ode to broken things

last night i had a dream that my apartment was smashed to pieces. it was like pete townshend had been spent the night, and everything was broken; lampshades, hairbrushes, jewelry, plates, cups, silverware, walls, frames. it was strangely beautiful, though, and in my dream i didn't seem to mind it much at all. it brought me back to a poem by pablo neruda i read in professor maraniss's class at amherst. the poem is titled "ode to broken things" and is from neruda's 1956 compilation of odes to commonplace things called odas elementales. i especially enjoy the last line, "tantas cosas inútiles/que nadie rompe/pero se rompieron." the poem resonates much better in spanish, so those of you blessed with bilinguality jump here. enjoy.

Ode to broken things by Pablo Neruda

Things get broken
at home
like they were pushed
by an invisible, deliberate smasher.
It's not my hands
or yours
It wasn't the girls
with their hard fingernails
or the motion of the planet.
It wasn't anything or anybody
It wasn't the wind
It wasn't the orange-colored noontime
Or night over the earth
It wasn't even the nose or the elbow
Or the hips getting bigger
or the ankle
or the air.
The plate broke, the lamp fell
All the flower pots tumbled over
one by one. That pot
which overflowed with scarlet
in the middle of October,
it got tired from all the violets
and another empty one
rolled round and round and round
all through winter
until it was only the powder
of a flowerpot,
a broken memory, shining dust.

And that clock
whose sound
was
the voice of our lives,
the secret
thread of our weeks,
which released
one by one, so many hours
for honey and silence
for so many births and jobs,
that clock also
fell
and its delicate blue guts
vibrated
among the broken glass
its wide heart
unsprung.

Life goes on grinding up
glass, wearing out clothes
making fragments
breaking down
forms
and what lasts through time
is like an island on a ship in the sea,
perishable
surrounded by dangerous fragility
by merciless waters and threats.

Let's put all our treasures together
-- the clocks, plates, cups cracked by the cold --
into a sack and carry them
to the sea
and let our possessions sink
into one alarming breaker
that sounds like a river.
May whatever breaks
be reconstructed by the sea
with the long labor of its tides.
So many useless things
which nobody broke
but which got broken anyway.

Posted by Madame Lamb on Wednesday, May 4, 2011 at 7:01 AM 2 comments

we are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams

in 1971 the Quaker oats company paid Roald Dahl to create a film adaptation of his book "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". unhappy with Dahl's literal film translation of the book, Quaker quietly commissioned David Seltzer to edit Dahl's script. the result was a film offering a marked departure from Dahl's book, chiefly in its portrayal of Willy Wonka. in the book, Wonka is made out to be dark and aloof whereas, in the film, Wonka's dialogue is seasoned with lyrical literary references by the likes of o-Wilde and Willy Shakes, to name a few.

below you'll find Arthur O'Shaugnessey's lovely poem titled "Ode" made famous by Seltzer's 1971 screenplay for "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory".

watch the willy wonka scene here.

Ode by Arthur O'Shaugnessey

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,	5
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,	10
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure	15
Can trample an empire down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;	20
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

Posted by Madame Lamb on Monday, January 10, 2011 at 10:41 PM 3 comments

patti smith's "just kids"

i finally read patti smith's memoir titled "just kids" that recounts her romantic symbiotic relationship with the late photographer robert mapplethorpe. smith sprinkles her memoir with anecdotes about mapplethorpe, peggy guggenheim, and warhol's factory go-ers. her tone is clever and honest providing an unjaded view of that "glamorous" new york scene. i highly recommend the book, particularly if you're interested in the factory/hotel chelsea scene. plus, it's a quick read.

here are some photographs mapplethorpe took of smith:

 

Posted by Madame Lamb on Friday, December 17, 2010 at 8:25 AM 1 comments

paris review digitizes all their interviews

the paris review, arguably the world's most prestigious literary journal, recently finished digitizing all of their fiction and poetry author interviews. the collection, which features the world's best fiction and poetry authors of the second half of the 20th century, is archived by decade.

