Vitro Nasu

W.S. Merwin – (wiki)

During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin’s unique craft was thematically characterized by indirect, unpunctuated narration. In the 1980s and 1990s, Merwin’s writing influence derived from his interest in Buddhist philosophy and deep ecology. Residing in a rural part of Maui, Hawaii, he writes prolifically and is dedicated to the restoration of the islands’ rainforests.

The Ascetic Insight of W. S Merwin (New Yorker)

“For the Anniversary of My Death”:

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day
When the last fires will wave to me
And the silence will set out
Tireless traveler
Like the beam of a lightless star

Then I will no longer
Find myself in life as in a strange garment
Surprised at the earth
And the love of one woman
And the shamelessness of men
As today writing after three days of rain
Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease
And bowing not knowing to what

Maui Now birthday tribute to W.S. Merwin

The State of Hawaiʻi will also be present, issuing a Gubernatorial Proclamation proclaiming Sept. 30, 2017, as “W.S. Merwin Day” in Hawaiʻi and presenting Merwin with a special Gubernatorial Commendation for his life-long achievements.

On reading slowly and reading what you want and the beauty of trees.

A Great American Poet in Conversation with Paul Holdengraber

Elia Kazan, Marlon, Julie Harris and James Dean (Marlon visiting the set of East of Eden)

James Dean

See more photos of Martin Landau and James Dean – here

At the farm photo by Dennis Stock

James with pig photo by Dennis Stock

Immoralist photos (scroll down to see James Dean with Geraldin Page)

“He didn’t show you very much. He’d challenge you to find him. Then when you’d found him, he’d still make you guess. It was an endless game with him. The thing people missed about Jimmy was his mischievousness. He was the most constantly mischievous person I think I’ve ever met. Full of tricks, full of magic, full of outrageousness.”
—Stewart Stern

“Every time I go to Europe, I remember that James Dean never saw Europe, but yet I see his face everywhere. There’s James Dean, Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe – windows of the Champs Elysees, discos in the south of Spain, restaurants in Sweden, t-shirts in Moscow. My life was confused and disoriented for years by his passing. My sense of destiny destroyed – the great films he would have directed, the great performances he would have given, the great humanitarian he would have become, and yet, he’s the greatest actor and star I have ever known.”
— Dennis Hopper

James Dean died on Sept 30, 1955 – visit James Dean (homepage)

L’immoralist
Louis Jourdan and James Dean

Photo collage by Fung Lin Hall

Computer Weekly.com – Interview (The Original NSA Whistleblower)

Bill Binney, the ‘original’ NSA whistleblower, on Snowden, 9/11 and illegal surveillance

Binney was responsible for feeding targeting rules gleaned from the analysis back into the analytical tools. This self-refinement was key, allowing analysts to hone in on their targets, without the need for mass data collection.

Boing Boing – 9/11 could have been prevented

After his resignation, Binney and his fellow whistleblowers faced retaliation from the NSA, as the agency prevented him from getting work as a private intelligence contractor and eventually staged a guns-drawn dawn raid on his home.

Binney has been a sharp, articulate, deeply knowledgeable critic of mass electronic surveillance ever since, refusing to be intimidated by the NSA despite the risks to himself.

Aleppo by Paul Scott

Paul Scott from Refugees series

Paul Scott Refugees series

A City Life – Jared Fitzgerald

Jing de Zhen (Jared Fitzgerald)

Google Qing Fua Design

Blue and White Pottery (wiki) (青花)

Le Xue – Drinking Tea – humorous pottery

Looney Tunes by Le Xue

Plate from China – photo by Fung Lin Hall

Plate made in Czech Republic – photo by Fung Lin Hall

Porcelain statue of Ai Wei Wei by Michel Cox

Noise artists – Michel -Ai Wei Wei

Porcelain Cube (Ai Wei Wei)

Owl House – Ai Wei Wei

(photo via)

LA Times Obit

Stanton had a fondness for David Lynch, and Lynch had a fondness for him. He was cast as the ill-fated private detective in “Wild at Heart” and had roles in “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” and the recent reboot of “Twin Peaks: The Return”

He turned down a role in “Blue Velvet,” however, a part later given to Dennis Hopper.

Stanton was never married, though he had a long relationship with Rebecca De Mornay.

One of the most anticipated title is Lucky, actor John Carroll Lynch‘s directorial debut.
Lucky follows a ninety years old atheist, named Lucky, played by Harry Dean Stanton, coming to term with his fragile life and setting off on a journey of self-exploration. The film stares Ed Begley Jr, Ron Livingston, Tom Skerritt, Beth Grant and an appearance by David Lynch.

