Gustave Norman Grid
note: ces extraits de livres sont publiés sur l'interface 'gazouillis', et reconduits ici sans les perturbations des branchages
"No wonder the storm clouds, so fast and thick, darkening fields and sea, slide up so quick since from the blow-holes of the outer spheres, as in our own windpipes, our veins and pores, the elements come and go, strange and opaque, through ducts and channels, rooms and corridors, as if in a house, of opening, closing doors." Lucretius, trad. Derek Mahon (17.12.2020)
"Mais son mouvement vital, qui fait les courants de la mer, qui de l'eau salée fait l'eau douce, bientôt convertie en vapeur pour retourner à l'eau salée, cet admirable mécanisme est aussi parfait que celui de la circulation sanguine..." Jules Michelet, La mer, 1861 (17.12.2020)
"C'est la mer, comme limite, qui trace .. la forme des continents. C'est par la mer qu'il convient de commencer toute géographie.' Jules Michelet, La mer, 1861 (17.12.2020)
"L'introduction naturelle, le vestibule de l'Océan ... c'est le cours mélancolique des fleuves du nord-ouest, les vastes sables du Midi, ou les landes de Bretagne." Jules Michelet, La mer, 1861 (17.12.2020)
"The first announcement of Rinaldo appeared in the Daily Courant on 13th February 1711, gloriously misprinting its title as 'Binaldo'... naming its composer as ' Georgio Frederico Hendel.' Jane Glover, Handel in London, 2018 (16.12.2020)
"Sickert was dressed in white as a 'chef', cooking soles on a large black stove and singing at the top of his voice 'Deutschland über alles." Oliver Brown, Memoirs 1968 (28.11.2020)
"Si la grotte représente l'état primordial du monde tel que l'imaginent les mythologies du paléolithique, et s'il est vrai que l'état actuel du monde résulte dans cette conception d'une lente différenciation à partir de cet état premier insuffisamment différencié et ... incomplet... il est compréhensible que les hommes du paléolithique aient interprété la progression vers la sortie comme celle vers plus de différenciation et d'achèvement.' André Testart, Art et religion de Chauvet à Lascaux, 2016 (22.11.2020)
"In ogni città del mondo ho trovato per terra un piccolo cowboy (in plastica), è incredibile, no?' Tony Cragg, galleria Lucio Amelio, 1980 (20.11.2020)
"... l'Italia è un paese di poeti e navigatori e non di marines, quindi le operazioni di sbarco che noi possiamo realizzare hanno come supporto la creatività specifica degli artisti, non certo un organizzazione politica.' Achille Bonito Oliva, galleria Lucio Amelio, 1980 (19.11.2020)
"Les parisiens n'ont jamais de leur ville le plaisir qu'en prennent les provinciaux." Aragon, Aurélien, 1944 (02.11.2020)
"...but I would like to be able to make you feel something you would hardly come upon by yourself, far away as you are from such things: the connection between business and poetry.' Robert Musil, The man without qualities, 1930s (11.09.2020)
"And thus pictures are consolers of loneliness; they are a sweet flattery to the soul..they are windows to the imprisoned thought; they are books; they are histories and sermons, which we can read without having the trouble of turning over the leaves." F. Hughes, 17, Liverpool Echo 1963 (08.09.2020)
"Vienne... the Bournemouth of the ancient world - diplomats retired there from service; the most celebrated among them was Pontius Pilate who spent his quiet retirement there after leaving the Middle East..." Lawrence Durrell, The Avignon quintet, 1978 (30.09.2020)
"Port Royal était la façon la plus noble et la plus accomplie de prendre congé. Le monastère cistercien, la plus aisée: tout était déjà en place et les repas servis à heures fixes. Le cabinet d'étude, la plus modeste... L'atelier d'artiste, la plus civilisée..." Sylvain Tesson, Sur les chemins noirs, 2016 (29.09.2020)
"Même le bleu du ciel était strié du panache des longs-courriers. Le paysage était devenu le décor du passage." Sylvain Tesson, Sur les chemins noirs, 2016 (27.09.2020)
"Glück des Schriftstellers ist der Gedanke, der ganz Gefühl, ist das Gefühl, das ganz Gedanke zu werden vermag." Thomas Mann, Der Tod in Venedig, 1912 (23.09.2020)
"Des régiments de fantômes sont revenus, des armées, de tous les âges, camouflés sous les symptômes archaïques du paramilitaire et du surarmement post-moderne." Jacques Derrida, Spectres de Marx, 1993 (12.09.2020)
"He was a historical surfer who knew how to choose his waves' M.C. Bergère, Sun Yat-sen, 1994 (25.08.2020)
"While I sit with my paper and prawn chow mein Under a framed photograph of Hong Kong The proprietor of the Chinese restaurant Stands at the door as if the world were young,......Watching the first yacht hoist a sail - An ideogram on sea-cloud - and the light Of heaven upon the hills of Donegal; And whistles a little tune, dreaming of home." Derek Mahon, the Chinese restaurant in Portrush (24.08.2020)
