100 Love Sonnets

Recently I was gifted a book of Pablo Neruda's poems to add to my collection of his selected poems and Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair. This book is special for having come all the way from Shakespeare and Company Bookstore in Paris (I love that place!), and for featuring 100 of his love sonnets (Cien sonetos de amor). I've been savouring them, a truly luscious and sensuous collection.

So far, a standout for me is Sonnet XVII:

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,

or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

the ocean doesn't care

Film by Finisterre and Huck. Directed by Mikey DeTemple.

“The ocean doesn't give a fuck about you.”

A blunt statement from this short film about four New Yorkers escaping their everyday lives and why they surf. 

The ocean doesn't care—it's all about why you care about the ocean and your relationship with it. Check it out.

blue elephants

Artwork: wall mural by WRDSMTH

Blue elephants—I so want to read blue elephants! Paste up by @wrdsmth. 

Love it.

Kendrick Lamar - love

I'm almost scared to find out what's in the news each day. So, it's great to discover someone who's work you admire talking positive. Here's Kendrick Lamar getting down to basics about what's important in life. 

Love.

Cai Guo-Quiang - Fireflies

Artist Cai Guo-Quiang recently brought some magic to the streets of Philadelphia, with this Public Art event titled, Fireflies, to celebrate 100 years of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Using a fleet of rickshaw pedicabs, he created 1000 handmade paper lanterns that were lit and moving as the pedicabs made there way around the Parkway. Known for his pyrotechnic artwork, Guo-Quiang makes the connection of the lanterns with his childhood home in Quanzhou:

“In a way, these lanterns are the fireworks of my childhood that can never be put out. When I was a kid in my hometown, there were a lot of lanterns I could play with and these became extensions of my dreams.”

Magical and joyful. 

Bjork - The Gate

Just been listening to Bjork's new single, The Gate. Simply divine. Can't wait for the album!

Huna - Water

Sean Yoro aka the hula, has just finished this amazing mural at the Bay of Fundy, St John, New Brunswick, working with 28ft tide changes. Check it out, it's amazing.  

Guide

Discovered this through the wonderful 'Water Journal', a short animated film by Quentin Marchand  with sound design and original music by Theophile Moussouni. Enjoy! 

enough

Artwork: paste-up by @ender.art

Heavy heart. Waking to find out about Barcelona. This week—Charlottesville and now this...enough with violence, hate, bigotry, intolerance and fear.

imagine

Artist Olafur Eliasson posted this on his IG after finding this on a walk home from his studio.

Makes you wonder.

A Yoshitomo Nara Day

Trying to write—bug-eyed, unfocused, thoughts meandering. Chocolate would be good...

two thousand and seventeen

Four Tet has just released a gorgeous new work, Two Thousand and Seventeen. I've been listening to it on repeat! Check it out.

murmure

Artwork: street art by murmure, France

Art work by street artiste murmure in France (http://murmurestreet.fr—link).

Some things last...

Through hardships to the stars

Artwork: wall mural by Seth, Per aspera ad astra

Love this. From SETH (@seth_globepainter) as part of a Unicef schools project in the Ukraine. Titled: "Per aspera ad astra", "Through hardships to the stars". 

strong and stable my arse

Image: Poster by Jeremy Deller, 2017

British artist Jeremy Deller has fessed up that he's the creator behind a poster that's been cropping up around London, pointedly having a go at Theresa May and her electoral platform: Strong and stable my arse.

Bloody brilliant.

Resurrection of Angels

Artwork: wall mural by Findac, Resurrection of Angels

Quite gorgeous—Resurrection of Angels by fin dac (@findac). Love those wings—want some! 

Banksy, Brexit & Hope

Artwork: wall mural by Banksy, Dover, 2017

This popped up on my IG feed and pretty much across the media today, Banksy's nod to Brexit in Dover: a worker chipping away at a star on the EU flag. It's sombre, sobering and the task appears daunting.

Nick Cave on narrative songwriting

In an interview to coincide with today's release of the Bad Seeds retrospective compilation, Lovely Creatures—The Best of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds (1984-2014), Nick Cave had this to say about the restriction of narrative song writing:

“The idea that we live life in a straight line, like a story, seems to me to be increasingly absurd and, more than anything, a kind of intellectual convenience [...] I feel that the events in our lives are like a series of bells being struck and the vibrations spread outwards, affecting everything, our present, and our futures, of course, but our past as well. Everything is changing and vibrating and in flux. So, to apply that to songwriting, a song like I Need You off the new album [Skeleton Tree], time and space all seem to be rushing and colliding into a kind of big bang of despair. There is a pure heart, but all around it is chaos.”

the hate u give

Just finished reading Angie Thomas' YA novel, The Hate U Give.

Powerful, necessary and one of those amazing books that defies categorisation. I read it in one sitting. The title comes from American rapper Tupac's idea of “Thug Life” (T.H.U.G.L.I.F.E.) which stands for, “The Hate U Give Little Infants Fucks Everybody”. And in the character, Khalil's words, “Meaning what society give us as youth, it bites them in the ass when we wild out. Get it?”

Sucked in from the first page, the story of 16 year-old Starr who witnesses the shooting of her friend, Khalil, was partly inspired by Thomas's life, but pivotally by the continual and tragic killings of unarmed black people by police in America. Endemic racism, blind assumptions, police brutality and fear, prejudice, ghettoisation, class rivalry, gangs, how young people fall into crime, the limitations of choice, and the constant struggle to live and find hope, love, humanity and light in the bleakest and most violent circumstances. Thomas' book encompasses all this and so much more with an engaging voice, nuanced complexity, vivid characters, and humour. Great writing that resists simple conclusions or clear cut divisions.         

 A must read.

Stay Weird

Artwork: by @l.e.t._les.enfants.terrible, Stay Weird

From one of my fave street artists L.E.T. (@l.e.t._les.enfants.terrible), a great stencil work: Stay Weird.