A R R O W R O O T

May 7

Montreal interdisciplinary artist Guy Laramee, from the Great Wall Project

“Having recently overthrown the American Empire in the 23rd century, the Chinese Empire set out to chronicle the history of the Great Panics during the 21st and 22nd centuries.

This Herculean undertaking resulted in a historiographical masterwork entitled, The Great Wall. Comprising 100 volumes, this encyclopaedia derives its name from The Great Wall of America, a monumental project to build an impregnable wall around the United States of America so as to protect this land from barbarian invasions. 150 years in the making, this wall ultimately isolated Americans from the rest of the world while sapping the country’s remaining cultural and natural resources. It also undermined the American people’s confidence in systematized hedonism, thus hastening the fall of the American Empire. As we now know this paved the way for China to invade American territory.

The Chinese Empire later ordered a group of scribes to write The Great Wall series. In the course of their duties they familiarized themselves with the libraries of the former USA. Through a strange twist of fate they thereby discovered the ancient sources of their own civilization which the new Middle Kingdom had long ago removed from its libraries. In the end this contact, primarily with Taoism and Chan (Zen) Buddhism, sowed the seeds of the Chinese Empire’s demise”

May 3

from Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker

I found a punch card in a used book at a bookstore the other day, and it was incredibly evocative for me. Do you remember using these for the older books at the library? I love them.

from Publication Studio site:

Originally written as an essay during her time in Marfa, Texas, Ryann Bosetti writes in her prologue, “Without dismissing the role of a fundamental structural standard in the architecture of the Haircut, it is my intent to review the subjective constructive consciousness and complex human dynamic that may replace the concept of mere replication as the backbone of this process….The variance between the mindset of the conventional Hairdresser and that of the progressive Hairdresser lies in their decision to accept or reject the cryptic challenge of this subjective artistic method.”

Good Press, Glasgow. Please, one of everything. Thank you.

Flannery O’Connor, from “Living With a Peacock” (1961)

Some people are genuinely affected by the sight of a peacock, even with his tail lowered, but do not care to admit it; others appear to be incensed by it. Perhaps they have the suspicion that the bird has formed some unfavorable opinion of them. The peacock himself is a careful and dignified investigator. Visitors to our place, instead of being barked at by dogs rushing from under the porch, are squalled at by peacocks whose blue necks and crested heads pop up from behind tufts of grass, peer out of bushes and crane downward from the roof of the house, where the bird has flown, perhaps for the view. One of mine stepped from under the shrubbery one day and came forward to inspect a earful of people who had driven up to buy a calf. An old man and five or six white-haired, barefooted children were piling out the back of the automobile as the bird approached. Catching sight of him, the children stopped in their tracks and stared, plainly hacked to find this superior figure blocking their path. There was silence as the bird regarded them, his head drawn back at its most majestic angle, his folded train glittering behind him in the sunlight.

“Whut is thet thang?” one of the small boys asked finally in a sullen voice.

The old man had got out of the car and was gazing at the peacock with an astounded look of recognition. “I ain’t seen one of them since my granddaddy’s day,” he said, respectfully removing his hat. “Folks used to have ‘em, but they don’t no more.”

“Whut is it?” the child asked again in the same tone he had used before.

“Churren,” the old man said, “that’s the king of the birds!”

The children received this information in silence. After a minute they climbed back into the car and continued from there to stare at the peacock, their expressions annoyed, as if they disliked catching the old man in the truth.

Paris (cow stalls and man reading newspaper on a bench)

Andre Kertesz, from On Reading

Jan 25

Anjelica Huston reading

Aug 12

Fallen Books, a collection of photographs taken in libraries after a significant earthquake

Streetbooks, lending library for homeless citizens in Portland, OR