Madness, ruin, and death; T.S. Eliot’s poetry was a lamentation on the fall of civilization in World War One, written with brilliance, a fragile beauty, and immense scholarship. In The Wasteland alone we have The Grail Quest and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the Iliad, Dante, The Tempest, the Satyricon, the Call of … Continue reading T.S. Eliot, on his birthday September 26 2025 revision
Madness and the nature of evil, grotesques, stream of consciousness, Rashomon-like multiple perspectives; William Faulkner employed the methods of James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and Ryunosuke Akutagawa in a Modernist grand subversion of realism throughout an enormous series of Surrealist alternate reality novels in a brilliantly imagined American South. Drawing on Shakespearean and … Continue reading William Faulkner, on his birthday September 25 2025 revision
Maurice Blanchot is a matador, wielding the sword of Nietzsche against the atavistic barbarism and monstrous brutality of history and of authoritarian tyrannies, his words swirling like a cloak of diversion and concealment. And it is as a performance that I esteem his works classics of world literature; with dazzling wit, nimbleness, and grace he … Continue reading Maurice Blanchot, on his birthday September 22
Strangeness and dreamworlds, nonsequitors and wordplay, fantasies which intrude into our reality and realities which fragment and grow in kaleidoscopic transforms of gorgeousness; William Carlos Williams jostles our expectations and unbalances his readers to make us see anew. Like so much of American poetry, his was built on the foundation of Walt Whitman’s poetics … Continue reading William Carlos Williams, on his birthday September 17 2025 revision
As from a genie’s lamp Pierre Reverdy summoned Dada, Surrealism, Cubism, and a cinematographic poetics. His reimagination of literary and visual arts was crucial in the invention of the modern world; read therefore his poetry, and his novels The Thief of Talant and Haunted House. There are many interesting connections between Pierre Reverdy … Continue reading Pierre Reverdy, on his birthday September 13 2025 revision
Bataille remains a figure of transgression as the art of freedom; his championing and discipleship of Nietzsche, influence on Henry Miller and William S. Burroughs, his great friendship with Jacques Lacan and fiery relationship with Simone Weil, and above all his creation of Surrealism with his great rival Andre Breton resonate through our civilization … Continue reading Georges Bataille, on his birthday September 10 2025 revision
“Joy can be real only if people look on their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.” “The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens … Henceforth, I shall never serve … Continue reading Leo Tolstoy, on his birthday September 9 2026 revision
“I call monster every original inexhaustible beauty.” Alfred Jarry Absurdities, grotesques, obscenities and diatribes of revolutionary guerilla theatre; Alfred Jarry’s bizarre performances forged an art of protest and inspired some of the most glorious and subversive art the world has ever known. A wellspring of Absurdism, Dadaism, Surrealism, and among the greatest of … Continue reading Alfred Jarry, on his birthday September 8 2025 revision
Antonin Artaud takes us with him on his quest to see beyond the Illusion of the world, to transcend appearances and reunite with the Infinite which is also our true source and image; those truths immanent in nature and written in our flesh. We his readers are born along on his adventures like a … Continue reading Antonin Artaud, on his birthday September 4 2025 revision
Here is the lived experience of humanity, as observed and described by a seer whose great power is to fully inhabit the lives of others, with the profound empathy of a secret twin. Eduardo Galeano has made of us an icon of human being, meaning, and value; his writing sacralizes the everyman. His social … Continue reading Eduardo Galeano, on his birthday September 3 2025 revision
Dollhouse Park Conservatory & Imaginarium 