Thomas J. O’Halloran, “Medlars – new computer to keep medical information” (1964)
Now I’ve found my heaven
From the neck on up
You’re a perfect eleven
From the neck on up…
Neck On Up
Tag: people
The course of true love never did run smooth.
cf. Gold Bell Catalog (1963)
“Santayana wants me, Lord, I can’t go back there!”
“PHILOSOPHICAL” DIALOGUES BETWEEN SOCRATES (S) AND AN IMAGINARY INTERLOCUTOR (ii):
S: Wittgenstein at a restaurant or we can dine at home.
ii: Bertrand, can you Russell up some dinner for me?
S: Francis, Bacon sure smells great when it’s cooking doesn’t it?
ii: That hits Lamarck.
S: I Goethe go.
ii: Rousseau long!
S: Let’s play Heidegger seek!
ii: I Kant find you!
S: Hegel, what’s going on?
ii: We were supposed to go Schopenhauers ago!
S: Don’t put Descartes before the horse! We’ve Spinoza this many times before.
ii: John, Locke the front door and we’ll get going.
S: Foucault? I didn’t hear the phone ring.
ii: Hume are you referring to?
S: Camus come over to visit today?
ii: I’m Newton town so I’m not sure where to go.
S: I’ll Nietzsche in front of my house. Drive Pascal and then take the next left. Husserl can you get here?
ii: Is your house Nietzsche and clean?
S: Rousseau it is. I really Fichte this place up. It looks great. Kierkegaard-en I told you about with lots of flowers.
ii: If that’s Sartre than I’m a Hottentot.
S: Santayana wants me, Lord, I can’t go back there!
ii: Don’t Thoreau your life away!
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
“a closed book”
Camden Public Library, “The 6-masted schooner George W. Wells…” (detail) (ca. 1900)
a closed book
just for an instant
the future,
ionized and incandescent
split the sky
then was lost
—J.S.
G. F. Handel – Suite No. 2 – Adagio by Elina Christova
At The Food Fair
cf. The Finnish Museum of Photography, “Osuustukkukaupan osasto Elintarvikemessuilla Messuhallissa.” (1950) (edited detail)
He’s A Mover
cf. American Mutoscope and Biograph Co., “Foxy Grandpa and Polly in a little hilarity” (1902)
“He’s A Mover” by Nikki & The Corvettes
In France They Kiss On Main Street
Toni Frissell, “A couple walking along the Seine River in Paris” (detail) (between 1940 and 1969)
Kick It Out
Fred G. Korth, “A Good Time In The Office” (ca. 1936)
Curtail far hopes to fit short destiny.
Even while we speak time, grudging time, has fled.
Seize eagerly each day, and trust the morrow’s grace as little as may be.
—Horace, Odes
“Mixing memory and desire…”
Photograph by Les Anderson via Unsplash
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire…
—T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
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
I Feel The Earth Move
“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”
“Portraits” (V-VIII)
“Portraits” (V-VIII)
V
(John Keats)The thought of her
in that darkest winter
fevered torment
but your eternal summer
will not fadeVI
(Jane Dornacker)You did not know me
but I was always listening
and when I lost you
I pulled my car over to the side of the road
and prayedVII
(Hans Castorp)As Spender said of Eliot,
A wonderful poet disguised as a businessman.
Just ask Clavdia.VIII
(F. Scott Fitzgerald)A romantic resting against a mantelpiece clock.
You were right, Scott—
the past is forever.
—J.S.
“Portraits” (I-IV)
“Portraits” (I-IV)
I
(Van Temple)I saw you singing that song again
and I thought of art
burning like a flame
through time and tide
and I was driving with the radio on
againII
(Arland D. Williams Jr.)When you boarded the plane
Did the other passengers recognize you?III
(Samuel Johnson)Put her letters in the fire
Striven back onto yourself
A place you’ve been beforeIV
(Walt Whitman)When you listened to the aria in New Orleans
Did it unravel and fathom your heart?
—J.S.
