un homme qui dort

Parfois, tu rêves que le sommeil est une mort lente qui te gagne, une anesthésie douce et terrible à la fois, une nécrose heureuse : le froid monte le long de tes jambes, le long de tes bras, monte lentement, t’engourdit, t’annihile . Ton orteil est une montagne lointain, ta jambe un fleuve, ta joue est ton oreiller, tu loges tout entier dans ton pouce, tu fonds, tu coules comme du sable, comme du mercure. Tu n’es plus qu’un grain de sable, homoncule recroquevillé, petite chose inconsistante, sans muscles, sans os, sans jambes, sans bras, sans cou, pieds et mains confondus, lèvres immenses qui t'avalent.

Gerges Perec, Un homme qui dort

un homme qui dort

Ceci est ta vie. Ceci est à toi. Tu peux faire l'exact inventaire de ta maigre fortune, le bilan précis de ton premier quart de siècle. Tu as vingt-cinq ans et vingt-neuf dents, trois chemises et huit chaussettes, quelques livres que tu ne lis plus, quelques disques que tu n'écoutes plus. Tu n'as pas envie de te souvenir d'autre chose, ni de ta famille, ni de tes études, ni de tes amours, ni de tes amis, ni de tes vacances, ni de tes projets. Tu as voyagé et tu n'as rien rapporté de tes voyages. Tu es assis et tu ne veux qu'attendre, attendre seulement jusqu'à ce qu'il y ait plus rien à attendre : que vienne la but, que sonne les heures, que les jours s'en aillent, que les souvenirs s'estompent.

Georges Perec, Un homme qui dort

médiation sur le péché

Il n'est pas nécessaire que tu sortes de ta maison. Reste à ta table et écoute. N'écoute même pas, attends seulement. N'attends même pas, sois absolument silencieux et seul. Le monde viendra s'offrir à toi pour que tu le démasques, il ne peut faire autrement, extasié, il se tordra devant toi. 

Franz Kafka, Médiation sur le péché, la souffrance, l'espoir et le vrai chemin

l'espace littéraire

Écrire, c'est se faire l'écho de ce qui ne peut cesser de parler, — et, à cause de cela, pour en devenir l'écho, je dois d'une certaine manière lui imposer silence. J'apporte à cette parole à incessante la décision, l'autorité de mon silence propre. Je rends possible, par ma médiation silencieuse, l'affirmation ininterrompue, le murmure géant sur lequel le langage en s'ouvrant devient image, devient imaginaire, profondeur parlante, indistincte plénitude qui est vide. Ce silence a sa source dans l'effacement auquel celui qui écrit est invité. Ou bien, il est la ressource de sa maîtrise, ce droit d'intervenir que garde la main qui n'écrit pas, la part de lui-même qui peut toujours dire non et, quand il le faut, en appelle au temps, restaure l'avenir. 

Maurice Blanchot, L'espace littéraire

l'attente l'oubli

Nous devons toujours, face à chaque instant, nous conduire comme s'il était éternel et qu'il attendît de nous de redevenir passager.
Ils s'entretenaient toujours de l'instant où ils ne seraient plus là, bien que sachant qu'ils seraient toujours là à s'entretenir d'un tel instant, ils pensaient qu'il n'y avait rien de plus digne de leur éternité que de la passer à en évoquer le terme.

Maurice Blanchot, l'Attente l'Oubli

l'attente l'oubli

Il croyait avoir appris la patience, mais il avait seulement perdu l'impatience. Il n'avait plus ni l'une ni l'autre, il n'avait que leur manque d'où il imaginait pouvoir tirer une ultime force. Sans patience, sans impatience, ne consentant ni ne refusant, abandonné sans abandon, se mouvant dans l'immobilité.
Avec qu'elle mélancolie, mais quelle calme certitude, il sentait qu'il ne pourrait plus jamais dire : «Je».

