March 7, 2018
In order to effectively solicit real sympathy, you will have to debase yourself by publicly opening the gates to your very soul, no matter how trivial or dark it may be.
To be clear, this is not an even exchange; what you are donating isn’t a kind of fuel that automatically triggers amity, it is a covert ransom which you will never be able to redeem.
February 7, 2018
Illustration by Moebius — L’incal Lumière
I completely forgot that you may have wanted to know when it’ll be over, so here: never, that’s when.
Calm down now; you know perfectly well that the solace of being convinced that you’re the one who’s in the right can never be so absolute as to guarantee that you have considered every single detail that may prove it otherwise.
And yes, you’re correct, it hasn’t mattered in a long time; just consider it the habitual reminder for the need for clarity in procedure.
February 3, 2018
Eu sei exactamente o que sempre quis, mas nunca soube que sabia.
É um truque, uma prestidigitação (ela diz que não, que “é um dique ou um fosso, só pode”), um obstáculo menor que quer ser vencido em nome de pequenos e pedestres louvores, um rito de passagem.
É muito difícil explicar-lhe que não quero saber, que não é para aí que estou a olhar.
January 26, 2018
Rui Sanches — Sem Título (2012)
I get stuck sometimes.
I don’t mean stuck as in “frozen” but literally stuck in an infinite loop, processing the same set of mental steps, over and over, unable to detect an exit.
Yes, it sounds slightly mental but there’s a familiar tranquillity to it, much in the same way as the prospect of going to prison may be daunting at first, but there is still no denying that the idea of a prolonged isolation from initiative, or even reaction, could be a blessing of sorts; all of a sudden, only a very specific universe of possible steps exists, there are no external variables. What has to be done, but especially what can be done becomes very clear.
The curse of it all is that no matter whether I embrace or question the thought, it just becomes another infinite loop in the next order of magnitude.
—
Maybe it’s not that important.
January 23, 2018
You will now listen to my voice. My voice will help you and guide you still deeper into Europa. Every time you hear my voice, with every word and every number, you will enter into a still deeper layer, open, relaxed and receptive.
I shall now count from one to ten. On the count of ten, you will be in Europa.
I say One. And as your focus and attention are entirely on my voice, you will slowly begin to relax.
Two, your hands and your fingers are getting warmer and heavier.
Three, the warmth is spreading through your arms, to your shoulders and your neck.
Four, your feet and your legs get heavier.
Five, the warmth is spreading to the whole of your body.
On six, I want you to go deeper.
I say: Six. And the whole of your relaxed body is slowly beginning to sink.
Seven, you go deeper and deeper and deeper.
Eight, on every breath you take, you go deeper.
Nine, you are floating.
On the mental count of ten, you will be in Europa. Be there at ten.
I say: Ten.
Europa (1991) — Lars von Trier, narrated by Max von Sydow
January 16, 2018
Marcello Mastroianni in “La Dolce Vita” (Federico Fellini, 1960)
Sono scappato dal mio vecchio lavoro, ho lasciato i vecchi giri, sono diventato un bravo ragazzo. Ma tutto, a parte mia moglie, a parte quello che ci diciamo io e lei quando siamo a letto assieme, a parte le giornate buone che ci prendiamo camminando per strada e pensando che non abbiamo bisogno di nient’altro, tutto mi è scivolato addosso senza lasciare tracce. Fino a oggi. Mi è bastato essere sfiorato dall’odore del sangue per ritrovarmi dentro, come un tossico del cazzo. E come un tossico mi sono dimenticato di quanto sia pericoloso spingersi oltre la linea, trasformare il lavoro in qualcosa di personale, che ti fa rischiare e stare male. Che ti fa perdere.
La bellezza è un malinteso — Sandrone Dazieri
December 3, 2017
Jan Sanders van Hemessen — Vanitas
I struggle with the details.
Not because there’s so many of them, or because they’re small and, according to some, bothersome to deal with it, no.
What is exhausting is the brutal reckoning that nothing can ever be cleanly and completely terminated, that’s what it is.
The infinity of it all, see?
November 18, 2017
Wasted Rita — My Sense Of Humor Is Killing Us Both
Pre-emptive kitsch offers fake emotions, and at the same time a pretended rejection of the thing it offers. The artist pretends to take himself seriously, the critics pretend to judge his product and the modernist establishment pretends to promote it. At the end of all this pretence, someone who cannot perceive the difference between advertising (which is a means) and art (which is an end) decides that he should buy it. Only at this point does the chain of pretence come to an end, and the real value of postmodernist art reveal itself — namely, its value in monetary exchange. Even at this point, however, the pretence is important. The purchaser must still believe that what he buys is real art, and therefore intrinsically valuable, a bargain at any price. Otherwise, the price would reflect the obvious fact that anybody — even the purchaser — could have faked such a product. The essence of fakes is that they are substitutes for themselves, avatars of the infinite mise-en-abyme that lies behind every saleable thing.
Roger Scruton — The Great Swindle
October 10, 2017
I need to keep telling myself this until convinced that my poor judgement, my chronic lack of discernment and all those other flaws aren’t any more somber than anyone else’s.
It is very possible that I may have resisted it, because admitting that their glorification was a fucking monumental waste of time, would somehow tarnish an imaginary medal I’d awarded myself.
Yes, yes, I know that my head being a souq is no excuse.
It is what it is.
