ph: Mario Testino
Saturday, July 31, 2010
First Lines: Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings - The Yearling
A column of smoke rose thin and straight from the cabin chimney.
New Stuff: Listening to Noise and Silence
This book, subtitle 'Towards a Philosophy of Sound Art', got a good review in the recent edition of The Wire, and should be exactly what I'm interested in.
Friday, July 30, 2010
William S. Burroughs: The Cat Inside
A cocktail joke for the New Yorker set. It isn't funny anymore... thin stray cat thrown out with the garbage. The white cat in Mexico City: I slapped it across the face with a book. I can see the cat running across the room to hide under a lumpy junked armchair.I can hea the cat's ears ringing from the blow. I was literally hurting myself and didn't know it.
Then the dream in which a child showed me his bleeding finger and I Indignantly demanded to know who had done this. The child beckoned me into a dark room and pointed the finger at me and I woke up crying "No! No! No!"
William S. Burroughs: The Cat Inside
I remember a white cat in Tangier at 4 calle Larachi, first cat to get in the house...he disappeared. And a beautiful white cat on a red mud wall at sunset, looking out over Marrakech. And a white in Algiers, across the river from New Orleans. I remember a faint, plaintive meeooww at twilight. The cat was vmmery sick, lying under the kitchen table. He died during the night.
The next morning at breakfast (were the boiled eggs just right?) when I put my foot under the table the cat was stiff and cold. And I spelled it out for Joan, to avoid traumatizing the children "The white cat is D-E-A-D." And Julie looked at the dead cat blankly and said: " Take him outside, because he stinks."
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
First Lines: Theodore Dreiser - Sister Carrie
When Caroline Meeber boarded the afternoon train for Chicago, her total outfit consisted of a small trunk, a cheap imitation alligator-skin satchel, a small lunch in a paper box, and a yellow leather snap purse, containing her ticket, a scrap of paper with her sister's address in Van Buren Street, and four dollars in money.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
First Lines: Henry James - Washington Square
During a portion of the first half of the present century, and more particularly during the latter part of it, there flourished and practised in the city of New York a physician who enjoyed perhaps an exceptional share of the consideration which, in the United States, has always been bestowed upon distinguished members of the medical profession.
Monday, July 26, 2010
First Lines: Sherwood Anderson - Winesburg, Ohio
UPON the half decayed veranda of a small frame house that stood near the edge of a ravine near the town of Winesburg, Ohio, a fat little old man walked nervously up and down.
New Stuff: The Flaming Lips
Hard to believe, but so far I passed up on the Flaming Lips despite their repuation. So a few days ago a friend visiting us at home remarked that even a band like the Flaming Lips already have released about 20 albums. And I hadn't ever bought one till now. Still on its way: Zaireeka!