c.s. lewis | what had been earth and air

There is certainly something attractive about the idea of living as far as may be on the produce of the land about you: to see in every walk the pastures where your mutton grazed when it was sheep, the gardens where your vegetables grew, the mill where your flour was ground, and the workshop where your chairs were sawn - and to feel that bit of country actually and literally in your veins.

Tolkien once remarked to me that the feeling about home must have been quite different in the days when a family had fed on the produce of the same few miles of country for six generations, and that perhaps this was why they saw nymphs in the fountains and dryads in the woods - they were not mistaken for there was in a sense a real (not metaphorical) connection between them and the countryside. What had been earth and air & later corn, and later still bread, really was in them.

We of course who live on a standardised international diet (you may have had Canadian flour, English meat, Scotch oatmeal, African oranges, & Australian wine to day) are really artificial beings and have no connection (save in sentiment) with any place on earth. We are synthetic men, uprooted. The strength of the hills is not ours.


Letter to Arthur Greeves
June 22, 1930

warnie lewis | the furniture of heaven

I was glad to finish breakfast and get out on the road. Sitting on a well, I found myself looking at a stone posted gate into a field, with some dim stirring in my mind of having looked at a very similar gate when I was a small boy at some seaside place, and enjoying its unfamiliarity. It suddenly occurred to me that the warning, "unless ye are like little children" etc., may not refer to one's moral state at all, but may mean that heaven is only for those who retain something of, or at worst the remembrance of, a child's infinite delight in ordinary things in the days when the whole world was a magical place. I can imagine for instance that wallflowers and flowering currants, as they were when I first became conscious of them - when the former grew knee high, and the latter was a large tree - may very well be part of the furniture of heaven, and produce the same indescribable delight.

Diary of Warren Lewis,
brother of C.S. Lewis
Wednesday 21st September, 1949

luci shaw | the wind blows wherever it pleases

How secretly the bones move
under the skin
and the veins thread their way
through their forests, the trees
of bones, the mosses of cells,
the muscle vines.
How privately the ears
tune themselves to music heard
only in the echoing cave of the head.
And the tongue in its grotto tests
the bitterness of unripe fruit, and wine,
the mouth feel of honey
in the comb. How cunningly our shadows
follow us as we walk.
And our breath, how it moves in
and out without great thought.
Even rain, which needs no summons from us
but flows, a gift from heaven,
as the grasses rise greenly, shivering.
Just so, beauty besieges us
unannounced, invading us, saving our souls.
So it is with the spirit.

stephen adly giurgis | the familiar dance

the familiar dance: avoidance, procrastination. struggle, desperation, disgust, panic, prayer -- writing.

stephen adly giurgis
facebook, thursday july 19, 2012

clive "staples" lewis: the untold story

One is appalled at the dearth of attention afforded Clive Staples Lewis's seminal role in the popularization of gospel music. Even in musicological circles, little mention is made of "Grandpops" Staples, clear proof that even in the latter half of the 20th century the colour of a man's skin was still reason enough to have him and an essential aspect of his life's work excised from at least two sets of history books.  (C.S. can be clearly heard on this early Staples recording of Uncloudy Day, singing low harmony and playing tremelo guitar.) 

not pictured: Clive Staples Lewis

One's mind boggles at the fact that so-called Lewis "scholars" still subscribe to the "Jack is dead" theory, conflating the November 22nd death of John F. Kennedy and the release of the Beatles' second record with Clive's decision to go on the road with Roebuck, Cleotha, Pervis and Mavis, late in 1963. Coming at the end of a particularly prolific year in the lives of these artists, the tour was in support of the recently recorded albums Swing Low, Hammer and Nails, The 25th Day of December, Letters To Malcolm, and The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval and Renaissance Literature, all of which were released on the Riverside label over the course of the following year (1964). Even the most definitive Lewis biographies make no mention of "Jack" scribbling away on his manuscripts for Screwtape Proposes A Toast  or Of Other Worlds (published under the pseudonym "Walter Hooper") backstage between sets at the Apollo, or during sessions at Checker Records.  

not pictured: Clive Staples Lewis

It is no coincidence that Lewis's literary output dwindled once the Staples crossed over into the mainstream with their recordings for Epic and Stax Records in 1967/68: the escalating pressures of television broadcasts and public performances, and the fact that the group was increasing in demand as session musicians with high-profile acts like Booker T & The MG's, The Band, Ike & Tina Turner increasingly eclipsed the low-paid literary efforts of Lewis's youth. 

not pictured: Clive Staples Lewis

His last known studio work was on Mavis Staples' 2010 recording You Are Not Alone, to which Clive contributed celeste, mellotron, organ, piano, tambourine, vibraphone, Wurlitzer organ and background vocals, credited as Patrick Sansone - a clear reference to Elwin Ransom, Lewis's literary alter-ego. Clive "Staples" Lewis was 111.

by Ronald K. Reed, B.A. (General Studies) photo credit: Andrea Loewen

c.s. lewis | serious pleasures

I quite agree with what you say about buying books, and love all the planning and scheming beforehand, and if they come by post, finding the neat little parcel waiting for you on the hall table and rushing upstairs to open it in the privacy of your own room. Some people - my father for instance - laugh at us for being so serious over our pleasures, but I think a thing can't be properly enjoyed unless you take it in earnest, don't you?

C.S. Lewis,
letter to Arthur Greeves,
March 7, 1916

jesse | done with this stuff

anthony f. ingram | instagram photos

evelyn hofer | harlem church, 1964

bible club

June 18 2012, The New Yorker

ron reed + chris kern | reading list

1983/84, CalArts
My buddy Chris Kern and I sat outside a studio one night and concocted. Probably amusing only to CalArts actors of the Libby Appel / Robert Benedetti era, but... For the record.

hafiz | saints bowing in the mountains

Do you know how beautiful you are?
I think not, my dear.
For as you talk of God,
I see great parades with wildly colourful bands
Streaming from your mind and heart,
Carrying wonderful and secret messages
To every corner of this world.
I see saints bowing in the mountains
Hundreds of miles away
To the wonder of sounds
That break into light
From your most common words.
Speak to me of your mother,
Your cousins and your friends.
Tell me of squirrels and birds you know.
Awaken your legion of nightingales—
Let them soar wild and free in the sky.
And begin to sing to God.
Let's all begin to sing to God!
Do you know how beautiful you are?
I think not, my dear,
Yet Hafiz
Could set you upon a Stage
And worship you forever!

gregory | fans

New Yorker, May 21, 2012

john patrick shanley | storefront church

photos | white rock, closing time

I photographed these three shops with my iPhone,

then came back with my fancy camera a few minutes later.

photos | london drugs pavement

photos | wall, flowers, blue glass

photos | safeway

photo | water street painter

new yorker | god of sport

click to enlarge

The New Yorker

March 26, 2012

January 16, 2012

photos | may 6 | value village

photos | may 5 | bandidas taqueria

harry kessler | like medieval cathedrals

The Russian composer Nicolas Nabokov recalled that Kessler viewed works of art as "living creatures belonging to the same species as himself." He writes wonderfully of the importance of revisiting the deepest works at different stages of one's life, for they will change appearance, "like medieval cathedrals at different times of the day." Make haste when you are young, he advises, or "it is too late, and you have missed the morning light of the masterpieces." Such light floods the journals of Kessler's youth, when he believed that one painting or poem could change the world.


from Diary of an Aesthete, by Alex Ross
The New Yorker, April 23, 2012 portrait by Edward Munch