HAROLD PINTER
Old Times

What worries me is the thought of your husband rumbling about alone in his enormous villa living hand to mouth on a few hardboiled eggs and unable to speak a damn word of English.

JOSEPHINE BAKER

I have never really been a great artist. I have been a human being that has loved art, which is not the same thing. But I have loved and believed in art and the idea of universal brotherhood so much, that I have put everything I have into them, and I have been blessed.

DONALD BARTHELME
"The Crisis"

Self-criticism sessions were held, but these produced more criticism than could usefully be absorbed or accommodated.

ERICH FROMM

Respect is not fear and awe; it denotes, in accordance with the root of the word (respicere = to look at), the ability to see a person as he is, to be aware of his individuality and uniqueness.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.

Debbie Harry photographed by Pierre-Ange Carlotti for Wonderland Magazine, 2017.

ITALO CALVINO

The knowledge of foreign cultures is a vital element of any culture; I don’t believe we can ever have enough of it. A culture must be open to foreign influences if it wants to keep its own creative power alive.

JOHN FOWLES from The Magus

“The human race is unimportant. It is the self that must not be betrayed.“

“I suppose one could say that Hitler didn’t betray his self.”

“You are right. He did not. But millions of Germans did betray their selves. That was the tragedy. Not that one man had the courage to be evil. But that millions had not the courage to be good.”

A. R. AMMONS - "Stills"

I have nowhere
to go and

nowhere to go

when I get
back from there

SCARLETT STREET

Fritz Lang
USA, 1945

TTHE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW

Fritz Lang
USA, 1944

MILTON KRESSLER
"Route 40—Ohio, U.S.A."

It is dark now.
Nets of snow
tumble about us.
We slide like fish,
the road dissolving.
And in the fields
the farmlights chant:
You have no land—
You have no land.

SAMUEL BECKETT from The Unnamable

Bah, the latest news, the latest news is not the last.

DARK VICTORY

Edmund Goulding
USA, 1939

NĀGĀRJUNA
Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way)

The pacification of all cognitive grasping and
The pacification of conceptual proliferation
Are peace.

THE PRIVATE LIVES OF ELIZABETH AND ESSEX

Michael Curtiz
USA, 1939

CORMAC McCARTHY
After Dark

It howled execration upon the dim camarine world of its nativity wail on wail while he lay there gibbering with palsied jawhasps, his hands putting back the night like some witless paraclete beleaguered with all limbo’s clamor.

FACELESS - IMG_9300

Lucas Dias

MARGARET ATWOOD

I write as if I’ve lived a lot of things I haven’t lived.

ERICH FROMM

The same polarity of the male and female principle exists in nature; not only, as is obvious in animals and plants, but in the polarity of the two fundamental functions, that of receiving and penetrating. It is the polarity of earth and rain, of the river and the ocean, of night and day, of darkness and light, of matter and spirit.”

THE PETRIFIED FOREST

Archie Mayo
USA, 1936

SAMUEL BECKETT
Molloy

I get up, go out, and everything is changed. The blood drains from my head, the noise of things bursting, merging, avoiding one another, assails me on all sides, my eyes search in vain for two things alike, each pinpoint of skin screams a different message, I drown in the spray of phenomena

FLANNERY O'CONNOR

Accepting oneself does not preclude an attempt to become better.

ANAÏS NIN

It is a sign of great inner insecurity to be hostile to the unfamiliar.

OF HUMAN BONDAGE

John Cromwell
USA, 1934

HAROLD PINTER
Silence

Now and again I meet my drinking companion and have a drink with her. She is a friendly woman, quite elderly, quite friendly. But she knows little of me, she could never know much of me, not really, not now. She’s funny. She starts talking sexily to me, in the corner, with our drinks. I laugh.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS

I am absolutely convinced that the main source of hate in the world is religion and organized religion. Absolutely convinced of that, And I think it should be - religion - treated with ridicule, hatred, and contempt.

