aliveinthenorthfield

[aliveinthenorthfield]

Have you ever thought about losing your brother?

me vs. making webweaves on dying and family. really this was just an excuse to think about killing flies.

Killing Flies, Michael Dickman | Separation, W.S. Merwin | Eurydice, Ocean Vuong | It, Stephen King | Winnie-the-Pooh, A.A Milne | Fading Kitten Syndrome, ROAR | Quote via. Maurice Sendak | A Meeting, Wendell Berry | Anguish, August Friedrich Schenck | West Wind I, Mary Oliver | Planet of Love, Richard Siken | Quote via. C.C, Aurel | Oats We Sow, Gregory and the Hawk | The Living to the Dead, Käthe Kollwitz | Quote via Fortesa Latifi | Antigonick, Anne Carson | Killing Flies, Michael Dickman (cont.)

[aliveinthenorthfield]

i think that the reason i’m in love with the tale (and, by association, the retellings) of orpheus and eurydice is because it’s repetitive. i love repetition in my works. i use repetition so much. and for us to tell the story again, over and over, in hopes that one day, maybe, just maybe, it’ll turn out different even though we know the ending, we know it’s a tragedy right from the start, just makes me go feral.

[aliveinthenorthfield]

[aliveinthenorthfield]

[aliveinthenorthfield]

Orpheus and Eurydice, Anselm Feuerbach, 1869

[aliveinthenorthfield]

[aliveinthenorthfield]

I think my favourite greek tragedies are the ones that. Sum up human nature in all its beauty and grit and ugliness and love and idk if what I'm saying makes sense but. Orpheus turning back to look at Eurydice. Icarus flying too close to the sun. Achilles sending Patroclus to his death in his own armour.

You get it you get the themes you get the poetry tattooed on the skin of all these stories. Humans at their best. at their worst. Humans existing and feeling and tragedy arising from the desperation that is so inherent to human emotion.

[aliveinthenorthfield]

@nymphoutofwater i hope you know you've written my favorite poem

[aliveinthenorthfield]

kurt vonnegut, slaughterhouse five/spn: 6x20 [the man who would be king]/sarah ruhl, eurydice/spn: 7x17 [the born again identity]/spn: 5x04 [the end] - 7x23 [the survival of the fittest] - 11x23 [alpha and omega]/ original piece by me, olive you/spn: 12x12 [stuck in the middle (with you)]/anne carson, grief lessons: four plays by euripides/ spn: 13x04 [the big empty]/hozier, work song/ spn: 13x06 [tombstone] deleted scene

[aliveinthenorthfield]

Eurydice, dying now a second time, uttered no complaint against her husband. What was there to complain of, but that she had been loved?

Ovid, Metamorphoses

[aliveinthenorthfield]

"if i was orpheus i simply wouldn't have turned around" if you didn't love her enough to turn around, you didn't love her enough to crawl through the underworld to save her. if you could prevent yourself from looking back, you wouldn't be trying to bring her back to life. if you were able to look forward, you would be grieving.

"if I was orpheus I simply wouldn't have turned around" if you don't love her enough to turn around, you aren't orpheus.

[aliveinthenorthfield]

"If I were orpheus I wouldn't look back"

But we look back everyday- rechecking emails, making sure a friend is still behind you, checking to see if you remebered to pick up your keys. It's second nature, a habit of care.

It was second nature for him too. He looked back, not out of weakness, but love. For what is love, if not to look back?

[aliveinthenorthfield]

Sculptures displayed in Mattress Factory by Greer Lankton, a transgender artists whose artwork depicts their struggles with gender reassignment surgery, addiction, and anorexia.

[aliveinthenorthfield]

Greer Lankton, Untitled 2D Artwork, David Bowie as The Thin White Duke

via Mattress Factory

[aliveinthenorthfield]

Jesus/Mary, Greer Lankton 1988

[aliveinthenorthfield]

Sissy’s Bedroom by Greer Lankton 1985

[aliveinthenorthfield]

Greer Lankton and Grandmother doll in the swimming pool, circa 1987, photographer unknown

via Mattress Factory