The Shape of Things To Come

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Erich Von Stroheim and a girlfriend eating dinner on New Year's Night, Detroit, Michigan: photo by Arthur S. Siegel, January 1942 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Even though he may be Getting Some
in Detroit City --

and that's the Good News,
because no one really Wants To Be Alone --

memory can't be stopped from relentlessly
dredging up Better Days.

Erich Von Stroheim, playing Count Karamzin, seduces Margaret DuPont, playing Helen Hughes, in Foolish Wives, 1922: screenshot by Luigibob, 2008

Yesterday's Gone

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Lonely soldier and recruiting poster on New Year's Eve, Detroit, Michigan: photo by Arthur S. Siegel, December 1941

and it's good to see the back of it

Celebrators standing at a bar on New Year's Eve, Detroit, Michigan: photo by Arthur S. Siegel, January 1942

Photos from Farm Security Administration/ Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress

Syntax Lost in the Forest

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Doctor Syntax on the Road (detail): Thomas Rowlandson, c. 1812 (Art Institute of Chicago)

Something in the loving plumpness of the abundant, energetic line
in the satiric tour-book drawing, a near perfect simulacrum
of the natural energy of life itself, winks back behind its hand at us,
knowing, as life does, what neither we nor Syntax yet know,
seeing, as life does, what neither we nor Syntax yet see,
of the misadventures that must inevitably befall,
for the moment insidiously biding their time,
waiting now viperishly coiled in each next obscure thicket,
concealed round each next blind corner
of that deceptive bucolic misrepresentation,
that fraudulent map of the insubstantial surface topography
draped over the harsh and grinding natural order of things,
the discursive sentence.

His worst mistake, the same every time, stopping to ask for directions.

We like Syntax may have often been blind and vain
in our persistent foolish quest for a picturesque element
in the stark and grim picture of actuality:
this element is the dream of almost-reason which language constructs for us,
employing its misguiding signs to divert us toward impossible pleasures,
advertising its illusionary rest stops to deceive us into thinking there is relief to be found,
offering its delusive pretences to a destination
when the real world contains no such convenient thing,
only more of the same, more of the going on,
more of the stupid expectation of some meaningful conclusion,
some sensible and pleasing shape to the whole project,
which is, with its endless extenuations, its insistent aggravations,
of its nature formless and inchoate,
incapable of being shaped into even the approximate semblance
of the true and credible article, the meaningful tale, the bright history,
the shining evidence of greater purpose, as promised
in the compliant gestures and winning smile
of the charming milkmaid who comes forward to greet one
from the unidentified building beyond, perhaps a congenial inn,
with a quiet fire in the hearth and a kettle upon the hob,
or then again, perhaps a den of cunning highwaymen,
lying in wait to set upon the unsuspecting traveler
and shunt him off, without a by-your-leave, into that labyrinth
of digressive clauses that will lead him deeper and deeper
into that sepia forest from which, originally, he had emerged,
always confused, always silly, always lost, but never more so than in this moment,
in which the final sound to be heard upon the pointless pointing of the period
is the gentle and completely senseless lowing of a cow.

Doctor Syntax on the Road: Thomas Rowlandson, c. 1812 (Art Institute of Chicago)

This post dedicated to all who have been badly guided

Art and Exchange: Thomas Rowlandson: Ackermann's Microcosm of London

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Exhibition Room, Somerset House: Thomas Rowlandson (with architectural backdrop by A.C. Pugin), in Rudolf Ackermann's Repository of the Arts, 8 January 1808 (from the series Microcosm of London) (Beinecke Library, Yale)

The famous purchases of the Prince Regent, an ardent art buyer, provided a royal boost to the commodification of art in London, the first true "world city" of capital speculation, spectacle and display.

Having one's portrait done by a painter of prominence was a common way of declaring one's social importance. The most successful of the portrait painters was Thomas Lawrence, noted for his remarkable ability to provide "improvements". Lawrence famously "improved" (i.e. shrunk) the exceptionally large nose of the Duke of Wellington, and limned the dissipated fifty-two-year-old Prince Regent as, in the words of William Hazlitt, "a well-fleshed Adonis of thirty-three": Hazlitt had fun imagining the "transports with which his Royal Highness must have received this improved version of himself".

