New book Still Hunting

I finished up a new book called Still Hunting about a still hunter.

The amazing video game podcast The Indoor Kids is having a contest and I'm gonna try and enter. They're looking for anything to do with video games, like fan art, essays, whatever. So I'm gonna try. I've been working on something since last week. Something to do with Link from the original Legend of Zelda for NES and the basic story of a kid leaving home to go on an adventure. So it's gonna be a three part like book sort of tho it'll only have three pages I think. It'll be writing with pictures like I've been doing in the other books. But this time very focused on the story of Link. It's not as weird maybe as the other stuff I've been writing. It's gonna come out all right I think.

I started with this layout of one of the pictures. Not sure what it is exactly yet. Link is in the middle and there are monsters to the left and right. The Triforce is in there. Hearts on the bottom maybe? Have to fill it in with other parts of the game.

p.s. lovin the new drake. esp tracks 6 and 15.

Some of the gorgeous pictures I came across this morning at Kostel svatého Kříže on Na příkopě in their pamphlets and what not. Play this while you have a look.

see?

I heard the whole second side of abbey road the other night at Cerna Vdova in Zizkov. I was telling P how cool it is. Hear this song? it's just one long track? notice how it's been going on like this for a while? It's all from the same album called abbey road. Funny to bring that to someone. Miles and miles and miles away from home. I've heard all the songs a hundred times, but sometimes you hear songs a lot then you hear them one time and they're different. So I read more about Golden Slumbers and it turns out Paul McCartney came across sheet music for the poem Cradle Song by Thomas Dekker left on a piano by his sister. The poem goes like this:

Golden slumbers kiss your eyes,
Smiles awake you when you rise;
Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby,
 Rock them, rock them, lullaby.

Care is heavy, therefore sleep you,
You are care, and care must keep you;
Sleep, pretty wantons, do not cry,
And I will sing a lullaby,
Rock them, rock them, lullaby.

I'm not trying to steal this stuff. Most of the story is up on wikipedia. Just thought it was interesting.

 

This is what I was talking about before with Esquire. All the dumb ads. And wondering why we can't squeeze some words in there to get us into the head of the people in there. Sometimes there are these great shots of guy or a man and woman sitting in a club. There are all sorts of things that come to mind. So I wanted to use that somehow. So here's this one from a CK ad. The text goes like this: I knew change from glass. I knew stupid interrupted. I would learn. I hoped I would. But maybe I was too old already. Maybe I was 21 with a glass eye. 

That's that. Maybe it makes no sense to anybody. I like it though.

and writing is everywhere in magazines still. It's a different world here. I pick up Esquire for 300kc. That's $17 american dollars for a magazine that doesn't cost more than $3 back home. And they're not all the Style Issue. Sometimes they're thin. It's still important for me to see the advertisements and the articles and the writers. You can see the lines they spend time with. Usually it's the opening and closing lines and maybe something clever to close off a paragraph here and there. Some lines just flow to get the story across, but some of those lines get a lot of care and concern and took time. The ads mostly all suck. They have no idea what they're doing. Oh the money Gucci must pay for someone to come up with idea of a dude on a couch in a suit with his lips pursed. If there's writing in the ads usually it's something that goes nowhere. I don't know why they don't try to tell stories. Louis Vuitton was on the right path with Annie Leibovitz. But where are the right words to go along with it. A small story. Something about the character in the picture. I'm doing it though. I'll show you when I get my scanner hooked up.

how to get from the notebook to the printed paage without losing so much of the stuff I like

Sheila Hicks in Prague

Yesterday I saw the Sheila Hicks exhibition at the Museum of Decorative Arts in the Jewish Quarter. She works with textiles and weaving. The exhibit is probably 30-40 pieces in one room. And there are a few examples of real genius there.

If you go, make it upstairs. There’s a documentary about the design school she started in Cape Town, South Africa. It’s an amazing place. They bring locals in and teach them to create clothing that they can sell. Except the clothing is made out of things like old newspapers and magazines, weeds and the roots, fallen branches and fronds. Artists come from all over the world to teach there.

Anyway the exhibition in Prague is 80kc - way cheap - til Nov. 6. 2011 at The Museum of Decorative Arts.

Car designer and artist Camillo Pardo and the GT40

2002 Ford GT40

It’s 1985 and Ford wants to take a run at Porsche, Ferrari, Lotus and the like. They buy a Ferrari Testarossa, a Ferrari 308, a Lotus Esprit and set their engineers and designers loose. After a while, Ford comes out with the ultra-modern GT90 and later the Ford GT (or GT40) pictured above. Given all that work and tinkering with European supercars though, to my eye it looks like the biggest influence on the redesigned Ford GT was the old Ford GT.

