FRAGMENTS

[Klara]

Nikki Giovanni and James Baldwin

 

James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni’s extraordinary forgotten conversation about the language of love and what it takes to be truly empowered

 

Quote

In November of 1971, fifteen months after his remarkable conversation with Margaret Mead about race and identity, James Baldwin (August 2, 1924–December 1, 1987) sat down with another extraordinary woman, the poet Nikki Giovanni (b. June 7, 1943), for another conversation of astonishing timeliness today.

The event was hosted by the PBS television series SOUL! and took place in London. Baldwin was forty-six and Giovanni only twenty-eight. For hours of absolute presence, intellectual communion, and occasional respectful rebuttal, they explored justice, freedom, morality, and what it means to be an empowered human being.

The transcript was eventually published as A Dialogue (public library).

 

 

A dialogue (PDF)

 

GIOVANNI: Would you say, to sort of sum things up here, that you tend to be optimistic?

BALDWIN: When I pick your kid up in my arms, yes. When I look at you, yes.

GIOVANNI: Not me. I'm very pessimistic.

BALDWIN: Oh no, you're not as pessimistic as you think you are.

GIOVANNI: I'm pretty pessimistic, though.

BALDWIN: No, I think you're pretty realistic. I think you're pretty cool. I think you're pretty clear. But pessimists are silent; pessimists are the people who have no hope for themselves or for others. Pessimists are also people who think the human race is beneath their notice, that they're better than other human beings.

GIOVANNI: People really feel the need to feel better than somebody, don't they?

BALDWIN: I don't know why, but they do. Being in competition with somebody is something I never understood. In my own life, I've been in competition with me.

GIOVANNI: Which is enough.

BALDWIN: Enough? It's overwhelming. Enough?

GIOVANNI: Just by fooling yourself.

 

BALDWIN: That'll keep you busy, and it's very good for the figure.

GIOVANNI: It makes you happy, you know.

BALDWIN: Well, it means that in any case you can walk into a room and talk to somebody, look them in the eye. And if I love you, I can say it. I've only got one life and I'm going to live my life, you know, in the sight of God and all his children.

GIOVANNI: Maybe it's parochial, narrow-minded, bullheaded, but it takes up so much energy just to keep yourself happy.

BALDWIN: It isn't even a question of keeping yourself happy. It's a question of keeping yourself in some kind of clear relationship, more or less, to the force which feeds you.
Some days you're happy, some days you ain't. But somehow we have to deal with that on the simplest level. Bear in mind that this person facing you is a person like you.
They're going to go home and do whatever they do just like you. They're as alone as you are.

GIOVANNI: Because that becomes a responsibility, doesn't it?

BALDWIN: Well, it's called love, you know.

GIOVANNI: We agree. Love is a tremendous responsibility.

[Hermetico]

"They are everywhere.

The tragedy-sniffers are all

about

they get up in the morning

and begin to find things

wrong

and they fling themselves

into a rage about

it,

a rage that lasts until

bedtime,

where even there

they twist in their

insomnia,

not able to rid their

mind

of the petty obstacles

they have

encountered.

They feel set against,

it’s a plot.

And by being constantly

angry they feel that

they are constantly

right.

You see them in traffic

honking wildly

at the slightest

infraction,

cursing,

spewing their

invectives.

You feel them

in lines

at banks

at supermarkets

at movies,

they are pressing

at your back

walking on your

heels,

they are impatient to

a fury.

They are everywhere

and into

everything,

these violently

unhappy

souls.

Actually they are

frightened,

never wanting to be

wrong

they lash out

incessantly

it is a malady

an illness of

that

breed.

The first one

I saw like that

was my

father

and since then

I have seen a

thousand

fathers,

ten thousand

fathers

wasting their lives

in hatred,

tossing their lives

into the

cesspool

and

ranting

on."

 

-Charles Bukowski, They Are Everywhere

[Lena]

 

"Magija vode", Japan, 1951. Autor fotografije je Koji Takashima, fotograf amater, radnik Kawasaki kompanije za proizvodnju lokomotiva. Fotografjia je osvojila peto mesto u kategoriji crno-belih fotografija na međunarodnom takmičenju koje je organizovao Popular Photography Magazine 1951.

[Klara]

[Klara]

[Klara]

Edward Gorey

 

 

 

 

 

12 surprising facts about Edward Gorey

 

He was a movie addict who indulged in art-movie houses and screening clubs where he fell in love with Louis Feuillade’s gothic-styled silent films. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of 19^th century Japanese cinema. He read voraciously and packed his home with over 25,000 books.

 

The supreme love of Gorey’s life he wrote were his cats. “He had cats early on and at age 8, was putting together little books with them doing dances,” says Hischak. “Many generations of the same cat family followed him all the way to NY.” Gorey forgave his cats—up to six at a time—for destroying furniture and jumping on his drawing table, sometimes ruining his work. In fact, he was a lifelong animal lover whose estate proceeds now fund the welfare of creatures from bats to invertebrates, and whales to, of course, cats.