Truman Capote, Aldous Huxley, Jack Kerouac, Robert Frost, Allen Ginsberg, Jorge Luis Borges, R. Crumb, Vladimir Nabokov, Ernest Hemingway, T. S. Eliot, William Faulkner, Garrison Keillor 

Ken Kesey , Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and more..!  

my head is exploding...so many new opportunities to hear about the artEEst and society. happy digging and, as always, please leave any gems you find in the comments section to share with others.

thanks for the tip, tom

Posted by Madame Lamb on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 at 2:36 PM 0 comments

american hotel stories

hotels are curious places...they're often the epicenters of myths, mysteries and love affairs. assouline's American Hotel Stories offers up the encounters of jim morrison, marilyn monroe, bob dylan, jack kerouac, and al capone (to name a few) at america's most distinguished hotels. available at Assouline

Posted by Madame Lamb on Saturday, May 15, 2010 at 4:58 PM 3 comments

"Would you rather be the pope or Pablo Escobar?"

esquire magazine published one of james franco's short stories in this month's issue called "just before the black". franco, currently an MFA candidate at both columbia and NYU for creative writing and film, respectively, is rumored to have a collection of short stories published sometime this year.

i very much enjoyed "just before the black" and highlighted my favorite lines below. bret easton ellis meets jd salinger, if you will. read the story in it's entirety at esquire.com.

....


...the surprise punch in the nose that takes you back to childhood and there's an immediate link to every other time you ever had your nose hit, by a ball, by a head, by your own knee, and after the surprise it doesn't go away...

....

I laugh like crazy, a laughter that bubbles out like popcorn, because he looks so fucking silly, and because my name isn't even close to Manuel, that's his brother's name, his equally stupid older brother.


Joe just looks at me with that stupid look, covered in flowing blood, going onto his shirt like ketchup randomness, so much messier and more random than I could ever plan.


But I did paint those swirls, because I drove Grandpa's car into the wall.

....

I wish I was Mexican, or Hebrew, I mean Jewish, I mean Israeli, or Mexican Jewish, or Mexican Jewish gay, because it can be so boring being you sometimes, and if you were the most special thing like that, it could be really great, but maybe some people say the same thing about you, and you want to tell those people: "No, you're stupid, it's no fun being me."

....

I can tell that Joe is looking at me like he is trying to figure me out, and I know that he can't figure me out because he isn't laughing and he isn't arguing, he is just staring.

Posted by Madame Lamb on Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 10:01 PM 7 comments

evening of light 1969

evening of light was filmed and directed in 1969 by french director, francois de meil, as a video promo for nico's album, the marble index. iron asheton and iggy pop (who starred alongside nico) discussed the event in "please kill me" written by legs mcneil and gillian mccain:

ron asheton: nico got some filmmaker to come to michigan and make some sixteen-millimeter movie with iggy. we all went out to this farm, and nico got john adams to be in it , too, because he looked like a sphinx: big, long, tight, curly red hair. it was the dead of winter and we were sitting looking out this picture window, laughing, while they put these mannequin arms all over the field--john with no shirt on, and iggy with no shirt on, doing nothing. boy it was real artsy.

iggy pop: we ran around and around this potato field and mimed with plastic limbs. i never made much sense of it. it was jive. but i needed dinner that day. what had happened whas that francois de meil of texas money wanted to do a film with nico and she said, 'if you wanna do a film, you gotta come out to michigan and put jimmy in it.' so he said, ' well, okay.'

Posted by Lizzie on Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at 7:34 PM 1 comments

sweet bard of the youth

the most recent issue of vanity fair is running an excellent set of articles and photos profiling the late john hughes. included are a set of photographs documenting some of the director's personal belongings, a collection of short stories, and a feature tracing, among other things, hughes' legacy and his passion for music and writing. here's a bit out of a segment on molly ringwald's muse-like hold on the director:

As the story goes, commercial considerations weren’t the only impetus for Hughes’s writing Sixteen Candles. While leafing through headshots in search of potential Breakfast Club cast members, he froze upon the glossy of a pale-skinned young actress with red hair and puffy, tired eyes—pretty, but not conventionally so.

“From what I heard from him,” says Ringwald, “he put my headshot on the bulletin board by his desk and wrote Sixteen Candles over a weekend. And when it came time to cast it, he said, ‘I want to meet her: that girl.’”

read more.

and a few of the photos:

a box of demo and mix tapes hughes compiled for use in his films.

a sketch from one of hughes' notebooks.

the backing of hughes' director chair from the set of sixteen candles - signed by cast and crew.

