Behind the Seen

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Van Gogh and Emil Bernard
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پشت مشتای رندان

June 1, 1857 saw the publication of the most important volume of French poetry up till then: Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal…

Photo of Baudelaire’s copy of the French 1st ed. - turned to this poem:

Spleen

When the low, heavy sky weighs like a lid
On the groaning spirit, victim of long ennui,
And from the all-encircling horizon
Spreads over us a day gloomier than the night;

When the earth is changed into a humid dungeon,
In which Hope like a bat
Goes beating the walls with her timid wings
And knocking her head against the rotten ceiling;

When the rain stretching out its endless train
Imitates the bars of a vast prison
And a silent horde of loathsome spiders
Comes to spin their webs in the depths of our brains,

All at once the bells leap with rage
And hurl a frightful roar at heaven,
Even as wandering spirits with no country
Burst into a stubborn, whimpering cry.

— And without drums or music, long hearses
Pass by slowly in my soul; Hope, vanquished,
Weeps, and atrocious, despotic Anguish
On my bowed skull plants her black flag.

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

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Marilyn Monroe reading in the park…

Photo: Ed Clark, 1950, LIFE

Today is the birthday of Marilyn Monroe (June 1, 1926 - 1962), perhaps the greatest glamour girl the world has ever known - but also a gentle, if troubled soul.

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Mikhail Glinka, June 1, 1804 - 1857, in many ways the father of Russian classical music…

Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka: К молли / To Molly

No. 11 from song cycle ‘Прощание с Петрбургом’ / ‘A Farewell to St. Petersburg’, G.x206 - Evgenij Nesterenko - bass, Evgenij Senderovic - piano (1970s)

(via zveneczi)

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Marquis de Sade (June 2, 1740 – 1814) was a French aristocrat, revolutionary and novelist…

Celebrating the Marquis with a photo by Kate O’Brien…

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English composer Edward Elgar (June 2, 1857 – 1934)

And we’ll celebrate with the whole of his great cello concerto, in 4 posts…

Edward Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor Op.85 - I. Adagio - Moderato

London Symphony Orchestra, John Barbirolli - Jacqueline Du Pré, cello

(via oranc)

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Edward Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor Op.85 - II. Lento - Allegro molto

London Symphony Orchestra, John Barbirolli - Jacqueline Du Pré, cello

(via oranc)

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Edward Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor Op.85 - III. Adagio

London Symphony Orchestra, John Barbirolli - Jacqueline Du Pré, cello

(via oranc)

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Edward Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor Op.85 - IV. Allegro - Moderato - Allegro, ma non troppo

London Symphony Orchestra, John Barbirolli - Jacqueline Du Pré, cello

(via oranc)

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Federico García Lorca with his friend Luis Buñuel…

Federico García Lorca (June 5, 1898 - 1936), Spanish poet - an emblematic member of the Generation of ‘27; murdered at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War…

The Guitar by Federico García Lorca
(Translated by Cola Franzen)


The weeping of the guitar
begins.
The goblets of dawn
are smashed.
The weeping of the guitar
begins.
Useless
to silence it.
Impossible
to silence it.
It weeps monotonously
as water weeps
as the wind weeps
over snowfields.
Impossible
to silence it.
It weeps for distant
things.
Hot southern sands
yearning for white camellias.
Weeps arrow without target
evening without morning
and the first dead bird
on the branch.
Oh, guitar!
Heart mortally wounded
by five swords.

(this post was reblogged from lumpy-pudding)

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Alexander Pushkin (June 6, 1799 – 1837) - considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature - pioneered the use of vernacular speech in his poems and plays, creating a style of storytelling, mixing drama, romance, and satire…

“The illusion which exalts us is dearer to us then ten-thousand truths.”
— A. Pushkin

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Friedrich Hölderlin, the great, but mad, German Romantic poet, passed away June 6, 1843, after many years of obscurity and silence…

“Dichterlich wohnt der Mensch.” (Like a poet man lives…)

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Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, who won the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature, was born June 7, 1952. Pamuk teaches comp. lit. and writing at Columbia University in the City of New York…

The Nobel Committee gave Pamuk the Prize, for being a writer “who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures” (Source)

Photo by Isolde Ohlbaum

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Today’s conference motto:

Drink today, and drown all sorrow;
You shall perhaps not do it tomorrow;
Best, while you have it, use your breath;
There is no drinking after death

— Ben Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – 1637)

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Once again we celebrate the birthday of the great Irish nationalist and Modernist poet, William Butler Yeats (June 13, 1865 - 1939)…

To A Young Girl

My dear, my dear, I know
More than another
What makes your heart beat so;
Not even your own mother
Can know it as I know,
Who broke my heart for her
When the wild thought,
That she denies
And has forgot,
Set all her blood astir
And glittered in her eyes.