My Baby Loves Lovin’
The Groove Line
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, “Playing baseball…” (ca. 1910)
“Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic” by The Police
“There is a Gull that rolls alone…”
Photograph by Morre Christophe via Unsplash
There is a Gull that rolls alone
over billows loud;
the Nightingale at night will moan
under her soft shroud.
—Allen Ginsberg, “A Very Dove” (excerpt)
Still The One
Walk right in, sit right down. Daddy, let your mind roll on.
cf. John Smibert, “Francis Brinley” (1729)
“Stand a little out of my sun.”
Photograph by mvp via Unsplash
…since that philosopher took not the slightest notice of Alexander, and continued to enjoy his leisure in the suburb Craneion, Alexander went in person to see him; and he found him lying in the sun. Diogenes raised himself up a little when he saw so many persons coming towards him, and fixed his eyes upon Alexander. And when that monarch addressed him with greetings, and asked if he wanted anything, “Yes,” said Diogenes, “stand a little out of my sun.”
–Plutarch, Alexander
Let’s move before they raise the parking rate
Wil Blanche, “Springtime Scene…” (1973)
Afternoon Delight
Gold Bell Catalog, 1963
My baby takes the morning train
William B., “Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) Construction…” (detail) (1900)
I Just Want To Celebrate
“Soli Deo Gloria”: Grand Central, December, 1982
Grego, Street Musician (2014)
“Soli Deo Gloria”: Grand Central, December, 1982
onrushing out into the
42nd street passage
huddled in the corner
frayed and fallen
drifted from the street
in pieces and broken-down
Yamaha nylon string guitar
the third Brandenburg
reverberated, echoed, re-echoed
transfixed and transfigured
I put all my money in his well-worn open case
It was almost Christmas
–J.S.
Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, BWV 1048 – III. Allegro by TXGQ
“For him, however, it meant freedom finally won, and by now his heart no longer fluttered at the thought.”
Tom Hubbard, August Brings the “D’aug Days” to Fountain Square… (1973)
And that was the end of the attempt by the flatlands to reclaim Hans Castorp. The young man admitted quite openly to himself that such total failure, which he had seen coming, was of decisive importance for his relationship to the people down there. For the flatlands it meant a final shrug, the abandonment of any claim; for him, however, it meant freedom finally won, and by now his heart no longer fluttered at the thought.
–Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
She put her finger in your cheek so hard it must have made your dimple there, and said, “Maple.”
Your mother named you. You and she just saw
Each other in passing in the room upstairs,
One coming this way into life, and one
Going the other out of life—you know?
So you can’t have much recollection of her.
She had been having a long look at you.
She put her finger in your cheek so hard
It must have made your dimple there, and said,
‘Maple.’ I said it too: ‘Yes, for her name.’
She nodded. So we’re sure there’s no mistake.
I don’t know what she wanted it to mean,
But it seems like some word she left to bid you
Be a good girl—be like a maple tree.
How like a maple tree’s for us to guess…
–Robert Frost, Maple (excerpt)
“Have you noticed a change in Steve?”
Eastman Kodak Company, “How to make good movies…” (1938)
“Have you noticed a change in Steve?
Boy, I have!
Oh, It’s wonderful, I’ll tell ya!”
–Entry from girl’s diary (ca. 1961) quoted in Thomas Mallon, A Book of One’s Own: People and Their Diaries
It’s No Secret
I hear laughter in the rain
“I should have passed a calm and peaceful life…”
Terry Eiler, Walkers in Dust Storm (ca. 1972)
In my native country, in the bosom of my religion, family, and friends, I should have passed a calm and peaceful life in the uniformity of a pleasing occupation, and among connections dear to my heart…
Instead of this — what a picture am I about to draw! — Alas! why should I anticipate the miseries I have endured? The reader will have but too much of the melancholy subject.
—Rousseau, Confessions (Tr. by W. Conyngham Mallory)
Modern Love
cf. Samuel H. Gottscho, New York World’s Fair, Entrance to Perisphere (1939)
I still have that other girl in my head
cf. Bill Roughen, “Night Life” (Cincinnati Magazine, 1977)
“…awaiting the birth of a grandson capable of understanding him.”
