhood. For I am still the victim of those unhealthy rites which make children obsessive, so that they arrange their plates in a certain way at meals and only step over certain grooves in the pavement. In the midst of work, here are these symptoms gripping me, forcing me to resist what is driving me, involving me in strange halting writing, preventing me from saying what I want to say.
That is why my style often assumes an air of its own which I loathe, or else suddenly drops it. Inward cramps which reproduce those nervous peculiarities to which childhood abandons itself in secret and by which it believes it can exorcise fate. Even now as I am explaining them, I experience them. I try to conquer them. I stumble against them, I get bogged down in them, I lose myself in them. I should like to break the spell. My obsession gets the better of me. — I am a man made invisible by fables and monstrously visible on account of this.”

— The Difficulty of Being Jean Cocteau

"Once I went to interview Jean Cocteau. His house was piled high with bibelots, paintings, drawings..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 20:18:22 +0300

“Once I went to interview Jean Cocteau. His house was piled high with bibelots, paintings, drawings by famous artists, books - Cocteau kept everything and felt a deep love for all those things.
During the interview I decided to ask him: ‘if the house caught fire right now, and you could only take one thing with you, what would you choose?’
Cocteau said: ‘I’d take the fire.’”

- a journalist in Brissac, France

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Sun, 19 May 2013 19:50:00 +0300

An evening with an old friend, one from 20 years back. Kept the poor sod company as he’s...

Sun, 19 May 2013 10:59:00 +0300

An evening with an old friend, one from 20 years back. Kept the poor sod company as he’s recovering from throat illness and couldn’t utter a word out loud. Watched De Niro films and took a long stroll in our peaceful green childhood surroundings, I rambled on and we cherished the better times. Felt absurd. Felt very old.

Late after midnight got a sudden invitation out to town from a friendly guitar man I met at the group’s local jam night some time ago. Headed downtown in warm mellow summer night’s breeze, there were strange pressuring thunder vibes wallowing in the air, roaring sky. Met the guitarist’s pals in a messy noisy pub, folks were all dressed like it was the 70s and Led Zeppelin showed the way.

curluplikeadeadleaf: Man Ray, Untitled (Self Portrait with...

Sun, 19 May 2013 10:32:49 +0300

curluplikeadeadleaf:

Man Ray, Untitled (Self Portrait with Pipe, Paris), 1921.

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Sat, 18 May 2013 11:22:53 +0300

"If Kafka wants to express the absurd, he will make use of consistency. You know the story of the..."

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:20:35 +0300

“If Kafka wants to express the absurd, he will make use of consistency. You know the story of the crazy man who was fishing in a bathtub. A doctor with ideas as to psychiatric treatments asked ‘if they were biting,’ to which he received the harsh reply: ‘Of course not, you fool, since this is a bathtub’… Kafka’s world is in truth an indescribable universe in which man allows himself the tormenting luxury of fishing in a bathtub, knowing that nothing will come of it.”

- Albert Camus, Hope and the Absurd in the Work of Franz Kafka

James Dean (2001)

Fri, 17 May 2013 08:41:21 +0300

James Dean (2001)

Details of the houses on Zlatá Ulička, Prague. A poster of Franz...

Fri, 17 May 2013 08:41:00 +0300

Details of the houses on Zlatá Ulička, Prague. A poster of Franz Kafka on the tiny hallway of his apartment, No. 22. Photos by me.

In 1916-1917 Kafka used his sister’s tiny house on ‘Golden Lane’ as a quiet hideout to retreat to after workdays at the office. As described in his diaries, he escaped the restlessness and disturbing noises of his family home, took his light dinner along and climbed up the hill to the alley where he spent many nights writing until early morning hours. Long after midnight he would leave the peaceful solitude and stroll back to his parents’ home, which situated on the other side of the river. Kafka wrote that one of the greatest things about the house - besides the solitary silence he desperately sought, which it granted him - was having to do this nightly walk afterwards. It cleared his stuffy mind well and eased his stiff limbs from hours of sitting at his desk.
Kafka was a walker by heart.

theparisreview: In a note to Fitzgerald, Hemingway shows he was...

Thu, 16 May 2013 19:48:22 +0300

theparisreview:

In a note to Fitzgerald, Hemingway shows he was better at being aggressive than passive-aggressive.

For more of this morning’s roundup, click here.

A take translated from personal Prague journals, May 9, 2013. On...

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:36:00 +0300

A take translated from personal Prague journals, May 9, 2013. On the way to Zlatá Ulička, ‘Golden Lane’.

Greyness and fog: utterly melancholic view looking down from the hill. Was worth the climb, castle and all. Kafka’s symphatetic little pastel blue home on a downward sloping roughly paved alley. Small as a doll’s house. All the way uphill he soared, poor man with tuberculated lungs, carrying his plain supper of raspberries. Doorframes so low one must bow when entering, but the frame of No. 22 reaches slightly higher for some fortunate reason. Franz was a tall man, and it is crucial to hate all the unfair reasons that made such a fine man walk hunchbacked.

On the same row of shacks lived a lonely fortuneteller lady who, according to the legend, set the table for two every evening, forever waiting for his son to return from the war; a day that never came. Extermination camp came to be the end of the old missus. Narrow shelves full of dusty books about horoscopes and astronomy; props and setup? Lightly painted apartments protrude from an ancient stonewall, on both ends lie whole repertories of torturing instruments from the middle ages. Coins have been thrown into a deep gulch in the center of a musty cold torture chamber, upon the gulley loiters a harness for torment. Disgust that comes with inhaling. Pennies gleam behind the bars: goldmine in a death cellar.

"Attention spans have changed. The idea of going around to somebody else’s flat or house and sitting..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:39:17 +0300

“Attention spans have changed. The idea of going around to somebody else’s flat or house and sitting around in a comfy room and having a really good hi-fi system and listening to a whole album all the way through, then chatting for a few minutes, then maybe putting another album on… does that happen today?”

- David Gilmour

berecibiac: Gilmour, Paris ‘70

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:27:42 +0300

berecibiac:

Gilmour, Paris ‘70