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Fernando Pessoa, the great Portuguese Modernist, who invented multiple poetic personae, was born June 13, 1888 (d. 1935)…

Fernando Pessoa:

I don’t know how many souls I have.
I’ve changed at every moment.
I always feel like a stranger.
I’ve never seen or found myself.
From being so much, I have only soul.
A man who has soul has no calm.
A man who sees is just what he sees.
A man who feels is not who he is.

Attentive to what I am and see,
I become them and stop being I.
Each of my dreams and each desire
Belongs to whoever had it, not me.
I am my own landscape,
I watch myself journey -
Various, mobile, and alone.
Here where I am I can’t feel myself.

That’s why I read, as a stranger,
My being as if it were pages.
Not knowing what will come
And forgetting what has passed,
I note in the margin of my reading
What I thought I felt.
Rereading, I wonder: “Was that me?”
God knows, because he wrote it.

© Translation: 1998, Richard Zenith
From: Fernando Pessoa & Co. – Selected Poems
Publisher: Grove Press, New York, 1998

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Symbols? I’m sick of symbols…
Some people tell me that everything is symbols.
They’re telling me nothing.

What symbols? Dreams…
Let the sun be a symbol, fine…
Let the moon be a symbol, fine…
Let the earth be a symbol, fine…
But who notices the sun except when the rain stops
And it breaks through the clouds and points behind its back
To the blue of the sky?
And who notices the moon except to admire
Not it but the beautiful light it radiates?
And who notices the very earth we tread?
We say earth and think of fields, trees and hills,
Unwittingly diminishing it,
For the sea is also earth.

Okay, let all of this be symbols.
But what’s the symbol – not the sun, not the moon, not the earth –
In this premature sunset amidst the fading blue
With the sun caught in expiring tatters of clouds
And the moon already mystically present at the other end of the sky
As the last remnant of daylight
Gilds the head of the seamstress who hesitates at the corner
Where she used to linger (she lives nearby) with the boyfriend who left her?
Symbols? I don’t want symbols.
All I want – poor frail and forlorn creature! –
Is for the boyfriend to go back to the seamstress.

— Fernando Pessoa, as Alvaro de Campos
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Yasunari Kawabata (June 14, 1899 - 1972) was a Japanese short story writer and novelist whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968 (“for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind”), the first Japanese author to receive the award.

“In the depths of the mirror the evening landscape moved by, the mirror and the reflected figures like motion pictures superimposed one on the other. The figures and the background were unrelated, and yet the figures, transparent and intangible, and the background, dim in the gathering darkness, melted into a sort of symbolic world not of this world. Particularly when a light out in the mountains shone in the center of the girl’s face, Shimamura felt his chest rise at the inexpressible beauty of it.” — Snow Country, Yasunari Kawabata

Yasunari Kawabata, between 1929-1934 - A picture taken during the time he was living at Sakuragi-cho in Ueno…

Celebrating the birthday of Igor Stravinsky (June 17, 1882 – 1971), Russian-American composer…

I love the caption to this photo, originally published by Tom Sutpen, The Gunslinger:

“Badass composer Igor Stravinsky holds a negative view of W.A. Mozart”

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“Pas de Deux” from Apollon Musagète by Igor Stravinsky [1928] performed by Sandor Végh and the Salzburg Camerata Academica [1995]

(via musichistory)

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Gone: Portuguese Nobel Laureate José Saramago (November 16, 1922 – June 18, 2010)…

“In the end we discover the only condition for living is to die.” — Jose Saramago

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mhsteger:

Jean-Paul Sartre (born 21 June, 1905; died 15 April, 1980)

