Three kinds of love

The first is love mixed with architecture: yellow hot-water-bottle windows, a tear in every one, and the red tower from Vienna Westbahnhof.

(Hundertwasser, Yellow Houses — it hurts to wait with love,

if love is somewhere else — jealousy, 1966)

The second is tiny, that shies at the hooting of cars, that adores the bells of horse-trams.

должно быть, маленький,

смирный любеночек.

Она шарахается автомобильных гудков.

Любит звоночки коночек

(Mayakovsky, A Cloud in Trousers, 1915)

The third is contained in twelve billion words, beginning in ----, ----.

The first kind of love speaks German; the second, Russian; the third, English.

The Vegetable Lamb: Number 1

The Vegetable Lamb, a little project of mine which Madeleine has been providing enormous amounts of assistance with (and contributing to!), is finally here!

The Vegetable Lamb Issue 1:

Number 1

By Lauren Greyson in Art

The inaugural issue of the Vegetable Lamb has arrived! Featuring everything from accounts of trans-species friendships to meditations on difference and repetition, this issue is meant to introduce the indiscernible in all its depth and breadth.

‘The most lamentable comedy and cruel death’

First, the cruel death, i.e. my new favorite depressing poem:

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

— Stevie Smith (1957)

And the most lamentable comedy: The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, by my new hero, Laurence Sterne. My cheek muscles are sore from having grinned and/or laughed out loud through 150 pages (which isn’t v. far in, but Tristram himself hasn’t even been born yet, or rather, hasn’t gotten around to telling the story of his birth, though he has covered his conception, the death of poor Yorick, the wounding of Uncle Toby, hobby-horses, and whether it is possible to baptize a child before it has been born).

For in this long digression which I was accidentally led into, as in all my digressions (one only excepted) there is a master-stroke of digressive skill, the merit of which has all along, I fear, been overlooked by my reader [...]

The connection: these works are ‘imaginary gardens with real toads in them,’ which is what Marianne Moore says poetry should be.

Things we like V: undeniable trends [aka the year in review]

1. An analysis of my reading habits in 2010:

Books that I read, cover to cover: approximately 30.

Books that I spent a good deal of time reading, but either started and didn’t finish, or read only lengthy excerpts of: approximately 25.

2. Norwegian men of the year (to qualify one must be named Edvard): Munch and Grieg.

3. Apichatpong Weerasethakul (one of my new favorite people) and his film, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. The film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and, praise the Queen!, was showing in London, where I finally saw it and became entirely enamored. There is a v. nice summary of Uncle Boonmee here, though I also highly recommend putting the original Thai title into Google translate:

4. The difference between the real and the surreal, more specifically: my increasing inability to distinguish them. There is reality TV, for one thing, which shouldn’t be real but is, and then obviously wax people who are not made of wax, and women laughing alone with salad.

5. Hedonism, which often takes the form of a search for the perfect chocolate muffin (found, at long last, on Charing Cross Road). As we were snacking on the street, my friend whom I was with declared, “This is the best muffin in the entire world. I like that I can be v. hedonistic around you.”

6. Commemorating instances of cosmic unfairness and/or explaining medieval literature by writing limericks.

7. Ai Weiwei, his ethics, and his beautiful beautiful sunflower seeds.

8. Quantum entanglement, which sounds, like most things, better in German: Quantenverschränkung.

Things we like IV: the post-holiday decadence edition

1. Sun sneezing (photic sneezing reflex if we're being technical) and the art it inspires. If Apollo were to sneeze, these sculptures would be the result.

2. Hand-colored daguerreotypes, particularly when they feature royals who knew the meaning of facial hair. English royalty could do with a new infusion of Teutonic blood.

3. Thai peanut butter cup bonbons from this lovely establishment. Who would have thought the sublime goodness of chocolate and Thai curry would be even more sublime together?

4. Micromosaic jewelery, popular from the 17th to 19th centuries, and enjoying a resurgence now. I'm collecting barely visible tesserae in preparation for my own 2 centimeter tall okapi.

5. Practical guides to lacemaking, particularly if they contain over 300 engravings. Why oh why can't lacework be introduced into the standard mathematics curriculum?