1. “Versos a la Tristeza de Buenos Aires”, Alfosina Storni
Tristes calles derechas, agrisadas e iguales
por donde asoma, a veces, un pedazo de cielo,
sus fachadas oscuras y el asfalto del suelo
me apagaron los tibios sueños primaverales.
Cuánto vagué por ellas, distraída, empapada
en el vaho grisáceo, lento, que las decora.
De su monotonía mi alma padece ahora.
–¡Alfonsina! — No llames, [...]
Image by Tsunehisa Kumura, from Visual Scandals by Photomontage. Via BLDGBLOG.
i was on the balcony with a girl smoking a cigarette -i don’t smoke but if i were 20, when iwas 20 i smoked my cigarette the same way, clumsy, talking about elevator run-ins and sneaking out of class for abeer, glancing up at a whitewashed and windowless building the edges of which i couldn’t [...]
He would bring back into the general picture of life aspects which modern drainage and modern decorum have taken out of ordinary intercourse and conversation.
H.G. Wells in his negative review of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: “James Joyce,” New Republic 10 (10 March 1917). Images by Irish artist Alex Rose, whose exhibition [...]
Simon O’Carrigan has posted his collages today on Ballardian, a collection heavily influenced by J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World. These fit nicely with my earlier post about the Venicification of Buenos Aires.
Now:
(Photograph of Recoleta by Thomas Locke Hobbs)
Inevitable destiny:
(Simon O’Carrigan. Lagoon. 2008. Mixed media, solvent transfer on Arches archival paper. 30 x 60 cm.)
The formal parallels [...]
The drainage system here can handle rainfall of up to 30mm per hour. When it really pours, this happens:
In February of this year (2010) a man with a motorboat could be hired to cross Santa Fe, one of the main thoroughfares of Venice Aires.
Solving the water problem in a flat city was one of the [...]
A friend sent me this, a passage from Joe Bageant.
It took me over fifty years to figure out there is no running away, or finding some perfect life. We just exchange one set of problems for another. I ran away to the US Navy to escape a small redneck town. I ran away to the West Coast to [...]