"Le brie, le seul roi qu'il n'ait pas trahi’, à propos de Talleyrand (Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord) (22.08.2020)
"Mais quelle mer est-ce là? L'eau est lourde et plombée; moins semblable à un liquide qu'à une plaque de tôle... C'est en hiver que l'Arctique vit.. mais vienne l'été, le paysage se fait cadavérique." Gontran de Poncins, Par le détroit de Behring, 1953 (30.07.2020)
"There are no walls or fences. My garden's boundaries are the horizon. In this desolate landscape the silence is only broken by the wind, and the gulls squabbling round the fishermen bringing in the afternoon catch." Derek Jarman, Modern nature, 1991 (11.07.2020)
"... er sah, sah eine Landschaft, ein tropisches Sumpfgebiet unter dickdunstigem Himmel, feucht, üppig und ungeheuer, eine Art Urweltwildnis aus Inseln, Mörasten und Schlamm führenden Wasserarmen..' Thomas Mann, Der Tod in Venedig, 1912 (10.07.2020)
"Hong Kong is well known for its economic accomplishment, its beautiful modern landscape, or its bargain in shopping, but culturally its character remains elusive. Just what makes HK a unique city in the world?" One day in Hong Kong, 1990 (09.07.2020)
"Fibonacci non si limita a una traduzione dell'opera di Al-Khuwarizmi ma integra la conoscenza della matematica indiana e araba con la matematica Euclidea.. la materia viene dedicata non ai matematici ma ai commercianti, che erano i veri destinatari del testo." L.Laura, Breve e universale storia degli algoritmi, 2019 (29.06.2020)
'The huge extension of housing around London has forced the authorities to make provision for Sunday cricket. Hundreds of London cricket clubs have been evicted from their grounds since the War, and the demand for pitches on Saturdays cannot be met." S.D.T 30 April 1927 (20.06.2020)
"... on est généralement persuadé que tous les ragoûts fins sont d'invention moderne. Or, rien n'est moins vrai. On voit dans les dispensaires du XVIe siècle.. des langues de carpe et des foies de lotte étuvés au vin d'Espagne." J.F.Revel, Un festin en paroles. Histoire littéraire de la sensibilité gastronomique de l'Antiquité à nos jours, 1978 (14.06.2020)
"Until the age of forty, Sun Yat-sen was a man of no importance, a marginal person, one of those adventurers of the treaty ports who live on the fringes of both East and West.." M.C. Bergère, Sun Yet Sen, 1994 (07.06.2020)
"The object I now recognised as a huge crystal whose six principle faces comprised an irregular hexagonal prism identical in shape to that forming the body of the annex itself, with whose six walls these principle faces were in parallel arrangement." Rodney Graham, The system of Landor's cottage, 2012 (05.06.2020)
"Aucun traité de cuisine provençale antérieur à 1914 ne comporte une recette de loup grillé.. Seuls les poissons gras, sardines, maquereaux, gagnent à ce traitement. Mais notre époque a été celle de la grillade, c'était là son préjugé dominant.." J.F. Revel, Un festin en paroles. Histoire littéraire de la sensibilité gastronomique de l'Antiquité à nos jours, 1978 (28.05.2020)
"The book begins with the story of a king named Raja Shulan from Kalinga who was a descendant of Iskander Zulkarnain and his son, Raja Culan, who set out to conquer China." J. Miksic, Singapore and the silk road of the sea, 2013 (22.05.2020)
"Le modèle du nuage suppose que toute réalité comporte une part de méconnaissable et qu'elle recèle toujours une dose d'incertitude et d'aléatoire." S. Gruzinski, La pensée métisse, 1999 (20.05.2020)
"... comme si les êtres, les souvenirs et les mots eux-mêmes n'acquéraient un sens qu'en relation profonde avec la texture d'un sol." A.M.Boyer, Julien Gracq, Paysages et mémoire, 2007 (14.05.2020)
“During the smelting of lead, copper and other ores, white arsenic flies off in fumes, and condenses in the solid form in the long chimneys. From these chimneys.. the arsenic is obtained, and is sold to the people by itinerant pedlars.. It is known by the name of Hüttrauch..", Simon Brugner, The arsenic eaters, 2018 (05.05.2020)
"..there was a northroomer, Herr Betreffender.. swishing beesnest with blesure, and swobbing broguen eeriesh myth brockendootsch, making his reporterage on Der Fall Adams for the Frankofurto Siding, a Fastland payoridicule..." James Joyce, Finnegan's wake (02.05.2020)
"The factories loomed on the long slope... and over them the bluishgray hills were bathed in a fine, delicate mist, and further beyond an immense phalanx of gray rocks, the inexhaustible source of the cement industry, ran sharply into the sea." McKay, Banjo, 1929 (29.04.2020)
