Taking a break for a few weeks. See you when I get back. Take care everyone.

To take photographs is to hold one's breath when all faculties converge in the face of fleeing reality. It is at that moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.
Henri Cartier-Bresson

Do not seek illumination unless you seek it as a man whose hair is on fire seeks a pond.
Sri Ramakrishna

We cannot cross the sea merely by staring at the water.
Rabindranath Tagore

In love, one should simplify. Choose persons worthy of their promises and leave them if they don't keep them.
Isabelle Adjani

There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot.
John Cage

here's a nice idea for a blog - well written, interesting, informative, and illustrated with a fine choice of music, images and quotes ...

memething

I was memed by Jean to list eight random facts/habits about myself, so here goes... I'm not going to tag eight people - as the rules demand - because I'm a rebel, but if anyone else does it please let me know in my comments.

1 In my final school report my headmaster concluded 'He should smile more often'. He meant it in a nice way I'm sure, but I might have replied: 'After 5 years in this place what do you expect?'

2 When I was a kid I used to play hide and seek with other boys in the village. I was so good at hiding that nobody ever found me, which meant I was never the one to 'seek'. This took some of the fun out of it, but I took pride in my ability to conceal myself.

3 One of the most spectacular things I have ever seen was an orca (killer whale) in the middle of the Pacific Ocean while I was on a cargo ship travelling between Australia and the west coast of America. It was a beautiful day, and the sea was calm and that unbelievably deep blue colour. I was standing on the deck watching flying fish skimming over the surface when the enormous orca suddenly emerged about 75 yards away, moving parallel with the ship. It cartwheeled completely out of the water in what seemed like slow motion before crashing back into the depths and vanishing. The image is still firmly etched in my memory.

4 I don't like mobile phones. I have one, but I really don't want to be constantly available. Less than 10 people have my number, and they rarely call or text me anyway. The ringtone always makes me jump so I have the phone set to silent when it's on. This means I have to rely on the sensation of it vibrating in my pocket - not necessarily a bad thing. The only good thing about the mobile revolution is the opportunity it provides to eavesdrop on other people's conversations in public places.

5 I do fifteen press-ups every morning. Other than that about the only exercise I get is from sex walking.

6 Whenever I make a poached egg I think of an old friend who showed me how to swirl the water in the pan and drop the egg into the middle of it. Makes a perfect egg.

7 I met my first serious girlfriend at a party. I was sitting on the floor, the worse for wear after a few drinks, and had somehow got my feet tangled up in some wool which a cat had been playing with. The girl in question was crawling around the room trying to retrieve the wool, rolling it up into a ball as she went. I was on the end of it. Our eyes met, violins played, etc ... It was like something out of a Greek myth.

8 I have never owned a brand new car, and, like Jean, I hate driving on motorways. I always take the 'scenic route' along minor roads if possible. In an ideal world I would have a chauffeur.

Regine Crespin, who died last week, sings Le spectre de la rose from the great song cycle 'Nuits d'été' by Berlioz.

Necessity has no law.
Oliver Cromwell

lomo

Rowley Birkin QC

The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man...

Albert Einstein, 1931

Make sense who may. I switch off.
Samuel Beckett

I only know two ways to act: with or without a horse.
Robert Mitchum

When the child was a child,
Berries filled its hand as only berries do,
and do even now,
Fresh walnuts made its tongue raw,
and do even now,
it had, on every mountaintop,
the longing for a higher mountain yet,
and in every city,
the longing for an even greater city,
and that is still so,
It reached for cherries in topmost branches of trees
with an elation it still has today,
has a shyness in front of strangers,
and has that even now.
It awaited the first snow,
And waits that way even now.

from Song of Childhood by Peter Handke

Longing. Longing for a wave of love that would stir in me. That's what makes me clumsy. The absence of pleasure. Desire for love. Desire to love.

Marion the trapeze artist in Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders (1987)

In which Corporal Trim's wounded knee develops an itch ...

The fair Beguine, said the corporal, continued rubbing with her whole hand under my knee—till I fear’d her zeal would weary her——“I would do a thousand times more,” said she, “for the love of Christ”—–In saying which she pass’d her hand across the flannel, to the part above my knee, which I had equally complained of, and rubb’d it also. I perceived, then, I was beginning to be in love—— As she continued rub-rub-rubbing—I felt it spread from under her hand, an’ please your honour, to every part of my frame—— The more she rubb’d, and the longer strokes she took—— the more the fire kindled in my veins——till at length, by two or three strokes longer than the rest——my passion rose to the highest pitch——I seiz’d her hand———–

—— And then, thou clapped’st it to thy lips, Trim, said my uncle Toby——and madest a speech.

Whether the corporal’s amour terminated precisely in the way my uncle Toby described it, is not material; it is enough that it contain’d in it the essence of all the love-romances which ever have been wrote since the beginning of the world.

Laurence Sterne, from 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman' (1760)

I like stones, and occasionaly take them home with me - which probably stems from reading Molloy. Anyway, I found this one in the Pass of Killiecrankie, but I thought it was a bit heavy to lug all the way back to the car so I put it down and photographed it before starting on the steep ascent. However, I suddenly felt I had to take it anyway, and it now sits on my window ledge. I don't usually give them names, but I call it 'In the country of the blind'.

A lawful kiss is never worth as much as a stolen one.
Guy de Maupassant