Canto XLV

With Usura

With usura hath no man a house of good stone
each block cut smooth and well fitting
that design might cover their face,
with usura
hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall
harpes et luz
or where virgin receiveth message
and halo projects from incision,
with usura
seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines
no picture is made to endure nor to live with
but it is made to sell and sell quickly
with usura, sin against nature,
is thy bread ever more of stale rags
is thy bread dry as paper,
with no mountain wheat, no strong flour
with usura the line grows thick
with usura is no clear demarcation
and no man can find site for his dwelling.
Stonecutter is kept from his tone
weaver is kept from his loom
WITH USURA
wool comes not to market
sheep bringeth no gain with usura
Usura is a murrain, usura
blunteth the needle in the maid’s hand
and stoppeth the spinner’s cunning. Pietro Lombardo
came not by usura
Duccio came not by usura
nor Pier della Francesca; Zuan Bellin’ not by usura
nor was ‘La Calunnia’ painted.
Came not by usura Angelico; came not Ambrogio Praedis,
Came no church of cut stone signed: Adamo me fecit.
Not by usura St. Trophime
Not by usura Saint Hilaire,
Usura rusteth the chisel
It rusteth the craft and the craftsman
It gnaweth the thread in the loom
None learneth to weave gold in her pattern;
Azure hath a canker by usura; cramoisi is unbroidered
Emerald findeth no Memling
Usura slayeth the child in the womb
It stayeth the young man’s courting
It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth
between the young bride and her bridegroom
                           CONTRA NATURAM
They have brought whores for Eleusis
Corpses are set to banquet
at behest of usura.