As is seen in Thomas Rowlandson and Auguste Charles Pugin's "view" in Rudolf Ackermann's Microcosm of London -- a mirror representing the city and its manners and mores to itself -- the Royal Academy collection crowded the walls of a new repository, Sir William Chambers' Somerset House.

With the rise of the new "middling" commercial classes, the "fine arts" became, almost overnight, taste indicator and investment opportunity.

There were, of course, a few who saw the humour in this. Generally these few derived from the class above.

As Reay Tannehill relates in a monograph on the Regency "golden age" of illustration and engraving (Regency England: The Great Age of the Colour Print), around this time an acquaintance enquired of Byron:

What is the end of fame?

To which Byron is to have countered:

To have, when the original is dust,
A name, a wretched picture and worse bust

Christies's Auction Room: Thomas Rowlandson (with architectural backdrop by A.C. Pugin), in Rudolf Ackermann's Repository of the Arts, 1 February 1808 (from the series Microcosm of London) (Beinecke Library, Yale)

The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque

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Doctor Syntax Sketching the Lake: Thomas Rowlandson, in The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque: A Poem by William Combe, 1812 (image by Tony Simpkins, 2009)

I'll make a tour -- and then I'll write it.

You well know what my pen can do,

And I'll employ my pencil too: --

I'll ride and write, and sketch and print,

And thus create a real mint;

I'll prose it here, I'll verse it there,

And picturesque it everywhere.

I'll do what all have done before;

I think I shall -- and somewhat more.

At Doctor Pompous give a look;

He made his fortune by a book:

And if my volume does not beat it,

When I return, I'll fry and eat it.

Doctor Syntax Drawing From Nature; "The Doctor now, with genius big, / First drew a cow, and next a pig": Thomas Rowlandson, design for The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque: A Poem by William Combe, 1812 (Rev. Alexander Dyce Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

Doctor Syntax pursued by a bull: “Syntax, still trembling with affright, ,/ Clung to the tree with all his might'": Thomas Rowlandson, design for The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque: A Poem by William Combe, 1812 (Rev. Alexander Dyce Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

Doctor Syntax at a card party: “The comely pair by whom he sat, / A lady cheerful in her chat": Thomas Rowlandson, in The Tour of Doctot Syntax in Search of the Picturesque: A Poem by William Combe,Vol. III, The Third Tour ol Doctor Syntax in Search of a Wife, 1821 (Rev. Alexander Dyce Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

Doctor Syntax leading a lady to the entrance of a grand mansion: “For while he sojourns he will be / The object of all courtesy": Thomas Rowlandson, in The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque: A Poem by William Combe, Vol. !!, The Second Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of Consolation, 1820 (Rev. Alexander Dyce Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

Doctor Syntax taking wine with a lady in a drawing room, while the daughter of his hostess and her lover exchange caresses on a rustic seat under the verandah: Thomas Rowlandson, design for The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque: A Poem by William Combe, 1812 (Rev. Alexander Dyce Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

Doctor Syntax unable to pull up at the Land's End -- is fearful of being carried to the World's End: Thomas Rowlandson, design for The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque: A Poem by William Combe, 1812 (Rev. Alexander Dyce Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

Doctor Syntax thrown off his horse while hunting: “Your sport, my lord, I cannot take, / For I must go and hunt a lake" : Thomas Rowlandson, design for The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque: A Poem by William Combe, 1812 (Rev. Alexander Dyce Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

Doctor Syntax gazing at some ruins; a man and boy in attendance: “But now, alas! no more remains / Than will reward the painters' pains": Thomas Rowlandson, design for The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque: A Poem by William Combe, 1812 (Rev. Alexander Dyce Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

Doctor Syntax in the Jail; a young fellow and three dogs on the left: Thomas Rowlandson, design for The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque: A Poem by William Combe, 1812 (Rev. Alexander Dyce Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

Boarding a Man-of-War: a boat load of people awaiting their turn to ascend a rope ladder, on which a gentleman of the party (Doctor Syntax) is fixed in rather an uncomfortable position: Thomas Rowlandson, design for The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque: A Poem by William Combe, 1812 (Rev. Alexander Dyce Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