[Leia]

[Klara]

Bernardino Mei: Ghismonda with the heart of Guiscardo

 

 

Po jednoj od priča u ''Dekameronu'', Sigismunda (u ''Dekameronu'' se spominje kao Gismunda), bila je jedinica kneza od Salerna (Tancredi), vrlo posesivnog oca koji je toliko voleo da joj je zabranio da se zabavlja sa mladićima sve dok ne zađe u godine za udaju, kada će joj on odabrati muža.
Ona se udaje za vojskovođu, ali ubrzo postaje udovica i vraća se kući. Otac nije želeo da čuje da mu se ćerka udaje po drugi put, te se Gismunda, nakon mudrog biranja, zaljubila u slugu njenog oca.
Pošto su osećanja bila uzvraćena, Gismunda i Guiscardo su se tajno sastajali i razmenjivali pisma. Jednog dana, otac je po navici ušao u njenu sobu da bi porazgovarao sa njom i videvši da je nema, odlučio da je sačeka, no zaspao je. Probudio se kada je čuo zaljubljen par.

Knez ljutito naređuje da se sluga zatvori, a ćerki kroz plač saopštava da sve zna i da ga je ona osramotila. Kako je verovala da je Guiscardo već ubijen, ona smireno i bez suza od oca traži da ili ubiju i nju ili će ona sama sebi oduzeti život.

 

''Morao si znati, Tancredi, jer si i sam od krvi i od mesa, da si začeo kćer od krvi i od mesa a ne od kamena ili od željeza. I spomenuti si se morao i moraš, iako si sada star, kakvi su i koliki i kako su snažni zakoni mladosti. I premda si se ti kao muškarac u svojim najboljim godinama posvetio oružju, ipak si morao znati kako može djelovati dokolica i udobnost i na starce, a nekmoli na mlade. Ja sam dakle, jer sam po tebi začeta, od krvi i od mesa, i još sam mlada, pa sam po ovom kao i po onom puna požudnih želja; a još čudesnija i jača je snaga tih želja što sam bila udana i rano spoznala kakva je slast udovoljiti takvim željama.
Toj se sili nisam mogla oduprijeti te naumih, jer sam mlada i žensko, da joj se prepustim i tako se zaljubih. Nisam Guiscarda slučajno odabrala, kao što to mnoge rade, nego sam ga nakon zrela premišljanja izabrala među svima ostalima i dosjetljivo ga k sebi pozvala i svojom i njegovom razboritošću dugo uživala u svojoj žudnji...''

 

Slugu su zadavili po nalogu kneza, izvadili mu srce i u zlatnom peharu odneli Gismundi sa porukom oca: ''Tvoj ti otac ovo šalje da te uteši što si izgubila ono što si najviše volela, kao što si i ti njega utešila kad je on izgubio ono što je najviše voleo.'' (Your father sends you this to comfort you in the loss of your dearest possession, just as you have comforted him in the loss of his.)

 

Ona uplakano posmatra srce u peharu i ljubi ga (''Doista ne priliči drugačiji grob od zlatnoga za srce kao što je ovo: tu je moj otac vrlo umno postupio.''), zahvaljuje slugama na daru od oca, zatim pehar puni napitkom od otrovnog bilja i popije naiskap.

Prva novela Tancredi, knez od Salerna, ubije ljubavnika svoje kćeri i pošalje joj njegovo srce

[Klara]

"Let’s face it: dating has always been tough, whether you’re trying to decide if you should swipe right on a Tinder match or striking up a conversation at a bar.

Add in the elaborate social conventions that dictated late 19th-century behavior in America and you have a whole new set of rules governing how best to approach that special someone.

But for those men looking to invite a lady along for a walk without being screened by her chaperone, there was the “flirtation card”: a small calling card often printed with a relatively bawdy pickup line."

 

 

collector Alan Mays

[makaronee]

 

(kad se ima kamenja iz srednjeg veka ko šodera..)

 

Located in the heart of the town of Senlis in the Oise, the Royal Chapel of Saint-Frambourg brings together two exceptional monuments: the Royal Chapel of the XTh century erected by Queen Adelaide, wife of Hugues Capet, first king of the Capetian dynasty, and the reconstruction on this same building of a chapel of the twelfth centuryTh century by King Louis VII the Younger.

Saved in 1973 by the pianist Georges Cziffra who was looking for a place to help talented young artists make themselves known, the Royal Chapel of Saint-Frambourg, classified as a Historic Monument, is the property of the Cziffra Foundation.

[slepa živana]

koliko je lepša leva slika

[Klara]

Pia Paulina Guilmoth: ''Flowers drink the river''

 

 

[makaronee]

 

malo drugačijeg teodora žerikoa, u popularnoj kulturi predstavljenog najpre užasima splava meduze,

ili katalogom duševno stradalih - jedan ponoćni poljubac.

biram da ga smestim u vrelu julsku noć,

dok mesec ulične rasvete modeluje herojske obline mikelanđelovske sibile,

sklone padu.

 

[makaronee]

 

i malo drugačijeg Harkova..

[Klara]