If all you have is a hammer, all your problems start to look like nails
when there was no order.
ian curtis + new order = joy division
the real deal
Werner Herzog
“Sabine was a young lady, pious and virtuous was she. She was a good servant to her master and ever so faithful she was too. (until a certain day…) Then came from Treuenbrietzen a young man who was passing through. (false hopes…) He wanted so to love Sabine and was a cobbler boy. (a worshipper, a proletarian. And now comes hardship…) His money he had drunk away with Schnaps and also with beer. (cheers! cheers! cheers!) He came running to Sabine and wanted some more from her. (he went like this!) she couldn’t give him any.. cos none was to hand.. so he went to her master’s goods and stole 6 silver spoons.. (stuck it all into his sack — before this he’d only kick her rear) but before 18 weeks passed, the deed came to light.. with ravings and shameful words they drove Sabine out of the house..”
Stroszek final scene:
passive activity
“Tourism essentially a passive activity. You set yourself in a certain surrounding — expecting to be excited, amused, entertained. You need bring nothing to the situation–the surrounding is sufficiently charged.” SS. 5/31/58
Gerhard Richter.
daily dose of pessimism
mood: wary of institutionalized education
“There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like schoolboys: they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a book without having worked out the sum for themselves”
- Kierkegaard Journals
“college instruction is a brand of popular culture; the universities are poorly run mass media”
SS. 9/4/56
film mood: anything by alain resnais (his frames glide and float… his images are so certain and strong…above all his films resonate…)
image:
Dibbets. c.s.m seems like a nice place.
excerpt from SS. 7/29/48
… And what is it to be young in years and suddenly wakened to the anguish, the urgency of life?
It is to be reached one day by the reverberations of those who do not follow, to stumble out of the jungle and fall into an abyss:
It is then to be blind to the faults of the rebellious, to yearn painfully, wholly, after all opposites of childhood’s existence. It is impetuousness, wild enthusiasm, immediately submerged in a flood of self-deprecation. It is the cruel awareness of one’s own presumption…
It is humiliation with every slip-of-the-tongue, sleepless nights spend rehearsing tomorrow’s conversation, and torturing oneself for yesterday’s…a bowed head held between one’s hands…it is “my god, my god” … (in lower case, of course, because there is no god).
It is withdrawal of feeling towards one’s family and all childhood idols… it is lying.. and resentment, and then hate…
It is the emergence of cynicism, a probing of every thought and word and action. (“Ah, to be perfectly, utterly sincere!”) It is a bitter and relentless questioning of motives…
2 weeks
travels
right now i can’t decide whether i should travel around south china…or jiuzhai gou… or fork out last minute tickets to indonesia/thailand/cambodia… or be cheap and lazy by staying in hong kong to hike/explore lamma & lantau island. decisions…decisions.
at this point i sort of just want to stay in a box and read/watch movies/and youtube. i love breaks. except breaks make me lazy and complacent.
oy vay… if it isn’t one thing its always another.
read:
Andre Gide’s Journals
Thomas Mann – The Magic Mountain/Doctor Faustus
Kafka – The Castle
The Diaries of Franz Kafka
Conversations with Susan Sontag
The Amberley Papers (The Letters and Diaries of Bertrand Russell’s Parents]
The Letters of Samuel Becket
Superstudio: Life w/out Objects – Peter Lang
Archigram – Peter Cook
finish:
The Concrete Dragon
Metromarxism
SS’s Diary
crap for school.
order & ship to cali:
On Marx an Introduction to the Revolutionary Intellect of Karl Marx
Superstudio: The Middleburg Lectures
get back into french before next quarter’s french lit class.
re-read Bonjour Tristesse – Sagan… merde. I tried reading la monde today…and my vocabulary has drastically diminished…
reminder! i need to make a list for films/documentaries… but not now.
blank page
on page 81 SS. says:
“Journal ([Stéphane] Mallarmé’s blank page) is inhibiting; speech is de-inhibiting because journal is narcissistic + speech is social +erotic + Has more incentive in the feared + desired expectations of the other than in the perfectly knowable + less mysterious + compelling self demands.”
which leads me to find
blog = 21st century shared social…narcissismmmm…..inhibited and de-inhibited…a middle…a median..
John Whitney blows my mind.
just started looking into Jordan Belson. why is there nothing on youtube? must find Belson.
diaries and journal
official favorite type of literature: the diaries and journals of others
reflect.self.
i believe i use dots because i think in a connected….attached…linked…undecisive… manner… that can otherwise be seen as chained together words in a steady stream of jimble jumble jam
context:
today i went to causeway bay
- alone-
i wandered the streets.
i ended up at a bookstore,
-by chance -
where i found & subsequently bought SS’s -Reborn. 1947-1963
i’ve found solace in the diary of a self indulgent intellectual (and although all three of the latter words sound negative) i don’t mean them to be so…
in truth … i need another perspective at the moment …
i need the incite of a wise individual …
indecision has plagued me far too long… and it puts me at ease to
read someone else’s indecisions/journey of choices/acceptance of self..
it helps me remember i know nothing and will never no more than nothing
because everything is subject to time … and time changes everything..
being so far away from home … seeing more of the world
should make me more productive and passionate… yet i feel more
discouraged/apathetic.. no no i do care.. but i guess i’m just disheartened and dejected…
which are all the same…
this world is so vast… knowledge & learning so rich and great…
i feel small.
visually inspired by G. Kruip – her images speak to my self- reflective mood.
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