So I spent all afternoon yesterday writing on one project, and all afternoon today reading for another, et c’est bon, it makes you find things you were looking for. Now I am rereading: Julio Ortega’s 1986 book on Vallejo. This turns out to be rather worth doing and I will have some comments on it … More Mais c’est bon
On Marianna Scheffer’s art blog we have a quotation from Benjamin and then a brief commentary from Marianna. In the appreciation of a work of art or an art form, consideration of the receiver never proves fruitful. Not only is any reference to a certain public or its representatives misleading, but even the concept of … More Walter Benjamin
Clearly what I should read today: 68:1 (June 2015). It has Nicholson on Moro, of course, but it is the issue as a whole that looks nice to me. Axé.
Si tu viens un jour je ferme les yeux je laisse les yeux je laisse le bleu mordre Tout lire Mes mots, vertèbres transfigurées Axé.
A damsel with a dulcimer In a vision once I saw; It was an Abyssinian maid, And on her dulcimer she played, Singing of Mount Abora. Could I revive within me Her symphony and song, To such a deep delight ‘twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in … More Xanadu IV
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean; And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war! The shadow of the dome of pleasure Floated midway on the waves; Where … More Xanadu III
With Christopher Ricks. This is really worth listening to. Axé.
I like my abstract better than anything longer I have written on this matter. Taking as its point of departure not only the poetic subject in Vallejo as primordially fractured but the intimations in his prose works that like his contemporary J. L. Borges (“La nadería de la personalidad,” 1925) he eschewed the idea of … More Reading Vallejo Against the Grain of Identity
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, … More Xanadu II
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round; And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And … More Xanadu I
