how i love the saturation of colors on these. i especially love the one of laika, the first russian dog sent up in space...
1. polish matchbox label, 2. polish matchbox label, 3. hungarian matchbox label, 4. russian animal matchbox label, 5. german matchbox label, 6. russian matchbox label
and hundreds more where these came from.
via the drawn blog also.
then there's the safety in numbers...
1. apple apple., 2. night flys
thursdays, music, secrets, glimpses, blackboards, subtitles, elegance...
clarke_henry_1954_dior_fb.jpg, 2. Untitled, 3. noted, 4. a random scene....
after a month of ceramics classes, i finally have something that i can show you. pottery takes patience. this is a good medium for me to be working in, as i have always been one of those people who hurries things along. in these classes, i'm getting a lot of practice in letting things take as long as they should take. when i throw the wet clay on the wheel, i have to be very patient while i get the clay centered, and then work step by step forming it into a shape, without trying to hard to control it. it's almost as if i have to get completely out of the way of the clay in order to allow its shape to emerge. something along the lines of what michaelangelo said. but i can't just sit there doing nothing either. it requires a kind of keen focus and a very specific posture. i really love the potter's posture of straddling the wheel with elbows on my knees, my face only inches away from the clay.
after the pot is thrown comes the waiting for it to be leather hard for trimming. then you turn the pot upside down and anchor it with three pieces of clay so you can shape the pot's bottom or make for it a little "foot". this is the time when you also carve your name into your piece.
then, more waiting, for your piece to be "bisque" fired. then it's hard enough to paint with glaze. with each step i could indulge in great deliberation. the process is delicious, and allowed me to worry less about the end result.
after glazing, my pieces could be fired. when i arrived at the I street clay studio on saturday morning, my teacher jane had already put the pieces into the kiln. she gave me a long pair of thick gloves to put on and a long grabbing tool for removing the pots. i waved them around in the air for a minute before putting them into little cans lined with newspaper, which caught fire as soon as i put the pots in. when i took them out and sponged the soot off, they looked like this. i was very proud of them, but i am even more excited about how making them has changed me, slightly.
A SIMPLE GESTURE, A JOURNEY, A MEETING PLACE. ~by david horvitz
PLEASE MAIL ME AN EMPTY ENVELOPE.
PLEASE WRITE YOUR NAME ON THE BACK OF THE ENVELOPE AND THE PLACE IT IS BEING MAILED FROM.
THIS IS ABOUT A CONVERGENCE.
THIS IS ABOUT A MEETING PLACE.
THIS IS ABOUT A DISTANCE.
I WANT YOU TO SEND ME NOTHING BECAUSE I THINK THAT WOULD BE POETIC. AND, IF YOU SEND ME NOTHING IT DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING EXCEPT A DISTANCE. ALL IT IS IS THE GAP FROM YOU TO ME, AND THE BRIDGING OF THAT GAP. THE ENVELOPE WILL HAVE CONNECTED TWO POINTS. AT ITS POINT OF ARRIVAL IT WILL HAVE ARRIVED WITH OTHERS WHO HAVE JOURNEYED TO THE SAME DESTINATION FROM DIFFERENT POINTS OF DEPARTURE. THAT IS WHY THIS IS ALSO A MEETING PLACE.
DAVID HORVITZ
99 VERNON AVE #1
BROOKLYN, NY 11206
IDEALLY, I WISH TO BUY A REALLY BIG PO BOX AT A POST OFFICE IN NEW YORK. I WOULD NEVER TAKE THE ENVELOPES OUT. I WOULD LEAVE THEM IN THERE. THEY WOULD PILE UP AND STAY AT THEIR MEETING PLACE FOR YEARS AND YEARS. I WOULD LET PEOPLE BORROW THE KEY SO THEY COULD LOOK AT THEM. BIG PO BOXES COST $326 FOR 6 MONTHS. I CAN'T AFFORD THAT RIGHT NOW. SO, FOR NOW, THEY WILL JUST MEET AT MY HOUSE AND I WILL KEEP THEM IN A SHOE BOX. WHEN I GET THE MONEY, I WILL FIND A PERMANENT MEETING PLACE. ONCE THAT HAPPENS, YOU WILL HAVE TO SEND ANOTHER ENVELOPE TO THERE! SO PLEASE COME BACK TO THIS PAGE, ONCE I FIND THE FUNDS THE PO BOX WILL BE BOUGHT RIGHT AWAY AND THE ADDRESS WILL BE POSTED HERE.
