An article on Raymond Roussel appeared on page 62 of the 18 December 1910 edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, entitled “Yes He Really Likes to Work”:
“Raymond Roussel is the most fortunate young millionaire of Paris. He has no handicaps.”
Author Archives: dbv
march 16–march 31
Books
- Tommaso Landolfi, Gogol’s Wife & Other Stories, trans. Raymond Rosenthal, John Longrigg & Wayland Young
- Tommaso Landolfi, Words in Commotion, and Other Stories, trans. Kathrine Jason
- Tommaso Landolfi, An Autumn Story, trans. Joachim Neugroschel
- Rachel Levitsky, Under the Sun
- Harry Thurston, A Ship Portrait
- Anne Carson, Glass, Irony & God
- Edmund White, Jack Holmes & His Friend
- Siddhartha Deb, The Beautiful and the Damned: A Portrait of the New India
- Julio Cortázar, A Change of Light, and other stories
- Alison Knowles, Spoken Text
- Alison Knowles, Footnotes: collage journal 30 years
Films
- Meek’s Cutoff, directed by Kelly Reichardt
- Only Angels Have Wings, dir. Howard Hawks
- Götter der Pest (Gods of the Plague), dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder
- La vie est un roman (Life Is a Bed of Roses), dir. Alain Resnais
- On Approval, dir. Clive Brook
- La piel que habito (The Skin I Live In), dir. Pedro Almodóvar
Exhibits
- “Eugène Atget: Documents pour artistes,” MoMA
- “Exquisite Corpses: Drawing and Disfiguration,” MoMA
- “Print/Out,” MoMA
- “Millennium Magazines,” MoMA
- “Nomads and Networks: The Ancient Art and Culture of Kazakhstan,” Institute for the Study of the Ancient World
- “Rembrandt and Degas: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” Met
- “Spies in the House of Art: Photography, Film, and Video,” Met
- “Natalie Czech: ‘I have nothing to say. Only to show.’ ” Ludlow 38
(from canto li)
12th of March to 2nd of April
Hen pheasant’s feather does for a fly,
green tail, the wings flat on the body
Dark fur from a hare’s ear for a body
a green shaded partridge feather
grizzled yellow cock’s hackle
green wax; harl from a peacock’s tail
bright lower body; about the size of pin
the head should be. can be fished from seven a.m.
till eleven; at which time the brown marsh fly comes on.
As long as the brown continues, no fish will take Granham
(Ezra Pound, from Canto LI.)
a picture of savage life
“70. Beneventum was built by Diomede, the nephew of Meleager (Cluver, tom. ii. p. 1195, 1196). The Calydonian hunt is a picture of savage life (Ovid. Metamorph. l. viii.). Thirty or forty heroes were leagues against a hog: the brutes (not the hog) quarreled with a lady for the head.”
(Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. IV, chapter XLI; p. 646 in volume 2 of the Penguin edition.)
march 1–march 15
Books
- Deborah Eisenberg, All Around Atlantis
- Deborah Eisenberg, Twilight of the Superheroes
- Pierre Clastres, Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians, trans. Paul Auster
- Charles Olson, The Distances
- Graham Greene, Travels with My Aunt
- Joe Brainard, The Collected Writings of Joe Brainard, ed. Ron Padgett
Films
- Play Time, directed by Jacques Tati
- Minnie and Moskowitz, dir. John Cassavetes
- Tomatos Another Day, dir. James Sibley Watson
- Please Vote for Me, dir. Weijun Chen
Exhibits
- “Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition,” Met
not as good as st. martin
“73. I know not how to select or specify the miracles contained in the Vitæ Patrum of Rosweyde, as the number very much exceeds the thousand pages of that voluminous work. An elegant specimen may be found in the Dialogues of Sulpicius Severus, and his life of St. Martin. He reveres the monks of Egypt; yet he insults them with the remark, that they never raised the dead; whereas the bishop of Tours had restored three dead men to life.”
(Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. III, chapter XXXVII; p. 428 in volume 2 of the Penguin edition.)
february 16–february 29
Books
- William Burroughs, Naked Lunch
- Janet Hobhouse, Dancing in the Dark
- Deborah Eisenberg, Transactions in a Foreign Currency
- Deborah Eisenberg, Under the 82nd Airborne
Films
- A Woman under the Influence, directed by John Cassavetes
- Wings, dir. William Wellman
Exhibits
- “Diego Rivera: Murals for The Museum of Modern Art,” MoMA
- “The Steins Collect: Matisse, Picasso, and the Parisian Avant-Garde,” Met
- “Jean Debuffet: The Last Two Years,” Pace Gallery
- “From Iceland,” Luise Ross Gallery
- “Tom Friedman: New Work,” Luhring Augustine
- “Charles Burchfield: Landscapes 1916–1962,” D. C. Moore Gallery
february 1–february 15
Books
- Anna Maria Ortese, A Music behind the Wall: Selected Stories, trans. Henry Martin
- William Burroughs, Junky
- Jack Green, Fire the Bastards!
- Jonathan Williams, A Palpable Elysium: Portraits of Genius and Solitude
Films
- Der Golem, Wie er in die Welt Kam (The Golem: How He Came Into the World), dir. Paul Wegener & Carl Boese
- The Shop around the Corner, dir. Ernst Lubitsch
- My Crasy Life, dir. Jean-Pierre Gorin
- Two Rode Together, dir. John Ford
- Time Limit, dir. Karl Malden
Exhibits
- “New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia,” Met
how to address a letter
(Letter from Pablo Picasso to Gertrude Stein, from Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities.)
the corrupt text
The child is feather to the man;
mice don’t brood. The swiftest race
to the pie. In the sky an encomium
rewards all who notice it.
This isn’t the way I meant to live
but I must or will have to move.
In broader streets the video preference
startles a dozing anomaly—“Come again?”
I just did. I want it to be all clean
and tasting of only distance and water.
There is a stairway in my pocket
and pheasants on the railway
and all I ever had was to be yours,
your instructor. Again I fell for it,
his pencil sharpener. Over time that
made him quite difficult and complicated.
Now is only sun, sunstrife and sea.
(John Ashbery)