Maurice Blanchot, l'Attente l'Oubli

les îles

J'ai beaucoup rêvé d'arriver seul dans une ville étrangère, seul et dénué de tout. J'aurais vécu humblement, misérablement même. Avant tout j'aurais gardé le secret. Il m'a toujours semblé que parler de moi-même, montrer pour ce que j'étais, agir en mon nom, c'était précisément trahir quelque chose de moi, et le plus précieux. Quoi? Ce n'est sans doute qu'en signe de faiblesse, un manque de la force nécessaire à tout être pour non seulement exister mais affirmer son existence. Je ne suis plus dupe et ne présente pas cette infirmité de nature pour une supériorité d'âme. Mais il me reste toujours ce goût du secret. Je cache des actions insignifiantes pour ce plaisir d'avoir une vie â moi seul.

Une vie secrète. Non pas une vie solitaire, mais une vie secrète.

Jean Grenier, Les Îles

les îles

A qui l'aurais-je confiée? «Rassure-moi, lui disais-je, la nuit approche et avec elle se lèvent mes spectres familiers : j'ai peur. Trois fois : quand le jour tombe, quand je m'endors et quand je m'éveille. Trois fois ce que je croyais acquis m'abandonne… J'ai peur de ces moments qui ouvrent une porte sur le vide — quand la nuit montante cherche à t'étouffer, quand le sommeil t'engloutit, quand au milieu de la nuit tu fais le compte de ce que tu es, quand tu penses — à ce qui n'est pas. Le jour t'abuse, mais la nuit n'a pas de décor»

Jean Grenier, Les Îles

tombe la neige

triste certitude, le froid et l'absence
cet odieux silence, blanche solitude

last things last

A patch of red-orange iodine
moves into a clotted sky
Don't give in just yet
A group in service uniforms
stand outside a wooden door
she's laughing, "it's over...
time has been strange, oh..."
last things last is not enough,
you can't accept this
Don't give in just yet
I hope that last things last
past these first charms
these pale charms
I hope that last things last
a hook or a flake
to hold on so you don't break

rachel's last things last

the space between us

“I'm driving down the street when someone catches my eye. I turn the van around and pass by for another look. I pull over and park. Leaving the camera in the van. I approach. Always feeling a little bit like a traveling sales man. I ask ‘May I take your picture?’

‘Why me?’ They invariably ask.

If only I had a good answer, I'll say they are ‘interesting’ or ‘unique’, but that doesn't really explain anything. My attraction is as simple as complicated as sexual attraction. I'm not sure such things can be explained.

‘Just wait by those trees.’ I say, while I go to my van and gather my equipment. I returned and set up the camera. The subject waits. I put my head under the dark cloth and focus on the eyelashes. The subject waits. I move the camera two feet to the left. The subject waits. Five minutes have passed and I still haven't take a picture.

But this is the picture. The subject is in their space and I am in mine.

It is remarkable how little a photographic portrait reveals about the subject. You see their eyelashes but don't know their dreams. You see the trees but don't know their world. When I take a picture of a person, I'm not so much capturing that person as much as I am the space between us.”

— Alec Soth

a life full of holes

I thought: people say it's better to have no life at all than a life full of holes. But then they say: better an empty sack than no sack. I don't know.

— A Life Full Of Holes, Driss Ben Hamed Charhadi (1964), recorded and translated by Paul Bowles

the shared patio

One was named Trevor, and he was having a birthday party this Saturday. Please come! the invitation said. We'll have a whale of a time! and there was a picture of a real whale. I looked into its tiny wise eye and wondered where that eye was now. Was it alive and swimming, or had it died long ago, or was it dying now, right this second? When a whale dies, it falls down through the ocean slowly, over the course of a day. All the other fish see it fall, like a giant statue, like a building, but slowly, slowly, slowly. I focused my attention on the eye; I tried to reach down inside of it, toward the real whale, the dying whale, and I whispered, It's not your fault.