1966 Ford GT40

I love reading about design, about influences, how companies steal and redesign and take (or avoid) huge risks with design. I was listening to Ford car designer Camilo Pardo talk about designing the Ford GT in a Carcast podcast. Interesting if you’re into cars or design. He talked how he came to be a car designer, about how important transitions are from one design to the next, and how jumping too far forward can lose public support and lead to redesigns being scrapped completely.

Pardo is also a sculptor, painter and fashion designer. The best part of the interview was when he talked about cars that he liked, like these:

1965 Shelby Daytona

1969 Corvette Stingray

I like that because it’s great to see that line from the past to the present. You hear people talking about influences all the time, but to actually see them is something else.

Work

I work in a large room with 30 or so other people. The blinds are shut all day because the sunlight reflects off the computer screens. The fluorescent lights are off for the most part too because they flicker and strobe. So when it's sunny outside, it’s nighttime here. Even still, I have a pretty great job.

I have maybe an hour of work each day. The people are nice. I spend most of the time writing or drawing by small desk lamp or even sometimes in one of the bathroom stalls where the light is better. I don't write or paint for money, but the job sort of let’s me pretend that’s what’s happening.

I put all the books up on Amazon. I’ve been thinking more about that. My goal a while ago was to have a bunch of people download and read the books. Now I think the best way to do that is with direct free downloads of the books. It just feels right. You can get them here. There will be others.

Embassy blues

Since probably a year or so ago Czechs needed to apply for a visa and pass a face-to-face interview with someone at the embassy to visit the US. When it was time for my girlfriend’s visa interview, I told her I’d go with her to the US embassy. They wouldn't let me in the door. No reason. So I went for coffee.

I thought somehow that I would feel a little bit home visiting the US embassy. But that’s not really how things work. I’ve been back since and now I’m sure of it.

Everything requires an appointment (sometimes even a password). Police are everywhere outside. Almost no one you meet is actually American. And everyone except the lowly security guard is behind tempered glass.

I know that most of these people are just doing their jobs, but some of them absolutely do not care if they do that job well. So you get a lot of aggressive questioning and a lot of superior attitude and a lot of ‘come back tomorrow’.

I know that one step above my little life there’s a whole other level from which the strings are created and pulled. That’s fine. I know a lot of it’s about security. I know that people are trying to weasel their way into the US and its embassies to do horrible things every day. It’s just that every time I go to the US embassy I wish they understood that I’m a legal taxpaying dude who is just trying to get in and get out and get back to work. It doesn’t bother me that they think I’m a threat when I walk up to the door - they have to. It’s that once I’m inside and cleared, I ought to be treated better.

My new painting/poetry ebook The Mongrel

New book The Mongrel. It's paintings with poetry. It's short at 12 or so pages.

Marcel Duchamp and 'A nude never descends'

I never knew much about Marcel Duchamp other than the urinal fountain thing. Turns out he had some vicious detractors in his days including President Theodore Roosevelt.

Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 by Marcel Duchamp

About the above painting you have the following background from Wikipedia:

"Duchamp first submitted the work to appear in a Cubist show at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, but jurist Albert Gleizes asked Duchamp's brothers, Jacques Villon and Raymond Duchamp-Villon, to have him voluntarily withdraw the painting, or paint over the title that he had painted on the work and rename it something else. The hanging committee objected to the work on the grounds that it had "too much of a literary title", and that "a nude never descends the stairs—a nude reclines".

Of the incident Duchamp recalled,

"I said nothing to my brothers. But I went immediately to the show and took my painting home in a taxi. It was really a turning point in my life, I can assure you. I saw that I would not be very much interested in groups after that."

He submitted the painting to the 1913 Armory Show in New York City located where Americans, accustomed to naturalistic art, were scandalized. Julian Street, an art critic for the New York Times wrote that the work resembled "an explosion in a shingle factory," and cartoonists satirized the piece. It spawned dozens of parodies in the years that followed.

