Saturday, February 9, 2008
A Conversation with Borges
Jennifer Acker's newly translated 'Conversation with Borges.'
Inspiring and gripping, much like Borges himself.
Read full text here.
A highlight from the Conversation:
'STUDENT: You said that in your life that you’ve been thankful for happiness, just as you’ve been thankful for pain, and you justified the inclusion of blindness. Why are you thankful for pain and blindness?
Because for an artist, and I try to be one, everything that happens is material for your work; sometimes it’s very difficult. Happiness doesn’t require anything more; it’s an end in itself. Unhappiness has to be transformed into something else; it has to be elevated to beauty. For an artist everything that happens to him has to be clay for his mold, and he must try to feel things this way, even if these gifts might be atrocities.'
graph per habitus
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3 comments:
yes. everything that happens is, indeed, material for the work. and isn't it all about the work, after all?
thanks, bri!
And my favorite bit would have to be: "Unhappiness has to be transformed into something else; it has to be elevated to beauty."
Ganz Dogma!
well said Borges. On the brink to enlightenment! well, at least one step closer. Or even already enlightened. ELEVATE is a NOTION that is often used to describe a higher state of mind, as if high has a height factor to it. I would rather say EXPANDED to beauty or STRETCHED to beauty or even just REBORN to beauty...ok now it's a bit much. Ciao Strobo
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