JAN 2021

cocteau twins and harold budd’s the moon and the melodies

errol morris directing joanna harcourt-smith in the stunningly edited my psychedelic love story

sissy spacek’s make-up in badlands

the oddities and variations of mutability in different textures of snow

isabelle huppert’s red dress in things to come (and the scene in which she stuffs the bouquet of peonies into the garbage)

driving down the E4 so fast with my knuckles white on the wheel because I was scared and tired and happy

how kelsey bulkin’s “stars” seamlessly leads into “rodeo” on the leucadia EP

hilton als perfectly on joan didion

this early didion quote: “in which the mind is troubled by some buried but ineradicable suspicion that things had better work here, because here, beneath that immense bleached sky, is where we run out of continent.”

john berger’s idea of what landscape is—as the curtain which must be pulled back

the words “library of intangibles”

jean cocteau and his secrets of blue

derek walcott’s poems about the sea shining off of the surface of the sea

wood finishings in old train compartments

forgetting about then remembering again basim magdy’s "thirteen essential rules for understanding the world”

the utter incomparable melange of adrenaline and tragedy in the last scenes of beau travail

the funny and flashing colours of bait

the breathlessness that is michelle reis in fallen angels

"aedh wishes for the cloths of heaven”

changes in circadian rhythms

listening to the hours soundtrack on the train

coming across this milosz poem again

bad coffee performing similar functions to good coffee

hannah arendt’s love for the world contributing to her staggering and unwavering intellectual morality

au revoir simone’s “still night, still light” on repeat

obsessing over jonas mekas again

trees startled with oranges

takuya nakamura’s umi-jiten, a dictionary of sea-words (and the dainty nemophila colour that emerges when one peels off its badly-designed jacket)

reading lorca’s “yerma” out loud in the sunlight on the first warm day of the year

ioanna sakellaraki’s photos and artworks of ancient greek laments

watching the syllables of japanese poetry rise and drop in mid-air with nami naito’s sailing hands

nina strand’s dr. strand

talking on the phone with darragh while she floats in amsterdam between victoria and berlin

a conch bought in yutenji for 330 yen, its ragged edges

tangerines with the small crisping green leaves that ahlum gave me

• bill hader and ethan hawke and jonathan marc sherman getting excited about house

  • “spoiler alert, um… somebody turns from a dude into a pile of bananas wearing a hat in it and it makes logical sense. at that point in the movie, you’re like, yeah, that’s- that’s what should happen to that guy. he should turn into a pile of bananas wearing a hat.”

pretty much keaton patti’s whole twitter feed

the honzo zufu collection

"...Les Ambassadeurs De L'ailleurs Ouvrent Le Champ Des Possibles..."

trinh minh-ha and lynn marie kirby’s in transit: between and beyond at manifesta

this giuseppe conte poem

bryan doerries’ lecture on his production, “the theatre of war”, in which ancient greek tragedies are resurrected to heal communities and people who had been broken from violence

“for most of my life, I believed that—as I’m sure many of you do today—what I learned in school about greek tragedy—that namely, it was a supreme expression of pessimism by a fatalistic society, depicting a universe in which we humans barely apprehend the forces at work upon us—chance, fate, luck, havoc, gods, governments, genetics—until it’s too late, usually milliseconds too late, and we’ve unwittingly destroyed ourselves, our loved ones, and generations of our family members to come. and while that’s in fact what happens on stage in greek tragedies, I wrestle with this question: why would a people, no matter how cynical or fatalistic, gather together close to one-third of the entire athenian population for three consecutive days each spring in athens on the south slope of the acropolis, to watch plays about characters with reasonably good, noble intentions learn of their mistakes too late, and watch them suffer wretchedly and grievously for it? what good could possibly come from such an exercise, day after day, play after play? unless there was a difference, one that we may have missed for millennia, between what was happening on the stage and its effect on the audience. so what if tragedy is a form of storytelling that was designed—not to send us home to wallow in our misery or in the fragility and futility of human existence—but to wake us up to the slim possibility of human agency, of making a choice that averts imminent disaster before it’s too late? what if tragedy is as refined of an advancement as architecture or the sculpture, law, government of 5th century BCE, one that we’re just now—twenty-five hundred years later—beginning to harness? a form of storytelling that arose out of a necessity of nearly eighty years of war, to communalize trauma, give citizens permission to access and express their emotions, and help heal the city?”

the iris van herpen “roots of rebirth” show

the sax in julee cruise’s “I remember”

burning of branches creating crisp breaks in the full-mooned night