Miranda July, 'The Shared Patio' from No One Belongs Here More Than You

this person

Someone is getting excited. Somebody somewhere is shaking with excitement because something tremendous is about to happen to this person. This person has dressed for the occasion. This person has hoped and dreamed and now it is really happening and this person can hardly believe it. But believing is not an issue here, the time for faith and fantasy is over, it is really really happening. It involves stepping forward and bowing. Possibly there is some kneeling, such as when one is knighted. One is almost never knighted. But this person may kneel and receive a tap on each shoulder with a sword. Or, more likely, this person will be in a car or a store or under a vinyl canopy when it happens. Or online or on the phone. It could be an e-mail re: your knighthood. Or a long, laughing, rambling phone message in which every person this person has ever known is talking on a speakerphone and they are saying, You have passed the test, it was all just a test, we were only kidding, real life is so much better than that. This person is laughing out loud with relief and playing the message back to get the address of the place where every person this person has ever known is waiting to hug this person and bring her into the fold of life. It is really exciting, and it's not just a dream, it's real.
They are all waiting by a picnic table in a park this person has driven pas many times before. There they are, it's everyone. There are balloons taped to the benches, and the girl this person used to stand next to at the bus stop is waving a streamer. Everyone is smiling. For a moment this person is almost creeped out by the scene, but it would be so like this person to become depressed on the happiest day ever, and so this person buck up and joins the crowd.
Teachers of subjects that this person wasn't even good at are kissing this person and renouncing the very subjects they taught. Math teachers are saying that math was just a funny way of saying "I love you." But now they are simply saying it, I love you, and the chemistry and PE teachers are also saying it and this person can tell they really mean it. It's totally amazing. Certain jerks and idiots and assholes appear from time to time, and it is as if they have had plastic surgery, their faces are disfigured with love. The handsome assholes are plain and kind, and the ugly jerks are sweet, and they are folding this person's sweater and putting it somewhere where it won't get dirty. Best of all, every person this person has ever loved is there. Even the ones who got away. They hold this person's hand and tell this person how hard it was to pretend to get and and drive off and never come back. This person almost can't believe it, it seemed so real, this person's heart was broken and has healed and now this person hardly knows what to think. This person is almost mad. But everyone soothes this person. Everyone explains that it was absolutely necessary to know how strong this person was. Oh, look, there's the doctor who prescribed the medicine that made this person temporarily blind. And the man who paid this person two thousand dollars to have sex with him three times when this person was very broke. Both of these men are in attendance, they seem to know each other. They both have little medals that they are pinning on this person; they are badges of great honor and strength. The badges sparkle in the sunlight, and everyone cheers.
This person suddenly feels the need to check her post office box. It is an old habit, and even if everything is going to be terrific from now on, this person still wants mail. This person says she will be right back and everyone this person has every known says, Fine, take your time. This person gets in her car and drives to the post office and opens the box and there is nothing. Even though it is a Tuesday, which is famously a good day for mail. This person is so disappointed, this person gets back in the car and, having completely forgotten about the picnic, drives home and checks the voice mail and there are no new messages, just the old one about "passing the test" and "life being better." There are no e-mails, either, probably because everyone is at the picnic. This person can't seem to go back to the picnic. This person realizes that staying home means blowing off everyone this person has ever known. But the desire to stay in is very strong. This person wants to runs a bath and then read in bed.
In the bathtub this person pushed the bubbles around and listens to the sound of millions of them popping at once. It almost makes one smooth sound instead of may tiny sounds. This person's breasts barely just of of the water. This person pushed the bubbles onto the breasts and makes weired shapes with the foam. By now everyone must have realized that this person is not coming back to the picnic. Everyone was wrong; this person is not who they thought this person was. This person plunges underwater and moves her hair around like a sea anemone. This person can stay underwater for an impressively long time but only in a bathtub. This person wonders if there will ever be an Olympic contest for holding your breath under baQthwater. If there were such a contest, this person would surely win it. An Olympic medal might redeem this person in the eyes of everyone this person has every known. But no such contest exists, so there will be no redeeming. This person mourns the fact that she has ruined her one chance to be loved by everyone; as this person climbs into bed, the weight of this tragedy seems to bear down upon this person's chest. And it is a comforting weight, almost human in heft. This person sighs. This person's eyes begin to close, this person sleeps.

Miranda July, 'This Person' from No One Belongs Here More Than You