After attending the Armory Show and seeing Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, President Theodore Roosevelt wrote (using his own, also valid translation):

"Take the picture which for some reason is called 'A Naked Man Going Down Stairs'. There is in my bathroom a really good Navajo rug which, on any proper interpretation of the Cubist theory, is a far more satisfactory and decorative picture. Now, if, for some inscrutable reason, it suited somebody to call this rug a picture of, say, 'A Well-Dressed Man Going Up a Ladder', the name would fit the facts just about as well as in the case of the Cubist picture of the 'Naked Man Going Down Stairs'. From the standpoint of terminology each name would have whatever merit inheres in a rather cheap straining after effect; and from the standpoint of decorative value, of sincerity, and of artistic merit, the Navajo rug is infinitely ahead of the picture."

On a lighter note though:

Drawing of Plato's Ion dialogue 'The nature of poetic inspiration'

I decided to draw this up. It's from Plato's Ion dialogue, which is basically a conversation between Socrates and the poet Ion. It's in ink on paper and then brushed over with oil. Oil makes the paper translucent and actually draws the pink pigment out of the black ink of the permanent marker. Funky but it works.

Rockwell

I've been playing a little bit with illustrations and ended up reading a lot about Norman Rockwell today. Didn't quite realize he was alive and working around the time Modern artists like Jackson Pollock were just taking off.

This article in LIFE magazine from Nov 13, 1970 was interesting. Click on it to view it larger and read it.

Really enjoying Woody Allen's new movie Midnight in Paris right now. Strange though how the trailer doesn't even really hint at the most clever parts of the story.

Anyway, made this this morning from one of my teaching textbooks. A different sort of perspective. Rearranging the sentences from the exercises to get something different. And the space at the bottom made sense there too. Liking it.

Photos

I thought I'd throw up a couple of black and white photos. Some of them are up on Facebook already, so follow me there if you want to see different stuff (less writing, lots of paintings and pictures).

How advertising copywriters attract readers

I stumbled on the "21 Most Powerful Copywriting Rules of All Time by Dr. Joe Vitale" recently in a book called Mastering the World of Marketing. Why in the world would I be reading that you might ask? I happened to be reading something by Gary Vaynerchuk (a smart wine guy who was inspiring at TED and funny on Conan) and the list was on the next page. Anyway some of the most famous creative artists started as copywriters (Terry Gilliam, Salman Rushdie, Don DeLillo).

At least three of the "most powerful" rules on that list are interesting for creative writers, particularly for short forms like poetry, which is in the slump of a lifetime these days. Here are three I thought were interesting:

1. Write simply, directly, and in the conversational style of your prospects.

Who are you trying to reach? Housewives, business executives, children? You must know the type of person you are writing to. Write to one person from that group and you will speak to all people in that group. Forget trying to impress people, win writing awards, or please a past English teacher. Good copy often violates the rules of English but still makes the sale.

2. Use emotional appeal.

People buy for emotional reasons and justify with logic. Gene Schwartz wrote an ad that ran for 20 years and sold so many flowers it exhausted nurseries. It's packed with emotional appeal. It read in part:

"When you put this into the Earth, and you jump back (quickly), it explodes into flowers. And everybody in your neighborhood comes and they look. And people take home blooms because you've got so many you could never find a house big enough to put them. And you've become the gardening expert for the entire neighborhood."

3. Activate your writing.

Whenever you write the words "is," "was," "are," or "to be," train yourself to stop and change them to something more active. "The meeting is tonight" sounds dead; "The meeting starts at 7 PM sharp tonight" feels clear, direct and alive. "Clair Sullivan is the finest promoter in the country" doesn't convey the excitement that "Clair Sullivan creates corporate events better than anyone else on the planet" does.

The whole list of rules and book preview is here, but if you're like me you'll want to read more by Gene Schwartz, who is mentioned in number 2. You can somehow read his whole book Breakthrough Advertising free on Scribd or you can read a couple of chapters from his How To Talk And Write So That People Will Never Forget You here. Both are worth a look.

Douchebags vs. Karaoke (or the Eric Dravens vs. the Brandon Lees)

I'm going to try to explain why karaoke can be art.

Still there? Good.

It's so funny what happens now that we're flooded with music. Music music music. On the TV. In the car. At the work desk. In the earbuds. But still, even though we have the chance at all times to listen to whatever we want and not the radio, some people (I'll call them douchebags) can't deal with radio hits we all know the words to. So when my friend Boris brought his karaoke party to a goth bar nearby, the douchebags showed their douchebag fangs.

One Eric Draven in particular wanted to fight Boris. It didn't help that Boris loves to sing or that his voice has a sort of Old Man River flavor to it, or that Boris opened the evening with It's Raining Men. Surprisingly, none of that helped. But the place filled up regardless. People came from all around, and soon the douchebags were outnumbered.

