Still feel a strong affinity for Ned Rorem's diary entries. Could have sworn I were him in a past life but wait, we're alive at the same time aren't we? Anyway I don't care, I'm just gonna binge quoting him.
How many thousands have I spent on perfume and alcohol, cigarettes and Turkish baths, disappointing trips and third-class movies; how many months in silent bars or parks, expecting, in a chair with a book not reading, or waiting in line, waiting in line? Who will tell me it's a loss when I know life must be for pleasure? The parks were balanced by museums, the baths by oceans, bars by composition, and the dreaming chair by books finished. Nothing is waste that makes a memory. Only an American bothers to consider such "justification", turning out souvenirs on the assembly line.
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Is art odd- or even-numbered? The Rockettes are even-numbered (6 x 6 = 36) but the best corps de ballet seems odd-numbered - or even-numbered oddly distributed, whereas how can you distribute odd numbers evenly (i.e. in pairs)? Yet iambic pentameter, which would appear the ultimate in odd-numberedness, ends up being in six, since there's an instinctive pause at each line's end. Look at Stravinsky's early odd balance, or Bach's even unbalance. The unexpected (which is art) is always odd, but (as art must) it always evens out. It's as clear in space as in time. One square is a bore (hence the slang; square) while circles are forever magic.
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A diary has impact only through the accumulation of unlimited observations (of which many are obsessive and recurring), never through the development of themes (for then it would no longer be a diary). Works of art must have a plan; beginnings and ends. A diary necessarily has no form beyond the accidental one of improvisation; hence, though it cannot be a work of art (improvisation precludes this), perhaps it can be a masterpiece.
How many thousands have I spent on perfume and alcohol, cigarettes and Turkish baths, disappointing trips and third-class movies; how many months in silent bars or parks, expecting, in a chair with a book not reading, or waiting in line, waiting in line? Who will tell me it's a loss when I know life must be for pleasure? The parks were balanced by museums, the baths by oceans, bars by composition, and the dreaming chair by books finished. Nothing is waste that makes a memory. Only an American bothers to consider such "justification", turning out souvenirs on the assembly line.
+++
Is art odd- or even-numbered? The Rockettes are even-numbered (6 x 6 = 36) but the best corps de ballet seems odd-numbered - or even-numbered oddly distributed, whereas how can you distribute odd numbers evenly (i.e. in pairs)? Yet iambic pentameter, which would appear the ultimate in odd-numberedness, ends up being in six, since there's an instinctive pause at each line's end. Look at Stravinsky's early odd balance, or Bach's even unbalance. The unexpected (which is art) is always odd, but (as art must) it always evens out. It's as clear in space as in time. One square is a bore (hence the slang; square) while circles are forever magic.
+++
A diary has impact only through the accumulation of unlimited observations (of which many are obsessive and recurring), never through the development of themes (for then it would no longer be a diary). Works of art must have a plan; beginnings and ends. A diary necessarily has no form beyond the accidental one of improvisation; hence, though it cannot be a work of art (improvisation precludes this), perhaps it can be a masterpiece.
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