Tag: Clarice Lispector

Categories
Happenstance Observation Poetry Psychogeography rag-pickings

As For the Sea

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As for the sea. The sea is impossible to believe. Only by imagining it can you manage to see its reality

Clarice Lispector

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With one step, a stream is crossed

an eye on the upland hill.

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Nomadic waters falling

gathering, descending,

dreaming of the open sea.

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Imagine:

The sea as a source of comfort

The sea as a site of desire

The sea as a skin of violence

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We can imagine into being

red diamonds. Criss-crossing

but never containing

the sea

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Imagine if the sea was all we had

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As if crawling on surface tension

a skeletal remnant, ghost

of the Great War.

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Now, a living sanctuary – seabirds

come, seabirds go.

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Imagine a sea-skating insect – hatched

from a Miyazaki film.

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Imagine the sea rising to bleed into the sky.

What about us?

Where will we stand

When the ink smudged clouds

Fall into the sea?

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Flotsam & jetsam

Plastic shards

and dead wood.

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Between high tide

and low tide

A little more

short of breath.

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Photographs taken from Carlingnose Point, North Queensferry, Limekilns and Crombie on the Fife Coast.

Now playing: Sandy Denny/Fotheringay – The Sea

Categories
Observation Psychogeography Some Questions of the Drift

Some Questions of the Drift

Weather vane, NSEW, blue sky, light
Kirk Wynd, Kirkcaldy

“I ask you: 

– What is the weight of light?“

– Clarice Lispector

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Merchant's House, Kirkcaldy
Merchant’s House, Kirkcaldy

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 – What are the colours of time?

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Merchant's House Kirkcaldy II
Merchant’s House Kirkcaldy II

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 – What are the sounds of the stones?

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 – When does the inside become the outside?

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Rosyth Church - East Gable Inner - from West
Rosyth Church – East Gable Inner – from West

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Gravestone, decay, erosion
St Cuthbert’s Churchyard, Edinburgh

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 – What is the material of memory?

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– What would the trees think?

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Scot's Pine - Devilla Forest, Fife
Devilla Forest, Fife

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Limekilns, Fife

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– What is the geography of a butterfly?

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Lochore Meadows, Fife

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– What is the shape of flight?

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– When does the local become  – the universal?

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Burntisland from The Binn
Burntisland from The Binn

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– Where does the sky begin?

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Digbeth Derive
Digbeth, Birmingham

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– What is the taste of place?

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Cafe now Open – Digbeth Birmingham

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Custard Factory, Digbeth

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– Where are the energy flows?

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Abandoned factory, Digbeth

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– What is the future of the past?

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Watching over Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow
Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow

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– Who watches the watcher?

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George Square, Glasgow
George Square, Glasgow

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 – Who controls this space?

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 – Who determines the boundary?

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Hadrian’s Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall
Keep Out
Limekilns, Danger, Keep Out

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Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow
Sauchiehall Street Glasgow

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–  Where is the coldness of the sun?

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– What is the gravity of the moon?

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at Mogwai play Zidane, Broomielaw, Glasgow
at Mogwai play Zidane, Broomielaw, Glasgow
Rosyth Station, Car Park
Rosyth Station, Car Park

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– Where is the boundary of night?

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Under Regent Bridge, Calton Road, Edinburgh (Callum Innes installation).
Under Regent Bridge, Calton Road, Edinburgh (Callum Innes installation).

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Where is the future of  freedom?

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Stirling Jail car park mural. Detail from Freedom Versions v.1
Stirling Jail car park mural. Detail from Freedom Versions v.1

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– What is the distance of love?

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Berlin Wall, late 1980s. Looking towards the East
Berlin Wall, late 1980s. Looking towards the East

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Opening quote from Clarice Lispector’s The Hour of the Star.

The photos of the Berlin Wall are from an inter-railing trip in the late 1980s. It was a coincidence to rediscover them in an old shoebox on the day that it was announced Lou Reed had died.  I can still vividly recall a lurid, orange BASF cassette being pressed into my hand in the school playground. “Listen to this!”  It was a recording of Rock n Roll Animal. Things changed.

I can still remember a number of the cassettes that travelled in the rucksack on that inter-railing adventure. Berlin was certainly one of them.

Now playing: Lou Reed – Berlin. RIP LR.