Piet Mondrian, on the deposition of classical paintings in a room: “Not only the general appearance, the forms and colors of a piece of furniture, but even the relations of measurements and colors among themselves should harmonize with the general appearance of a room—otherwise we cannot achieve pure equilibrium. In their primary, usually rectangualar forms, the canvases of naturalistic painters also harmonize with the wall, with the rectangular form of an inhabited room; but it would be better not to look at what is painted inside the frame! It would be better to turn such paintings face to the wall in order to use them simply as elements of wall division.”
What the cocaine-like Forgettol is for in the dystopia of babyheads and gun-slinging kangaroo thugs (Jonathan Lethem, Gun, with Occasional Music): “Don’t go around talking about the past. Memory is rude. That’s what this stuff is for, and everyone uses it. In Los Angeles it’s illegal to know what you do for a living. If you don’t use it, pretend you do. And if you see people talking into their shirt sleeves, they aren’t talking to you. Don’t gape.”
Peter Makin (Provence and Pound): “. . . when the Cantos say
War, one war after another,it is clear that the implied persona knows perfectly well how to build a good hen-roost and spends a reasonable proportion of his time in doing things like that. The good writer is the master of necessary technologies, one of which happens to be the apparatus of writing, like Hemingway punching away in a standing position at his Corona typewriter (or mitrailleuse), the boxer / soldier and poet à ses heures.”
Men start ’em who couldn’t put up a good hen-roost
~
Peddled in lightless in the 7 a.m. black dawn-sludge, whipping sidewalk-ward at th’approach of a car. Vague intimations of something new. That, or a bouncy affability due primarily to sleep-deprived mental occlusion’d mayhem that’ll soon turn to punk-orf’d irritability. Place your bets in the coffers now.