‘First, what do we mean by anguish? – The existentialist frankly states that man is in anguish. His meaning is as follows: When a man commits himself to anything, fully realising that he is not only choosing what he will be, but is thereby at the same time a legislator deciding for the whole of mankind – in such a moment a man cannot escape from the sense of complete and profound responsibility. There are many, indeed, who show no such anxiety. But we affirm that they are merely disguising their anguish or are in flight from it. Certainly, many people think that in what they are doing they commit no one but themselves to anything: and if you ask them, “What would happen if everyone did so?” they shrug their shoulders and reply, “Everyone does not do so.” But in truth, one ought always to ask oneself what would happen if everyone did as one is doing; nor can one escape from that disturbing thought except by a kind of self-deception. The man who lies in self-excuse, by saying “Everyone will not do it” must be ill at ease in his conscience, for the act of lying implies the universal value which it denies. By its very disguise his anguish reveals itself. This is the anguish that Kierkegaard called “the anguish of Abraham.” ‘

—from Existentialism is a Humanism (1946; translated from the French by Philip Mairet)

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Behind the Seen

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The tomb room of Rumi (Konya, Turkey)
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اینجا پُشت مُشت های رندان

Another April Fool is the great Russian composer and pianist, Sergei Rachmaninoff (April 1, 1873 - 1943)…

Rachmaninoff was a superb composer for his instrument, the piano and his concerti are known as monstrously difficult but vast works full of “big, fat chords.”

Photo of Sergei, 1922 - after his resettlement in the US…

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano concerto no. 2 in C minor, op. 18, I. Moderato, Vladimir Ashkenazy, pianist, André Previn & London Symphony Orchestra (1972).

(via perfectible)

Huge hands of Russian piano virtuoso Sergei Rachmaninoff, 69, w. his wedding ring on right hand in accordance w. Russian convention, at his New York, apartment, 1943

Photographer: Eric Schaal, LIFE

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Milan Kundera, the famous Czech dissident writer who is best known for his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being, was born April 1, 1929…

Kundera has lived in exile in France for many years. He is an important figure in European intellectual life, thanks not least to his ability to spot and critique the tragic, yet often grotesquely humorous sides to totalitarianism…

A publicity shot of Kundera from Faber Books…

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Samuel R. Delany (b. April 1, 1942) is a great science-fiction, fantasy and erotica writer. He is also one of the sharpest critics and essayists around, operating in the cross-field of cultural and literary studies, with a special contribution in Queer studies and theory.

“Samuel Delany was born and grew up in New York City’s Harlem. The Lambda Book Report chose Delany as one of the hundred men and women who have most changed our concept of gayness in the last century. A novelist and critic, he is a recipient of the William Whitehead Memorial Award for a lifetime’s contribution to lesbian and gay literature. Delany’s books include Atlantis: Three Tales (Wesleyan University Press), Dhalgren (Vintage Books), as well as the best-selling Times Square Red, Times Square Blue (New York University Press).” (Source)

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Toshirō Mifune, the great Japanese actor who played the lone swordsman in a number of Kurosawa films (and in a host of other lesser Samurai epics), was born April 1, 1920 (d. 1997).

You might not recognize Mifune out of Samurai costume, but here he is…

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April 4, 1928 is the birthday of autobiographer, poet and activist Maya Angelou…

Alone by Maya Angelou

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can’t use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

(Photo of Angelou, 1994 by Dave Allocca, LIFE)

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French writer and film director, Marguerite Duras, April 4, 1914 - 1996…

Duras was the author of a number of autobiographical fictions, including the celerbrated volume, The Lover (a story from colonial days in Vietnam about a very young French girl and her affair with an older Chinese businessman), which won her the Prix Goncourt in 1984 and became a succesful film…

“Men like women who write. Even though they don’t say so. A writer is a foreign country.” — M.D.

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A fine day for the thinking man’s movie director as April 4 is also the birthday of dissident Russian film maker Andrei Tarkovsky (1932 - 1986). Although he only directed 7 feature films in his career which was cut short by cancer, at least three of them are masterpieces: Andrei Rublev in 1966, Solaris in 1972, and Stalker in 1979. If you like your film stark, brutal and occasionally cryptic - go Tarkovsky.

