Monday, April 30, 2007

Death #2, Beauty #3


Unpublished frontispiece for Baudelaire's Les fleurs du mal
engraving by Félix Bracquemond (before 1884)

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Manhattan #18, Catalogue of the Vanished #5


Croton Reservoir, looking west on 42nd Street at Fifth Avenue. (late 1800s)

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

In Memoriam #2, War #2, Apocalypse #9


David Halberstam

(1934-2007)


Vietnam. Vietnam... We have thirty Vietnams a day here.

Robert F. Kennedy to Stanley Karnow (early 1961)


quoted in The Best and the Brightest (1972)

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Aviation #6, Triptych #1




Selections from the Turf Cigarette Cards Series "50 Famous British Fliers" (c. 1956)

Seasons #1, WCW #3

Warm rains
wash away winter's
hermaphroditic telephones

whose demonic bells
piercing the torpid
ground

have filled with circular
purple and green
and blue anemones

the radiant nothing
of crystalline
spring.

"The Hermaphroditic Telephones," William Carlos Williams (1924)

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Catalogue of the Vanished #4, The Outer Boroughs #3


Garibaldi Memorial over Antonio Meucci cottage, Staten Island (1923-52)
Berenice Abbott, photograph (1937)

Manhattan #16, Catalogue of the Vanished #3, Music #9


Lustron Corp. displays its prototype pre-fabricated, porcelain enamel house at 52nd Street and Sixth Avenue to the masses; meanwhile, the late Baroque era of the 52nd Street jazz scene plays on at night. William P. Gottlieb, photographer. (Summer 1948)


Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Monumental Fictions #1, Cinema #16, The Sea #5, Foreign Lands #20


Bombardment of Taku forts, by the Allied fleets
[Re-creation of the Boxer Rebellion battle that occurred June 17, 1900.]

Edison Manufacturing Co.
SUMMARY
From Edison films catalog: The scene opens by showing the battleships maneuvering for a position. They finally draw up in line of battle and commence firing on the shore batteries. Immense volumes of smoke arise from the fleet and from the distant shore. Shots are seen to fall thickly among the vessels and immense bodies of water are thrown up by the explosion of mines. A very exciting naval battle. 100 feet. $15.00.

NOTES
Copyright: Thomas A. Edison
(c. June 19, 1900.)

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Dead Presidents #18



The only known photograph of President Abraham Lincoln at the dedication of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, some three hours prior to the delivery Gettysburg Address. (November 19, 1863) (enlarged detail at bottom)

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

The Sea #4, Dead Presidents #17


JFK and Jacqueline Kennedy watch the America's Cup race off Newport, Rhode Island (September 15, 1962)

Monday, April 09, 2007

Apocalypse #8, America #17

The executive in our governments is not the sole, it is scarcely the principal object of my jealousy. The tyranny of the legislatures is the most formidable dread at present, and will be for long years. That of the executive will come in its turn, but it will be at a remote period. I know there are some among us who would now establish a monarchy. But they are inconsiderable in number and weight of character. The rising race are all republicans. We were educated in royalism: no wonder if some of us retain that idolatry still. Our young people are educated in republicanism. An apostacy from that to royalism is unprecedented and impossible.

Thomas Jefferson to James Madison (March 15, 1789)

The Iron Horse #2, America #16


"Westward the Monarch Capital makes its way." Union Pacific Railroad, excursion to the 100th meridian. (October 1866)

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Foreign Lands #19, The Automobile #10, Cinema #15, Architecture #11



Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles (1972) starring the eponymous author of Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, with an appearance by Ed Ruscha and featuring the "Baede-Kar" (a.k.a Baedekar guide) eight-track.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

The Automobile #9, Manhattan #15


"A Modern Way of Seeing the Metropolis" (1903)

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Catalogue of the Vanished #2, Panorama #3, The Outer Boroughs #2





Paradise: Dreamland, Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York (August 17, 1907)
Paradise Lost: Dreamland destroyed (June 8, 1911)

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Order of the Universe #4, Opening Lines #4

La terre est bleue comme une orange

The earth is blue like an orange

Paul Eluard, "La terre est bleue" (1929)

Diptych #6, Love #13, Godard #5, Cinema #14


Alphaville (1965)

J’ai cru pouvoir briser la profondeur de l’immensité
Par mon chagrin tout nu sans contact sans écho
Je me suis étendu dans ma prison aux portes vierges
Comme un mort raisonnable qui a su mourir
Un mort non couronné sinon de son néant
Je me suis étendu sur les vagues absurdes
Du poison absorbé par amour de la cendre
La solitude m’a semblé plus vive que le sang
Je voulais désunir la vie
Je voulais partager la mort avec la mort
Rendre mon cœur au vide et le vide à la vie
Tout effacer qu’il n’y ait rien ni vire ni buée
Ni rien devant ni rien derrière rien entier
J’avais éliminé le glaçon des mains jointes
J’avais éliminé l’hivernale ossature
Du voeu de vivre qui s’annule

Tu es venue le feu s'est alors ranimé
L'ombre a cédé le froid d'en bas s'est étoilé
Et la terre s'est recouverte
De ta chair claire et je me suis senti léger
Tu es venue la solitude était vaincue
J'avais un guide sur la terre je savais
Me diriger je me savais démesuré
J'avançais je gagnais de l'espace et du temps
J'allais vers toi j'allais sans fin vers la lumière
La vie avait un corps l'espoir tendait sa voile
Le sommeil ruisselait de rêves et la nuit
Promettait à l'aurore des regards confiants
Les rayons de tes bras entrouvraient le brouillard
Ta bouche était mouillée des premières rosées
Le repos ébloui remplaçait la fatigue
Et j'adorais l'amour comme à mes premiers jours.

Les champs sont labourés les usines rayonnent
Et le blé fait son nid dans une houle énorme
La moisson la vendange ont des témoins sans nombre
Rien n’est simple ni singulier
La mer est dans les yeux du ciel ou de la nuit
La forêt donne aux arbres la sécurité
Et les murs des maisons ont une peau commune
Et les routes toujours se croisent.
Les hommes sont faits pour s’entendre
Pour se comprendre pour s’aimer
Ont des enfants qui deviendront pères des hommes
Ont des enfants sans feu ni lieu
Qui réinventeront les hommes
Et la nature et leur patrie
Celle de tous les hommes
Celle de tous les temps.

Paul Eluard, "La mort, l'amour, la vie" (1951)