Cervantes—a patient gentleman who wrote a book—has been sitting in the Elysian fields for three centuries and gazing sadly around, awaiting the birth of a grandson capable of understanding him.
—José Ortega y Gasset, Meditations on Quixote
Who could it be?
Believe it or not it’s just me…
Library and Information Services Metropolitan State University, Star Wars Party (2015)
M-O-N-E-Y never did a thing for L-O-V-I-N
Tom Rogowski, “Springing Out All Over” (Cincinnati Magazine, 1978)
“Upon the heart sorrow falls, memory’s pain, and to us, though against our very will, even in our own despite, comes wisdom”
Alan Fisher, Lou Ambers tips his hat as he accepts a sandwich from a hand reaching out of a doorway (1935)
Drop, drop—in our sleep, upon the heart
sorrow falls, memory’s pain,
and to us, though against our very will,
even in our own despite,
comes wisdom…
–Aeschylus, Agamemnon (Edith Hamilton, trans., “Three Greek Plays”)
“Don’t forget to return my pencil.”
cf. photograph by Paul Green via Unsplash
“Adieu, my Carnival Prince! I can predict that you’ll see a nasty rise in your fever chart this evening.”
Then she glided out of her chair, glided across the carpet to the door, where she stopped and turned halfway back to him, one bare arm raised, a hand on the hinge. Over her shoulder she said softly, “Don’t forget to return my pencil.”
And she left.
—Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
Pick Up The Pieces
Don’t let my glad expression give you the wrong impression
cf. LIFE, 1966
and John Singer Sargent, Madame X (1883–84)
and Jean-Antoine Watteau, Pierrot, formerly known as Gilles (ca. 1718-19)
“Johnny, give up women and study mathematics.”
Esther Bubley, A geometry teacher…using a model to explain a figure (1943)
…she at last blushed, adjusted her dress, got up, and, without saying a word, went and seated herself at the window. I went to sit by her side, but she moved, sat down on a couch, got up immediately afterwards, and fanning herself as she walked about the chamber, said to me in a cold and disdainful tone of voice, “Zanetto, lascia le donne, e studia la matematica.” (“Johnny, give up women and study mathematics.”)
—Rousseau, Confessions
Who’s tripping down the streets of the city?
LIFE, 1966
“thermodynamics”
Jamaica, 1986
incandescent light burns
down frayed wires—
spectral radiance.
I move my finger across the frost
on the window.
—J.S., “thermodynamics”
I’ve got your picture of me and you…
cf. Esther Bubley, “After school…” (detail) (1943) and photo by Jakob Owens via Unsplash
Just for a moment I was back at school
Photograph by Clark Young via Unsplash and Northeastern University Bulletin, 1982-83
“Young John” (Painting By Arris Grace Hodge)
Source: Young John – arrisgracehodge / Saatchi Art: Young John Painting by Arris Grace Hodge
Artist: Arris Grace Hodge
Arris Grace Hodge | Saatchi Art
Arris Grace Hodge, “Young John” (Oil on Canvas, 18 H x 24 W x 2 in)
The Importance of Being Earnest
cf. U.S. National Archives, Photograph of Guests at Refreshment Table… (detail) (1963)
Jack: You really love me, Gwendolen?
Gwendolen: Passionately!
Jack: Darling! You don’t know how happy you’ve made me.
Gwendolen: My own Ernest!
Jack: But you don’t really mean to say that you couldn’t love me if my name wasn’t Ernest?
Gwendolen: But your name is Ernest.
Jack: Yes, I know it is. But supposing it was something else? Do you mean to say you couldn’t love me then?
Gwendolen: [Glibly.] Ah! that is clearly a metaphysical speculation, and like most metaphysical speculations has very little reference at all to the actual facts of real life, as we know them.