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Martin Luther King, Jr. - dead since April 4, 1968, but never forgotten…

He freed a lot of people.

Photo - Grey Villet, 1955 (LIFE)

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Gone 13 years today: Allen Ginsberg, American poet - d. April 5, 1997, age 70…

(Photo by Lee Balterman, Chicago 1968 - LIFE)

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Charles Baudelaire by Nadar

Charles Baudelaire - poète maudit - April 9, 1821 - 1867…

The Fountain of Blood

A fountain’s pulsing sobs—like this my blood
Measures its flowing, so it sometimes seems.
I hear a gentle murmur as it streams;
Where the wound lies I’ve never understood.

Like water meadows, boulevards are flooded.
Cobblestones, crisscrossed by scarlet rills,
Are islands; creatures come and drink their fill.
Nothing in nature now remains unblooded.

I used to hope that wine could bring me ease,
Could lull asleep my deeply gnawing mind.
I was a fool: the senses clear with wine.

I looked to Love to cure my old disease.
Love led me to a thicket of IVs
Where bristling needles thirsted for each vein.

(Translated by Rachel Hadas)

Title page of Baudelaire’s Fleurs du Mal, 1900 ed.

The Sick Muse

My poor muse, alas!, what’s wrong with you this morning?
Your hollow eyes are peopled with nocturnal visions,
And I see madness and horror, cold and taciturn,
Reflected, one after the other, upon your face.

Did the green succubus and the pink goblin
Pour out for you fear and love from their urns?
Did nightmare, with a despotic and obstinate fist,
Drown you in the depths of a fabulous Minturnes?

I would that your breast, exhaling an odor of health,
Be frequented always by forceful thoughts,
And that your Christian blood flow in rhythmic streams,

Like the numerous sounds of antique syllables,
Ruled over, in turn, by Phoebus, father of songs,
And the great Pan, lord of the harvest.

(Trans. by Cat Nilan)

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مارک اِسترَند
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Former poet laureate of the USA, Canadian-born Mark Strand, b. April, 11, 1934…

The Coming of Light by Mark Strand

Even this late it happens:
the coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
and tomorrow’s dust flares into breath.
(this post was reblogged from lumpy-pudding)
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Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (d. April 11, 2007) - we miss you, but so it goes…

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Samuel Beckett (Directing Waiting for Godot, Riverside Studios, London) — John Minihan, 1984
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Today is Samuel Beckett’s birthday. He was born April 13, 1906.

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”
— Samuel Beckett

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birthday of extremely influential and eccentric French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan (April 13, 1901 - 1981)…

Check out the thinking pose of young M. Lacan (sitting)…

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Today is the birthday of Mr. Renaissance Man - scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer - Leonardo da Vinci (April 15, 1452 - 1519)

Above: Detail of an angel from The Virgin of the Rocks, 1483-1486 - Oil on canvas (The Louvre)

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The literary bookends of Book Day are Shakespeare and Cervantes - one was born April 23, the other died on that day…

William Shakespeare was baptized on April 26, 1564, but the birthday is traditionally celebrated today, on St George’s Day, April 23… Actually, today is also the day of Shakespeare’s death, April 23, 1616 - but note that this date is according to the Julian calendar, which was replaced by the Gregorian calendar in most of Europe in 1582. Therefore Shakespeare and Cervantes did not in actuality die on the same day in 1616, but 10 days apart!

On matters of birth the Bard did not have much to say - but on death, oh death:

“Cowards die many times before their deaths,
The valiant never taste of death but once.”
— Julius Caesar (II, ii, 32-37)

Above: A painting called the Ashbourne portrait which was (mis)identified as a portrayal of Shakespeare in 1847, and which currently hangs in the Folger Shakespeare Library…

Miguel de Cervantes (October 9, 1547 – April 23, 1616), Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel by many, is a classic of Western literature…

What say you, Don Miguel, of Death? - “Well, there’s a remedy for all things but death, which will be sure to lay us flat one time or other.”

And of Book Day? - “From reading too much, and sleeping too little, his brain dried up on him and he lost his judgment.”

More, Don Miguel? - “A closed mouth catches no flies.”

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