"He used to write me from Africa. He contrasted African time to European time, and also to Asian time. He said that in the 19th century mankind had come to terms with space, and that the great question of the 20th was the coexistence of different concepts of time. By the way, did you know that there are emus in the Île de France?"
"He didn't like to dwell on poverty, but in everything he wanted to show there were also the 4-Fs of the Japanese model. A world full of bums, of lumpens, of outcasts, of Koreans. Too broke to afford drugs, they'd get drunk on beer, on fermented milk. This morning in Namidabashi, twenty minutes from the glories of the center city, a character took his revenge on society by directing traffic at the crossroads. Luxury for them would be one of those large bottles of sake that are poured over tombs on the day of the dead."
"The commercial becomes a kind of haiku to the eye, used to Western atrocities in this field; not understanding obviously adds to the pleasure. For one slightly hallucinatory moment I had the impression that I spoke Japanese, but it was a cultural program onNHK about Gérard de Nerval."
"The first image he told me about was of three children on a road in Iceland, in 1965. He said that for him it was the image of happiness and also that he had tried several times to link it to other images, but it never worked. He wrote me: one day I'll have to put it all alone at the beginning of a film with a long piece of black leader; if they don't see happiness in the picture, at least they'll see the black. "
competiting with the city's mountains disappearing when the dust wind rises
The lost grand trees of Gwanhamun gil
The translucent subtle glow of the medusa-like fairylights along Chunggyechon canal
The beaming face of the wrinkled hotel's porter
The ice-flaked and red beans hills.
These memories shaped as the native tourist-but-not-born in the metropolis that I am looked at them, for me to see in the future.
The South African creator William Kentridge weaves together a theatrical set, political philosophy and silent movies' techniques in his new project O Sentimental Machine.
Trotsky's theories become the subject of a part-surrealist part comic short silent movie in which they are progressively drowned. A type writer, a loudspeaker and a mirror end up taking the lead on this melancholic stage. Kentridge imbues more humanity to these machines than to the portrayed humans swept up by forces surpassing them. A peculiar transdisciplinary experience: this time he does not invite the viewers to refuse time as in his last project but to assist to a re-creation of a lost world.
A piece done during my Oxford University creative writing workshop session.
I thought the picture was lost. I knew it had existed at some point but it had become wholly abstract like some vague idea one has or keeps in mind till it becomes unreal. Last time I saw it, it was in a tin box among other photographs. It was before my moving out from the old place. Now it resurfaced sepia colored.
“ Heyman! I know you, haven’t we seen each other before?” It took me some time to realize the guy had been talking to me. He had already disappeared swallowed amid an exhilarated and laughing crowd gathered to listen to the Dave Brubeck quartet. They all went down the stairs leading to the jazz club. It was 1960, I was 19 and it was a summer of first times. First day as a dishwasher in the club’s bar, first visit to my fatherliving in Seattle coming all the way from Korea, first jazz concert. I had found this job hoping to be less of a charge for him during my stay. As I went through the back entrance, walking in the corridor, I perceived, above the hubbub, the warm vibrations of the double bass and the drum which arrested me and kept scintillating on my skin, through my body. Once settled behind the counter,with the sole view of a row of dirty glasses, I could not see a thing of what was happening on the stage. But, as the firstswinging blue measures of music played, jeez, jazz had hooked me.
The seagulls land on the sand, hop till they
gather forming a quincunx facing the sea. Their beaks gape but no sound comes
out. The waves mount reaching their feet. A woman in a scarlet raincoat with a
small fluffy white dog approaches. They stay at a distance mindful of the
secret ceremony. A gust of wind endows the birds with tufts and almost lift
them all up to vanish into thick air. I see them through my lens slightly overlooking
my newly found subjects as I stand on a big black rock near the peer. The light
is perfect just after the sun has risen. The seagulls and the woman and her dog
as subjects of my picture? Or the luminescent cloudy sky? I step back to
attempt a capture. Comes then in my scope an elderly man sitting a little below
me. I put my focus on him: his image blurry at first becomes distinct: he is
smiling, a thin mysterious smile. I click.
