Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Order of the Universe #17, Cinema #40


The first image he told me about was of three children on a road in Iceland, in 1965. He said that for him it was the image of happiness and also that he had tried several times to link it to other images, but it never worked. He wrote me: one day I'll have to put it all alone at the beginning of a film with a long piece of black leader; if they don't see happiness in the picture, at least they'll see the black.

Sans Soleil d: Chris Marker (1982)

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Architecture #34, America #44

Frank Lloyd Wright was, very probably, the last of the true Americans. This is not intended to suggest that he was of Red Indian origin (which he wasn’t) or that his ancestors came over on the Mayflower (which they didn’t). It is intended to mean that Wright was the last great representative of all the things this country once stood for in the world when “America” was still a radical concept, rather than a settled continent: a symbol of absolute, untrammeled freedom for every individual, of as little government as possible, the end of classes and castes, of unlimited and equal physical opportunities for the adventurous, of the absence of all prejudice—excepting prejudices in favor of anything new and bold; of the absence of form and of formality, and finally, a symbol of a society of many individuals living as individuals in individual settlements—not a society of masses living in giant cities.

Peter Blake, The Master Builders: Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright (1970)

Monday, October 27, 2008

Word of the Day #26

Cavaedium

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Scopitone #33, Love #21


Nancy Sinatra sings "Bang Bang" (1967)

Architecture #33


Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoie used as a barn.
G.E. Kidder Smith, photographer (c. 1959)

Friday, October 10, 2008

Seasons #4, Order of the Universe #16

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost, "Nothing Gold Can Stay" (1923)

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Opening Lines #5, America #43, Order of the Universe #15

Once, from eastern ocean to western ocean, the land stretched away without names. Nameless headlands split the surf; nameless lakes reflected nameless mountains; and nameless rivers flowed through nameless valleys into nameless bays.

George R. Stewart, Names on the Land: A Historical Account of Place-Naming in the United States (1945)