The moral (but not the end) of this story is that douchebags are an angry, angry lot. If you ever want to do something that makes you happy regardless of what other people think of you, think long and hard because a douchebag is lurking. And he can't see through his or her own bullshit. Onward.

In Spain, when someone is doing a performance of any kind you sometimes hear people say "Arte!" It's rare and it's hard to translate*, but basically means their performance was beautiful and moving**. The people with the most Arte aren't necessarily the most talented. What they are doing is just being themselves, which is hard to do in front of a crowd of people. I have a hunch that a lot of the great portrait painters and directors recognize Arte in people better than us normal folk, and aim to capture just that.

So maybe it sounds strange, but sometimes you catch that Arte at a karaoke night or two. It's not every time. Takes balls to get up there though, not fangs.

p.s. Boris doesn't know I'm writing about him. He might not think it good for business to talk about the douchebags in attendance. But I might argue that it's great for business. Someone has to sing Anarchy in the UK.

Here's where you find out about his karaoke nights:
http://www.facebook.com/ZizkovKaraoke

*Not really. Arte means art.
**One example of Arte might be this if you like Italian karaoke:http://youtu.be/Fh2Vh8jwyQA

Potatoes au natural :)

They were arranged so perfectly I had to snap this.

A drawing of the lyrics from Big Star's 'Take Care'

I heard a cover of the wonderful Big Star song 'Take Care' on the album Summer Sun by Yo la tengo and had to go back to hear the original.


Video link: http://youtu.be/HGlYyiMw7pU

I love the lyrics.

So here they are partially drawn:

New paintings

I put up some new paintings and street posters on the Materurbium Facebook page. Here's a picture with tiny samples of 9 of the paintings.

Like I said they're over on Facebook. There's a bunch of stuff there anyway that's not on the blog. So if you're interested and on Facebook, have a look.

To beautiful things come from here: The Tree of Life and Bedrich Smetana

This post originally appeared in The Prague Monitor.

I don’t know if you saw Winged Migration when it came out in 2001. If you didn’t, it was a nature documentary of sorts about bird migration. It was a success and ended up winning best documentary at the Oscars that year. It wasn’t that bird migration was so interesting. It was that the footage of the birds and their behavior was.

Even though you knew the camera crew was flying alongside in ultralights, that the birds were trained to fly and act naturally, there were scenes that just blew your mind. It seemed like the filmmakers got lucky. That the camera was on when a bird wandered into the frame, did something we'd never seen before and flew away.

There’s a lot of that in The Tree of Life, which I just saw the other night. For starters it's beautifully shot. The world we live in never looked better. And some of the scenes (especially with the young boys) seem like they were captured naturally in between takes of the actual movie.

So The Tree of Life is not like most movies. If you haven’t heard about it already (chances are you have though) you might want to read up on it first. There's plenty of controversy. It's up to you. I can't believe that The Tree of Life is in the local Cineplex alongside Harry Potter 8 though.

Oh, and the music. I’m proud a bit to recognize Czech composer Bedřich Smetana’s Vltava contribution to the movie and the trailer. You can hear it here:

Video link: http://dai.ly/eoFsSd

Kino Aero is running The Tree of Life in English with Czech subtitles for a measly 100kc. Get on it.

"Lou Reed got married and didn't invite me" - Spoken word in music (part dva)

Green Coca-cola Bottles by Andy Warhol (1962)

"What’s great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coke, Liz Taylor drinks Coke, and just think, you can drink Coke, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amount of money can get you a better Coke than the one the bum on the corner is drinking. All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good. Liz Taylor knows it, the President knows it, the bum knows it, and you know it." - from The Philosophy of Andy Warhol by Andy Warhol

I picked up a free book from Penguin a while ago that was a bunch of first chapters from what Penguin called "the best books ever written". It included chapters from books like John Updike's Rabbit Run, Saul Bellow's Herzog and Andy Warhol's The Philosophy of Andy Warhol.

I'd never heard of a book written by Andy Warhol other than his diaries. That quote up there turns out to be one of the better sort of insights into the way he thought, but the whole Philosophy of... is not like that. Like there's a whole chapter where he talks about buying underwear (briefs, if you must know). But I thought of the book recently when I decided to put up some worth-your-while spoken word videos.

Songs for Drella by Lou Reed and John Cale is a concept album dedicated to Andy Warhol. One of the tracks has John Cale reading from Andy's diary. The track is called 'A dream', and if you’re into Andy Warhol, I think you’ll enjoy it.

