"What the eyes represent for most painters, the mouth was for Bacon, the locus of human identity. The mouth is what bites, suckles, and howls at the moon. By contrast, the eyes are likely to be missing entirely or smeared shut or obscured by a milky scrim, as in his portrait of the writer Michel Leiris. With Bacon, the windows of the soul--not that he believed in the soul--always have the curtains drawn."
- Richard Lacayo on Francis Bacon
A moving passage I read on this morning's passage:
"I heard them talking to one another in murmurs and whispers. They talked about illness, money, shabby domestic cares. Their talk painted the walls of the dismal prison in which these men had locked themselves up. And suddenly I had a vision of the face of destiny.
Old bureaucrat, my comrade, it is not you who are to blame. No one ever helped you to escape. You, like a termite, built you peace by blocking up with cement every chink and cranny through which the light might pierce. You rolled yourself up into a ball in your genteel security, in routine, in the stifling conventions of provincial life, raising a modest rampart against the winds and the tides and the stars. You have chosen not to be perturbed by great problems, having trouble enough to forget your own fate as man. You are not the dweller upon an errant planet and do not ask yourself questions to which there are no answers. You are a petty borgeois of Toulouse. Nobody grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time [!]. Now the clay of which you were shaped has dried and hardened, and naught in you will ever awaken the sleeping musician, the poet, the astronomer that possibly inhabited you in the beginning.
The squall has ceased to be a cause of my complaint. The magic of the craft has opened for me a world in which I shall confront, within two hours, the black dragons and the crowned crests of a coma of blue lightnings, and when night has fallen I, delivered, shall read my course in the stars."
- Antoine de Saint Exupéry from Wind, Sand and Stars
Held in Montreal, Expo 67 (The 1967 International and Universal Exposition, a sort of "Worlds Fair") was nicknamed "Man and his World", taken from Antoine de Saint Exupéry's memoir Terre des hommes, (literally "Land of Men"), translated as Wind, Sand and Stars. Housing was one of the main themes of Expo 67. Habitat 67 (above) then became a thematic pavilion visited by thousands of visitors who came from around the world. During Expo 67 it was also the temporary residence of the many dignitaries coming to Montreal.
Nice old-school poster for the Expo 67 :
"It is considered to be the most successful World's Fair of the 20th century, with over 50 million visitors and 62 nations participating. It also set the single-day attendance record for a world's fair with 569,000 visitors on its third day. Expo 67 was Canada's main celebration during its centennial year. The fair was originally intended to be held in Moscow, to help the Soviet Union celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution but, for various reasons, the Soviets decided to cancel, and Canada was awarded it in the fall of 1962." Knick-knack misc things of the day...
0 Responses to 'Confluence'