The Look of Love, on this very special day...

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Teatro dell'Amore e della Rivelazione 

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Spokesperson for the Self

Yesterday we wrote and posted this re. nature, lineage, one's head, drip-drip-dripping, laughter, regard...

this old head : Jackson 

Pollock said 'I am nature'

drip drip drip drip drip

       FIAPCE (transl. FIAPCE)

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Last night, across no known bridge, we watched an online performance of Samuel Beckett's 'Endgame'. This bell-wringing extract :

HAMM (wearily):
Quiet, quiet, you're keeping me awake.
(Pause.)
Talk softer.
(Pause.)
If I could sleep I might make love. I'd go into the woods. My eyes would see... the sky, the earth. I'd run, run, they wouldn't catch me.
(Pause.)
Nature!
(Pause.)
There's something dripping in my head.
(Pause.)
A heart, a heart in my head.
(Pause.)
NAGG:
Do you hear him? A heart in his head!
(He chuckles cautiously.)
NELL:
One mustn't laugh at those things, Nagg. Why must you always laugh at them?
NAGG:
Not so loud!
NELL (without lowering her voice):
Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. But—
NAGG (shocked):
Oh!
NELL: Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world. And we laugh, we laugh, with a will, in the beginning. But it's always the same thing. Yes, it's like the funny story we have heard too often, we still find it funny, but we don't laugh any more.
(Pause.)
Have you anything else to say to me?
NAGG:
No.
NELL:
Are you quite sure?
(Pause.)
Then I'll leave you.

Everything is everything, sang Lauryn Hill.

Sometimes it seems
We'll touch that dream
But things come slow or not at all
And the ones on top, won't make it stop
So convinced that they might fall
Let's love ourselves and we can't fail
To make a better situation
Tomorrow, our seeds will grow
All we need is dedication
Let me tell ya that

Everything is everything
Everything is everything
After winter, must come spring
Everything is everything

Everything is everything
What is meant to be, will be
After winter, must come spring
Change, it comes eventually

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Theatre of the Actors of Regard  

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TAR dust

We are stardust
We are golden

- Woodstock (Joni Mitchell)

The Rule of Three :

 

Last week

we were sent this image of a work from 1985, soon for exhibition in Sydney. A modern gold leaf ikon : Sellotape Man (one of three) with a yellow tie, in blissful regard. 

Theatre of the Actors of Regard   

Two days ago

an elderly neighbour recounted his dream of a golden brain on a black pedestal and suggested we might like to picture it.

This morning

at the door, an unexpected gift.

Three Acts of Regard   

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Leap Dream

 HAND SPACE exhibition

 Peter Higgs (1929-

 Yosa Buson (1716–1784) 

Theatre of the Actors of Regard  

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The Hou_e That sLaughter Built (Le Regard Mental)

       
In my Father's house are many mansions: 

if it were not so, I would have told you. 

I go to prepare a place for you.

- John 14 : 2 (King James Bible) 

 Rene Magritte, Le Regard Mental, 1946

Those houses!... Just like in my dreams!

  FIAPCE (Black Bats) at Architectura Picta, Ewing Gallery, 1984

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Private TAR Tour

Geelong Gallery

March 22 at 4:08pm · 

Have you dreamt of a private tour in the Gallery’s collection store with Gallery Director, Jason Smith? One lucky Gallery Member who joins before Friday 31 March will go in the draw for a one-on-one tour.

   

Treat yourself to a Geelong Gallery Membership, and try your luck by following the link:

http://www.geelonggallery.org.au/support/membership

   

Image : Gallery Director Jason Smith, and Georgia Chara inspecting Peter Tyndall’s ‘detail: A Person Looks At A Work Of Art/ someone looks at something…’ 1989, in the Gallery painting store.

Theatre of the Actors of Regard 

Garry Flanigan      Wow..... we would love a tour

Like · Reply · 1 · March 22 at 10:11pm

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ekphrHaHasis

ekphrasis : a poem in response to a work of art

collection : FIAPCE  

We don't know the name(s) of the painter-poet(s) of this ethereal silk and paper Japanese scroll. The image is a well established genre scene of sky, moon and wild geese in flight.

The great painter-poet Yosa Buson (1716-1783) wrote of such:

一行の雁や端山に月を印す 

ikkou no kari ya hayama ni tsuki o in su 

Calligraphy of geese
against the sky --
the moon seals it. 

- translation by Robert Haas

ekphrHaHasis : a poem of laughter in response to a projection-space as work of art

The minor drawer-poet 'Bonza View' on the Wild Geese of TAR :

This ghostly line,
in passing  --
TAR  

- translation by FIAPCE

collection : Theatre of the Actors of Regard  

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Vale Leonard Cohen (1934-2016)

1970 : back in the day, we knew every chord, every song, had studied every photo.

