(iii) Michelangelo

Intelligence and passion; there is no art without emotion, no emotion without passion. Stones are dead things sleeping in the quarries but the apses of St. Peter’s are a drama. Drama lies all round the key achievements of humanity. (Le Corbuser, Towards a New Architecture, 152)

ostensibly (M and J, both in the same day)

1. outwardly appearing as such; professed; pretended
2. apparent, evident or conspicuous

-apparently, on the face of it, seemingly, superficially

(the facade study as application, palazzo rucellai)
(the urban face-lift, questions of authenticity, santa fe)

vanity (a thing to be held)

1. excessive pride in one’s appearance, qualities abilities, achievements, etc.; character or quality of being vain; conceit: Failure to be elevted was a great blow to his vanity.

2.  an instance or display of this quality or feeling.

3.  something about which one is vain

4. lack of real value; hollowness; worthlessness; the vanity of a selfish life

5.  something worthless, trivial, or pointless.

6.  vanity case

7.  dressing table

8.  a wide, counterlike shelf containg a wash basin, as in the bathroom of a hotel or residence, often equicpped with shelves, drawers, etc., underneath

9.  a cabinet built below or around a bathroom sink, primarily to hide exposed pipes

10.  compact

11.  produces as a showcase for one’s own talents, escpecially as a writer, actor, singer, or composer;  a vnity production

12.  of, pertaining to, or issued by a vanity press:   a spate of vanity books

syonyms

egostism, complacency, vainglory, ostentation, pride, emptiness, sham, unreality, folly, triviality, futility

antonyms

humility

see also: 
concrete art
abstract art

list of neoplasitcists

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cin%C3%A9-dancing_Strasbourg_-_Theo_van_Doesburg060611_006.jpg

http://affr.nl/films/volume_zero_the_works_of_charl.html

http://www.boloji.com/index.cfm?md=Content&sd=Articles&ArticleID=1026

list

i scrolled through the entire list (reminding myself, just now, of the statement that reading required binding and turning, the leafing through--the opposition to the stretch of parchment, the drawing scroll of paolo soleri, the infinite jest, atop the box, wheeling through the writing, pulling the parchment from the ground and circulating its contents to meet the street once more).  i realized that we had met in some middle, his words and our correspondence of time.  in my own finding of empty envelopes and the dial tone, his knowing less than i had expected (i still remember well, the day that i did not know him). 
he wanted things more, is level, is humble.  he is human when i suspected all at once that he was the other side of me, the wanting out, the laying below, the hiding.  some of this is true.

octogenarian

i read cat's cradle first in florence, found coins and the third language of those four months. we passed it around, further creasing the blue and silver binding. he brought a hardcover narcissus and goldmund to mexico, i sat beside him, not speaking. at the end of the flight, he showed me the edge, golden letters, the finest lines, deepset in the off-gray, royal blue cover.

this was passed too, given away, returned.

d. question 23.

["is addiction just a bad word for passion?"]


do we pursue a passion and an addiction pursues us?
is a passion internal and an addiction external?
are we outside of a passion, attempting to get in, while inside an addiction, trying to get out?