The Man with the White Smile

Archimedes met Christ on the Road to Excess. He pointed out the various constellations to the Messiah, moving his right index finger along the Zodiac. He spoke about his military inventions: “engines of war” that kept the Romans out of Syracuse. He made mention of his treatise, The Sand Reckoner, but only when Christ began to match his pace. At this time Archimedes was over 300 years old, though he could still cut and chew his meat. Christ was unusually attentive. Of course the palace was still a ways away.

―from Day Book IV by Vincent Blafard (trans. B. Lucas)


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“It was all right to speed ahead into the desert leaving no trace.”

―from The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles


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from The Vocal Wall


Afternoon Delight


For just one moment imagine there was no gravity on Earth. The usually empty atmosphere quickly fills up with billions of humans, objects, oceans, animals—all life and non-life floating quietly in space. What an incredibly beautiful spectacle! How our endurances, our sacrifices, our preoccupations and worries, the transient moments of joy, the conflicts and nostalgias will weather in the airless is all too obvious. What would it take to set aside an hour every day to feel so untethered—yet not so dead? Shall we just keep on toiling in pockets of desperation, awaiting the paralyzation of spirit that would soon overtake us in our worldly lethargy, or would it be better to take that hour a day and use to our own advantage—creating a sweet groundlessness to perk up the midday meal?

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Coma


The moment has come when all of my experiences—every instant of my life, every word said, every pleasure felt, every sadness endured (or not endured, thus bitterness), will merge and combine; every concentric idea, every sleepy ethic, every jubilation, every appreciation will merge and combine. Their intrinsic properties transcending their limitations of character in order to reach a state ripe with an infinite possibility of feeling, as well as the state where all illusions as to the permanence of emotion, the flux of time, and the insignificance of the daily news will be scattered into a cool, refreshing breeze, the kind most people would like to feel while on vacation.

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Recent Soundtracks

Vespertine-BJORK

A Negative for Francis-ROTHKO

Wave Field-RAFAEL TORAL


& Recommended Reading

The Voice Imitator-THOMAS BERNHARD

Monsieur Teste-PAUL VALERY

Darkness Moves-HENRI MICHAUX

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Mechanics



Were this a time piece
a quilt of remains…

the source of color in aspic
and its folds bordering on

the silence
of those remains

Time responds to us
with a bruise in proportion
to our depth


A rose of forgetfulness appears

feigning its sleep
as future mounts

unsteadily,

with certain demands
time could be said to have
engineered

Outside opposites is the dance
of consolation

the sign of our fate

expectant, lush

damp

scattered about gears
springs


and the winding remains


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