1984 : first (and only) visit to New York. With fellow Australian artists Linda Marrinon, Vivienne Shark LeWitt, Stephen Bush and Geoff Lowe, we stayed for a week in an old hotel opposite The Algonquin. One day Geoff reported he'd shared the lift with Leonard (and a woman). 'Wow, he's here too!'

2012 : Christine was a big fan of Leonard. "Dance Me to the End of Love" played at her funeral.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; 
but then face to face: 
now I know in part; 
but then shall I know even as also I am known.
And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; 
but the greatest of these is love.
   - 1 Corinthians 12-13 

 You want it darker/ We kill the flame

 ... as Donald Trump is elected President of the United States.  

2016 : Last month, Leonard Cohen released his 14th studio album - You Want It Darker. Here, it's on constant repeat. Through a glass darkly, a shining light.

If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game
If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame
If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame
You want it darker
We kill the flame 

Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the help that never came
You want it darker 

Hineni, hineni
I'm ready, my lord

Highly recommended is this David Remnick essay in the New Yorker :

LEONARD COHEN MAKES IT DARKER
At eighty-two, the troubadour has another album coming. Like him, it is obsessed with mortality, God-infused, and funny.

The new record opens with the title track, “You Want It Darker,” and in the chorus, the singer declares:

Hineni Hineni
I’m ready my Lord. 

Hineni is Hebrew for “Here I am,” Abraham’s answer to the summons of God to sacrifice his son Isaac; the song is clearly an announcement of readiness, a man at the end preparing for his service and devotion. Cohen asked Gideon Zelermyer, the cantor at Shaar Hashomayim, the synagogue of his youth in Montreal, to sing the backing vocals. And yet the man sitting in his medical chair was anything but haunted or defeated. 

“I know there’s a spiritual aspect to everybody’s life, whether they want to cop to it or not,” Cohen said. “It’s there, you can feel it in people—there’s some recognition that there is a reality that they cannot penetrate but which influences their mood and activity. So that’s operating. That activity at certain points of your day or night insists on a certain kind of response. Sometimes it’s just like: ‘You are losing too much weight, Leonard. You’re dying, but you don’t have to coöperate enthusiastically with the process.’ Force yourself to have a sandwich. 

“What I mean to say is that you hear the Bat Kol.” The divine voice. “You hear this other deep reality singing to you all the time, and much of the time you can’t decipher it. Even when I was healthy, I was sensitive to the process. At this stage of the game, I hear it saying, ‘Leonard, just get on with the things you have to do.’ It’s very compassionate at this stage. More than at any time of my life, I no longer have that voice that says, ‘You’re fucking up.’ That’s a tremendous blessing, really.” ♦

Leonard Koan (1934-2016)
       
I heard the snake was baffled by his sin

He shed his scales to find the snake within
But born again is born without a skin
The poison enters into everything

from Treaty 
(track 2 and final reprise on You Want It Darker)

A koan is a story, dialogue, question, or statement, which is used in Zen practice to provoke the "great doubt" and test a student's progress in Zen practice.

An aptronym is a person's name that is regarded as amusingly appropriate to their occupation. Example : "He began collecting aptronyms when he saw an ad for a flower shop operated by Flora Gardner."

Nomen est omen, OK!

Leonard Cohen was involved with Buddhism from the early 1970s. Later in that decade he associated with the Buddhist monk and rōshi (venerable teacher) Kyozan Joshu Sasaki, regularly visiting him at Mount Baldy Zen Center and serving him as personal assistant during Cohen's (five year) period of reclusion at Mount Baldy monastery in the 1990s. He was ordained a Rinzai Buddhist monk in 1996. (*For similar Rinzai wit and wisdom see also Hakuin, Sengai, Thich Nhat Hạnh.) He saw no conflict between his Zen practice and his enduring Jewish identity. (from Wikipedia)

"That Hineni, that declaration of readiness no matter what the outcome, that’s a part of everyone’s soul. We all are motivated by deep impulses and deep appetites to serve, even though we may not be able to locate that which we are willing to serve. So, this is just a part of my nature, and I think everybody else’s nature, to offer oneself at the moment, at the critical moment when the emergency becomes articulate. It’s only when the emergency becomes articulate that we can locate that willingness to serve. [pause] That’s getting too heavy. I’m sorry. Strike that!"

from 'Leonard Cohen Corrects Himself: 'I Intend to Stick Around Until 120'
Billboard / Chris Willman, 14 October 2016

 Cohen with Roshi and Roshi’s wife, Haruyo Saski 
 at Mount Baldy - from article here

You Want It Darker as death poem :

The death poem (jisei) is a genre of poetry that developed in the literary traditions of East Asian cultures—most prominently in Japan as well as certain periods of Chinese history and Joseon Korea. They tend to offer a reflection on death—both in general and concerning the imminent death of the author—that is often coupled with a meaningful observation on life. The practice of writing a death poem has its origins in Zen Buddhism. It is a concept or worldview derived from the Buddhist teaching of the three marks of existence (三法印 sanbōin?), specifically that the material world is transient and impermanent (無常 mujō?), that attachment to it causes suffering (苦 ku?), and ultimately all reality is an emptiness or absence of self-nature (空 kū?). These poems became associated with the literate, spiritual, and ruling segments of society, as they were customarily composed by a poet, warrior, nobleman, or Buddhist monk.

