cf. LIFE, 1967
If this be error, and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
— Sonnet CXVI
it is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken
Tag: magazine ads
Sonnet XVII
LIFE, 1966
If I could write the beauty of your eyes
And in fresh numbers number all your graces,
The age to come would say “This poet lies…”
— Sonnet XVII
Well, it’s all over now but the cryin’
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
Oedipus at Colonus
Business Screen magazine, 1971
Scan the shape of this dim shadow, once a man
And Oedipus . . . but I was different then.
— Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus (Tr. Murray)
“roman à clef”
cf. Cincinnati Magazine, 1979 with additional artwork by me
roman à clef
Here’s the key —
art=autobiography
— J.S.
Flat Tire (The Truth)
cf. LIFE, 1972
“…For you to wait like that was stupid and quite impermissible. But you aren’t angry with me, are you, because you waited in vain?”
“Well, it was rather hard, Clavdia, even for a man with detached passions — hard on me and hard-hearted of you to come back with him, because of course you knew from Behrens that I was still here, waiting for you. But I’ve told you that I think of that night simply as a dream, our dream…”
— Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
Flat Tire (The Truth) by Athenaeum
Vanity Fair
cf. John Margotta, “La Galleria” (Orange Coast Magazine, 1986)
Ah! Vanitas Vanitatum! which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied?
— Thackeray, Vanity Fair
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
LIFE, 1972
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
—T. S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
As You Like It
cf. LIFE, 1972
PHOEBE:
Good shepherd, tell this youth what ’tis to love.SILVIUS:
It is to be all made of sighs and tears,
It is to be all made of faith and service,
It is to be all made of fantasy,
All made of passion and all made of wishes,
All adoration, duty, and observance,
All humbleness, all patience and impatience,
All purity, all trial, all observance…
—As You Like It
“Unforgettable” by Nat King Cole
[Algernon is rather taken aback.]
cf. LIFE, 1972 and Oscar Wilde, “The Importance of Being Earnest”
“Who’s Zoomin’ Who?” – Aretha Franklin
Take Your Whiskey Home
cf. LIFE, 1964
ACT I, SCENE I: Verona. A public place.
cf. LIFE, 1969
“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself…”
cf. LIFE, 1964
Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself…
–Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway
“How would it be…if you were to pack your things tonight and be on your way with one of the scheduled express trains tomorrow morning?”
Cincinnati Magazine, 1977
“…In your twenty-fourth year, you say? Hmm … please permit me one more question, or if you will, a modest suggestion. Since your stay here appears not to be good for you — neither physically nor, if I am not mistaken, mentally — how would it be, if you were to forgo the pleasure of growing older here, in short, if you were to pack your things tonight and be on your way with one of the scheduled express trains tomorrow morning?”
“You mean I should leave?” Hans Castorp asked. “When I’ve only just arrived? But no, how can I possibly decide about that after only one day?”
And as he said it, quite by chance he caught a glimpse of Frau Chauchat in the next room…
—Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
The Cocktail Party
cf. LIFE, 1964
UNIDENTIFIED GUEST: Your wife has left you?
EDWARD: Without warning, of course;
Just when she’d arranged a cocktail party.
She’d gone when I came in, this afternoon.
She left a note to say that she was leaving me;
But I don’t know where she’s gone…
—T.S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party
“It was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person…”
LIFE, 1969
…some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away…it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
I will be your umbrella man
My luve’s like a red, red rose (and nobody knows like me)
LIFE, 1972
O My Luve’s like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June…
—Robert Burns
“Lastly, dance records were put in…”
LIFE, 1972
Lastly, dance records were put in. There were specimens of the new imported dance, the tango, calculated to make a Viennese waltz sound sedate and grandfatherly by contrast. Two couples displayed the fashionable steps. Behrens having by now withdrawn, with the admonition that a needle should be used no more than once, and the whole instrument handled “as though it were made of eggs.” Hans Castorp took his place as operator…
—Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
Indeep – “Last Night A Dj Saved My Life”
“Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be…”
LIFE, 1972
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be…
—Robert Browning, Rabbi Ben Ezra
The Whispers – “And The Beat Goes On”
La Belle Dame Sans Merci: A Ballad
cf. Cincinnati Magazine, 1973
Cleopatra
Cincinnati Magazine, 1971
The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burn’d on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar’d all description: she did lie
In her pavilion–cloth-of-gold of tissue–
O’er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour’d fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.
—Antony and Cleopatra
“VENUS” :: Shocking Blue by MARVEN Feat Sarah-jane
Tell me why then, why should it be that we go on hurting each other?
cf. LIFE, 1972
Switchin’ To Glide
LIFE, 1972
“Ho-Ho! my valiant page!
Bring hither Pegasus, and let me ride;
Smooth the winged-charger’s ruffled mane,
Tighten the curb, and let the loosen’d rein
Hang loose no more!
Bring hither Pegasus, and I will soar,
With my proud courser well in hand,
Into the presence of that fairyland
Wherein the far hills brood in the still mist
And the laughter-ripple of the mere is kissed
By the bright-eyed orb of day:
Now make good speed, my page…”
—William Wilson, “Pegasus in Lakeland”
“Switchin’ To Glide” by The Kings
The Metamorphosis
New York Magazine, 1977
As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect…
—Kafka, The Metamorphosis
“And Wilt Thou Leave Me Thus?”
cf. Cincinnati Magazine, 1971
And wilt thou leave me thus?
