The Room Will Explode When I Sit At The Side Of Your Bed And You Talk To Me. I Don't Hear Your Words:

Roman “hologram” ring from 1st century CE. Gold and rock crystal with a sculpted  image of nobleman Carvilius Gemellus who died. young. The ring was discovered in 2000 from her mother’s tomb near Rome.

I have to say that is the most amazing Roman ring that I’ve ever seen.

Instead of making cathedrals out of Christ, man, or 'life,' we are making it out of ourselves

Barnett Newman, The Sublime is Now 

Anne Boleyn’s Tiny Golden Psalm Book - she’s said to have handed it to one of her Maid’s of Honour moments before she was executed in 1536. 

The pictures show a miniature of Henry Vlll on the left, with gothic cursive script on the facing page, and the gold tracery covers.

I want to learn to navigate by stars that have nothing to do with me

- Heather Christle, The Crying Book

“You / bring out the sea in me, so wade. / Wade in this.”

— Jasmine Reid, from “Instructions for the Moon,” Deus Ex Nigrum

The rain hovering over the city for days  finally fell. You were arriving after years...

Garous Abdolmalekian, Meeting tr. Ahmed Nadalizadeh and Idra Novey

While I haven’t updated this blog in a bit (I finished my MSc degree which left little room for enjoyment reading), I have begun to pleasure read again (I cannot describe how much I’ve missed Austen) and will be updating shortly.

I also am fully planning on diving headfirst into religious studies as a hobby in 2024, so forthcoming content will reflect this in due time.

i) robert browning / eurydice to orpheus (1864) ii) w.a. mozart / “parto, parto” (la clemenza di tito, 1791) iii) jessica waldoff / recognition in mozart’s operas (2006) iv) c.w. gluck / orfeo ed euridice (1762) v) catherine maxwell / the female sublime from milton to swinburne: bearing blindness (2001) vi) gerald griffin / the collegians (1829) film stills from portrait de la jeune fille en feu (sciamma, 2019)

I do not believe that there was ever a question of being abstract or representational. It is really a matter of ending this silence and solitude, of breathing and stretching one’s arms again.

Mark Rothko, The Romantics Were Prompted... 

“Then when G-d asks [Cain], ‘Where is your brother Abel?’ he arrogantly responds, ‘I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?’ In essence, the entire Bible is written as an affirmative response to this question.”

— Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy (via levoneh)