spare me from your post-everythings

"So what can they tell us, the writers of dream books, the scholars of oneiric signs and omens, the..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 01:12:52 +0200

“So what can they tell us, the writers of dream books,
the scholars of oneiric signs and omens,
the doctors with couches for analyses—
if anything fits,
it’s accidental,
and for one reason only,
that in our dreamings,
in their shadowings and gleamings,
in their multiplings, inconceivablings,
in their haphazardings and widescatterings
at times even a clear-cut meaning
may slip through.”

- Wisława Szymborska, from “Dreams” (translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanisław Baranczak)

"You should regard each meeting with a friend as a sitting he is unwillingly giving you for a..."

Tue, 21 May 2013 01:09:00 +0200

“You should regard each meeting with a friend as a sitting he is unwillingly giving you for a portrait - a portrait that, probably, when you or he die, will still be unfinished. And, though this is an absorbing pursuit, nevertheless, the painters are apt to end pessimists. For however handsome and merry may be the face, however rich may be the background, in the first rough sketch of each portrait, yet with every added stroke of the brush, with ever modification of the chiaroscuro, the eyes looking out at you grow more disquieting. And, finally, it is your own face that you are staring at in terror, as in a mirror by candlelight, when all the house is still.”

- Hope Mirrlees, Lud in the Mist

"One describes a tale best by telling the tale. You see? The way one describes a story, to oneself or..."

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:20:59 +0200

“One describes a tale best by telling the tale. You see? The way one describes a story, to oneself or to the world, is by telling the story. It is a balancing act and it is a dream.
…
—from the Notebooks of Mr. Ibis”

- NEIL GAIMAN, American Gods

“He thought what a fine thing it was that people made music all...

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:13:56 +0200

“He thought what a fine thing it was that people made music all over the world, even in the strangest settings – probably even on polar expeditions.”
― Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle, Mouthpiece of the...

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:06:00 +0200

Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle,

Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god

or other. Thirty years now I have labored

To dredge the silt from your throat.

I am none the wiser.

—Sylvia Plath, The Colossus

"Even from the simplest, the most realistic point of view, the countries which we long for occupy, at..."

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:00:38 +0200

“Even from the simplest, the most realistic point of view, the countries
which we long for occupy, at any given moment, a far larger place in our actual life than the country in which we happen to be.”

- Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way

"“Where are you going this early in the day?” I asked. “To buy my Buddha...."

Fri, 17 May 2013 20:00:00 +0200

“

“Where are you going this early in the day?” I asked.
“To buy my Buddha. I’ve decided to buy one every day. Don’t you think that’s a good idea?”
“Excellent. Enjoy yourself.”

She turned to wave goodbye and knocked her hat askew…

”

- Colette, The Pure and the Impure (1931)

"Otrov nije mržnja, otrov je ljubav koja se poriče."

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:40:29 +0200

“Otrov nije mržnja, otrov je ljubav koja se poriče.”

- Helene Cixous, Sanjarije divlje žene

Borili smo se.…Stisnuti gubitkom objekta po meri koji...

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:35:58 +0200

Borili smo se.
…
Stisnuti gubitkom objekta po meri koji nikako nismo mogli da imamo. Nema utehe. Svi smo mali, sa osećanjima prekomerno velikim. Prepoznajemo da smo manje lepi.

—Helen Cixous, Sanjarije divlje žene

"The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most..."

Sat, 11 May 2013 17:46:44 +0200

“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. “Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does.” They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.”

- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
(via literarylust)

“Behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that we—I mean all...

Sat, 11 May 2013 12:13:50 +0200

“Behind the cotton wool is hidden a pattern; that we—I mean all human beings—are connected with this; that the whole world is a work of art; that we are parts of the work of art. Hamlet or a Beethoven quartet is the truth about this vast mass that we call the world. But there is no Shakespeare, there is no Beethoven; certainly and emphatically there is no God; we are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself.”

― VIRGINIA WOOLF, Moments of Being

Photo: young Virginia Woolf and Clive Bell on a beach

‘Like to look at the stars?’ said the old man,...

Fri, 10 May 2013 14:56:27 +0200

‘Like to look at the stars?’ said the old man, turning the telescope towards Elsbeth.
‘Doesn’t it make you melancholy — looking at the stars?’ shouted Miss Eliot.

—Virginia Woolf, Jacob’s Room (1922)

_______________________________

Photograph by Man Ray

F. Scott Fitzgerald, in a letter to his editor written in July,...

Thu, 09 May 2013 01:50:48 +0200

F. Scott Fitzgerald, in a letter to his editor written in July, 1922. He was referring to The Great Gatsby.

"’..This was life, that two people, no matter how carefully chosen, could not be everything to..."

Thu, 09 May 2013 01:46:00 +0200

“’..This was life, that two people, no matter how carefully chosen, could not be everything to each other.’”

- Doris Lessing, To Room Nineteen

Literary Lust: T.S. Eliot on Ezra Pound's editing of The Wasteland

Tue, 07 May 2013 20:06:53 +0200

Literary Lust: T.S. Eliot on Ezra Pound's editing of The Wasteland:

literarylust:

INTERVIEWER

Does the manuscript of the original, uncut Waste Land exist?

ELIOT

Don’t ask me. That’s one of the things I don’t know. It’s an unsolved mystery. I sold it to John Quinn. I also gave him a notebook of unpublished poems, because he had been kind to me in various affairs. That’s the…

bloomsburyist: The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript...

Tue, 07 May 2013 19:30:42 +0200

Margaret Anderson

Josephine Baker

Djuna Barnes

Natalie Clifford Barney and guest

Katherine Dunham

A'Lelia Walker

bloomsburyist:

The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library’s online exhibition, “Intimate Circles: American Women in the Arts”, is wonderful, so I’ve arranged some of the Usual Suspects into this motivational photoset— you should all now be motivated to follow the link immediately.

“And that’s the end,” she said, and she saw in his eyes, as the...

Sun, 05 May 2013 10:58:42 +0200

“And that’s the end,” she said, and she saw in his eyes, as the interest of the story died away in them, something else take its place; something wondering, pale, like the reflection of a light, which at once made him gaze and marvel. Turning, she looked across the bay, and there, sure enough, coming regularly across the waves first two quick strokes and then one long steady stroke, was the light of the Lighthouse. It had been lit.

In a moment he would ask her, “Are we going to the Lighthouse?” And she would have to say, “No: not tomorrow; your father says not.” Happily, Mildred came in to fetch them, and the bustle distracted them. But he kept looking back over his shoulder as Mildred carried him out, and she was certain that he was thinking, we are not going to the Lighthouse tomorrow; and she thought, he will remember that all his life.

—Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

__________________

Painting: The Little Granddaughter
by Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida

Of course I think of the past and of Paris, what else is there...

Sun, 05 May 2013 10:49:00 +0200

Of course I think of the past and of Paris, what else is there to remember?

—Djuna Barnes, aged 68, in a letter to Natalie Barney.

___________________________

Photo: still from an original footage, reproduced in a documentary Paris Was a Woman (1996) by Andrea Weiss and G. Schiller

—VIRGINIA WOOLF

Sun, 05 May 2013 10:30:48 +0200

—VIRGINIA WOOLF

"Perhaps only people who are capable of real togetherness have that look of being alone in the..."

Sat, 04 May 2013 22:29:00 +0200

“Perhaps only people who are capable of real togetherness have that look of being alone in the universe. The others have a certain stickiness, they stick to the mass.”

- D. H. Lawrence (via bettymaestrange)