Nijisnky, dance and circle.

"The circle is the complete, the perfect movement. Everything is based on it-life, art." 

Nijinsky. Romola Nijinski quoting Nijinsky's words. 

  

Nijinsky about work.

"I work with mi hands and feet and head and eyes and nose and tongue and hair and skin and stomach and guts" 

The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky. On life. Page 44.

 

Nijisnky writing clean like Darwin

"Darwin was an ape, but did not have lice. I love Darwin for his cleanliness. he wrote neatly. I like writing neatly, but I have a bad fountain pen."


The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky


  

Nijinsky talking about Nietzsche

"Nietzsche lost his head because he thought. I do not think and therefore will not lose my head."

"The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky" Page 24

  

Les égouts de Paris sont les égouts de tout, Victor Hugo.

Les égouts de Paris sont les égouts de tout

La primera vez que leo un texto que bien podría ser el origen de las "metáforas" sobre la mierda saliendo de las cloacas y la problemática social o política. Si no lo es, por demás es un curioso e inteligente texto de Victor Hugo en "Los Miserables".

"L'histoire des hommes se reflète dans l'historie des cloaques. (...) Le crime, l'intelligence, la protestation sociale, la liberté de conscience, la pensée, le vol, tout ce que les lois humaines poursuivent ou ont poursuivi, s'est caché dans ce trou; (...) 

L'égout, c'est la conscience de la ville. Tout y converge, et s'y confronte. Dans ce lieu livide, il y a des ténèbres, mais il n'y a plus de secrets. (...) Toutes les malpropretés de la civilisation, une fois hors de service, tombent dans cette fosse de vérité où aboutit l'immense glissement social, elle s'y engloutissent, mais elles s'y étalent. Là, plus de fausse apparence, aucun plâtrage possible, l'ordure ôte sa chemise, dénudations absolue, déroute des illusions et des mirages, plus rien que ce qui est, faisant la sinistre figure de ce qui finit. Réalité et disparition. (...) Un égout est un cynique. Il dit tout.

Cette sincerité de l'immondice nous plaît, et repose l'âme. Quand ona passé son temps à subir sur la terre le spectacle des grands airs que prennent la raison d'état, le serment, la sagesse politique, la justice humaine, les probités professionnelles, les austérités de situation, les robes incorruptibles, cela soulange d'entrer dans un égout et de voir de la fange qui convient.

Cela enseigne en même temps. Nous l'avons dit tout à l'heure, l'historie passe par l'égout. (...) On entend sous ces voûtes le balai de ces spectres. On y respire la fetidité énorme des catastrophes sociales. On voit dans des coins des miroitement rougeâtres. Il coule là une eau terrible où se sont lavées des mains sanglantes.
L'observateur social doit entrer dans ces ombres. Elle font partie de son laboratoire."

"Les misérables" Victor Hugo. Livre deuxième. L'intestin de Léviathan. II. L'histoire ancienne de l'égout. Page 650-652.

   

Tennessee Williams talking about "the playwright's illness"

Tennessee Williams talking about "the playwright's illness"

'Someone interviewing me asked me why writers are so preoccupied with disease and death.

"Any artist dies two deaths," I told him, "not only his own as a physical being but that of his creative power, it dies with him."

A play is submitted to so many people and to so many conditions, alterable or not, and to such bafflingly varied interpretations by those to whom it's submitted that it's a wonder the author isn't stricken with incurable vertigo and plummeted irretrievably into a pit of snakes and madness.'

"Tennessee Williams: Memoirs." Chapter 11 page 242


   

Tennessee Williams about: Being a writer

Being a writer (Tennessee Williams)

"What is it like being a writer? I would say it is like being free.

I know that some writers aren't free, they are professionally employed, which is quite a different thing.

Professionally, they are probably better writers in the conventional sense of "better". They have an ear to the ground of best-seller demands: they please their publishers and presumably their public as well.

But they are not free and so they are not what I regard a true writer as being.

To be free is to have achieved your life.

It means any number of freedoms.

It means the freedom to stop when you please, to go where and when you please, it means to be voyager here and there, one who flees many hotels, sad or happy, without obstruction and without much regret. 

It means the freedom of being. And someone has wisely observed, if you can't be yourself, what's the point of being anything at all?"

"Tennessee Williams: Memoirs" Chapter 11 page 230.


   

The fear of writing about our past depression states.

"It is difficult to write about a period of profound, virtually clinical depression, because when you are in that state, everything is observed through a dark glass which not only shadows but distorts all that is seen. It's also hazardous to write about it, since the germ of it still lingers in your system and it could be activated again by thinking back on it."

"Tennessee Williams: Memoirs" Chapter 9 page 202


  

The Actor's Studio and Tennessee Williams' times of success.

"Kazan had cast the entire show out of the Actor's Studio, an organization that was a very important thing in the great days-I guess I should say the prosperous days- of Broadway, during my time in the forties and the fifties. Those were two great decades of the Actor's Studio. Nearly every great actor of promise studied there. And the Actor's Studio technique fitted so well my type of play. And, the Actor's Studio-with Kazan, Strasberg, and Bobby Lewis-was a great place for actors to go and compare notes on each other's work and it gave them a sort of home base."

"Tennessee Williams: Memoirs" chapter 9 pages 166-167


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Tennessee Williams about "Streetcar named desire" and Blanche Dubois...

Tennessee Williams: Memoirs
Chapter 8 Page 130-131

 (...) We had come to the Cape too early for ocean bathing, it was still icy cold. But i continued work on streetcar and it was in that cabin that I thought of the exit line for Blanche, which later became somewhat historical: "I have always depended upon the kindness of strangers."


Actually it was true, I always had, and without being often disappointed. In fact, I would guess that chance acquaintances, or strangers, have usually been kinder to me than friends -which does not speak too well for me. To know me is not to love me. At, best, it is to tolerate me, and the drama critics I would say that tolerance seem now to be just about worn out.