“I believe in my own obsessions, in the beauty of the car crash, in the peace of the submerged forest, in the excitements of the deserted holiday beach, in the elegance of automobile graveyards, in the mystery of multi-storey car parks, in the poetry of abandoned hotels.”
(via feastingonroadkill)
N50
“This folio is one of the most closely filled in the notebook. In the centre, we see a naked figure of a man, on the point of stabbing himself with a dagger held in his right hand. In a later emblem in the notebook, Blake suggests that those who take their own lives cannot go to heaven, yet here the man is turning his face towards heaven with a hopeful – and possibly ironic – gaze.”
N99 & N98
“We see workings here of several poems for which the notebook has been rotated to enter fair copies of poems. We see workings here of several poems, including ‘Several Questions Answerd’ in the top left, with lines salvaged from previous drafts in the notebook (see N103). To the right of this poem, ‘Let the Brothels of Paris be opened’ is a strongly felt criticism of the overindulgent French monarchy. The poet’s attack on Marie Antoinette in the final stanza (‘The Queen of France just touchd this Globe And the Pestilence darted from her robe’) distorts Edmund Burke’s romantic description of the French Queen and Court in his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790): ‘surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision.'”
“Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.”
(mildly NSFW)
“Hush, the babies are sleeping, the farmers, the fishers, the tradesmen and pensioners, cobbler, schoolteacher, postman and publican, the undertaker and the fancy woman, drunkard, dressmaker, preacher, policeman, the webfoot cocklewomen and the tidy wives.”
“A poem is an act of memory, first forged out of the need to remember what would otherwise be forgotten – in an oral tradition record-keeping is an art, not an act of administration.”
I’ve redone Toad with titles and have come up with a 49 word synopsis:
“God’s taps gleamed far above, like Chomolungma’s peak, but they leaked . The Devil’s toad sat by the death plug unable to progress beyond early meiotic division. Although distressed by Charons pet nymphs, it gained succour from the drip and stole time before new washers arrived.
Short psychedelic whimsey.”
It’s at MySpace and YouTube. Any ratings or comments given will be rewarded with kind thoughts and loving regards.
16 years later and I managed to get my shit together and make myself another animated short.
Time has been limited, so although a bit low on the content side, it’s mostly gut instinct, with hardly any sensible thought getting in the way.
It’s called “Toad” and you can see it at either MySpace or YouTube, depending on which side you like your corporate bread buttered.
Hopefully, it ‘s the first of a few, and next time, I might even start with a script.
Paul Greer 