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
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
Consider this. Axé.
Vallejo read Baudelaire more assiduously than we even realize, and did this before getting to Paris although he refers to him most obviously there. “Anywhere out of the world” Cette vie est un hôpital où chaque malade est possédé du désir de changer de lit. Celui-ci voudrait souffrir en face du poêle, et celui-là croit … More Paris Spleen 48
I am plagiarizing this post from the Facebook page of a colleague, and hope that is all right. Look: Correspondences: Adorno on Benjamin: “Despite extreme individuation […] Benjamin seems empirically hardly to have been a person at all, rather an arena of movement in which content forced its way, through him, into language.” Jim Siegel … More On subjectivity, language and the body
From my dialogues elsewhere. Person A, quoting Pessoa: Whether we write or speak or do but look Whether we write or speak or do but look We are ever unapparent. What we are Cannot be transfused into word or book. Our soul from us is infinitely far. However much we give our thoughts the will … More Vallejo Lorca Spicer Stein Pessoa Drummond
Every evening, a hideously painful spasm in the ribs. I read, for a long time, sitting up in bed – the only position I can endure. I’m a poor old wounded Don Quixote, sitting on his arse in his armour at the foot of a tree. Armour is exactly what it feels like, a hoop … More Alphonse Daudet’s house of pain
Here are some lines from the second poem in this trio. El ojo del crepúsculo desiste de ver quemado vivo el caserío. The entire series is worth studying seriously and this one in particular makes it worthwhile and helpful to have visited Santiago de Chuco. Twice. Afílase lo rudo. Habla escarcela . . . En … More Terceto autóctono
Roy Andersson. Axé.
Vallejo: Language Itself [I am not sure this title covers it, but a better one is not coming to me, and this has been improved since I posted it … but I am still interested in the question of the title] Borges said Quevedo was a poet of language: “La grandeza de Quevedo es verbal” (“Quevedo,” … More Getting that MLA proposal down to less than 1000 words
coldhearted scientist وداد 