Skill

An artist's skill depends on carefully attending to the beauty of the present moment, taking everything down to the minutest detail seriously while, at the same time, stepping back from the world, which takes itself too seriously, and as if looking into a mirror, allowing for the distance and eloquence of a jest. - Orhan Pamuk's MY NAME IS RED

The doctors and the flower

I recalled with horror the story of the contest of doctors:

One of the two doctors competing in the presence of their sultan - the one often depicted in pink - made a poison green pill strong enough to fell an elephant which he gave to the other doctor, the one in the navy-blue caftan. That doctor first swallowed the poisonous pill, and afterward, swallowed a navy-blue antidote that he'd just made. As could be understood from his gentle laughter, nothing at all happened to him. Furthermore, it was now his turn to give his rival a whiff of death. Moving ever so deliberately, savouring the pleasure of taking his turn, he plucked a pink rose from the garden, and bringing it to his lips, inaudibly whispered a mysterious poem into its petals. Next, with gestures that bespoke extreme confidence, he extended the rose to his rival so he might take in its bouquet. The force of the whispered poem so agitated the doctor in pink that upon bringing the flower to his nose, which bore nothing but its regular scent, he collapsed out of fear and died. - Orhan Pamuk's MY NAME IS RED

The elegant whisper

"What your pen draws is neither truthful nor frivolous! When you portray a crowded gathering, the tension emerging from the glances between figures, their positioning on the page and the meaning of the text metamorphose into an elegant whisper. I return to your paintings again and again to hear that whisper and each time, I realise with a smile that the meaning has changed, and how shall I put it, I begin to read the painting anew. When these layers of meaning are taken together, a depth emerges that surpasses even the perspectivism of the European masters." - Orhan Pamuk in MY NAME IS RED

Evening prayer

"All brigands, poets and men of constant sorrow know that when the evening prayer is called, the jinns and demons within them will grow agitated and rebellious, urging in unision: "Out! Outside!" This restless voice demands, "Seek the company of others, seek blackness, misery and disgrace." -Orhan Pamuk's MY NAME IS RED

The city and its virtue

"The larger and more colourful a city is, the more places there are to hide one's guilt and sin; the more crowded it is, the more people there are to hide behind. A city's intellect ought to be measured not by its scholars, libraries, miniaturists, calligraphers and schools, but by the number of crimes insidiously committed on its dark streets over thousands of years. By this logic, doubtless, Istanbul is the world's most intelligent city." - Orhan Pamuk's MY NAME IS RED

The elusive line

"-I came here and patiently listened to him pretentiously recite lines from Fuzuli's collected works as flocks of swallows fluttered above us in a frenzy. I still recall a line recited that evening: 'I am not me but eternally thee'

I've always wondered how one might illustrate this line.

To avoid disapointment in art

"To avoid disappointment in art, one mustn't treat it as a career. Despite whatever great artistic sense and talent a man might possess, he ought to seek money and power elsewhere to avoid forsaking his art when he fails to recieve proper compensation for his gifts and efforts." Orhan Pamuk's MY NAME IS RED

Consider Phlebas

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,
Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell
And the profit and loss.
A current under sea
Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell
He passed the stages of his age and youth
Entering the whirlpool.
Gentile or Jew
O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,
Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.
-TS ELIOT, WASTELAND

Hieronymo's mad againe

I sat upon the shore
Fishing, with the arid plain behind me
Shall I at least set my lands in order?
London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down
Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina
Quando fiam ceu chelidon - O swallow swallow
Le Prince d'Aquitaine a la tour abolie
These fragments I have shored against my ruins
Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo's mad againe.
- TS ELIOT, WASTELAND

The Vulgarity of Details

It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us an impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that.

Sometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of beauty crosses our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, the whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly we find that we are no longer the actors,
but the spectators of the play. Or rather we are both. We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder of the spectacle enthralls us.

In the present case, what is it that has really happened? Some one has killed herself for love of you. I wish that I had ever had such an experience. It would
have made me in love with love for the rest of my life. The people who have adored me--there have not been very many, but there have been some--have always insisted on living on, long after I had ceased to care for them, or they to care for me.
They have become stout and tedious, and when I meet them, they go in at once for reminiscences. That awful memory of woman! What a fearful thing it is! And what an utter intellectual stagnation it reveals! One should absorb the colour of life,
but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar.

- from Oscar Wilde's "Picture of Dorian Gray"

Song of the Bowmen of Shu by Ezra Pound

Here we are, picking the first fern-shoots
And saying: When shall we get back to our country?
Here we are because we have the Ken-nin for our foemen,
We have no comfort because of these Mongols.
We grub the soft fern-shoots,
When anyone says "Return," the others are full of sorrow.
Sorrowful minds, sorrow is strong, we are hungry and thirsty.
Our defence is not yet made sure, no one can let his friend return.
We grub the old fern-stalks.
We say: Will we be let to go back in October?
There is no ease in royal affairs, we have no comfort.
Our sorrow is bitter, but we would not return to our country.
What flower has come into blossom?
Whose chariot? The General's.
Horses, his horses even, are tired. They were strong.
We have no rest, trhee battles a month.
By heavn, his horses are tired.
The generals are on them, the soldiers are by them.
The horses are well trained, the generals have ivory arrows and
quivers ornamented with fish-skin.
The enemy is swift, we must be careful.
When we set out, the willows were drooping with spring,
We come back in the snow,
We go slowly, we are hungry and thirsty,
Our mind is full of sorrow, who will know of our grief?

Kapuscinski Recalls

Twenty years ago, I was in Africa, and this is what I saw: I went from revolution to coup d'Ètat, from one war to another; I witnessed, in effect, history in the making, real history, contemporary history, our history. But I was also surprised: I never saw a writer. I never met a poet or a philosopher—even a sociologist. Where were they? Such important events, and not a single writer anywhere?
Kapuscinski, in an interview in Granta

You Fit Into Me

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye

- Margaret Atwood

Remember, body...

Body, remember not only how much you were loved,
not only the beds on which you lay,
but also those desires which for you
plainly glowed in the eyes,
and trembled in the voice -- and some
chance obstacle made them futile.
Now that all belongs to the past,
it is almost as if you had yielded
to those desires too -- remember,
how they glowed, in the eyes looking at you;
how they trembled in the voice, for you, remember, body.

Constantine P. Cavafy (1918)