Video link: http://youtu.be/uSxRN0pNciA

Lyrics:

It was a very cold clear fall night.
I had a terrible dream.
Billy Name and Brigid were playing under my staircase
on the second floor about two o'clock in the morning.

I woke up because Amos and Archie had started barking.
That made me very angry because I wasn't feeling well and I
told them I was very cross, the real me,
that they just better remember what happened to Sam the bad cat
that was left at home and got sick and went to pussy heaven.

It was a very cold clear fall night.
Some snowflakes were falling.
Gee, it was so beautiful.
And so I went to get my camera to take some pictures.
And then I was taking the pictures
but the exposure thing wasn't right.
And I was going to call Fred or Gerry
to find out how to set it.
Oh it was too late.
And then I remembered they were still probably at dinner.
And anyway I felt really bad and didn't want to talk to anybody,
But the snowflakes were so beautiful and real looking
and I really wanted to hold them.
And that's when I heard the voices
from down the hall near the stairs.
So I got a flashlight and I was scared and I went out into the hallway.
There's been all kinds of troubles
lately in the neighborhood
and someone's got to bring home the bacon. Anyway
there were Brigid and Billy playing.

And under the staircase
was a little meadow sort of like the park at 23rd street
where all the young kids go and play frisbee.
Gee, that must be fun.
Maybe we should do an article on that in the magazine
but they'll just tell me I'm stupid and it won't sell
but I'll hold my ground this time, I mean
it's my magazine, isn't it?

So I was thinking that as the snowflakes fell
and I heard those voices having so much fun.
Gee, it would be so great to have some fun.
So I called Billy but either he didn't hear me or he didn't want to answer
which was so strange because even if I don't like reunions I've always loved Billy.
I'm so glad he's working.
I mean it's different than Ondine.
He keeps touring with those movies
and he doesn't even pay us and the film
I mean the film's just going to disintegrate and then what?
I mean he's so normal off of drugs.
I just don't get it.

And then I saw John Cale.
He's been looking really great.
He's been coming by the office to exercise with me.
Ronnie said I have a muscle
but he's been really mean since he went to AA.
I mean what does it mean
when you give up drinking and then you're still so mean?
He says I'm being lazy but I'm not.
I'm just can't find any ideas.
I mean I'm just not, let's face it,
going to get any ideas up at the office.

And seeing John made me think of the Velvets
and I had been thinking about them
when I was on St. Mark's Place
going to that new gallery those sweet new kids have opened.
But they thought I was old.
And then I saw the old DOM,
the old club where we did our first shows.
It was so great.
And I don't understand about that Velvet's first album.
I mean I did the cover.
I was the producer and I always see it repackaged
and I've never gotten a penny from it.
How could that be? I should call Henry.
But it was good seeing John.
I did a cover for him,
but I did in black and white and he changed it to color,
It would have been worth more if he'd left it my way
but you can never tell any body anything. I've learned that.

I tried calling again to Billy and John.
They wouldn't recognize me. It was like I wasn't there.
Why won't they let me in?

And then I saw Lou.
I'm so mad at him.
Lou Reed got married and didn't invite me.
I mean is it because he thought I'd bring too many people?
I don't get it.
Could have at least called.
I mean he's doing so great.
Why doesn't he call me?
I saw him at the MTV show
and he was one row away and he didn't even say hello.
I don't get it.
You know I hate Lou.
I really do.
He won't even hire us for his videos.
And I was so proud of him.

I was so scared today.
There was blood leaking through my shirt
from those old scars from being shot.
And the corset I wear to keep my insides in was hurting.
And I did three sets of fifteen pushups
and four sets of ten situps.
But then my insides hurt
and I saw drops of blood on my shirt and I remember
the doctors saying I was dead.
And then later they had to take blood out of my hand
'cause they ran out of veins.
But then all this thinking was making me an old grouch.
And you can't do anything anyway so
if they wouldn't let me play with them in my own dream
I was just going to have to make another and another and another.
Gee, wouldn't it just be so funny if I died in this dream
before I could make another one up.

And nobody called.

And nobody came.

Spoken word in music

Spoken word is tough to pull off. I've never liked any of the Def poetry jam things. Sometimes you catch a spoken word track here or there on an album of your favorite artist, like it's old news now that Kanye West used a part of Gil Scott-Heron's Who will survive in America on his last album. So sometimes you catch a sprinkling of it around. I would say that most people don't care for it. Just a guess. Not sure why. It's sort of tough to do it well. Usually background music helps.