Doctor Syntax frightened by the appearance of a large fish having a form resembling that of a whale; his companion and some fishwives are also greatly alarmed, and a few of them lie sprawling on the ground. Thomas Rowlandson, design for The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque: A Poem by William Combe, 1812 (Rev. Alexander Dyce Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

A lady repulsing with the poker her guests, consisting of eight gentlemen, among whom is the doctor; her dog by her side appears to be equally pugnacious: Thomas Rowlandson, design for The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque: A Poem by William Combe, 1812 (Rev. Alexander Dyce Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

Doctor Syntax riding and chatting with a lady, under an avenue of trees; a footman behind them: Thomas Rowlandson, design for The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque: A Poem by William Combe, 1812 (Rev. Alexander Dyce Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

Doctor Syntax playing at cards with a young lady; an old wooden-legged officer seated near, apparently not in the best of tempers; three other young ladies seated on the sofa take much interest in the game: Thomas Rowlandson, design for The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque: A Poem by William Combe, 1812 (Rev. Alexander Dyce Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

Doctor Syntax gently opens the door of a garret, and is horrified to find a "woman of the pavé" reclining back in her chair dead; a dog is seen on the left playing with her wig: Thomas Rowlandson, design for The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque: A Poem by William Combe, 1812 (Rev. Alexander Dyce Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

Doctor Syntax skating and saluting three ladies who stand on the bank of the frozen river: Thomas Rowlandson, design for The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque: A Poem by William Combe, 1812 (Rev. Alexander Dyce Collection, Victoria & Albert Museum, London)

Doctor Syntax Preaching: Thomas Rowlandson, in The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque: A Poem by William Combe, 1812 (image by Tony Simpkins, 2009)

BOOKSELLER.

"I wish to know, Sir, what you mean,

By kicking up, Sir, such a scene?

And who you are, Sir, and your name,

And on what errand here you came?"

SYNTAX.

"My errand was to bid you look

With care and candour on this Book;

And tell me whether you think fit

To buy, or print, or publish it?

The subject which the work contains

Is Art and Nature's fair domains;

'Tis form'd the curious to allure; --

In short, good-man, it is a Tour..."

This post dedicated to Artur

Quotations from The Tour of Doctor Syntax in Search of the Picturesque, text by William Combe, watercolours by Thomas Rowlandson, published by R. Ackermann, London, 1812

Carl Spitzweg: Back to Books

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Reading the Breviary, Evening, c. 1839 (Musée du Louvre, Paris)

Dear Margie, hello It is 5.15 a.m.
dear Berrigan He died
Back to books.

Ted Berrigan, Sonnet II (excerpt), from The Sonnets, 1964

O bliss of the collector, bliss of the man of leisure! Of no one has less been expected, and no one has had a greater sense of well-being than the man who has been able to carry on his disreputable existence in the mask of Spitzweg's "Bookworm." For inside him there are spirits, or at least little genii, which have seen to it that for a collector - and I mean a real collector, a collector as he ought to be - ownership is the most intimate relationship that one can have to objects. Not that they come alive in him; it is he who lives in them. So I have erected one of his dwellings, with books as the building stones, before you, and now he is going to disappear inside, as is only fitting.

Walter Benjamin: from Unpacking My Library: A Talk about Book Collecting, 1931

Even the dream of a "better humanity" in which our children would "have a better life" is only a sentimental fantasy reminiscent of Spitzweg when it is not, at bottom, a dream of a better nature in which they would live.

Walter Benjamin: from Das Passagen-Werk, 1982

The Bookworm, c. 1850 (Sammlung Georg Schäfer, Schweinfurt)


The Poor Poet, 1839 (Staatliche Museum, Berlin)



The Forbidden Path, c. 1840 (Sammlung Georg Schäfer, Schweinfurt)



The Bachelor, n.d. (Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig)



The Cactus Lover, c. 1850 (Sammlung Georg Schäfer, Schweinfurt)



A Visit, c. 1850 (Sammlung Georg Schäfer, Schweinfurt)



A Visit (detail), c. 1850 (Sammlung Georg Schäfer, Schweinfurt)



