@evoketheforms / evoketheforms.tumblr.com
Edward Hopper (1882–1967), (Christmas Card), 1928. Collage on paper, Sheet: 4 1/16 × 5 5/8 in. (10.3 × 14.3 cm) Image: 2 11/16 × 4 in. (6.8 × 10.2 cm). Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Purchase, with funds from the Grace Belt Endowed Purchase Fund 84.38.2. Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper, licensed by the Whitney Museum of American Art
I don’t know if the stars rule the world Or if Tarot or playing cards Can reveal anything. I don’t know if the rolling of dice Can lead to any conclusion. But I also don’t know If anything is attained By living the way most people do. Yes, I don’t know If I should believe in this daily rising sun Whose authenticity no one can guarantee me, Or if it would be better (because better or more convenient) To believe in some other sun, One that shines even at night, Some profound incandescence of things, Surpassing my understanding. For now... (Let’s take it slow) For now I have an absolutely secure grip on the stair-rail, I secure it with my hand – This rail that doesn’t belong to me And that I lean on as I ascend... Yes... I ascend... I ascend to this: I don’t know if the stars rule the world.
--
Hatsuyama Shigeru, illustration for “The Steadfast Tin Soldier”
You will move to L.A. from somewhere in the Midwest without previously obtained shelter or employment. You will be cautiously optimistic. You will have a solid short term plan. All of your childhood will be in your trunk.
You will have been moderately successful. You will stay with more successful friends. Because it is California, the land to where the more successful have already moved. You will stay with good friends. You will stay with friends of good friends. You will stay with colleagues of friends of good friends.
You will stay in extra rooms, assigned to non-extra functions. You will stay in living rooms, assigned to living functions. You will sleep on pull-out couches. You will consume limited space. You will overstay your welcome. You will walk in on intimacies. You will see nipples. You will hear what other people sound like. In the bathroom. In the bedroom. When they think they are alone or cushioned by walls.
You will sleep in hotels. You will sleep in motels. You will sleep in your car. You will sleep in a tent. You will have a graduate degree. You will turn 37.
You will look for jobs. You will send out résumés. You will do interviews for things like Bakery Counter Night Person, Part-time Intern for the Assistant Manager, and Personal Assistant to the Hostess/Host. You will not get jobs. You were bored working when you were a teenager.
You will walk other people’s dogs. You will watch other people’s homes. You will sit in other people’s chairs and use other people’s pillows. You will be surrounded by other people’s pictures, other people’s food, and their odd intimate tastes. In art. Lighting. Soap. You will be paid to do this. This will come to not feel strange.
You will walk. You will turn down random streets. You will consider collecting random things. You will consider building random things that will serve random purposes. You will consider pirates and their place in the modern world. You will lose any fear of lost.
Your cousin/friend of a friend/former classmate will get a major role. Write/direct/manage/create/invent a Hollywood Internet Silicone Valley thing. They will instant message all available social satellites: Never stop chasing your dreams. Hard work will pay off in the end. You have to fall before you phoenix. They will be 23.
You will focus too hard on the minute details of doing everyday things. You will grow to not trust spelling, grade school historical facts, the pronunciation of words, or the nerve responses returned from your fingertips.
You will at some point overhear these random phrases: fusion bicycle; going from consulting straight to banking is rare; traffic-driven website; my producer would kill me if he knew I was telling you this but. You will want to punch the people saying these things. As hard as possible. In the stomach. Until you realize they spend two hours every day with their personal stuntman/ex-marine/part-time porn star/niche martial-arts trainer who teaches them to flip off walls and obliterate boulders of low self-esteem. And to do ten reps after you’re dead. Step aside. The war is over.
Your relatives will die. Your mother will break down like you’ve never seen her break down before. Over the phone. You will not be able to attend funerals.
You will borrow money from people you’ve already borrowed money from. You will move into a broken apartment. It will cost more than your first car.
You will fall out of love. You will fall in love. You will fall out of love.
You will run out of money. You will be glad it’s always warm. You will stare at the sea. You will stare at the sun. You will stare at the birds breaking up blue. You will stare at the wind leant palms.
“...even in the gray dishwater dawn...”
“He reads them exactly the way you imagine them, or even read them aloud yourself: conversational, matter-of-fact, and incidentally just touched with Boston. He’s who you’d cast to play him.”
Watch Frank O’Hara read from “Lunch Poems.”
Flowerwork by Sarah Illenberger combines flowers and fireworks
Otl Aicher — Herbst ‘83 (1983)
Tyler Knott Gregson | Chasers of the Light: Poems from the Typewriter Series | Perigee (Penguin), 2014
Tyler Knott Gregson | Chasers of the Light: Poems from the Typewriter Series | Perigee (Penguin), 2014
Jorge Luis Borges | “The Riddle of Poetry” | This Craft of Verse | Harvard University Press, 2000
October is American Archives Month. To celebrate, we are highlighting our staff around the country and their favorite records from the holdings in the National Archives. Today’s staff member is Leslie Simon, Archives Director at the National Archives at Philadelphia. Her favorite records are 2 pages from the Bankruptcy petition of Edgar Allen Poe, under the Bankruptcy Act of 1841. This was also filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Petition [from the File Unit 12089325 - Case 1304, Edgar A. Poe]. http://research.archives.gov/description/12089326.
Here is what she has to say: “I like these because: 1. No one knew Poe had ever filed for bankruptcy before the listing “E.A. Poe” in the docket book caught the eye of one of the staff here (Jefferson Moak) while he was working on a request. Poe wrote to a friend that he hoped to take advantage of this act, but did not have enough money to file. Presumably someone did loan him that money, or maybe even paid for it for him; he or she may be among the creditors listed. 2. These documents reflect the pathos of Poe’s life. He owed money for doctors, for rent, for books, for his wife’s piano lessons, for paper, for “notes to hand” to people from Virginia to New York. “The petitioner is possessed of no Property, real, personal or mixed, beyond his wearing apparel and a few printed sheets, of no use to anyone else, and of no value to anyone.” The mystique of Poe’s life is captured in these very un-mythic documents.”
Make use of the things around you. This light rain Outside the window, for one. This cigarette between my fingers, These feet on the couch. The faint sound of rock-and-roll, The red Ferrari in my head. The woman bumping Drunkenly around in the kitchen … Put it all in, Make use.”
—Raymond Carver, from “Sunday Night,” in All of Us: The Collected Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 1998)
Margaret Atwood writing The Handmaid’s Tale in Berlin, 1984.
(These days, her desk looks like this)