The writing of a poem at the time of one's death and reflecting on the nature of death in an impermanent, transitory world is unique to East Asian culture. It has close ties with Buddhism, and particularly the mystical Zen Buddhism (of Japan), Chan Buddhism (of China) and Seon Buddhism (of Korea). From its inception, Buddhism has stressed the importance of death because awareness of death is what prompted the Buddha to perceive the ultimate futility of worldly concerns and pleasures. A death poem exemplifies both the "eternal loneliness" that is found at the heart of Zen and the search for a new viewpoint, a new way of looking at life and things generally, or a version of enlightenment (satori in Japanese; wu in Chinese). - Wikipedia

We guess that Leonard would have appreciated this one, too :

Despite the seriousness of the subject matter, some Japanese poets have utilized levity or irony in their final compositions. The Zen monk, Tokō (杜口; 1710–1795, aged 85), commented on the pretentiousness of some jisei in his own death poem:

辞世とは

即ちまよひ

たゞ死なん

Jisei to wa

sunawachi mayoi

tada shinan

Death poems

are mere delusion —

death is death.^ref.

The Leonard Koan  

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déjà ] déjà vu ( vu

           

poem-déjà go-poem

Rudd-Gillard-Rudd

Abbott-Turnbull-Abbott

regard-déjà vertigo-regard

Stella Stevens and Dean Martin drink-driving in 'The Silencers', 1966

In his preamble to Q&A on ABC.TV last night

Tony Jones said/read/quoted

       

"Déjà vu all over again"

        

Stella Stevens and Dean Martin reality-check in 'The Silencers', 1966

This from Quote Investigator :

The more elaborate statement: “It’s déjà vu all over again” appeared in a movie review in the Chicago Tribune in 1966. The singer and comedian Dean Martin starred in a vehicle called “The Silencers” which spoofed the secret-super-spy genre popularized by James Bond extravaganzas. The reviewer was not impressed by the fancy gizmos and the provocative women featured on screen: 2

It’s déjà vu all over again—the usual gaggle of gimmicks [miniature hand grenades disguised as coat buttons, a gun that shoots backwards], and the familiar covey of quail [Stella Stevens, Daliah Lavi, Cyd Charisse, Beverly Adams] that frequently makes the put-on more of a take-off.

This is the earliest known citation for the most common modern version of the saying, and it is listed in the Yale Book of Quotations. 3

Stella Stevens and Dean Martin in 'The Silence of The Silencers',1978

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Sleepers Awake... Awake... Awake... Awake... Dawn Chorus... Chorus... Chorus... Chorus...

     
 Huh? What?

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Today at the Melbourne Writers Festival

     
Today at the Melbourne Regarders Festival
       
screen shot from the Melbourne Writers Festival website
courtesy : Theatre of the Actors of Regard

Gerald Murnane is regarded...
      
Today, it will be via A Million Windows (2014). 
In 1990, via 720 WAYS OF LOOKING AT GERALD.

John Bangsund - the instigator of the term Muphry's law, which is much appreciated at bLOGOS/HA HA and which states that "if you write anything criticizing editing or proof-reading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written" - gave that title to his grid of 720 G.E.R.A.L.D. x G.E.R.A.L.D. text block permutations. Below is a detail of that past and present regard :
        

              
720 WAYS OF LOOKING AT GERALD played a part at the MIMA 1990 gathering of The Literature Club. 
A page from the script :
           

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Easter Sunday

After The Lepidopters : A Space Opera, we received correspondence about certain other such activities. 

Monsieur d'Opter, an optician from St. Armand-Montrond, has sent us these images of the Lycée Lepidopters in rehersal for their annual spring parade, The Summoning.

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As winter looses its chill hold and the buds of spring again begin to swell, the people of this small French town - female students, men in dresses with drums and horns, the mayor and the notary - parade through the district with their LYCÉE PAPILLON banner.
           

      
Their purpose, to summon the eye-winged from their catacombs : Return to the light, Grant us new sight, Bring to all your every delight.

Miranda :
O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't!

Prospero :
'Tis new to thee.

The Tempest : Act 5, Scene 1
William Shakespeare
          

Monsieur Le P. d'Opter    

with nœud papillon    

Patron - Lycée Lepidopters    

 

   
The participants wear their traditional garb. At the throat of each un nœud papillon : for the young women, slim open-winged black; for the men, in pink, grand flouncy red; for the mayor and notary, appropriate, reserved.
     

       
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