"You know everything is not an anecdote. You have to discriminate. You choose things that are funny or mildly amusing or interesting. You're a miracle! Your stories have NONE of that. They're not even amusing ACCIDENTALLY! "Honey, I'd like you to meet Del Griffith, he's got some amusing anecdotes for you. Oh and here's a gun so you can blow your brains out. You'll thank me for it." I could tolerate any insurance seminar. For days I could sit there and listen to them go on and on with a big smile on my face. They'd say, "How can you stand it?" I'd say, "'Cause I've been with Del Griffith. I can take ANYTHING." You know what they'd say? They'd say, "I know what you mean. The shower curtain ring guy. Woah." It's like going on a date with a Chatty Cathy doll. I expect you have a little string on your chest, you know, that I pull out and have to snap back. Except I wouldn't pull it out and snap it back - you would. Agh! Agh! Agh! Agh! And by the way, you know, when you're telling these little stories? Here's a good idea - have a POINT. It makes it SO much more interesting for the listener!"

Posted by Merkin Muffley on Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 8:20 AM 2 comments

american bitch

nytimes writer david segal presents us with a look into the world of dog showing. basically, if you aren't spending $100,000 on ads for your dog and don't have a professional handler showing it, you don't stand a chance. i couldn't help thinking of christopher guest's best in show while reading this...winky was really one hell of a longshot.

from the article:

Among breeders, owners and handlers, it’s understood: you can’t just turn up with the paradigm of the breed, if such an animal exists, and expect a best-in-show ribbon. To seriously vie for victory, a dog needs what is known as a campaign: an exhausting, time-consuming and very expensive gantlet of dog show wins, buttressed by ads in publications like Dog News and The Canine Chronicle.

Seriously, ads. Lots and lots of them. They usually hype recent victories at local shows, with the hope of influencing judges at future competitions. “A top 10 toy dog!” reads a recent full-pager for Bon Bon the Pomeranian, listing an assortment of triumphs under a picture of the animal panting atop some logs.

read more.

Posted by Merkin Muffley on Tuesday, February 16, 2010 at 9:00 AM 1 comments

RIP JD Salinger

JD Salinger passed this morning at the age of 91. i feel like salinger's death has strangely coincided with the end of the stage in my life the catcher in the rye so brilliantly speaks to...or has it? of salinger, one critic put it best, "he was in this world, but not of it."

read salinger's obit at the new york times and kindly add the catcher in the rye to your re-read list. here are some ML and  friends' favorite salinger quotes. please leave yours in the comments section.

update: the new yorker has published seven of jd salinger's new yorker stories from 1946-1965:

That's the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can. - holden caulfield

Boy, when you're dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you're dead? Nobody. -holden caulfield

I have a feeling that you're riding for some kind of a terrible, terrible fall. But I don't honestly know what kind.... It may be the kind where, at the age of thirty, you sit in some bar hating everybody who comes in looking as if he might have played football in college. Then again, you may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, "It's a secret between he and I." Or you may end up in some business office, throwing paper clips at the nearest stenographer. I just don't know. - mr. antolini

The true poet has no choice of material.  The material plainly chooses him, not he it. - from Seymour: an Introduction

If a girl looks swell when she meets you, who gives a damn if she's late? Nobody.- holden caulfield

i was sixteen then, and i'm seventeen now, and sometimes i act like i'm about thirteen. it's really ironical, because i'm six foot two and a half and i have gray hair. i really do. the one side of my head-the right side-is full of millions of gray hairs. i've had them ever since i was a kid. and yet i still act sometimes like i was only about twelve. everybody says that, especially my father. it's partly true, too, but it isnt all true. people always think something's all true. i dont give a damn, except that i get bored sometimes when people tell me to act my age. sometimes i act a lot older than i am-i really do-but people never notice it. people never notice anything. - holden caulfield

it was nice, though, when we got out of the dining room. there were about three inches of snow on the ground, and it was still coming down like a madman. it looked pretty as hell, and we all started throwing snowballs and horsing around all over the place. it was very childish, but everybody was really enjoying themselves. - holden caulfield

Posted by Madame Lamb on Thursday, January 28, 2010 at 11:30 AM 13 comments

monday

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.

Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

art by polly morgan

Posted by Madame Lamb on Monday, January 25, 2010 at 5:36 AM 2 comments

cory doctorow, copyright activist

last night i was catching up the Utnecast podcasts last night and heard a conversation with copyright activist/writer Cory Doctorow about why he's so passionate about using the internet to give away his work for free. Here he discusses the moral and artistic benefits of giving away his writing for free, and how copying is in our biological genome:

But there's also some moral and artistic benefits in my view. So, artistically, I just can't imagine making art in the 21st century that isn't intended to be copied, unless you're trying to do something that's, like, deliberately anachronistic like, I don't know, being a blacksmith in a pioneer village or something. If you're making art in the 21st century and it's not intended to be copied it's not contemporary, it may be good art, but it's not contemporary art. And I'm a science fiction writer so I'm supposed to at least be engaged with the present, if not the future. Morally, I just have a hard time finding fault with people who copy stuff. I mean, my entire adolescence would've been totally celibate if it wasn't for the mix tape. If I were 17 today, I would be copying with every moment that god sent. I have a 19-month old daughter. And one of the most amazing things that happened in this amazing adventure I've been on with her is when my parents came over to London after she was born and my mom has a PHD in early childhood education. And the kid was only about a week or two old and she sat the kid on her lap and she poked her tongue out at the kid. And the kid had not seen a mirror yet. She didn't know she had a tongue. And yet, this is this cool neuro thing w/ babies the, she stuck her tongue back at my mother. She copied her. Copying is, like, as instinctual as looking for the breast. It's what makes us human. Another way is saying copying is learning. It's really hard to feel like there's any kind of ethical basis to say to people "universal access to knowledge is in our graphs but it's a bad thing"...We all know we're breaking the rules. So I feel like I'm making good art that has an ethical basis for it's existance as well.

for those of you who are unfamiliar with Utnecast, it is my favorite podcast produced by the Utne Reader that showcases emerging ideas (art, science, politics, culture, etc). if you enjoy Madame Lamb, you will enjoy UtneCasts. you can subscribe on iTunes for free: Utnecast at iTunes.

Posted by Madame Lamb on Wednesday, January 13, 2010 at 5:36 AM 0 comments

jack kerouac on robert frank's "the americans"

When Robert Frank, a close friend of Jack Kerouac, published his photographic book titled "The Americans", he asked Kerouac to write the introduction. Frank, one of the great beat photogs, knew Kerouac's insights on navigating America in the mid-1950s would best encapsulate the beat-spirit of the book. Here's the intro by Jack Kerouac:

Download an MP3 of Frank discussing his exhibition called "The Americans" at the MET in 2009. I especially loved listening to Frank's descriptions of Jack Kerouac, who he described as always sleeping and never driving (they first met on a road trip to Florida).

Posted by Lizzie on Monday, January 11, 2010 at 3:09 AM 0 comments

winter?

crows are everywhere outside of my apartment, hitchcock style.

 
Dust of Snow
by Robert Frost (1923)

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Posted by Madame Lamb on Monday, December 28, 2009 at 8:39 PM 0 comments

academic euphemisms for masturbating

taken from mcsweeney's lists here. which euphemism is your favorite??

MORE A C A D E M I C

E U P H E M I S M S

F O R  M A S T U R B A T I N G .

(Inspired by this)

BY REID McDONALD AND DOUG McINNES

- - - -

Integrating the derivative

C=2∏r

Sterilizing the test tube

Experiment with a scientific control

Dosing out the placebo

Force = Mass x Acceleration

Normalizing the units

Graphing the cosine

Converting from Cartesian to Polar coordinates

Measuring plate tectonics

Posing a hypothesis

Concluding with the empirical method

Proving a theorem

Using your slide-rule

Calculating a logarithm

Posted by Madame Lamb on Thursday, December 3, 2009 at 10:22 AM 1 comments

nytimes best art and architecture books of 2009

the new york times critics have released their annual "best of" list for art and architecture books published in 2009 (just in time for the holidays...). as the times critics themselves put it, art and architecture books are always a good investment because "they may cost a bundle, but they are built to last, often gorgeous and almost always edifying, designed to be revisited, for pleasure and instruction, over the years." at minimum i must have the following two:

'younger than jesus: artist directory' a kind of Yellow Pages for the under-33 art world published on the occasion of the New Museum’s first Triennial. With some 500 artists, it’s staggeringly comprehensive; yet, published on newsprint with bare-bones entries, it’s self-consciously ephemeral. 

