a fragment
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
I would scour the library as a kid looking for things that fed my appetite for the strange or profound. Often I’d end up confused attempting to read and consume works that were way over my head. The thing that drew me to Coleridge & the rime of the ancient mariner was - initially - the marvelous steel etchings by Dore but on reading it I was pleased to find that I actually understood it. It may well have been the first poem I ever read from choice, it was certainly the beginning of something. I am predisposed to Coleridge as a result. I can’t be critical of his work - I like it too much for that.
Pub talk: “what 3 questions would you ask god? What if you die and you go before god and (s)he says “ok ask me anything” - what would your 3 questions be…?”
“What is love?”
“What is art?”
“What is your favorite colour?”
Only I wonder if perhaps the trick would be that the chief would then ask us what we thought. We would have to give our answers first - and the basis of what we said would decide what happened to us next. Heaven, Hell, rebirth, a job as an angel. That sort of thing.
I’m too much of a pantheist to believe in heaven/hell but I think it’s best to be prepared, so I’ve been working on the first two questions for a while. It’s always smart to prepare for an interview.
A painting is not art. A novel is not art. Sometimes a painting is just pigment on a canvas, sometimes a novel is just Jeffrey Archer, Art is in the specific rather than the general.. Kubla Khan is not even a poem - (Oratory rather than poetry as I think I read somewhere) but it is art, of a sort. My fondness for Coleridge means I can’t be unbiased about Ehuphor!um, perhaps I am not able to be objective about whether it is art or not, but I think - I think - it’s what art in the 21st century should be. My reaction to it was visceral, unselfconscious. I’m still smiling about it today.
[lj specific - if you live in or near london and like art, Coleridge or taking drugs than you have no excuse not to go experience this.] Link = Euphor!um
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
I would scour the library as a kid looking for things that fed my appetite for the strange or profound. Often I’d end up confused attempting to read and consume works that were way over my head. The thing that drew me to Coleridge & the rime of the ancient mariner was - initially - the marvelous steel etchings by Dore but on reading it I was pleased to find that I actually understood it. It may well have been the first poem I ever read from choice, it was certainly the beginning of something. I am predisposed to Coleridge as a result. I can’t be critical of his work - I like it too much for that.
Pub talk: “what 3 questions would you ask god? What if you die and you go before god and (s)he says “ok ask me anything” - what would your 3 questions be…?”
“What is love?”
“What is art?”
“What is your favorite colour?”
Only I wonder if perhaps the trick would be that the chief would then ask us what we thought. We would have to give our answers first - and the basis of what we said would decide what happened to us next. Heaven, Hell, rebirth, a job as an angel. That sort of thing.
I’m too much of a pantheist to believe in heaven/hell but I think it’s best to be prepared, so I’ve been working on the first two questions for a while. It’s always smart to prepare for an interview.
A painting is not art. A novel is not art. Sometimes a painting is just pigment on a canvas, sometimes a novel is just Jeffrey Archer, Art is in the specific rather than the general.. Kubla Khan is not even a poem - (Oratory rather than poetry as I think I read somewhere) but it is art, of a sort. My fondness for Coleridge means I can’t be unbiased about Ehuphor!um, perhaps I am not able to be objective about whether it is art or not, but I think - I think - it’s what art in the 21st century should be. My reaction to it was visceral, unselfconscious. I’m still smiling about it today.
[lj specific - if you live in or near london and like art, Coleridge or taking drugs than you have no excuse not to go experience this.] Link = Euphor!um