i found out about david horvitz through raul at heading east. his "things for sale that i will mail you" project asks readers to send specific amounts of money so that he can spend it doing specific and rather fleeting tasks. such as this one:
"If you give me $75 I will go see a psychic and ask them for advice on my life. I will send you a write up of what happened and documentary photographs. If you give me $1,689 I will go see a psychic, ask them where in the whole world I should go to, and then I will go there. I will mail you documentation of this from where ever it is I go to. If you give me $9,999 I will go see a psychic and ask them where I SHOULD NOT go to in the whole world. I will then go there and mail you documentation of it from there. (note: I took out the tape recording part because I have found that some don't like to have their sessions recorded)
For each purchase I will go to different psychics."
kay and sean found this giant stone ear in france and photographed it. both of them report looking up to see where it might have fallen from. an ear is a very contemplative object, particularly as a thing on its own. an underwater ear studded with wish pennies is even more provocative. it is an ear that you feel perfectly reasonable telling your secrets to, and just sitting there so quietly, it seems to carry and divulge deep and ancient secrets of its own. from the photograph it makes me think of an open faced oyster. and of all the objects that fit into ear openings. i remember that irresistable urge as a child to put small things into my ears. the invitation to instigate a snug fit of any kind is almost impossible to resist. i thought of pouring warm clay into my ear and making a reverse mold of the narrow, twisting hallway and its acoustics. i compromised with silly putty. when adam was little he put a popcorn kernel in his ear and then promptly forgot about it. a cockroach once crawled into my father's ear when he was asleep. a cashew makes a handy earplug, in a pinch.
Pi
by Wislawa Szymborska
The admirable number pi:
three point one four one.
All the following digits are also initial,
five nine two because it never ends.
It can’t be comprehended six five three five at a glance.
eight nine by calculation,
seven nine or imagination,
not even three two three eight by wit, that is, by comparison
four six to anything else
two six four three in the world.
The longest snake on earth calls it quits at about forty feet.
Likewise, snakes of myth and legend, though they may hold out a bit longer.
The pageant of digits comprising the number pi
doesn’t stop at the page’s edge.
It goes on across the table, through the air,
over a wall, a leaf, a bird’s nest, clouds, straight into the sky,
through all the bottomless, bloated heavens.
Oh how brief—a mouse tail, a pigtail—is the tail of a comet!
How feeble the star’s ray, bent by bumping up against space!
While here we have two three fifteen three hundred nineteen
my phone number your shirt size the year
nineteen hundred and seventy-three the sixth floor
the number of inhabitants sixty-five cents
hip measurement two fingers a charade, a code,
in which we find hail to thee, blithe spirit, bird thou never wert
alongside ladies and gentlemen, no cause for alarm,
as well as heaven and earth shall pass away,
but not the number pi, oh no, nothing doing,
it keeps right on with its rather remarkable five,
its uncommonly fine eight,
its far from final seven,
nudging, always nudging a sluggish eternity
to continue.
nests and bowls and bowls and nests. ephemera and alliteration. repetition of shapes, of colors. the safety of numbers, the consolation of patterns.
1. Cowboy Sheetmusic, 2. Vintage Wallpaper, 3. watchfacescan, 4. Eggs, 5. Very Old Hankie Box, 6. candy
"All the words that I use are just a vehicle like radio waves, a message from my unconscious to the unconscious of the listener. I don't know what I have communicated, and the listener doesn't know what is being communicated, but I am constantly being told by people 'I don't understand what you have just said, but I do feel I have been communicated with." ~ivor cutler
at the end of this link lies a little story of ivor's that you are sure to love.
crime club
"no butler, no second maid, no blood upon the stair.
no eccentric aunt, no gardener, no family friend
smiling among the bric a brac and murder.
only a suburban house with the front door open
and a dog barking at a squirrel, and the cars
passing. the corpse quite dead. the wife in florida.
consider the clues: the potato masher in a vase,
the torn photograph of a weseyan basketball team,
scattered with checks in the hall;
the unsent fan letter to shirley temple,
the hoover button on the lapel of the deceased,
the note: "to be killed this way is quite all right with me."
small wonder that the case remains unsolved,
or that the sleuth, le roux, is now incurably insane,
and sits alone in a white room in a white gown,
screaming that all the world is mad, that clues
lead nowhere, or to walls so high their tops cannot be seen;
screaming all day of war, screaming that nothing can be solved."
~weldon kees
sheet music from here.
more than to go from one city
to the next
live in temporary rooms always
the sound of bumping above
be absolutely contented
and never idle
in endless hotels of fleeting noises and
situations
amidst madly carpeted
madly lit hallways
eat continental breakfast
in my one aqua
dress
perform gentle
handstands in trains
headed north
to everyday duluth
at a lutefisk picnic
i would collect fish bones and fruit seeds
and signs that said ‘slow’