So when I say that I think religion poisons everything, I’m not just doing what publishers like and coming up with a provocative subtitle. I mean to say it infects us in our most basic integrity.

It says we can’t be moral without “Big Brother,” without a totalitarian permission. It means we can’t be good to one another without this. It means we must be afraid.

We must also be forced to love someone whom we fear - the essence of sado-masochism, the essence of abjection, the essence of the Master/Slave relationship. And that it knows death is coming, and can’t wait to bring it on.

I say that is Evil.

And though I do, some nights, stay home, I enjoy more the nights when I go out and fight against this ultimate wickedness and this ultimate stupidity.

IRIS MURDOCH

Beauty is the convenient and traditional name of something which art and nature share, and which gives a fairly clear sense to the idea of quality of experience and change of consciousness. I am looking out of my window in an anxious and resentful state of mind, oblivious of my surroundings, brooding perhaps on some damage done to my prestige. Then suddenly I observe a hovering kestrel. In a moment everything is altered. The brooding self with its hurt vanity has disappeared. There is nothing now but kestrel. And when I return to thinking of the other matter it seems less important. And of course this is something which we may also do deliberately: give attention to nature in order to clear our minds of selfish care.

BETH GYLYS
"The Trouble with Love Poems About Men"

They're not of curves and shadows made.
They don't wear skirts to swoop and tease
the eye, nor toss their hair, nor sway.
So arduous to package men to please:
a slant of hip, or buttocks tucked in faded
jeans—they lack aesthetic flair. A spray

of curls might fan their brows, or bellies bloom
above their belts. To paint men in the best
of light, requires certain skill. The groom
looks better if he's built. He'll fill
his tux with sculpted flesh. His chest
will taper to the cummerbund. Still,

what work to capture men's appeal!
A rise between the legs will also shade
and shape their usual lines. Alas, revealed,
the bulge is but a stick. We live dismayed.
It's difficult to bring men warm regard.
We try. Their love is always hard.

CHARLOTTE SMITH
"Reflections on Some Drawings of Plants"

I can in groups these mimic flowers compose,
  These bells and golden eyes, embathed in dew;
Catch the soft blush that warms the early Rose,
  Or the pale Iris cloud with veins of blue;
Copy the scallop’d leaves, and downy stems,
  And bid the pencil’s varied shades arrest
Spring’s humid buds, and Summer’s musky gems:
  But, save the portrait on my bleeding breast,
I have no semblance of that form adored,
  That form, expressive of a soul divine,
  So early blighted, and while life is mine,
With fond regret, and ceaseless grief deplored—
  That grief, my angel! with too faithful art
  Enshrines thy image in thy Mother’s heart.

LAURA INGALLS WILDER from Writings to Young Women from Laura Ingalls Wilder: On Wisdom and Virtues

As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness -- just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm.

CHÖGYAM TRUNGPA
“The Nameless Child”

There is a mountain of gold. When the sun’s rays strike it, it is irritating to look at. It is surrounded by red, green, yellow, orange, pink and liver-colored clouds, wafted gently by the wind. Around the mountain fly thousands of copper-winged birds with silver heads and iron beaks. A ruby sun rises in the East and a crystal moon sets in the West. The whole earth is covered with pearl-dust snow. Upon it a luminous child without a name instantaneously comes into being.

The golden mountain is dignified, the sunlight is blazing red.
Dreamlike clouds of many colors float across the sky.
In the place where iron birds croak,
The instantaneously-born child can find no name.

Because he has no father, the child has no family line. Because he has no mother, he has never tasted milk. Because he has neither brother nor sister, he has no one to play with. Having no house to live in, he cannot find a crib. Since he has no nanny, he has never cried. There is no civilization, so he cannot find toys. Since there is no point of reference, he doesn’t know a self. He has never heard spoken language, so he has never experienced fear.

