evoke the forms

so be it. evoke the forms. where you've nothing else construct ceremonies out of the air and breathe upon them.

[whitneymuseum]

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

[evoketheforms]

Read more: Ariel Dorfman | "The Gospel According to García" | The New Yorker | November 2nd, 2015

[evoketheforms]

Ansel Elkins | Blue Yodel | Yale University, 2015

[evoketheforms]

Michael Chabon | The Phantom Tollbooth and the Wonder of Words | The New York Review of Books | April 21, 2011

[evoketheforms]

I Don’t Know If Stars Rule The World

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.

--

Fernando Pessoa trans. by Richard Zenith | Fernando Pessoa & Co.: Selected Poems | Grove Press | New York, 1998

[evoketheforms]

Ulysses | James Joyce | Shakespeare & Co. | Paris, 1922

[aviel]

[evoketheforms]

Rebecca Lindenberg | Interview in The Believer | March 27 2012 

[evoketheforms]

Hatsuyama Shigeru, illustration for “The Steadfast Tin Soldier”

“Surreal Japanese Illustrations Capture the Spirit of Andersen’s Fairy Tales” | Julia Friedman | Hyperallergic | December 30, 2014

[evoketheforms]

Failure Map by Fielden Nelson

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.

[McSweeney’s | April 23, 2012]

[evoketheforms]

“...even in the gray dishwater dawn...”

[theparisreview]

“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.”

[hypebeast]

Flowerwork by Sarah Illenberger combines flowers and fireworks

http://hypebeast.com/hb1jy3v

[calmack]

Otl Aicher — Herbst ‘83 (1983)

[evoketheforms]

What if it's the there and not the here that I long for? The wander and not the wait, the magic in the lost feet stumbling down the faraway street and the way the moon never hangs quite the same.

Tyler Knott Gregson | Chasers of the Light: Poems from the Typewriter Series | Perigee (Penguin), 2014

[evoketheforms]

I will miss you always, even in the moments when you are right beside me. Time apart has planted longing inside me and I do not think it is a weed that will ever stop growing. It will always live there, but my god it grows the most spectacular flowers.

Tyler Knott Gregson | Chasers of the Light: Poems from the Typewriter Series | Perigee (Penguin), 2014

[evoketheforms]

I must confess that I think a book is really not an immortal object to be picked up and duly worshipped, but rather an occasion for beauty.

Jorge Luis Borges | “The Riddle of Poetry” | This Craft of Verse | Harvard University Press, 2000