ART & Thoughts
Philosophy
Franz Kafka’s Diaries – Osvaldo Licini
I never wish to be easily defined. I’d rather float over other people’s minds as something strictly fluid and non-perceivable; more like a transparent, paradoxically iridescent creature rather than an actual person. Franz Kafka; from a diary entry dated 23 March 1914 Franz Kafka’s Diaries, written in German language between 1910-1923, include casual observations, details … Continue reading
La Chute : Albert Camus – Autobiography
Camus’ relationship with his wife was falling apart due to his indiscretions with other women. Francine then tried to commit suicide which left Camus with a sense of guilt. From 1955 to 1956, Camus wrote for L’Express. In 1957 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature “for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted … Continue reading
Walter Benjamin : “The power of a text” from One-Way Street
“The power of a country road when one is walking along it is different from the power it has when one is flying over it by airplane. In the same way, the power of a text when it is read is different from the power it has when it is copied out. The airplane passenger … Continue reading
Waiting – Roland Barthes / Edward Hopper
Waiting attente / waiting Tumult of anxiety provoked by waiting for the loved being, subject to trivial delays (rendezvous, letters, telephone calls, returns) I. I am waiting for an arrival, a return, a promised sign. This can be futile, or immensely pathetic: in Erwantung (Waiting), a woman waits for her lover, at night, in the … Continue reading
Notebooks – Albert Camus / Philosophy
I spent a long time looking at faces, drinking in smiles. Am I happy or unhappy? It’s not a very important question. I live with such frenzied intensity. Things and people are waiting for me, and doubtless I am waiting for them and desiring them with all my strength and sadness. But, here, I earn … Continue reading
Plato’s Symposion: Discussions on Love
“…and when one of them meets the other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy and one will not be out of the other’s sight, as I may say, even … Continue reading
Lettre d’Albert Camus à René Char
“On parle de la douleur de vivre. Mais ce n’est pas vrai, c’est la douleur de ne pas vivre qu’il faut dire.” Albert Camus Albert Camus, restera comme une figure singulière dans la culture et l’histoire : immense écrivain, penseur à la fois engagé et en rupture avec son époque et, fait rare, homme d’exception, … Continue reading
Simone de Beauvoir Interview and photography
Simone de Beauvoir, The Art of Fiction No. 35 Interviewed by Madeleine Gobeil —Translated by Bernard Frechtman Simone de Beauvoir had introduced me to Jean Genet and Jean-Paul Sartre, whom I had interviewed. But she hesitated about being interviewed herself: “Why should we talk about me? Don’t you think I’ve done enough in my three … Continue reading
Quelque part dans l’inachevé – Vladimir Jankélévitch / Robert Doisneau
Mais pour qu’il y ait rencontre, il faut être deux : l’occasion tient à la fois au moment de l’occurrence et aux bonnes dispositions d’une conscience qui oscille entre la verve et la sécheresse, entre les moments inspirés et les moments arides. Plus bref le passage de ce météore dans notre ciel, plus acrobatique l’effort … Continue reading
Either/Or – The Stages Of Life – Søren Kierkegaard / Reinfried Marass
“You love the accidental. A smile from a pretty girl in an interesting situation, a stolen glance, that is what you are hunting for, that is a motif for your aimless fantasy. You who always pride yourself on being an observateur must, in return, put up with becoming an object of observation. Ah, you are … Continue reading
Jacques-Alain Miller: On Love
We Love the One Who Responds to Our Question: “Who Am I?” Hanna Waar – Does psychoanalysis teach us something about love? Jacques-Alain Miller – A great deal, because it’s an experience whose mainspring is love. It’s a question of that automatic and more often than not unconscious love that the analysand brings to the analyst, and … Continue reading
Letters to Milena Jesenská : Franz Kafka – Love letters
Meran, May 1920 Dear Frau Milena (yes, this heading is becoming burdensome, although it is something to cling to in this uncertain world, like a crutch for sick people; but it’s no sign of recovery when the crutches grow to be a burden), I have never lived among Germans. German is my mother tongue and … Continue reading
Roland Barthes and mass communication
Barthes and mass communication In Communication Studies, the reason Roland Barthes can be considered an important scholar is that he applied linguistic rules to general cultural codes, from a magazine “text” to an “image” in advertisements. His approach to cultural products becomes a good example in today’s Cultural Studies, Critical Communication and various semiotic analyses … Continue reading
Les vases communicants – André Breton / Diego Rivera
“…il y a là une porte entr-ouverte,au delà de laquelle il n’ya plus qu’un pas à faire pour, au sortir de la maison vacilante des poètes, se retrouver de plain-pied dans la vie” (Les Vases communicants, p.11) (…there is a door,half-opened, on the other side of which just one step has to be taken, in leaving the … Continue reading
Meaning Is Healthier Than Happiness
People who are happy but have little-to-no sense of meaning in their lives have the same gene expression patterns as people who are enduring chronic adversity. For at least the last decade, the happiness craze has been building. In the last three months alone, over 1,000 books on happiness were released on Amazon, including Happy Money, Happy-People-Pills For … Continue reading
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