In a few days I'll put up a spoken word I created recently using the fabulous ATT Voice synthesizer that I love so much and an instrumental electronic track by Fennesz. I don't expect anyone to love it. But it's something different. And that's later anyway.

For now, a couple of tracks with spoken word that I think work. I'll start with this one. It's by the electronic artist Loscil and it's called the Making of Grief Point. Loscil is Scott Morgan. The voice is Dan Bejar from the band Destroyer. Probably because Scott also plays drums in that band.

Video link:


I don't know really why I'm doing this. People ask Why don't people read poetry? But what they're really asking is Why aren't people buying books of poetry? Because artful writing is everywhere, and you can catch it if you're looking for it. You just don't call it poetry. You call it lyrics or you call it screenwriting. It doesn't really matter what you call it. It certainly doesn't matter to the person who wrote it. So I guess that's what this post is about. How occasionally musicians gray the line between reading and singing, books and music. Because that's what spoken word sort of sounds like.

Hope you enjoy this one. Later I'll put up more. If you know of some good ones, let me know.

Lyrics to the video thanks to Songmeanings.net:

The journal starts late: six weeks into the making of "Grief Point," first off as "May Day," a song in honor of May 1st and the workers. Can you still be against the strike that only strikes for more pay? By "you," in this instance, I mean "me."

There is a certain kind of person to whom things come with great facility. They say this is the noise that gets made as my life is lived. So be it. But don't feel the need to record it. For a second I thought that this meant that they were not interested in history. But that's... wrong. Wrong, wrong. A bad reading of the situation. The right reading is that I just don't understand it. At all.

Grief Point — and "May Day," by extension — suffers from the same old shit. A potential, complete ignorance of ambience, real ambience, in that: Can you really construct it, every last bit of it, and just let the listener feel its effects? And is this the right treatment? Always the same question. In this case I would maybe say yes, just because it forces form onto the thing, "thing" as a bunch of words, two melodies, and the words sung in a handful of ways. Between J____ and D____, of course, the same old war rages: one into a tight and perfect digital palace, but super true to the genre; the other, wanting to draw on actual sounds, mix it up, humanize.

It's cool how for my part, this sleight of hand, the trick of making something confounding and great and potentially horrible, drawn up from air: all this is no longer of any interest. In fact, even seeing things in this light depresses me. And so I often come home at night depressed by what we have done, what we are doing. It's good. It means I've changed.

I have lost interest in music. It is horrible.

I should only make things I understand. I should only make things I know how to construct, however imperfect. It's not even like dictating to someone. It's less than that.

"May Day" itself is pretty cool, I have to admit. It condemns the world at such an easy pace. I intend to tell T____ it is like a happy "Shooting Rockets," a disgusting description of anything, to be sure. I think the world does not like me grim. It likes me melancholic, but not miserable. English on the Mediterranean, which is oddly enough some of the worst people there is.

At some point, when it is made, I will explain this record, word for word, swear to God. An ape with angel glands: when I know if it is good or bad, I will know what is good, and what is bad.

The answer to the making of "Grief Point" is picnic baskets, filled with blood.

Too rich, nothing at stake.

If ______ had to write lyrics for his songs, they would be cumbersome, pale blocks, like his riffs, but pale. So instead he went out and found a whaler, too stupid to commit to a single thing.

I assume not lighting up at the sight of your mother as a sign of madness in an infant. Patina, no name for a baby. Your firstborn, before they threw you from the bridge.

Bagna wrestles his dogs to the floor. Such a beautiful scene for some. They write plays, don't perform them.

The message from the critical reception of Dreams was quite clear: we will not be listening to you any further. Of course some tension is created. Cosmonaut in a bread line, et cetera.

I watched a pig devour the classics just to get to you. The barge endlessly circling, your mind finds out. It is done.

Marc Chagall

"Here, in the Louvre, before the canvases of Manet, Millet and others, I understood why my alliance with Russia and Russian art did not take root. Why my language itself is foreign to them. Why people do not place confidence in me. Why the artistic circles fail to recognize me. Why in Russia I am entirely useless.. ..In Paris, it seemed to me that I was discovering everything, above all a mastery of technique.. ..It was not in technique alone that I sought the meaning of art then. It was as if the gods had stood before me.. ..I had the impression that we are still only roaming on the surface of matter, that we are afraid to plunge into chaos, to shatter and overthrow beneath our feet the familiar surface."

Marc Chagall from Letters of the great artists – from Blake to Pollock