(via)

Stanton, who has appeared in more than 200 films and TV shows, including Alien, Paris, Texas and HBO’s Big Love, already worked with David Lynch on Wild At Heart and The Straight Story and will also appear in Lynch‘s Twin Peaks revival.

(When they were shooting Paris, Texas)

Julian Schnabel and Harry Dean Stanton

photo via

Joel-Peter Witkin, Anna Akhmatova, Paris, 1998

Joel-Peter Witkin is an American photographer who lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His work often deals with such themes as death, corpses, and various outsiders such as dwarves, transsexuals, intersex persons, and physically deformed people
wiki

(Born September 13, 1939 – Joel Peter Witkin is 77 years old.)

Joel-Peter Witkin

“A flamboyant creator, incredible story-teller and irresistible liar (his awakening to photography during a car accident that decapitated a little girl whose head fell into his arms probably didn’t exist, but never mind)’ a hallucinating culture, Joel, who lives in an Albuquerque ghetto (on a farm no less) has for 30 years been exploring the relationship between sacred and profane.”

See more and read JOEL-PETER WITKIN DAY: Heaven or Hell (Elizabeth Avedon Journal) here.

Las Meninas, New Mexico, from the “Twelve Photographs, 1993” book

Vienna Eye Phanthom, Philadelphia,1990

see 220 photographs by Witkin here.

Kate Millet by Alice Neel – 1970

Remembering Kate Millett by Katharine Stimpson

Kate Millett an influential feminist writer is dead at 82 (NYtimes)

.

Katherine Murray Millett was born on Sept 14, 1934, in St. Paul.
She attended Oxford University and was the first American woman to be awarded a postgraduate degree with first-class honors after studying at St Hilda’s College, Oxford.
The feminist, human rights, peace, civil rights, and anti-psychiatry movements were some of Millett’s principal causes. Her books were motivated by her activism, such as woman’s rights and mental health reform, and several were autobiographical memoirs that explored her sexuality, mental health, and relationships. Mother Millett and The Loony Bin Trip, for instance, dealt with family issues and the times when she was involuntarily committed to a nursing home. (via her wiki

Dinner for One – 1967 – Kate Millett

See more art by Kate Millet here

“The Basement” was disturbing but I had to read it.
Here is a review of the Basement by Duncan Mitchell

Happy Kate by Hyder in 1994.

Her homepage is here. – AN INVITATION TO THE WOMEN’S ART COLONY/FARM

Of course she went to Iran.

In 1981 Millett published Going to Iran, which was a new journalistic account of a trip she made to Iran in March 1979 to address Iranian feminists on International Women’s Day. The Shah of Iran had just abdicated, and the Ayatollah Khomeini had not yet fully consolidated his power. Nevertheless, Millett was soon expelled by the fundamentalist government for her feminist views. The chronicle is recorded in the rigorously honest style of her earlier works. (via)

Kate Millet

The Return of the Troublemaker (June 2001)

Society has lost its patience. So why isn’t she more downhearted? She smiles and says it’s because she is having too much fun. “I love making trouble. It’s a wonderful job. You don’t get paid but you have a lot of adventures.”

Flying with Kate Millet (previous post)
Sexual Politics was circulated before the publication of her thesis.

John Ashbery by Larry Rivers

NYtimes Obit

The Guardian obit

John Ashbery, an enigmatic genius of modern poetry whose energy, daring and boundless command of language raised American verse to brilliant and baffling heights, died early Sunday at age 90.

Poetry Foundation

Interview – John Ashbery (Paris Review)

John Ashbery by Jill Krementz
(painting on the wall by Jane Freilicher)

John Ashbery

Portrait of John Ashbery by Jane Freilicher

Fairefield Porter -Portrait of Schuyler and John Ashbery.. 57-58

Fairefield Porter Respect for Things as they are – (previous post on John Ashbery and Fairefield Porter)

Dan Chiasson (The New Yorker)

His early work was serene and beautiful; he then became rather frantic and trippy. He had a period of majesty unrivalled in recent poetry, stretching from the seventies through the nineties. His last phase was a kind of inventory of his mind, among the most interesting anyone has ever known. His method was to “snip off a length” of his consciousness, he said. It was, in part, a strike against the solemnities of achieved reputation, which confronted him everywhere in the forms of syllabi and colloquia.

Where is Rimbaud? (see a photo of John Ashbery and Rimbaud)

See a mixed media collage by John Ashbery (via Art News obit)