2012: A Year in Cinema

L'Apollonide: Souvenirs de la maison close (Bertrand Bonello, 2011)
Napoléon vu par Abel Gance (Abel Gance, 1927)
The Rising of the Moon (John Ford, 1957)
Barry Lyndon (Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
Trás-os-Montes (Margarida Cordeiro & Antonio Reis, 1976)
Leonard Cohen - The Partisan - Le partisan - Original 1969 - French TV (Leonard Cohen, 1969)
Ana (Margarida Cordeiro & Antonio Reis, 1984)
Doctor Zhivago (David Lean, 1965)
Tabu (Miguel Gomes, 2012)
Titanic 3D (James Cameron, 1997/2012)
Jeonju Digital Project 2012, Raya Martin Message (Raya Martin, 2012)
The Return (Nathaniel Dorsky, 2011)
The Enjoyment of Reading (Lost and Found) (David Gatten, 2001)
The Great Art of Knowing (David Gatten, 2004)
August and After (Nathaniel Dorsky, 2012)
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Rupert Wyatt, 2011)
The Devil, Probably (Robert Bresson, 1977)
Secret History of the Dividing Line (David Gatten, 2002)
Pastourelle (Nathaniel Dorsky, 2010)
Mera Naam Joker / My Name is Joker (Raj Kapoor, 1970)
Leviathan (Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Verena Paravel, 2012)
Apocalypse Now (Jessie Darling, 2012)
Moxon's Mechanick Exercises, or, The Doctrine of Handy-Works Applied to the Art of Printing (David Gatten, 2004)
Somebody Up There Likes Me (Bob Byington, 2012)
Collateral (Michael Mann, 2004)
A Dog's Life (Charles Chaplin, 1918)
The North Star (Lewis Milestone, 1943)
Tristana (Luis Buñuel, 1970)
Ape (Joel Potrykus, 2012)
Mad Detective (Johnnie To & Wai Ka-fai, 2007)
Goodbye First Love (Mia Hansen-Løve, 2011)
Moonstruck (Norman Jewison, 1987)
So Sure of Nowhere Buying Times to Come (David Gatten, 2010)
Film for Invisible Ink, Case No. 323: Once Upon a Time in the West (David Gatten, 2010)
How to Conduct a Love Affair (David Gatten, 2007)
The Matter Propounded, Of Its Possibility or Impossibility, Treated in Four Parts (David Gatten, 2011)
The Shawshank Redemption (Frank Darabont, 1994)
Hitler's Madman (Douglas Sirk, 1943)
Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present (Matthew Akers & Jeff Dupre, 2012)
Margaret (Extended Cut) (Kenneth Lonergan, 2011 / 2012)
Tony Scott (Phil Coldiron, 2012)
Lonely Are the Brave (David Miller, 1962)
Dodsworth (William Wyler, 1936)
Miss Bala (Gerardo Naranjo, 2011)
Human Desire (Fritz Lang, 1954)
The Wild Child (François Truffaut, 1970)
We Won't Grow Old Together (Maurice Pialat, 1972)
D.O.A. (Rudolph Maté, 1950)
Beggars of Life (William A. Wellman, 1928)
Philadelphia (Jonathan Demme, 1993)
The Case of the Grinning Cat (Chris Marker, 2004)
Mudar de Vida (Paulo Rocha, 1966) 
Indiscretion of an American Wife (Vittorio De Sica, 1953)
Love Affair (Leo McCarey, 1939)
Rembrandt's J'Accuse (Peter Greenaway, 2008)
The Spanish Earth (Joris Ivens, 1937)
Run of the Arrow (Samuel Fuller, 1957)
Halftime in America (David Gordon Green, 2012)
View from an Engine Front - Barnstaple (1898) (1898)
The Exile (Max Ophuls, 1947)
Robbery (Oliver Ressler, 2012)
Wind Across the Everglades (Nicholas Ray, 1958)
An Owl Is An Owl (Chris Marker, 1990)
Cat Listening to Music (Chris Marker, 1990)
Post Tenebras Lux (Carlos Reygadas, 2012)
The Immigrant (Charles Chaplin, 1917)
Zoo Piece (Chris Marker, 1990)
Remembrance of Things to Come (Chris Marker & Yannick Bellon, 2003)
Jaime (Margarida Cordeiro & Antonio Reis, 1974)
The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics (Chuck Jones, 1965)
Slon Tango (Chris Marker, 1993)
Beyond the Hills (Cristian Mungiu, 2012)
Bullfight in Okinawa (Chris Marker, 1992)
Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies (Arne Glimcher, 2008)
Le Jour se lève (Marcel Carné, 1939)
Gladiator (Ridley Scott, 2000)
Daisies (Věra Chytilová, 1966)
MacGruber (Jorma Taccone, 2010)
Extinction Number Six (Rachel Thompson, 2011) [trailer]
The Key (Michael Curtiz, 1934)
Time Bandits (Terry Gilliam, 1981)
Copia imperfecta (José Luis Torres Leiva, 2012)
In Tahrir Square: 18 Days of Egypt's Unfinished Revolution (Jon Alpert & Matthew O'Neill, 2011)
Conte de printemps (Dani Abo Louh & Mohamad Omrad, 2011)
Homs: City Under Siege (anonymous/CNN, 2012)
Dots (Norman McLaren, 1940)
Men in Black (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1997)
Valerie and her Week of Wonders (Jaromil Jireš, 1970)
The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)
Alice (Jan Švankmajer, 1988)
Paradise: Love (Ulrich Seidl, 2012)
Junkopia (Chris Marker, 1981)
Five Million Years to Earth (Roy Ward Baker, 1967)
La femme publique (Andrzej Żuławski, 1984)
Logan's Run (Michael Anderson, 1976)
Montreal in the 60's (Jimmy Deschênes, 2009)
Something in the Air (Olivier Assayas, 2012)
Reality (Matteo Garrone, 2012)
The Mask of Dimitrios (Jean Negulesco, 1944)
The Bitter Tea of General Yen (Frank Capra, 1933)
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (Kevin Reynolds, 1991)
The Flame and the Arrow (Jacques Tourneur, 1950)
Rosa de Areia (Margarida Cordeiro & Antonio Reis, 1989)
We Eat the Fruit of the Trees of Paradise (Věra Chytilová, 1970)
Septien (Michael Tully, 2011)
View From An Engine Front - Ilfracombe (1898)
Gun Fury (Raoul Walsh, 1953)
Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin, 2012)
Room in Rome (Julio Medem, 2010)
Faster (George Tillman, Jr, 2010)
Sun Don't Shine (Amy Seimetz, 2012)
Almanac of Fall (Béla Tarr, 1984)

Civilized Society.

Le Mépris

Read Quote of Dave McDougall's answer to What is Godard's greatest film? on Quora

desire/possibility; history/modernity

***

“The subject of the cinema [...] prefers to verify that something else is still possible (a body, a friend, a world)”

- Nicole Brenez, “The Ultimate Journey: Remarks on Contemporary Theory”

. . .

[Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg, 2012) / Solidarity (Joyce Wieland, 1973)]

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. A DECLARATION By the REPRESENTATIVES of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, In GENERAL CONGRESS assembled.

WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness—-That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security. 

[et seq.]

farce, realism.

When the golden couple married, in 1947,
the following was lavished on the ceremony:
jewellery from other royals, a washing machine, a fridge,
76 handkerchiefs, 148 pairs of stockings,
38 handbags, 16 night gowns,
500 cases of tinned pineapple, 10,000 telegrams,
2000 guests, 5 Kings, 7 Queens,
8 Princes and 10 Princesses,
and for the 10,000 pearls sewn onto her wedding dress,
Her Majesty allegedly saved all her clothing coupons.
Even more money was wasted on her Coronation,
as yet another fossil monarchy justified its existence by tradition
and deluded itself with the notion of 'duty'.
Privileged to the last, whilst in England's green and pleasant land,
the rest of the nation survived on rationing
in some of the worst slums in Europe.

[...]


"The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time." (Willem de Kooning)
The trouble with being rich, is that it takes up everybody else's.
After farce. Realism.

- Terence Davies, Of Time and the City

The U.K. will commemorate the Queen’s 60 years on the throne next week with two public holidays–and some public sector workers will get three days off including Friday June 1–but there are fears that the resulting loss of output could mean the difference between gross domestic product expansion and contraction in the second quarter of this year.

A 2011 study from the OECD showed the gap between the highest and lowest paid has grown more quickly in Britain than in any other advanced economy over the past three decades.

A monarch in a barge like a burnished throne, sailing up London's river from Chelsea, home of oligarchs and plutocrats, to the City, home of the unpunished financial sector for whose misdeeds the rest of us are paying, cannot be a value-free act. Contemporary London offends as well as dazzles. So can the monarchy.

Back to Mesopotamia?
https://www.bcg.com/documents/file87307.pdf

by Banksy

a film about the Holocaust

"We, the survivors, are not the true witnesses.... We survivors are not only an exiguous but also an anomalous minority: we are those who by their prevarications or abilities or good luck did not touch bottom. Those who did so, those who saw the Gorgon, have not returned to tell about it or have returned mute, but they are the “Muslims,” the submerged, the complete witnesses, the ones whose deposition would have a general significance. They are the rule, we are the exception."
- Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved

“In the Holocaust, I discovered the human condition, the terminus of a great adventure at which Europeans arrived after two thousand years of culture and morality.”
- Imre Kertész

and of course, the oft-forgotten final image...


[quotes via Genocide and the Fine Arts, Adam Thirlwell's review of Claude Lanzmann's The Patagonian Hare: A Memoir]

the possibility of intervening

"The occupations movement was the sudden return of the proletariat as a historical class, a proletariat now enlarged to include a majority of the salaried employees of modern society and still tending toward the real abolition of classes and of wage labor. The movement was a rediscovery of collective and individual history, an awakening to the possibility of intervening in history, an awareness of participating in an irreversible event."
 - The Beginning of an Era (Internationale Situationniste #12, September 1969)

MORTS POUR LA FRANCE

You asked for neither glory nor tears,
Not the sound of the organ or the prayer for the dying;
Eleven years already, how quickly they pass, eleven years;
You did naught but use your weapons:
Death doesn’t dazzle the eyes of partisan.

Your portraits were on the walls of our cities,
The black of beards and night, wild-haired, threatening;
The poster seemed like a stain of blood, and
Because your names were so hard to pronounce
It sought to strike fear in those who passed.

No one looked on you as French by preference,
The whole day people passed without a glance;
But at the hour of curfew
Wandering fingers wrote under your photos:
DIED FOR FRANCE,
And the dismals mornings were no more the same.

All had the uniform color of frost
At the end of February, at your last moments;
And then it was that one of you calmly said:
I wish happiness for all, Happiness for those who will survive
I die without hatred for the German people.

Adieu pain, adieu pleasure, adieu roses
Adieu life, adieu light and wind;
Marry, be happy and think of me often,
You who will remain among the beauty of things
When things are over later in Erevan.

A great winter sun illuminates the hill
How beautiful is nature, and how my heart breaks;
Justice will follow upon our triumphant steps
My Melinée, oh my love, my orphan girl,
I tell you to live and to have a child.

They were twenty-three when the gun barrels blossomed,
Twenty three who gave their hearts before their time,
Twenty three foreigners and yet our brothers,
Twenty three who loved life to death;
Twenty three who cried out “La France” as they were struck down.
- Strophes pour se souvenir, Louis Aragon

a party

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