A Visit (detail), c. 1850 (Sammlung Georg Schäfer, Schweinfurt)



The Raven, c. 1840 (Baxerische Staatsgemäldesammlung, Munich)



The Raven (detail), c. 1840 (Baxerische Staatsgemäldesammlung, Munich)

This post dedicated to Ron Padgett

Paintings by Carl Spitzweg, 1808-1885

Anselm Hollo: Somewhere

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House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus), Male, Lost Dutchman State Park, Apache Junction, Arizona: photo by Alan D. Wilson, 2007

between the cat and the tree
must be our country

and the finch
singing above us

to the world
that suffers

and yearns

House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus), Male, Reifel Bird Sanctuary, Ladner, British Columbia: photo by Elaine R. Wilson, 2006



Cat dancing in snow: photo by Matthias Zirngibl, 2006

Somewhere: Anselm Hollo, from a holiday e-card, 2010

Anselm Hollo: Sitting in Peaceful Lamplight

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Man Reading at Lamplight: Georg Friedrich Kersting, 1814 (Oskar Reinhart Collection, Winterthur)

reading a book on how to become a better person
Zophiel the cat touches my leg & asks me
"Why don't you write a book about becoming just a pretty good person
& by the way what happened to my late night snack?"

Cats: photo by arudhio, 2009

"Really, the fundamental, ultimate mystery -- the only thing you need to know to understand the deepest metaphysical secrets is this: that for every outside there is an inside and for every inside there is an outside, and though they are very different, they go together" -- Alan Watts

Sitting in Peaceful Lamplight: Anselm Hollo, from a holiday e-card, 2010

Born-Again Christmas

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Red-Capped Plover (Charadrius ruficapillus), Orford, Tasmania: photo by Noodle snacks, 2010

I wouldn't mind being born again as a Red-Capped Plover
If I were to be born again as a Fan-Tailed Cuckoo

or a Bassian Thrush

a Dusky Woodswallow
a Little Penguin
a Pink Robin
or a Superb Fairywren
I'd be on top of the world
If I were to be born again as a Bennett's Wallaby
I'd be over the moon
If I were to be born again as a Moon Jelly
a Bubble-Tip Anemone
a Venus Flytrap Anemone
or a Zebra-Striped Gorgonian Wrapper
life would begin again in a new and interesting way
for I would be beautiful
This old body of mine is on its last legs
anyway
If I could be born again
as a Red and White Christmas Tree Worm
I'd wish you a happy Christmas and be gone
into my feathery Christmas wreath in the deeps

Fan-Tailed Cuckoo (Ccomantis flabelliformis), Bruny Island, Tasmania: photo by Noodle snacks, 2010



Bassian Thrush (Zoothera lunulata), Bruny Island, Tasmania: photo by Noodle snacks, 2010



A Dusky Woodswallow (Artamus cyanopterus) parent feeding chicks in a nest at Mortimer Bay, Tasmania: photo by Noodle snacks, 2010



Little Penguin (Eudyptula minor) family exiting burrow, Bruny Island, Tasmania: photo by Noodle snacks, 2010



Pink Robin (Petroica rodogaster), Mount Field National Park, Tasmania: photo by Noodle snacks, 2010



Superb Fairywren (Malurus cyaneus), Male, Peter Murrell Reserve, Tasmania: photo by Noodle snacks, 2010



Bennett's Wallaby (Maacropus rufogriseus rufogriseus), Bruny Island, Tasmania: photo by Noodle snacks, 2010I



Adult Moon Jelly (Aurelia aurita), Monterey Bay Aquarium: photo by Dante Alighieri, 2006



Bubble-Tip Anemone (Entacmaea quadricolor): photo by Nick Hobgood, 2006



Venus Flytrap Anemone (Actinoscyphia aurelia), Gulf of Mexico: photo by Aquapix and Expedition to the Deep Slope, 2007 (NOAA)



Zebra-Striped Gorgonian Wrapper (Nemanthus annamensis), a type of colonial anemone: photo by Nick Hobgood, 2005



Red and White Christmas Tree Worm (Spirobranchus giganteus) photo by Nick Hobgood, 2005

This post dedicated to Jane and Johnny