"... the group repaired to a local Spanish restaurant for an impromptu champagne party, and then to Dora Maar's flat in the rue Dauphine, where she showed them a copy of Buffon's histoire naturelle, published in 1942 with 31 aquatints by Picasso.' Halliday 1991 (27.04.2020)
"As it were, getting on board promises a means to reconceptualize the orthodox relationship between modernity and what passes for its prehistory." Paul Gilroy, "The black Atlantic as a counterculture to modernity," 2007 (16.04.2020)
"Steam, I venture to agree, will be the medium, but I rather figure it will be the railroad which is the agency of exploitation." Timothy Mo, An insular possession, 2002 (07.04.2020)
"In the English social scale, she explained, novelists rated even worse that journalists. 'Does he paint still?'" John le Carré, The honorable schoolboy, 1977 (04.03.2020)
"The rapid transformation of the French into a nation of sportsmen is one of the most interesting changes which has taken place in any nation of recent times." Illustrated London News, 18.04.1925 (24.02.2020)
"Hong Kong garden parties are even better... 'Good luck' paper lanterns had been planted on five-foot poles all around the lawn; when they were lit at dusk, they glimmered vaguely in the background - a perfect prop for a Hollywood production of Secrets of the Qing palace." Eileen Chang (18.02.2020)
"The Hong Kong Hotel has the most old-fashioned ballroom I've ever seen, said Liuyuan. Everything about the place - building, lights, decor, orchestra - is very English and, forty years ago, was very up to date." Eileen Chang, Love in a fallen city, 1943 (15.02.2020)
"This beaner bin on a lake. Statues of notable Führers... Traffic was slow. Exhaust fumes were thick." James Ellroy, Blood is a rover, 2009 (09.02.2020)
"Le tableau semble être venu à son heure, laquelle a coïncidé avec le développement du commerce au long cours, l'accumulation du capital et la domination de la marchandise sous son espèce indépendante et fétichisée." Hubert Damisch, La ruse du tableau, 2016 (27.01.2019)
"L'escale fait sécher ses blancheurs aux terrasses Où le vent s'évertue, Les maisons roses au soleil qui les enlace, sentent l'algue et la rue." Jules Supervielle, L'escale portugaise, Débarcadères, 1956 (09.01.2019)
"Alex had invented a particularly vicious form of croquet; casualties were not unknown." John Golding on the art dealer Alex Gregory-Hood (07.01.2020)
"Vermutlich waren.. vor dem 19 Jahrhundert die meisten der Größten Städte... nicht an der Künste lokalisiert: Kaifeng, Nanjing, und Peking, Ayudhya und Kyoto, Bagdad, Agra, Isfahan und Cairo, Rom, Paris, Madrid, Wien und Moskau, nicht zuletzt Mexico City." Jürgen Osterhammel, Die Verwandlung der Welt, 2009 (19.12.2019)
"For a brief time only these curious creatures sailed the seas, moved by the winds that circle the earth, bearing names such as Stavoren, Resolution, Victory, Groot Hollandia and Olyfan, and then they were gone." Sebald, The rings of Saturn, 1995 (13.12.2019)
"The advice which Sir Alfred Munnings laid down in a notorious, if inebriated, Presidential speech at the R.A. dinner of 1948, when he denounced 'this so -called modern art': 'If you paint a tree,' Munnings said, 'for God's sake try and make it look like a tree'." Peter Fuller, 1986 (30.11.2019)
"Some come from space, as I've explained before, their number infinite, their source obscure." Lucretius, On clouds, traduction Dereck Mahon (24.11.2019)
"Tutte le strade finiscono al mare.. dove ci sono i porti. Di là ci s'imbarca e si va nelle isole, dove gli stradoni riprendono." Cesare Pavese, Il mare, Feria d'agosto, 1946 (13.11.2019)
"He did not quite sustain the level of his early work, and his later output suffered from over-production and an obtrusive strain of chocolate-box sentimentality." Brian Fallon, Irish art, 1994 (12.11.2019)
"Prima di conoscere Nino non m'ero mai accorto che i ragazzi con cui gridavo e correvo sulla strada fossero sporchi e malrattopati." Cesare Pavese, Primo amore, Feria d'agosto, 1946 (10.11.2019)
"They may be known as Christmas Red or D'Arcy Spice, Fenouillette Gris or Peasgood's Nonsuch, or maybe their names have been lost in times." Nigel Slate, Tender, Vol.1, 2010 (09.11.2019)
"As if he had been poured..in tar, he lies.. on a pillow of turf (...)to weep .. the black river of himself" Seamus Heaney, The Grauballe Man (22.10.2019)
"Some books have picture, and some pictures have books." R.B. Kitaj quoted by Richard Livingstone (14.09.2019)
"They're all crackpots, every one of them." Clement Greenberg on the surrealists, in A.G. Marquis, Art Czar, 2006 (13.09.2019)
"Le ciboire est constitué par une large coupe et un pied en calotte, tous deux d'argent battu, réunis par un robuste tige de métal formant écrou." Françoise Henry, L'art irlandais, 1963 (10.09.2019)