Jean Brusselmans: Lilas (Seringen), 1934.
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Candlesticks that look like carnivorous plants by Tommy Mitchell.
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Wax-seal-encrusted treasure box by Parvum Opus.
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Colleen Herman, Something Warm.
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NOMASEI ballerinas (tiny gold hands!)
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Klingspor-Schriften type sample. Offenbach: Gebrüder Klingspor, 1951.
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Photo of the artist Rose Wylie, by Sam Wright for the NYT Style Magazine.
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A moment extends to time passing as sense impression of a rose, including new
joys where imagined roses, roses I haven't yet seen or seen in books record as my
experience.
Then experience is revelation, because plants and people have in their cells
particles of light that can become coherent, that radiate out physically and also
with the creativity of metaphor, as in a beam of light holographically, i.e., by
intuition, in which I inhale the perfume of the Bourbon rose, then try to separate
what is scent, sense, and what you call memory, what is emotion, where in a
dialogue like touching is it so vibratory and so absorbent of my attention and
longing, with impressions like fingerprints all over.
I'm saying physical perception is the data of my embodiment, whereas for the
rose, scarlet itself is matter.
Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, from "Hello, the Roses."
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Related: videos of Diana Thater's gardens.
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To start, think about what you like. Consider your own taste. What is your perfect soup? Is it clear? Creamy? Spicy? Thick? Think about its components. What ingredients do you have access to? We will offer some suggestions and a simple road map, but this is not an edict; improvisation is an essential part of cooking.
Who are you feeding? Reflect on this with every step.
Emily Hilliard and Rebecca Wright, "A Soup Recipe: Questions and Interpretive Instructions for a Present Process and a Future Meal." Ecotone.
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It’s not that literature can’t be personally uplifting, or even morally improving; but when you insist that this is what literature is for, you make a claim that sits at odds with the manifest intentions of most writers and readers. Why do I read? Largely because I hate to be bored, and books are my favourite way of not being bored. (Also, a little bit, because I like people to think of me as someone who reads books.)
Sarah Ditum, "Books Won't Save You." UnHerd, 4/27/2021.
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[Jane] Harrison was the foremost figure in the Cambridge Ritualists, a group of classical scholars who infused the study of ancient Greece with modern theories of “primitive” ritual. The holophrase, a linguistic instance in which subject and object are rendered indistinguishable, fascinated her. In her book Themis: A Study of the Social Origins of Greek Religion (1912), she provided an example of a holophrase ascribed to an indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego: mamihlapinatapai, which means “looking-at-each-other-hoping-that-either-will-offer-to-do-something-which-both-parties-desire-but-are-unwilling-to-do.” She believed this suggested pre-modern speakers’ total involvement with their environments, the self dissolved in pure relation. The duality of mind and body is superseded by an articulation of shared reality.
Dustin Illingworth, "Little Funny Things Ceaselessly Happening." Poetry, 3/1/2021.
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"I want a holophrase."—Hope Mirrlees, Paris.
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What if hope exists not for any individual human being now living—but rather for the members of future generations, who though powerless to redeem us, might nevertheless be able to overturn the injustices we have been subject to and carve out a better existence for themselves? In this view, hope is not for “us” but it is nevertheless related to us, by means of our connection to other, future human beings. “I” might not be able to hope for anything. But “we” certainly can meaningfully hope for a better world—through the actions we might take, through the world and across generations, together.
Tom Whyman, "Why, Despite Everything, You Should Have Kids (If You Want Them)." NYT, 4/13/2021.
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This pure feeling I have and my certainty of what has caused it: the sight of the children … the rousing music, the marching feet. A feeling of one in distress who sees help coming but does not rejoice at his rescue—nor is he rescued—but rejoices, rather, at the arrival of fresh young people imbued with confidence and ready to take up the fight; ignorant, indeed, of what awaits them, but an ignorance that inspires not hopelessness but admiration and joy in the onlooker and brings tears to his eyes.
Franz Kafka, from a diary entry dated March 1922 describing hope:.
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Archeologists found a lost 3,000-year-old city in Luxor: "Work is underway and the mission expects to uncover untouched tombs filled with treasures." (Washington Post.)