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Photo Essay After W. G. Sebald

The streets and squares laid out according to the Golden Section, jetty walls and bridges, alignments, facades and rows of windows – these only slowly come towards us out of the future’s resounding emptiness, so as to bring the plan of eternity into the city born of the terror of the vastness of space.

From “After Nature” by W. G. Sebald

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"The Trapeze Swinger" - Lyrics, Music and Photos

“The Trapeze Swinger” – Lyrics, Music and Photos

An epically beautiful song by the band Iron & Wine.

Please, remember me happily By the rosebush laughing With bruises on my chin, the time when We counted every black car passing Your house beneath the hill And up until someone caught us in the kitchen With maps, a mountain range, a piggy bank A vision too removed to mention

But please, remember me fondly I heard from someone you’re still pretty A…

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Leaving van Gogh

It is good to go on believing that everything is more miraculous than one can ever begin to understand.

Letter to Theo Van Gogh, 3 April 1878

I closed the book of Vincent van Gogh’s letters, in tears, at the university cafeteria, surrounded by a slew of hungry professors and students on their lunch break. Long dead, and he has the upper hand, I thought. On all of them and on me. He can abandon…

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“Poems aren’t feelings; they’re experiences” – Poetry according to Rilke The short passage below, taken from poet Rainer Maria Rilke's 1910 novel "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge," is one the best definitions of poetry - and life - I have come across.

#Poetry

The Double Life of Véronique: Krzysztof Kieślowski's Pure Genius

The Double Life of Véronique: Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Pure Genius

If you have watched The Double Life of Véronique (Le double Vie de Véronique), you know that you may end up with as many questions as answers. You might also know that both are of the kind that can only be addressed with time, recalled one by one as you find yourself growing older, astounded that you have lived long enough to begin understanding a thing or two.

You could say it has taken me 15…

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#film

Poem by Albanian Poet Fatos Arapi

The recently deceased Albanian poet Fatos Arapi is one of the poets of simplest form and content in the country and this is saying a lot. In many ways, he was ahead of his time in the frankness, naturalness, integrity (whatever name you may want to give it) of verse. (more…)

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#Poetry

To the Harbormaster – A Poem by Frank O’Hara I wanted to be sure to reach you; though my ship was on the way it got caught…

The Fast and the Slow: Daily Thoughts on the Fading City

I have the desire and ability to find the nostalgic part of the city in brief moments and small corners where time seems to stand still. The sun is at its zenith and the streets are emptied, like an abandoned film set. For a quick moment, it all gives the illusion of slowness. I would like to store this moment for eternity. As it passes, I catch it in slow motion. The bus stops for a moment,…

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Travels

People travel around the world in matching beige outfits they kiss at times victorious as they reach their remote destination while women talk of friends colleagues sizes diets and furniture missed opportunities the day slowly turns into night on my way to meet friends from distant places years have turned into a life of brisk walks along boulevards of travels to new destinations

I hear a faint…

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While Walking

I meant to walk to work this morning like most mornings but the bus appeared at the station at the most opportune time and I took the fateful detour kindly offered me feeling believing only for a split second that my life who I meet now changes in the meantime I see the same people in the bus as I saw on a similar detour weeks ago those who do not walk all present no absences I see the same four…

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Moment of Clarity That moment when you are distinctly aware that no one is thinking of you your mother might be resting her mind…

The Power of Dimension

The Power of Dimension to Zbigniew Herbert Over a decade ago at the Louvre I remember trying to approach the Mona Lisa it was the only way I could preserve it I never made it past the eager hoards so I have forgotten it I never saw the many invisible layers of greens and blues like the sea holds when you climb down from the mountain and dive into what you find are clear waters or a poem that…

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Blank Faces

A few weeks ago, I found myself taking photos of empty billboards for reasons I could not put into words. Maybe, they seemed lonely. Waiting for something, a meaningful message that would never come, I concluded, as the next thing to go up there would be a tasteless advertisement. Maybe I hoped they should enjoy this short moment of freedom. Or I may have been the one thanking these giant…

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Swan's Last Song

Swan’s Last Song

When one of my constant companions, a resident swan of the Baltic, ripped the skin off the tip of my finger, I silently exclaimed “Et tu, Brute?!” and lowered my head, a country on the brink of bankruptcy and capitulation. Underestimating the heavy blood flow, I absentmindedly placed my finger on the snow, hoping it would help. I felt increasing numbness in my entire being but my finger kept…

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Choices

I’ve foregone many pages of books to walking Many paintings have remained in my imagination I see them as I slowly walk under the sun I mourn their life that never began Many lines crossed my mind at the rhythm of my step Now forgotten But there is only time and always time I walk along time and I choose without knowing I choose without choosing.

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We Know What to Do

This morning, my sister and I quickly snagged two seats on the sunny side of the train. It was packed and the temperature outside was about -10 but felt like -17, according to the sensitive app I check when my own body fails to recognize the temperature. Just as we were getting comfortable, a visibly adorable older man, came walking slowly by us and quietly stopped, without making a fuss. I had…

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From the beginning

Here as I take a long bath between Zbigniew Herbert’s former room his antiquity and his modernism and the house of the woman who decades ago in another continent another time introduced a young student to him and made her pick up the poetry she had left behind in her mother’s shelves in the house of her childhood in another continent another time between the little big dreams of her daughter and…

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