notes on Jenny Offill’s new novel; Weather (2020) A month ago I read Offill’s Dept. of Speculation – and fell in love with her digressive-fragmentary style. To me this is a way of writing which resembles my own thoughts – Offill’s text mirrors my own thought process; a constant rambling – . Offill’s narrator in…
A story about immersion and subtraction
or: What I gleaned from spending 5 wonderful days painting under the supervision of Liz Hough at St. Ives School of Painting, a visual report: Becoming nature — The first step has to do with immersing oneself into what is already there; walk around, sit down, feel the wind, notice the short glimpses of bright…
A week in St Ives
I’m in St. Ives as a student. Working with my own art and studying masters. St. Ives has historically been a very important place for many artists — my favorites amongst them being Virginia Woolf & Barbara Hepworth. There is a Tate Museum here. An there is the wonderful Barbara Hepworth Museum and Sculpture Garden…
new facts –
or; facts only Lucy Ellmann can confirm: the fact that I don’t take any pride in housework, as far as I know, which isn’t very Amish of me, house-proud Hausfrau, housewife, homemaker, the fact that I come from a long line of people who took no pride in housekeeping, … the fact that when I…
the fact that –
As if struggling my way through more than 900 pages of William H Gass’ isn’t already too much … Yesterday I had a quick glance at Lucy Ellmann’s Ducks, Newburyport (a 1,000 page novel, more or less one-sentence stream of consciousness, told from inside the mind of an Ohio mother as she worries about everything…
Dept. of Speculation
What Rilke said: I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone. Somehow, I was sure Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation would read very much like Leslie Jamison’s The Empathy Exams, a much-praised book, which I unfortunately have to admit, I really didn’t like at all. And so the Department ……
The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words
So much of philosophy is fiction. The William H Gass Reader (2019) William H. Gass was born in Fargo, North Dakota. He is the author of seven works of fiction, nine books of essays, and a book of conversations. Gass was a professor of philosophy at Washington University. For most of his life he lived…
Arvo Pärt; Creator Spiritus
Originally posted on critical & clinical:
I have been listening to Arvo Pärts Creator Spiritus recently – especially “My Hearts in the Highlands” with Else Torp; – yesterday we thus watched the movie la Grande Belleza (Paolo Sorrontino). About life and death; if you have seen – see again; if not; take the time to…
“Wasting time is something that people do or feel all over the world, not just in Italy.”
After yesterdays loaded post, it’s time for a slice of plain art … I first discovered Arvo Pärt’s My Heart’s in the Highlands, which was composed for the 50th birthday of the countertenor David James, through Paolo Sorrentino’s fabulous film La grande bellezza (The Great Beauty), 2013. La Grande Bellezza is a pure sensual overload of…
Just when I thought I was finished reading theory …
… my desk is once again filled with philosophical texts. It might be hard to find a common theme in the stack of books in front of me, but I guess they all in some sense could fit on a shelf labelled “philosophy of life” – or maybe: getting old (with grace) is the least…
