The way the night knows itself with the moon, be that (way) with me.

– Rumi, “In the Arc of Your Mallet.” (13^th Century.)

Diego talks about prose and love. M.F. 2012

A 2010 study at Stanford University showed that passionate love has the same effects as painkillers or illicit drugs. Professor of psychology Arthur Aron, PhD elaborates:

"When thinking about your beloved, there is intense activation in the rewards area of the brain - the same area that lights up when you take cocaine, the same area that lights up when you win..."

Source: http://med.stanford.edu/ism/2010/october/love.html

A Master of Ambiguity

Yesterday touched me. First I went to the Ed Ruscha retrospective at the Hayward Gallery. I overheard him say, “I’ve been doing the same thing for so long I don’t even though why I do it. It’s compulsive. It’s my vocation.”

Then I introduced myself to seminal multi-media artist and asked him where his favourite place in L.A. is. (Mr Ruscha has lived in Los Angeles since the 1950s.) He replied, “Lucy’s El Adobe on Melrose in Hollywood.”

Ed Ruscha, I Was Gasping for Contact, Pastel on Paper, 1976.

Around 7 o’clock, I went to the Robert Mapplethorpe opening at the Alison Jacques Gallery. The sidewalk was crowded with art aficioados rapturously waiting for Patti Smith to play an intimate set in honour of her close friend Robert Mapplethorpe. She began to sing in the doorway of the gallery: When we were young, we had imagination, we had each other… In between songs Patti spoke about walking around New York with Robert.

Standing quite close I sketched her and wrote down her words. On the topic of AIDS awareness, she said, “It doesn’t mean we can’t have fun. It doesn’t mean we can’t be free. It just means we have to love our life and take care of it.” She also advised, “All of you in the next week or two, read Rimbaud, read Jim Carroll and look at Robert.” When Patti sang acapella Because the Night, everyone went silent before tentatively beginning to sing along. She sounded amazing and sincere.

Robert Mapplethorpe, 
Lisa Lyon, 1982, Silver gelatin print, at Alison Jacques Gallery

“I’m glad that you’re able to breathe

I’m glad that you’re able to distinguish me

from the lights along the thruway.

I mean don’t both of us illuminate

the direction which you are taking?

and don’t both weep nervously above

the moist pavement where you move”

-a verse from The Narrows by Jim Carroll

Jim Carroll died a few weeks ago. Here is his obituary.

THE RAIN

walking in the rain.

crying in the rain.

kissing in the rain.




Rain by Tones on Tail is an epic song.  (Someone should make a better video.)

Haiku (The taste...)

The taste of rain —Why kneel? by J. Kerouac

some poems i dig...

"it is hard to believe
when i'm with you
that there can be anything as still as solemn
as unpleasantly definitive as statuary
when right in front of it
in the warm new york 4 o'clock light we are
drifting back and forth
between eachother
like a tree breathing
through its spectacles"

-frank o'hara, 1960

+++++

"You cannot describe it, you cannot picture it,
You cannot admire it, you cannot sense it.
It is your true self, it has nowhere to hide.
When the world is destroyed, it will not be destroyed."

- probably wumen huikai, around 13th century

+++++

"it isn't gentleness
that you and i are looking for
in the hills and valleys,
it is the cliff, the gorge,
the scraped ocher on the knees
of the slopes
and the red crevice in which the land
shows too, the brilliance of its wound."

-francisco segovia

Painting by Gerhard Richter, oil on board, 1991

+++++

ECSTASY OF CHAOS

"when the immense drugged universe explodes
in a cascade of unendurable colour
and leaves us gasping naked,
this is no more than the ecstasy of chaos:
hold fast, with both hands, to that royal love
which alone, as we know certainly, restores
fragmentation into true being."

-robert graves, 1960s

+++++

"Etoile qui brille
regard humide
fil de la vierge
pitie
flotte au vent
cette compresse sur mon coeur
trop vite trop vite et quel delire
quelque chose vient de se casser
dans la mecanique
de ma vie."

-paul dermee, dadaist

+++++

DEVOTION PROCESS

"It was a crinkled feeling
-a recognition of stiff joy pleating:
a gentle iron stifling discoveries
and nudging calm into the folds.

Hot disquietude burned holes in me
like scorching cloves bearing your name.
Your invisible flames broke my stride
and forced me to decompose in shudders.

Everyday presented that familiar alley,
Where I would wander lost but certain
of my eventual collapse...
I could only turn my head to hide
my pupils screening
the humility of love. "

-m. fortuny

photo by scott payne

+++++

SENSATION

"Par les soirs bleus d'été, j'irai dans les sentiers,
Picoté par les blés, fouler l'herbe menue :
Rêveur, j'en sentirai la fraîcheur à mes pieds.
Je laisserai le vent baigner ma tête nue.

Je ne parlerai pas, je ne penserai rien :
Mais l'amour infini me montera dans l'âme,
Et j'irai loin, bien loin, comme un bohémien,
Par la Nature, -- heureux comme avec une femme."

-arthur rimbaud, 1870