The child walks in every direction, but does not come across anything. He sits down slowly on the ground. Nothing happens. The colorful world seems sometimes to exist and sometimes not. He gathers a handful of pearl dust and lets it trickle through his fingers. He gathers another handful and slowly takes it into his mouth. Hearing the pearl dust crunch between his teeth, he gazes at the ruby sun setting and the crystal moon rising. Suddenly a whole galaxy of stars wondrously appears and he lies on his back to admire their patterns. The nameless child falls into a deep sleep, but has no dreams.

The child’s world has no beginning or end.
To him, colors are neither beautiful nor ugly.
The child’s nature has no preconceived notion of birth and death.
The golden mountain is solid and unchanging.
The ruby sun is all-pervading.
The crystal moon watches over millions of stars.
The child exists without preconceptions.

EARTHA KITT
"Los Angelitos Negros / Little Black Angels"

ERICH FROM from The Art of Loving

Care and responsibility are constituent elements of love, but without respect for and knowledge of the beloved person, love deteriorates into domination and possessiveness.

JASON EPSTEIN
“This Side of Paradiso”

The future seems to me a vacuum, while the past, as one considers it, appears substantially uniform, shaped less by new technologies than by predictable human behavior, most of it discouraging. The moral world of the Divine Comedy is, after all, identical to the one we still inhabit.

ABRAHAM VERGHESE
Cutting For Stone

To be around someone whose self-confidence is more than what our first glance led us to expect is seductive.

Getcha little somethin' that ya can't get at home.

- Tom Waits

RYŌKAN

have you forgotten me
or lost the path here?
i wait for you
all day, every day
but you do not appear.

More or less:

I've done better but this is a good start.

BHAGAVAD GĪTĀ

Chapter 18 / Text 48

Every endeavor is covered by some sort of fault, just as fire is covered by smoke. Therefore one should not give up the work which is born of his nature, O son of Kunti, even if such work is full of fault.

RON PADGET

When Jesus found himself
nailed to the cross,
crushed with despair,
crying out,
"Why has thou forsaken me?"
he enacted the story
of every person who suddenly realizes
not that he or she has been forsaken
but that there was never
a forsaker,
for the idea of immortality
that is a birthright of every human being
gradually vanishes
until it is gone
and we cry out.

LUMINOUS MELODIES
Essential Dohas of Indian Mahāmudrā

Karl Brunnhölzl
Wisdom, 2019

PHILIP LARKIN
”The Old Fools”

What do they think has happened, the old fools,
To make them like this ? Do they somehow suppose
It’s more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools
And you keep on pissing yourself, and can’t remember
Who called this morning ? Or that, if they only chose,
They could alter things back to when they danced all night,
Or went to their wedding, or sloped arms some September ?
Or do they fancy there’s really been no change,
And they’ve always behaved as if they were crippled or tight,
Or sat through days of thin continuous dreaming

Watching light move ? If they don’t (and they can’t), it’s strange:
Why aren’t they screaming ?

At death, you break up: the bits that were you
Start speeding away from each other for ever
With no one to see. It’s only oblivion, true:
We had it before, but then it was going to end,
And was all the time merging with a unique endeavour
To bring to bloom the million-petalled flower
Of being here. Next time you can’t pretend
There’ll be anything else. And these are the first signs:
Not knowing how, not hearing who, the power
Of choosing gone. Their looks show that they’re for it:
Ash hair, toad hands, prune face dried into lines-
How can they ignore it ?

Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms
Inside your head, and people in them, acting.
People you know, yet can’t quite name; each looms
Like a deep loss restored, from known doors turning,

Setting down a Iamp, smiling from a stair, extracting
A known book from the shelves; or sometimes only
The rooms themselves, chairs and a fire burning,
The blown bush at the window, or the sun’ s
Faint friendliness on the wall some lonely
Rain-ceased midsummer evening. That is where they live:
Not here and now, but where all happened once.
This is why they give

An air of baffled absence, trying to be there
Yet being here. For the rooms grow farther, leaving
Incompetent cold, the constant wear and tear
Of taken breath, and them crouching below
Extinction’ s alp, the old fools, never perceiving
How near it is. This must be what keeps them quiet.
The peak that stays in view wherever we go
For them is rising ground. Can they never tell
What is dragging them back, and how it will end ? Not at night?

