Cinematic Writing IX

szamil

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

...

She turns and looks a moment in the glass,

Hardly aware of her departed lover;

Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:

“Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.”

When lovely woman stoops to folly and

Paces about her room again, alone,

She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,

And puts a record on the gramophone.

- T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land

Hop Nop

My Ode to Jean-Luc Godard II tote from I Miss You Already, with the usual cluster // Trinity Hall, Cambridge // Coffee, book and no cigarette at Notes Covent Garden // First blossom // 'Paris is always a good idea' - Audrey Hepburn

Why is spring always so elusive?

x

When I am not blogging I read...

*la marinère

*top-knot

*kinfolk magazine: journal and gallery

Just because...

Luxury is not a necessity to me, but beautiful and good things are.

― Anaïs Nin

x

Cinematic Writing VIII

Maggi Hambling

I suppose like others

I have come through fire and sword,

love gone wrong,

head-on crashes, drunk at sea,

and I have listened to the simple sound of water running

in tubs

and wished to drown

- Charles Bukowski

Freudian

'What do I ask of a painting? I ask it to astonish, disturb, seduce, convince.'

- Lucian Freud

As Londoners we are spoilt for choices of great art exhibitions, especially this quarter of the year, with David Hockney at the RA and Picasso at the Tate Britain and so on. But for certain, the Lucian Freud Portraits exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery is the one that I will be frequenting for the next few months to come.

With more than 100 early and late works of the great British artist, the exhibition is unmissable. I spent a good few hours wandering, listening to the audio guide, and studying the paintings. The way that Freud so uniquely and eloquently captured human life and flesh, the contour of naked bodies and emotions - it overwhelms you with its disquieting silence, leaving you in awe yet unsettled.

The exhibition closes on 27 May 2012.

Emergence

*from here, Édouard Boubat, Sans titre, 1972

No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself.

- Virginia Woolf

For the longest period of time I have been struggling along - amidst broken promises, heartbreaks and inner turmoil, evoked by an irrevocable wreckage of a relationship that I was so dependent on. Looking back at the past few months, I was actually surprised that I have pulled through a rather difficult winter, thanks to the unwavering support from my friends and family (words fail me - how grateful I really am!) and my own little cocktail of happiness, containing -

*poetry, literature: Philip Larkin, George Orwell and Charles Bukowski were my saviours, for their sharp humour and sobering matter-of-fact tone

*fresh cut flowers, and read An Apple a Day for the most delightful arrangement

*tea with friends: make sure you have lots of tea, and meet up with lots of friends

*long walks, getaways: the pebble paths and starry sky of Cambridge, the quietude of the Heath - all sentimenatlity becomes a fleeting modality in the face of nature

*exercise, the biweekly swim in the middle of the day that makes me feel senior

*radio 3: for live jazz and monotonous book-reading to fall asleep with

...

Almost a hundred days later, I realise that the best way to heal is not to efface or evade from emotions, but to rise above them, ride on them as if they were waves - and to hold dearly the belief that, in the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

x

Bibliophile

*Images by Juliette Tang

Cannot believe I only stumbled upon Juliette Tang's most amazing collection of book photography today! I am in love with her juxtaposition of images and quotes, and how she illuminates the aesthetic front of a shared literary obsession.

You can see her tumblr here and flickr here.