found in our basement, a relic of second grade.
Mark at the Pony Club, Buenos Aires.
NOTHING THAT IS COMPLETE BREATHES.
I have a new mantra on my desktop… took this photo at the pumpkin patch in the Hamptons last year. The quote is from an incredible little book I randomly picked up off the shelf at V Spot. It’s called Voices, a James Merrill translation of Antonio Porchia’s aphorisms, which as far as I can tell may be more rightly called poetry. I’d never heard of him (and when I dragged my Dad to V Spot for a smoky uncomfortable brunch and look-see at the little chapbook, found out Dad hadn’t either), but apparently he’s kind of a big deal. Born in Italy, lived in Buenos Aires from the early 1910’s, i.e. my Grandfather’s childhood years. In the book’s introduction there is some question as to whether Porchia was a potter or a carpenter, possibly he was both. Certainly a lot of the aphorisms take clay as their central image, so I’m leaning in that direction. Anyway Porchia was a bit of an autodidact, with not so much exposure to the contemporary literary world, but its luminaries were very taken with him. They tried to prove he was untainted by au courant influences, and marveled at Argentina’s homegrown savant from afar. In the lunchtime quiet at V Spot, so many of the quotes spoke to me, I just had to write them down, and in the time it took me to finish my California burger I had a two-page scroll full of Porchia…
birds of paradise = fountains of energy, to a child. This one was the victim of much anthropomorphism in my memory photos/animism scrapbook. Can’t resist the beaks even w/o the orange puffin-feather on top.
Mark en el Pony Club de chiquito. So cute.
messing around in the studio
We’re not the jet set,
we’re the old chevrolet set.
But ain’t we got love.
Tender sentiments from the boys at St. Andrews, lovingly bound into a book to read on my flight to America.
See what happens when you don’t choose a Quaker private school?
My grandfather stressed me out with his overconcern…I overreacted and got this lovely me-on-a-donkey in return.
