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Monday, April 13th, 2009
 Last month, Saramago wrote a note about his dogs Camões and Pepe, and speculated that a Portuguese dog in the White House would be "an important diplomatic success, from which Portugal should work to get the maximum advantage in its bilateral relations with the United States..." -- today Bo is in the White House -- "the Great Danes and the hounds of Pomerania are dying of envy" -- but Saramago is critical:
In any case, allow me to say that I have a serious reservation that I must express: one cannot have any idea what a Portuguese Water Dog is, to put around his neck, to photograph him, a collar of flowers, as if he were a Hawai`ian dancer. At only six months of age, Bo is not yet fully aware of the respect that he owes the canine branch into which he had the luck to be born. ...
posted evening of April 13th, 2009: Respond
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Saturday, April 11th, 2009
I'm always taken with pictures of the aurora borealis. Hope I get to travel north sometime in the proper season for looking at it. My dad sent a link to some pictures of the Northern Lights over Yellowknife, Northwest Territories -- also there are some great pictures of frozen landscapes in Antarctica.
posted afternoon of April 11th, 2009: Respond
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Thursday, April 9th, 2009
The 14th, untitled poem in The Romantic Dogs is only three lines: I dreamt of frozen detectives in the great
refrigerator of Los Angeles
in the great refrigerator of Mexico City.
This introduces a series of five poems about "lost detectives" and "frozen detectives" and "crushed detectives" -- they moan desperately, they stare at their open palms, they are "intent on keeping their eyes open/ in the middle of the dream." These poems -- which are all about dreams -- make me think of Raymond Chandler; there is no stylistic similarity to speak of but I read "detectives" and "Los Angeles" and that is where my mind goes -- and they make me want to read Bolaño's novel The Savage Detectives to find out what his dream-detectives do when they are fleshed out into characters...The fourth poem in this sequence, "The Frozen Detectives," has another painting reference in it: I dreamt of detectives lost
In the convex mirror of the Arnolfinis:
Our generation, our perspectives,
Our models of Fear. I had to look this up -- turns out to be a painting I've seen many times and read a bit about at some point lost to my memory, "The Betrothal of the Arnolfinis," by Jan van Eyck:
An amazing, incredible picture; I don't have much to say about it here but that mirror seems like a fine place for dream-detectives to get lost. Anyway Sylvia was looking over my shoulder as I looked this up and she immediately recognized it as appearing in her book Dog's Night, which is the story of the dogs in all the paintings in an art gallery getting loose after hours one night -- it's a fine book and I recommend it if you are looking for a present for a young kid -- as I recall it's best suited for about a five- or six-year-old.
posted evening of April 9th, 2009: Respond
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Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
Bolaño's poem "El Mono Exterior", "The Monkey Outside", starts out by asking, "Do you remember the Triumph of Alexander the Great, by Gustave Moreau?" -- I did not -- never seen it, I'm pretty sure, and did not recognize the painter's name. Here is an image of it: The poem is difficult to make much sense of, either by itself or in the context of the painting, but it's an attractive jumble of images. He seems to be addressing somebody who is blasé about the purported power of this painting (I can't see it; but then I am just looking at a little jpg of it), who "walked like a tireless ape among the gods,/ For you knew -- or maybe not -- that the Triumph was unfurling/ its weapons inside Plato's cavern: images,/ shadows without substance, sovereignty of emptiness." I'm not sure if he's reproaching the person he's talking to -- and indeed he might be talking to himself.
 Update: This poetry course from Aula de Poesia de Barcelona (PDF format, Spanish language) has some questions for writing about "El Mono Exterior", on page 5. Also featured: Borges, José Jorge Letria, Juan López de Ael, Claudia Groesman. (Why is the school's name not spelled "Aula de PoesÃa"? Is this a Catalán thing?)
Late Update: Bolaño also references Moreau in the first section of 2666.
posted evening of April 7th, 2009: Respond
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Saturday, April 4th, 2009
 My dad sends some lovely pictures of their latest trip to the Sierra foothills, including this great shot of a water strider.
posted evening of April 4th, 2009: Respond
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Sunday, March 29th, 2009
My dad passed along a link to The surreal photography of Jean-Yves Lemoigne as featured at Corcholat; there is a lot to love over there. I especially liked this one:
There is plenty more at LeMoigne's homepage.
posted afternoon of March 29th, 2009: Respond
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Thursday, March 19th, 2009
USA Network has published a lovely book and accompanying web site: Character Project is a journey around the country by 11 photographers (11 journeys actually) documenting the land and the people. Some really striking images. h/t The Wooster Collective.
posted evening of March 19th, 2009: Respond
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Thursday, March 12th, 2009
I'm still on vacation from blogging; but this is too good of news to pass up: Kate Beaton's new web site is open for business! And lovely to look upon.
Speaking of comix: Elan Rodger Trinidad has a hilarious Watchmen spoof at io9; be sure to follow the link there to Seanbaby's Hostess™ nostalgia.
posted evening of March 12th, 2009: Respond
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Friday, March 6th, 2009
Au Hasard Balthazar is seeming to me like just exactly the ideal that a movie ought to approach -- i.e. that an item should be called a "movie" or denied membership in this class, according to whether it is similar to this Movie or unlike it. Is seeming like what Bergman would be like if I liked his movies better. There is an excellent trailer you can watch by clicking on the still.
 Is making me wonder, also, what kind of literature there is on the subject of composing subtitles for a film. Some information and reflections in this LanguageHat thread from last summer.
posted evening of March 6th, 2009: Respond
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Monday, February 16th, 2009
Drawn! links to a collection of children's dreams with illustration and narrative: El Monstruo de Colores no tiene Boca. (Thanks for sharing this, badger!)
posted evening of February 16th, 2009: 4 responses
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