on photography

Mallarme said that everything in the world exists in order to end in a book. Today everything exists to end in a photograph.
 
So successful has been the camera's role in beautifying the world that photographs, rather than the world, have become the standard of the beautiful.

The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own.

To take a photograph is to participate in another person's mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt.



Susan Sontag

bill

sabem aquela citação irritante que aparece sempre no gmail por cima das mensagens, com notícias ou "funny quotes of the day"? geralmente ignoro-as, porque é muito raro serem interessantes ou relevantes para mim, especialmente as de desporto. mas desta vez eles exageraram. escolheram aleatoriamente uma frase do Calvin e atribuíram-na a um tal Bill Waterson. indignado, desta vez cliquei.
>God put me on this earth to accomplish a certain number of things. Right now I am so far behind that I will never die.
>I find my life is a lot easier the lower I keep everyone's expectations.
>I know the world isn't fair, but why isn't it ever unfair in my favor?
>I liked things better when I didn't understand them.
>I'm not dumb. I just have a command of thoroughly useless information.
>It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept.
>Mothers are the necessity of invention.
>Reality continues to ruin my life.
>Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
>The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure pure reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!
>There is not enough time to do all the nothing we want to do.
>Sometimes when I'm talking, my words can't keep up with my thoughts. I wonder why we think faster than we speak. Probably so we can think twice.

achei a experiência útil. mesmo no mundo descarnado das citações por elas mesmas, a coisa funciona. claro que devíamos estar a ver o Calvin a falar, mas para isso existem os livros (e só os livros). isto é só uma amostra infinitesimal do génio dele e a mera evocação da sua figura através de algumas das suas pérolas de sabedoria basta-me para me pôr mais bem-disposto. e isso basta.