Not when the strangers come ? Never, throughout
The whole hideous inverted childhood? Well,
We shall find out.

PENTHESILEA
Pascal Dusapin 

Franck Ollu

Natascha Petrinsky, Marisol Montalvo, Georg Nigl, Werner van Mechelen, Orchestre Symphonique, Choers de la Montaigne

GWENDOLYN BROOKS
"Gay Chaps at the Bar"

... and guys I knew in the States, young officers, return from the front crying and trembling. Gay chaps at the bar in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York ...
—Lt. William Couch in the South Pacific

We knew how to order. Just the dash
Necessary. The length of gaiety in good taste.
Whether the raillery should be slightly iced
And given green, or served up hot and lush.
And we knew beautifully how to give to women
The summer spread, the tropics of our love.
When to persist, or hold a hunger off.
Knew white speech. How to make a look an omen.
But nothing ever taught us to be islands.
And smart, athletic language for this hour
Was not in the curriculum. No stout
Lesson showed how to chat with death. We brought
No brass fortissimo, among our talents,
To holler down the lions in this air.

ZELDA FITZGERALD“Eulogy on the Flapper”

She refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn’t boring.



HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
“The Little Mermaid”

She laughed and danced with the thought of death in her heart.

BORDERLINER
(Original: GRENSELAND)

Creator:
Megan Gallagher

Directors:
Bård Fjulsrud, Gunnar Vikene, Rune Denstad Langlo

Norway, 2017

BONNIE 'PRINCE' BILLY
“No Bad News”

Trouble, more trouble can you get anymore
Slow bubble boiling on the bedroom floor
Lonely ain’t lonely, someone calling at the door
Someone lovely and she’s bringing bad news

She clenches and she cries and she lays on the stairs
Pounding on the earth and yanking at her hairs
And showing such fear at being found unawares
To be here and be bringing bad news

Well, something bad happens and a lot of people go
Bad themselves, that’s how awful it is
Turning half the heart into something hard and dark
And she had to bring here this

Well, she’s told, “Hold your buttons and look at the sky
Someone will fix things if you let your face dry
Keep your face near the earth and your heart beat high
And you may transcend the bad news”

Well, something bad happens and a lot of people go
Bad themselves, that’s how awful it is
Turning half the heart into something hard and dark
And she had to bring here this

For all hammers and nails
For all leaves and winds
For all love ambitions
And enemies and friends

ROBERT WARSHOW

The sense of tragedy is a luxury of aristocratic societies.

TABULA RASA

Creators:
Veerle Baetens, Malin-Sarah Gozin, Christophe Dirickx

Directors:
Kaat Beels, Jonas Govaerts

Belgium, 2017

JORGE LUIS BORGES

The image that I shall leave when I’m dead — we’ve already said that this is part of a poet’s works — and maybe the most important — I don’t know exactly what it will be, I don’t know if I’ll be viewed with indulgence, with indifference, or with hostility. Of course, that’s of little importance to me now; what does matter to me is not what I’ve written but what I am writing and what I’m going to write. And I think this is how every writer feels. Alfonso Reyes said that one published what he had written in order to avoid spending his life correcting it: one publishes a book in order to leave it behind, one publishes a book in order to forget it.

THE WICKER MAN

Robin Hardy,
UK, 1973

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Back to Methuselah

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

JOHN KEATS
“To Autumn”

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,–
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Marlene Dietrich in Billy Wilder’s A FOREIGN AFFAIR (1948)