style and identity

Minirobot lets go of her Vivienne Westwood boots.

Photo: Garance doré

borrowed bikes

My grandfather on his borrowed bike and me on mine.

what follows

"Writing only leads to more writing." Colette

Photo: Totokaelo

while I slept

Emily and Jennifer went to The Living Desert (their photo).

only too damned well

I only came in here to inquire the way to the nearest cinema. I am a respectable woman, une femme convenable, on her way to the nearest cinema. Faites comme les autres -- that's been my motto all my life. Faites comme les autres, damn you.

And a lot he cares -- I could have spared myself the trouble. But this is my attitude to life. Please, please, monsieur et madame, mister, missis and miss, I am trying so hard to be like you. I know I don't succeed, but look how hard I try. Three hours to choose a hat; every morning an hour and a half trying to make myself look like everybody else. Every word I say has chains round its ankles; every thought I think is weighted with heavy weights. Since I was born, hasn't every word I've said, every thought I've thought, everything I've done, been tied up, weighted, and chained? And, mind you, I know that with all this I don't succeed. Or I succeed in flashes only too damned well. . . But think how hard I try and how seldom I dare. Think -- and have a bit of pity. That is, if you ever think, you apes, which I doubt.

Now the waiter has finished telling me how to get to the nearest cinema.

'Another Pernod,' I say.

Good Morning Midnight, Jean Rhys
Photo: August Shop Blog via Dank En

carson hot springs

From Either the Drapes Go or I Do:

You walk in here and tell them you're here and they tell you there are ghosts and if there's a wait you take a walk through the woods where there are mushrooms and violets and fallen trees. To get here you drive along the Columbia river and pass the waterfalls and go over the Bridge of Gods and stop at an antique store where you buy a gold ring for $1 and pick up old pens and glasses. When they say they have tubs available you walk into the water room and get naked in the sulphuric steam and choose a tub length and if you're small like me you choose a short tub. Before you step in they tell you to test the water as it's only hot water and you tentatively ease yourself into the porcelain basin and when you are finally all in you start to cook exquisite with your hair spreading on top like an anemone and you try to sleep but you can't because you are too warm so you look over at Elanor whose body is like an English stem and it feels like being in a salon bath house in the Wild West during Manifest Destiny and every few minutes you take cold swigs of water and pour them over your face. When you stand up on unsure feet they take you to a cot and wrap you tightly in sheets and wool blankets and the only exposed part is your nose and mouth so the only thing to do is breath while cocooned, sweating and sweating, a wet and dark chrysalis. There really isn't anything to think about. There really isn't anything to do but sweat and sleep. When you emerge it is like a peony, unraveling slowly and utterly pink and you need to drink water, a lot of water, and you need to eat fruit, a lot of fruit, but we ate macaroons and drank espresso instead.

read the air

Here.

Bjork and Bernhard Willhelm, Dazed & Confused (2007)

olivetti valentine

Via Pink Ponk's amazing photostream. And this one on ebay.

another pernod

"Today I must be very careful, today I have left my armor at home."

Good Morning Midnight, Jean Rhys
Jil Sander flats on ebay

dodes'ka-den

Japanese writer Yoko Tawada read in San Francisco this week, presented by the Center for the Art of Translation. Something in her reading reminded me of the sunset at the end of Dodes'ka-den (1970), Kurasawa's first color film.

this week

Some small intimacies: ici, Discotheque Confusion, emmas designblogg, Now Voyager, the ugly earring, Simple Lovely, blueberry pancakes and fresh orange juice at ungtblod, Jessica's reading list, and the beautiful place where hoping for happy accidents spends her days.

Photo: le vestiaire de clé

when one is not yet old

To think, when one is no longer young, when one is not yet old, that one is no longer young, that one is not yet old, that is perhaps something.

Watt, Samuel Beckett
Electric moto from Quantya

sunday morning and it's raining

Watching Golden Door (Nuovomundo, 2006). My papa and Lidia would like this film.

Burroughs at 95

Tonight, a birthday party combining two of my favorite things: RE/Search Publications and William Burroughs.

Photo from RE/Search

double negative

There's nothing here I don't want.

Sabrina Dehoff at Creatures of Comfort

poets who write prose

I've been reading Another Bullshit Night in Suck City by Nick Flynn and this remembrance of John Updike by Lucy Corin on The Rumpus, which pointed me to this For This I Believe by John Updike. Oh, and this is wonderful: "I made tea," by Joe Davis (via this is sippey.typepad.com).

overheard

The upside of the downturn.

Photo: Jim Wilson, NYT