“Careening through this world with such a crude taxonomical guide to human passion is as foolhardy as piloting a plane ignorant of the difference between ‘stratus’ and ‘cumulonimbus,’ knowing only the word ‘cloud.’” ~ Tim Kreider, from We Learn Nothing

Icarus by Joe Carr

Two for Tuesday: Icarus

I had this and a few other posts ready to go for the week but forgot to schedule them. Sorry about backposting the whole week, but, well, it happens.

Today’s theme is one of my favorite myths, that of Icarus and Daedalus. The Carr print I actually discovered via Brett, who has it on a t-shirt. And I stumbled upon the works by Baptiste Debombourg in which he recreates Renaissance images using . . . staples. Yep. Staples. So intriguing. Click through to see the entire exhibition which was created on walls and wood panels.

                   

“Icarus” from the Aggravure Exhibition
by Baptiste de Bombourg

Waiting for Icarus

He said he would be back and we’d drink wine together
He said that everything would be better than before
He said we were on the edge of a new relation
He said he would never again cringe before his father
He said that he was going to invent full-time
He said he loved me that going into me
He said was going into the world and the sky
He said all the buckles were very firm
He said the wax was the best wax
He said Wait for me here on the beach
He said Just don’t cry

I remember the gulls and the waves
I remember the islands going dark on the sea
I remember the girls laughing
I remember they said he only wanted to get away from me
I remember mother saying : Inventors are like poets,
a trashy lot
I remember she told me those who try out inventions are worse
I remember she added : Women who love such are the
Worst of all
I have been waiting all day, or perhaps longer.
I would have liked to try those wings myself.
It would have been better than this.

~ Muriel Rukeyser

                   

“Icarus and Daedalus” from the Aggravure Exhibit
by Baptiste de Bombourg

Falling and Flying

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It’s the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of triumph.

~ Jack Gilbert

                   

Music by Sigur Ros, “Viorar Vel Til Loftarasa”

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