A Person Who Eats Meat

A person who eats meat

wants to get his teeth into something

A person who does not eat meat

wants to get his teeth into something else

If these thoughts interest you for even a moment

you are lost

L. Cohen

today

back-stretches are the jam

“At no time are we ever in such complete possession of a journey, down to its last nook and cranny, as when we are busy with preparations for it.”

-Yukio Mishima

The habits of life form the soul, and the soul forms the countenance.

-Honore de Balzac

‎"Perfect purity is possible if you turn your life into a line of poetry written with a splash of blood."
— Yukio Mishima

“Dark and repulsive though it is, suffering has been revealed to us as a supremely active principle for the humanization and the divinization of the universe.”
– Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.

This is the true joy in life - being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. ~George Bernard Shaw

‎"Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working."
— Pablo Picasso

ANDREW BIRD AND IAN SCHNELLER AT THE GUGGENHEIM from JOHNSON CINEMATING AND OFF SET on Vimeo.

“The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned.” Antonio Gramsci

A True Account of Talking to the Sun on Fire Island

The Sun woke me this morning loud and clear, saying "Hey! I've been trying to wake you up for fifteen minutes. Don't be so rude, you are only the second poet I've ever chosen to speak to personally so why aren't you more attentive? If I could burn you through the window I would to wake you up. I can't hang around here all day." "Sorry, Sun, I stayed up late last night talking to Hal." "When I woke up Mayakovsky he was a lot more prompt" the Sun said petulantly. "Most people are up already waiting to see if I'm going to put in an appearance." I tried to apologize "I missed you yesterday." "That's better" he said. "I didn't know you'd come out." "You may be wondering why I've come so close?" "Yes" I said beginning to feel hot wondering if maybe he wasn't burning me anyway. "Frankly I wanted to tell you I like your poetry. I see a lot on my rounds and you're okay. You may not be the greatest thing on earth, but you're different. Now, I've heard some say you're crazy, they being excessively calm themselves to my mind, and other crazy poets think that you're a boring reactionary. Not me. Just keep on like I do and pay no attention. You'll find that people always will complain about the atmosphere, either too hot or too cold too bright or too dark, days too short or too long. If you don't appear at all one day they think you're lazy or dead. Just keep right on, I like it. And don't worry about your lineage poetic or natural. The Sun shines on the jungle, you know, on the tundra the sea, the ghetto. Wherever you were I knew it and saw you moving. I was waiting for you to get to work. And now that you are making your own days, so to speak, even if no one reads you but me you won't be depressed. Not everyone can look up, even at me. It hurts their eyes." "Oh Sun, I'm so grateful to you!" "Thanks and remember I'm watching. It's easier for me to speak to you out here. I don't have to slide down between buildings to get your ear. I know you love Manhattan, but you ought to look up more often. And always embrace things, people earth sky stars, as I do, freely and with the appropriate sense of space. That is your inclination, known in the heavens and you should follow it to hell, if necessary, which I doubt. Maybe we'll speak again in Africa, of which I too am specially fond. Go back to sleep now Frank, and I may leave a tiny poem in that brain of yours as my farewell." "Sun, don't go!" I was awake at last. "No, go I must, they're calling me." "Who are they?" Rising he said "Some day you'll know. They're calling to you too." Darkly he rose, and then I slept. Frank O'Hara

And I pray that I may forget

These matters that with myself I too much discuss

Too much explain

Because I do not hope to turn again

Let these words answer

For what is done, not to be done again

T.S. Eliot, 'ASH WEDNESDAY'

There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
- Anais Nin

"He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying." ,Friedrich