Notes on May - Ernst Auer

1. On Mirror and Glass - why was it not included in Michel Tournier's Le Miroir des idees

what about Television and Morning Windows? the noise and view 'outside' - Evening, they were shut

2. Time,
Longer than the length of her hair
than the length of the lace, the pair of leather boots. (repeated motif in another text)
entangled hair, combing contra criss-cross lacing

3. On Wednesday, a friend tattooed a tiny tit on his hip by rookie tattooist , equals ebriated folly, birthday is not an excuse for stupidity, and also it looks more like being stamped on (by the heated metal cap of a cheap plastic lighter)

Advice: He should have gotten the tattoo in prison, if he wanted it for free. And please, why small instead of big tit, or tit on tit?
On friday, fought two Indians around the housing estate.
Advice: Do it more often, practice makes perfect, should be extended to other areas. The fighting not drinking at neighbourhood though.
Summary: First as Farce then as Tragedy

Pencil of Nature - Ernst Auer

Back in the same room after the fire, though I shouldn't say it is the same, the angle of the sun did not change, to lighten the charred wall with a rhomboid at this time of the day, higher than how one would hang a half length dressing mirror, lower than where the drawing room painting should be, at the neglected corner of the room, the web, a deformed pentagon, traps black flakes than insects, on the floor, I noticed the charcoal photo frame, I recognised the leaf-motif, but I am not here to cry about picture I have lost or to complain about the unpleasant smell.

Canary Wharf

Lack of money pinned me down inside the flat

On my back on the bed in my room

You were outside playing with scissors

Running on the stairs again

Brazil nuts were down & the pigeons were restless

You purchased chocolate to melt it on biscuits

I wrote my name on a banana peel

There should always be a meal with my name on it

& I made myself a drama out of absolutely nothing

Took the time to admire the speed with which we grew boring

I was a rapid mess unfolding dresses

In stark rooms & warehouses

Sanding chairs & cabinets

In canary wharf again

Black Cover

I see the little red book and I want to paint it back

because

reading him is the opposite of

buying gaudy paintings
wearing badges, t-shirts
or carrying a canvas sling bag

with a picture of him.

or to pair him with a fucking mouse from Disney
or a campy anti-war horse by the name of Andy.

to study Marxism is to repeat the mistake of the dialectical materialist creative method, which will harm the creative mood

"To call on us to study Marxism is to repeat the mistake of the dialectical materialist creative method, which will harm the creative mood." To study Marxism means to apply the dialectical materialist and historical materialist viewpoint in our observation of the world, of society and of literature and art; it does not mean writing philosophical lectures into our works of literature and art. Marxism embraces but cannot replace realism in literary and artistic creation, just as it embraces but cannot replace the atomic and electronic theories in physics. Empty, dry dogmatic formulas do indeed destroy the creative mood; not only that, they first destroy Marxism. Dogmatic "Marxism" is not Marxism, it is anti-Marxism. Then does not Marxism destroy the creative mood? Yes, it does. It definitely destroys creative moods that are feudal, bourgeois, petty-bourgeois, liberalistic, individualist, nihilist, art-for-art's sake, aristocratic, decadent or pessimistic, and every other creative mood that is alien to the masses of the people and to the proletariat. So far as proletarian writers and artists are concerned, should not these kinds of creative moods be destroyed? I think they should; they should be utterly destroyed. And while they are being destroyed, something new can be constructed.

my class stand is correct, my intentions are good and I understand all right, but I am not good at expressing myself and so the effect turns out bad.

"It is not a question of stand; my class stand is correct, my intentions are good and I understand all right, but I am not good at expressing myself and so the effect turns out bad." I have already spoken about the dialectical materialist view of motive and effect. Now I want to ask, is not the question of effect one of stand? A person who acts solely by motive and does not inquire what effect his action will have is like a doctor who merely writes prescriptions but does not care how many patients die of them. Or take a political party which merely makes declarations but does not care whether they are carried out. It may well be asked, is this a correct stand? And is the intention here good? Of course, mistakes may occur even though the effect has been taken into account beforehand, but is the intention good when one continues in the same old rut after facts have proved that the effect is bad? In judging a party or a doctor, we must look at practice, at the effect. The same applies in judging a writer. A person with truly good intentions must take the effect into account, sum up experience and study the methods or, in creative work, study the technique of expression. A person with truly good intentions must criticize the shortcomings and mistakes in his own work with the utmost candour and resolve to correct them. This is precisely why Communists employ the method of self-criticism. This alone is the correct stand. Only in this process of serious and responsible practice is it possible gradually to understand what the correct stand is and gradually obtain a good grasp of it. If one does not move in this direction in practice, if there is simply the complacent assertion that one "understands all right", then in fact one has not understood at all.

on termites and singers

"I am not given to praise and eulogy. The works of people who eulogize what is bright are not necessarily great and the works of those who depict the dark are not necessarily paltry." If you are a bourgeois writer or artist, you will eulogize not the proletariat but the bourgeoisie, and if you are a proletarian writer or artist, you will eulogize not the bourgeoisie but the proletariat and working people: it must be one or the other. The works of the eulogists of the bourgeoisie are not necessarily great, nor are the works of those who show that the bourgeoisie is dark necessarily paltry; the works of the eulogists of the proletariat are not necessarily not great, but the works of those who depict the so-called "darkness" of the proletariat are bound to be paltry--are these not facts of history as regards literature and art? Why should we not eulogize the people, the creators of the history of mankind? Why should we not eulogize the proletariat, the Communist Party, New Democracy and socialism? There is a type of person who has no enthusiasm for the people's cause and looks coldly from the side-lines at the struggles and victories of the proletariat and its vanguard; what he is interested in, and will never weary of eulogizing, is himself, plus perhaps a few figures in his small coterie. Of course, such petty-bourgeois individualists are unwilling to eulogize the deeds and virtues of the revolutionary people or heighten their courage in struggle and their confidence in victory. Persons of this type are merely termites in the revolutionary ranks; of course, the revolutionary people have no need for these "singers".