The Death of a Nation

Syria

On Air

Chris Bracey

Rothko Surfaces

"Two characters exist in my paintings;  either their surfaces are expansive and push outward in all directions, or their surfaces contract and rush inward in all directions. Between these two poles you can find everything I want to say."

Mark Rothko

Diary Poetry

Nick Cave

Keith Haring

Marylin Monroe

Leonardo da Vinci

Dieter Roth

Authors' diaries

Schedule Poetry

Joseph Heller

Norman Mailer

J. K.Rowling

Authors workplans

Norwegian Wood

Norwegian Wood

I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me...

She showed me her room, isn't it good, Norwegian wood?

She asked me to stay and she told me to sit anywhere,

So I looked around and I noticed there wasn't a chair.

I sat on a rug, biding my time, drinking her wine

We talked until two and then she said, "It's time for bed"

She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh.

I told her I didn't and crawled off to sleep in the bath

And when I awoke, I was alone, this bird had flown

So I lit a fire, isn't it good, Norwegian wood.

Haruki Murakami: Norwegian Wood

The Malebolge

In Dante Allighieri's Interno Malebolge is the eighth circle of Hell, a large, funnel-shaped cavern divided into ten concentric circular ditches. Here the fraudulent are punished, "from top to bottom: the seducers whipped by demons... the flatterers adrift in human excrement... the clerical profiteers half buried upside down with their legs  in the air... the sorcerers with their heads twisted backward... the corrupt politicians in boiling pitch... the hypocrites wearing heavy leaden cloaks... the thieves bitten by snakes... the fraudulent counselors consumed by fire... the sowers of discord hacked apart by demons...  and finally, the liars, who are diseased beyond recognition."

Dan Brown: Inferno

Dante

Tea Art

"The first cup of tea moistens my lips and throat, the second cup breaks my loneliness, the third cup searches my barren entrails but to find therein some five thousand volumes of odd ideographs. The fourth cup raises a slight perspiration - all the wrong of life passes away through my pores. At the fifth cup I am purified; the sixth cup calls me to the realms of immortals. The seventh cup - I only feel the breath of cool wind that rises in my sleeves... Let me ride on this sweet breeze and waft away..."

Lu Tung

Kakuzo Okakura: The Book of Tea

List Poetry

Sid Vicious List

"Things I dislike: sleeping in an apartment alone, cold weather, couples, football games, swimming, anchovies, moustaches, cats, umbrellas, being photographed, the taste of licorice, washing my hair (or having it washed), wearing a wristwatch, giving a lecture, cigars, writing letters, taking showers, Robert Frost, German food.

Things I like: ivory, sweaters, architectural drawings, urinating, pizza (the Roman bread), staying in hotels, paper clips, the colour blue, leather belts, making lists, Wagon-Lits, paying bills, caves, watching ice-skating, asking questions, taking taxis, Benin art, green apples, office furniture, Jews, eucalyptus trees, pen knives, aphorisms, hands."

Susan Sontag

"The list is the origin of culture. It’s part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order — not always, but often. And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogs, through collections in museums and through encyclopedias and dictionaries...”

Umberto Eco

Thief Poetry

When I opened my car here was this man with my stereo in his hand. Answering my question "what are you doing here" he said:

"I am a thief and this is what I do for living."

Having said this he left my car and walked away in the December sunset.