Say nay, say nay, for shame,
To save thee from the blame
Of all my grief and grame;
And wilt thou leave me thus?
Say nay, say nay!And wilt thou leave me thus,
That hath loved thee so long
In wealth and woe among?
And is thy heart so strong
As for to leave me thus?
Say nay, say nay!And wilt thou leave me thus,
That hath given thee my heart
Never for to depart,
Nother for pain nor smart;
And wilt thou leave me thus?
Say nay, say nay!And wilt thou leave me thus
And have no more pity
Of him that loveth thee?
Hélas, thy cruelty!
And wilt thou leave me thus?
Say nay, say nay!
—Sir Thomas Wyatt
My Baby Loves Lovin’
Summertime Blues
New York Magazine, 1969
Summer’s joys are spoilt by use,
And the enjoying of the Spring
Fades as does its blossoming…
–John Keats, Fancy
“Summertime Blues” (Remixed Live At Leeds Version) by The Who
Don’t know quite what to say, haven’t seen you in seven ages
cf. LIFE, 1964
And all through my coffee break time…
LIFE, 1955
Alter? When the hills do.
Falter? When the sun
Question if his glory
Be the perfect one.
Surfeit? When the daffodil
Doth of the dew:
Even as herself, O friend!
I will of you!
–Emily Dickinson
Doctor’s Orders
cf. Ladies’ Home Journal, 1953
I Don’t Wanna Know
LIFE, 1967
“They resolved to persevere in dissipation for the rest of the day…”
cf. LIFE (1967)
One night when Beauclerk and Langton had supped at a tavern in London, and sat till about three in the morning, it came into their heads to go and knock up Johnson, and see if they could prevail on him to join them in a ramble. They rapped violently at the door of his chambers in the Temple, till at last he appeared in his shirt, with his little black wig on the top of his head, instead of a nightcap, and a poker in his hand, imagining, probably, that some ruffians were coming to attack him. When he discovered who they were, and was told their errand, he smiled, and with great good humour agreed to their proposal: ‘What, is it you, you dogs! I’ll have a frisk with you.’ He was soon drest, and they sallied forth together into Covent-Garden…They then repaired to one of the neighbouring taverns, and made a bowl of that liquor called Bishop, which Johnson had always liked; while in joyous contempt of sleep, from which he had been roused, he repeated the festive lines,
‘Short, O short then be thy reign,
And give us to the world again!’
They did not stay long, but walked down to the Thames, took a boat, and rowed to Billingsgate. Beauclerk and Johnson were so well pleased with their amusement, that they resolved to persevere in dissipation for the rest of the day…
—Boswell’s Life Of Johnson
She didn’t tell me there were rocks under the waves right off the shore
LIFE (1972)
Time For Me To Fly
I make you laugh
And you make me cry
I believe it’s time for me to fly…
LIFE (1972)
“So are you to my thoughts as food to life”
So are you to my thoughts as food to life
Or as sweet-season’d showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As ’twixt a miser and his wealth is found;
Now proud as an enjoyer, and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure;
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then better’d that the world may see my pleasure:
Sometime, all full with feasting on your sight,
And by and by clean starved for a look;
Possessing or pursuing no delight,
Save what is had or must from you be took.
Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
Or gluttoning on all, or all away.
–Sonnet LXXV
Whenever you’re on my mind
I leave the world behind…
LIFE (1957)
Be Near Me
Cincinnati Magazine (1987)
I Woke Up In Love This Morning
Cincinnati Magazine (1971)
It’s magic when I’m with you
LIFE (1965)
“meanwhile my self etcetera lay quietly…”
LIFE (1966)
…meanwhile my
self etcetera lay quietly
in the deep mud et
cetera
(dreaming,
et
cetera, of
Your smile
eyes knees and of your Etcetera)
—e.e.cummings, my sweet old etcetera (excerpt)
More and more I’m thinkin’ ’bout love…
She’s my best friend’s girl but she used to be mine
Ladies’ Home Journal (1959)
Some Guys Have All The Luck
cf. LIFE (1968)
I’m saving my prime time for you
LIFE (1966)
When I come home feeling tired and beat…
At night the stars, they put on a show for free
And, darling, you can share it all with me…
And if this old world starts getting you down,
There’s room enough for two…
Cincinnati Magazine (1972)
Any world that I’m welcome to is better than the one I come from
Andrew Wyeth, Christina’s World (detail) (1948) and LIFE (1961)
Take it out to Pomona and let ’em know that I’m the coolest thing around
cf. Cincinnati Magazine (1976)
Earn Enough For Us
LIFE (1961)
They Can’t Take That Away From Me
Ladies’ Home Journal (1960)
Now who’s this Don Juan I’ve been hearing of?
The Ladies’ Home Journal (1948)
Love is thicker than water
cf. LIFE (1940)
Mama, Mama, please– no more Jaguars
cf. New York Magazine (1986)
I’m A Believer
Here I am – stuck in the middle with you
I miss the earth so much, I miss my wife
cf. photograph (woman) by Gabriele Forcina via unsplash.com
Might as well go for a soda
Outta Love Again
Your Wind Song stays on my mind
American Gothic Groove
You say it best when you say nothing at all
All through the night you telephoned…
You hear her voice – “How could you do that?”
Layla, I’m begging, darling please
“Then Bob lost our money…”
You and me ain’t no movie stars
