#v. v. sofronitsky

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WINGS OF PERCEPTION

Etching: Francisco de Goya, Way of Flying (Modo de volar), 1864

Photograph: Alex Timmermans, Icarus, 2014

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of our knowledge.

The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.

If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.

The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space, but he cannot give you his understanding.

The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm nor the voice that echoes it.

And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure, but he cannot conduct you thither.

For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man.

And even as each one of you stands alone in God’s knowledge, so must each one of you be alone in his knowledge of God and in his understanding of the earth.

Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Music: Alexandr Nikolayevich Scriabin, Sonata no. 3, op. 23 (Highly suggested interpretation: Vladimir Vladimirovich Sofronitsky)

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ALL QUIET ON THE POLITICAL FRONT

Painting: Érik Desmazières Scrutin (2010-2013) 

Photograph: Martin Munkásci Tauben (1930) 

Orthodoxy, of whatever colour, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. […] When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases – bestial, atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder – one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker’s spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved, as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favourable to political conformity.

George Orwell Politics and the English Language

Music: Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev Tales of a Grandmother, op. 31 (suggested interpretation: Vladimir Vladimirovich Sofronitsky)

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NOSTALGIC NEST

Painting: Nikolai Konstantinovich Roerich Himalayas. Pink mountains. 

Photograph: Robert Doisneau Musique de Chambre, Chamonix (The Cellist, 1957)

“Where is your habitation?” fearfully asked Gil Gil.

“At the North Pole,” responded Death, “where human foot has never trod, where human foot shall never tread. Among snows and ice as ancient as the world.”

This said, Death turned toward the North, and the chariot rolled on more swiftly than before. Asia Minor, the Black Sea, Russia and Spitzberg disappeared beneath its wheels, like fantastic visions. Presently the horizon was illuminated by dazzling flames reflected from a landscape of rock crystal. All was whiteness, all was silence over the earth. Around them the sky, of a dark purple, was sprinkled with stars. The Aurora Borealis and ice! This was all the life of that awful region.

“We are at the Pole,” said Death. “We have reached our destination.”

Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, The Friend of Death: A Fantastic Tale (translated by Mary J. Serrano)

Music: Alexandr Scriabin Black Mass Sonata (Piano Sonata No. 9, Op. 68) (Highly suggested interpretation: Vladimir Vladimirovich Sofronitsky)