'legacy: the preservation of th wilderness in new york city parks: a collection of photos by Joel Meyerowitz, debunks the notion that New York is a city of concrete and asphalt anchored by the singular splendor of Central Park. Instead, we are confronted with a sprawling metropolis that is constantly being encroached upon by nature, from forgotten wetlands in Queens to wild turkeys strolling through Battery Park City and an abandoned power station choked with weeds on North Border Island in the East River. It’s the foundation for the “green city” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg regularly preaches about, and it’s already here.

here's the rest of the list and some other highlight photos for jump-on encouragement

Posted by Madame Lamb on Tuesday, December 1, 2009 at 6:26 AM 0 comments

why do you go to the movies?

ao scott reflects on the nature of cinema in the most recent issue of ny times magazine:



"But alongside the official pantheon occasionally incarnated in lists offered up by institutions like the American Film Institute and The New York Times, every film lover carries around a more subjective canon, an ever-shifting, impressionistic personal cinematheque. That horror movie that gave you nightmares as a child. The love story you saw on your first date with the love of your life. The dramas that ended or started friendships, soothed you in your lonely moments or made the loneliness more acute. The westerns that taught you something about courage or treachery, the comedies that schooled you in sex, the epics and biopics that overshadowed what you learned in history class."

read more.

the first movie i remember seeing in theaters is robin hood: prince of thieves. i was 5 and really liked robin hood, but the non-disney version scared the shit out of me.

Posted by Merkin Muffley on Monday, November 16, 2009 at 7:24 AM 0 comments

a sociolinguistic analysis with google

(via Slate...thnks for the tip TGD)

Awkward SuggestionS: Let's have fun with the Google search box.

By Michael Agger

The Google search box has become the new oracle at Delphi, the thing we consult before all major undertakings. How do I know this?

Through Google Suggest, of course. For the complete take on Suggest, read my colleague Josh Levin in Slate. For those who don't know how Suggest works, he sums it up nicely:

Google doesn't reveal its search algorithms, but the company's engineers confirm that what we're looking at in [Google Suggest] is, essentially, a list of the most popular queries that start with a given prefix. (It's unclear what time period the suggestions are culled during, but a spokesman says they're generated from "recent [search] activity.") A suggestion-enabled search is like an instant popularity contest. Just type in a couple of letters, and you've got access to oodles of data on what your fellow Web surfers are hunting for.

To wit: Google Suggest is a helpful feature. It's a little sliver of the collective mind. It's also a lot of fun to mess with.

The Internet has lots of great examples of misfires served by Google. Here's a favorite: "i am extremely terrified of chinese people." But I was most impressed with this anonymous bit of genius dug up by Digg, which uses Google for some armchair sociolinguistic analysis. The graphic compares "less intelligent" queries with "more intelligent" queries, such as "how 2" with "how might one:"

vs.

and

vs:

Grammar also seems to make a difference:

vs.

Perhaps "less intelligent" vs. "more intelligent" isn't the kindest or most accurate way to classify these queries. Some of the "more intelligent" queries are clearly high-schoolers desperately trying to get their homework done. And some of the "less intelligent" queries are no doubt very smart people distracting themselves with Google in an idle moment. But let's not allow nuance to get in the way of contest. Send me your best example of a "less intelligent" vs. a "more intelligent" query at michaelagger1@gmail.com. The winner will receive my undying gratitude and whatever Slate item in their size that I can find lying around the office. (No umbrellas left, sorry.) I'll announce the winner next week.

Posted by Madame Lamb on Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 8:48 PM 0 comments

a talking head's helmet camera

in 2007, david byrne biked to town hall for an event he organized called "how new yorkers ride bikes". the event kicked off with footage (below) from byrne's journey on two-wheels through the streets of new york to event and on stage. has anyone read "bicycle diaries" yet? i just ordered a copy...

Helmet Cam from Todo Mundo on Vimeo.

Posted by Madame Lamb on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 11:41 PM 0 comments

a letter from mick jagger to andy warhol

the rolling stones' commisioned andy warhol to design their ninth album, sticky fingers, in 1971. a friend of mine from the university of massachussettes (whose name i've since forgotten) had an original sticky fingers vinyl which features an image of joe dallesandro's crotch with a workable zipper (it's very, very cool).

below you'll find the letter mick jagger wrote to andy warhol encouraging him to keep the sleeve design simple as to avoid any production/distribution difficulties. clearly, andy did not allow this to impede his creative vision. the complex record sleeve ended up leaving many "sticky fingers" records scratched. all in the name of visual art.

Posted by Madame Lamb on Thursday, October 15, 2009 at 9:25 AM 2 comments