Jack: Personally, darling, to speak quite candidly, I don’t much care about the name of Ernest… I don’t think the name suits me at all.
Gwendolen: It suits you perfectly. It is a divine name. It has a music of its own. It produces vibrations.
Jack: Well, really, Gwendolen, I must say that I think there are lots of other much nicer names. I think Jack, for instance, a charming name.
Gwendolen: Jack?… No, there is very little music in the name Jack, if any at all, indeed. It does not thrill. It produces absolutely no vibrations… I have known several Jacks, and they all, without exception, were more than usually plain. Besides, Jack is a notorious domesticity for John! And I pity any woman who is married to a man called John. She would probably never be allowed to know the entrancing pleasure of a single moment’s solitude. The only really safe name is Ernest.
Jack: Gwendolen, I must get christened at once—I mean we must get married at once. There is no time to be lost…
–Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
Hot love if you want it
cf. Jakub Schikaneder, Company on the Terrace (1887)
“I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many generations hence…”
Left: Helen D. Van Eaton, “My First Glimpse…From A Pennsylvania Ferry-Boat” (ca. 1910)
Right: Arthur Tress, “View of Upper New York Bay from the Staten Island Ferry” (1973)
Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore,
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide,
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and
the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east,
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half
an hour high,
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence,
others will see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-
back to the sea of the ebb-tide.It avails not, time nor place—distance avails not,
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so
many generations hence…
—Walt Whitman, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
I’ll be waiting
Time after time…
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be ere one can say “It lightens.”
cf. photograph by Everton Vila via Unsplash and ridgerider04, Time Lapse Lightning Storm 2012
JULIET:
Well, do not swear: although I joy in thee,
I have no joy of this contract tonight:
It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden;
Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be
Ere one can say “It lightens.”
—Romeo and Juliet
Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars
Tom Hubbard, At the Tyler Davidson Fountain, in Fountain Square Downtown Cincinnati’s Popular Public Plaza, a Young Man Listens to the Radio with One Ear, Play of the Water with the Other (August, 1973)
Uncle Vanya
VOITSKI: …I met her first ten years ago, at her sister’s house, when she was seventeen and I was thirty-seven. Why did I not fall in love with her then and propose to her? It would have been so easy! And now she would have been my wife. Yes, we would both have been waked tonight by the thunderstorm, and she would have been frightened, but I would have held her in my arms and whispered: “Don’t be afraid! I am here.” Oh, enchanting dream, so sweet that I laugh to think of it. [He laughs] But my God! My head reels! Why am I so old? Why won’t she understand me?…
–Anton Checkov, Uncle Vanya
And you can’t turn back
There is never any starting over
Parallel lines never do cross over…
Frau E. Nothmann, “In The Garden” (detail) (ca. 1896)
You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out, you put your right foot in and you shake it all about.
Nicolas Poussin, A Dance to the Music of Time (detail) (ca.1634-1636)
“legato con amore in un volume”
James Jowers, Tompkins Sq. Park (1967)
Nel suo profondo vidi che s’ interna,
legato con amore in un volume…I saw within its depth how it conceives all things in a single volume bound by love…
–Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy: Paradiso
Unified Field Theory
Courtesy of Michael Kravitz
“One Thing”
Poem: “One Thing” by Richard Kravitz
Music: John Sapiro
“This poet may not be very important, you should say defiantly, but his work is good for me.”
Tom Hubbard, Girl with Book and Bench-Sitters in Fountain Square (1973)
“This poet may not be very important, you should say defiantly, but his work is good for me.”
—T. S. Eliot, “What Is Minor Poetry?”
Just when you think you got a good thing it seems to slip away
cf. Georges Seurat: A Sunday on La Grande Jatte — 1884 (detail) (1884/86),
Study for “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte” (1884)
and Gustave Caillebotte: Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877 (detail) (1877)
She said, “How are you Harry?” I said, “How are you Sue?”
cf. Henrique Pinto, Yellow cab (2008)
She didn’t tell me there were rocks under the waves right off the shore
LIFE (1972)
Cruise Control
