Wednesday, June 25, 2008

to serenade the fields...

fieldmusic

here we have a young man with a victrola and a giant horn. perhaps he has come to serenade the fields. perhaps he has a gramophone record of francis ponge, and the horn speaks excerpts from ponge's faune et flore about plants, to plants:

"they have no voices. they are all but paralyzed. they can only attract attention by their postures.

they have no movement other than extension.their every gesture, thought, perhaps desire, intention, ends up a monstrous growth, an irremediable outgrowth, of their bodies.

no gestures; they simply multiply their arms, hands, fingers - like buddhas. this is how sedentary beings carry their thoughts to logical conclusion. they're no more than a will to expression.

their only means of attracting attention are postures, lines, now and then an exceptional signal, and extraordinary appeal to our eyes and sense of smell in the form of light bulbs and perfume atomizers that are called flowers and are probably wounds.

animals express themselves orally or with gestures that erase each other. vegetable expression is written down once and for all. there's no way of retracting it; second thoughts are ruled out: revision is only by addenda.

an infinite variety of feelings born of desire in a state of immobility gives rise to their infinite diversity of forms."quotes from francis ponge selected poems 1994

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4 Comments:

Blogger Will said...

Gorgeous stuff. You & Ponge just made my day.

Check out the quote from Caillois' Writing of Stones on my site.

1:08 PM  
Blogger sroden said...

thanks will, i checked out your blog, jeez we have a lot of books in common... walser, gracq, etc. great stuff. i'll add you to my sorely outdated links, and thanks for the kind words. steve

6:46 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow. I discovered your site while reviewing "Victrola Favorites". A minefield/treasure trove. Thank you!

7:42 PM  
Blogger sroden said...

hi anonymous, thanks for the note. victrola favorites is amazing and i was happy to have a tiny part in it. glad you like the blog, haven't posted many 78s lately so perhaps next week!

11:34 PM  

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