M.C. Escher (June 17, 1898 – 1972) was a Dutch-Frisian graphic artist. He is known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints…
Here is a more Surrealist inspired piece:
Dream, 1935
Ordinary finds
From the latest hit to the wisdom of old...
In early 1926, Joyce’s sight was improving a little in one eye. It was about this time that Joyce paid a visit to his friend Myron C. Nutting, an American painter who had a studio in the Montparnasse section of Paris. To demonstrate his improving vision, Joyce picked up a thick black pencil and made a few squiggles on a sheet of paper, along with a caricature of a mischievous man in a bowler hat and a wide mustache–Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Ulysses. Next to Bloom, Joyce wrote in Greek (“with a minor error in spelling and characteristically skewed accents,” according to R. J. Schork in Greek and Hellenic Culture in Joyce) the opening passage of Homer’s Odyssey: “Tell me, muse, of that man of many turns, who wandered far and wide.”
(Source: openculture.com)
Reblogged from agooddaytodie|28 notes |#
Iain (M) Banks, fine Scottish writer, gone today at 59 from cancer of the gall bladder…
“People can be teachers and idiots; they can be philosophers and idiots; they can be politicians and idiots… in fact I think they have to be… a genius can be an idiot. The world is largely run for and by idiots; it is no great handicap in life and in certain areas is actually a distinct advantage and even a prerequisite for advancement.” ― Iain Banks, The Crow Road
Today we celebrate the birthday of the greatest 19th C. American poet, Walt Whitman: May 31, 1819 - 1892…
Photo: Unknown, could be J. W. Black or Alexander Gardner, 1860-4?
——
Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force,
Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation,
Into the school where the scholar is studying,
Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride,
Nor the peaceful farmer any peace, ploughing his field or gathering his grain,
So fierce you whirr and pound you drums—so shrill you bugles blow.
Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Over the traffic of cities—over the rumble of wheels in the streets;
Are beds prepared for sleepers at night in the houses? no sleepers must sleep in those beds,
No bargainers’ bargains by day—no brokers or speculators—would they continue?
Would the talkers be talking? would the singer attempt to sing?
Would the lawyer rise in the court to state his case before the judge?
Then rattle quicker, heavier drums—you bugles wilder blow.
Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!
Make no parley—stop for no expostulation,
Mind not the timid—mind not the weeper or prayer,
Mind not the old man beseeching the young man,
Let not the child’s voice be heard, nor the mother’s entreaties,
Make even the trestles to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses,
So strong you thump O terrible drums—so loud you bugles blow.
Reblogged from fuckyeah-surrealism|191 notes |#
Birthday of Salvador Dalí - May 11, 1904 - 1989 - Surrealist jester…
Salvador Dali: Melancholy Atomic Uranic Idyll, 1945
(via danielnolan)
(Source: deadpaint)
The ever-recurrent challenge for a visually oriented blog - how to celebrate intensely private authors such as Thomas Pynchon, who contrary to my hopes did not celebrate his 76th birthday today by going on Facebook with a fully public profile…
Ah well, now we have Instagram - which I am sure will cure his dislike of cameras once and for all!
Reblogged from iwhospeakawkwardly|100 notes |#
26 notes |#