September 13, 2017
Imagine que c’est possible, juste pour un instant.
Tu crois que ça te prendrait le même temps pour tout réapprendre? Et tu vas apprendre quoi, au juste?
Tu y arrives, toi, à imaginer l’inimaginable?
August 25, 2017
Devias estar à espera que acabasse assim
Já desisti de tudo inclusive de mim
Mas as folhas dos ramos ainda vão cair
E o chão ficar à espera de as receberDevia estar à espera
Não é diferente do que era
Devias estar contente só porque simA areia da praia nunca fica igual
Depois da passagem de um homem normal
Olhando para o caminho o que é que o homem vê
Apenas pegadas à espera da maréDevia estar à espera
Não é diferente do que era
Devias estar contente só porque simQue a vida não faz sentido
Eu não lhe encontro sentido nenhum
Mas está a acontecer agora
Se não é boa ela melhoraEla Melhora — OIOAI
July 16, 2017
I don’t know how to deal with whatever it is that you seem to want me to realise, as it seems to involve mysteriously complex mental gymnastics. And I’m drawing a blank.
Could you please not make me tell you to go away, and simply fade into the background? Even if just as a reciprocal gesture of courtesy, for instance?
There will be no new memories, you know, these are the ones that will ever be, and begrudging that I’m disrespecting them sounds pointless.
July 11, 2017
Do you regret it now?
Does it help, just a little bit, to know that there was nothing you could have done?
Of course you do.
Of course it doesn’t.
June 14, 2017
Everybody’s wonderin’ what and where they they all came from
Everybody’s worryin’ ’bout where they’re gonna go
When the whole thing’s done
But no one knows for certain
And so it’s all the same to me
I think I’ll just let the mystery beSome say once you’re gone you’re gone forever
And some say you’re gonna come back
Some say you rest in the arms of the Saviour
If in sinful ways you lackSome say that they’re comin’ back in a garden
Bunch of carrots and little sweet peas
I think I’ll just let the mystery beEverybody’s wonderin’ what and where they they all came from
Everybody’s worryin’ ’bout where they’re gonna go
When the whole thing’s done
But no one knows for certain
And so it’s all the same to me
I think I’ll just let the mystery beSome say they’re goin’ to a place called Glory
And I ain’t saying it ain’t a fact
But I’ve heard that I’m on the road to purgatory
And I don’t like the sound of that
I believe in love and I live my life accordingly
But I choose to let the mystery beEverybody is wondering what and where they they all came from
Everybody is worryin’ ’bout where they’re gonna go
When the whole thing’s done
But no one knows for certain
And so it’s all the same to meI think I’ll just let the mystery be
I think I’ll just let the mystery be
Let The Mystery Be — Iris Dement (The Leftovers soundtrack)
June 3, 2017
Streptococcus Pneumoniae
It is all a game. A controlled universe where one mustn’t, can’t, deviate from the well rehearsed script.
This what we’ve come to:
We don’t get bemoan that we don’t know who we, or others, are any more; that is simply the price we pay for the dubious comfort of hygiene, or whatever the fuck we’re now calling this compulsion to scrub our lives clean of every dissonant bacteria, this perplexing assumption of a compromised immune system in compulsory need of an aseptic ritual.
May 27, 2017
I envy people to whom a quip in their mother tongue isn’t any more worthy of consideration than, for instance, stating their name or address; the result of a lifetime of operating within a specific cultural context.
Fluency without baggage is an illusion, maybe. It sometimes disheartens me to realise that most of my own baggage was acquired on purpose, not by an organic sequence of random accidents.
—
Nowhere. That’s where I’m from.
May 5, 2017
Jean Seberg on the set of “Bonjour Tristesse” (Otto Preminger, 1958) – Photo by Bob Willoughby.
Sans partager avec mon père cette aversion pour la laideur qui nous faisait souvent fréquenter des gens stupides, j’éprouvais en face des gens dénués de tout charme physique une sorte de gêne, d’absence ; leur résignation à ne pas plaire me semblait une infirmité indécente. Car, que cherchions nous, sinon plaire ? Je ne sais pas encore aujourd’hui si ce goût de conquête cache une surabondance de vitalité, un goût d’emprise ou le besoin furtif, inavoué, d’être rassuré sur soi même, soutenu.
Françoise Sagan — Bonjour Tristesse
April 26, 2017
You can’t be aware that you’ve seen a tree until after you’ve seen the tree, and between the instant of the vision and the instant of awareness, there must be a time lag. We sometimes think of that time lag as unimportant, but there’s no justification for thinking that the time lag is unimportant—none whatsoever. The past exists only in our memories, the future only in our plans. The present is our only reality. The tree that you are aware of intellectually, because of the small time lag, is always in the past and therefore is always unreal. Any intellectually conceived object is always in the past and therefore unreal.
Robert M. Pirsig — Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Rest in peace, Robert.
March 28, 2017
Eros & Psique. José de Almada-Negreiros, 1954.
No matter how clever, sober and magnanimous we think we are, we simply don’t know, do we? Not who we were, who we are, or what we’ll become.
What if abandonment isn’t an elusive purpose at all? What if it is our pervading essence, the one which we routinely disregard?
November 2, 2016
– So, is this it?
– I suppose so, why?
– Nothing, really.
– It’s about time, no? They’re all gone now.
– Probably. Cheers.
– Right, yeah.