“... a million poems in her voice”

juliette greco has died. 

the inspiration for the beatles michelle my belle, various philosophers (jean-paul sartre), the bob haircut, elaborate eye make-up, lover of miles davis, actress in jean cocteau's film orphée and the french horror tv series belphégor: phantom of the louvre that caused a moral panic by scaring children half to death in a dr. who stylee. 

initially it was her dog (bidet) that was famous as an actor. a famous french photographer (robert doisneau) shoots them both (but he’s there to shoot the dog really).  

yesterday a day off. horsemouth went out for a walk and paused to read the first few pages of benjamin’s essay on kafka. he read a little of howard barker’s arguments for a theatre. he listened to a demo CD for musicians of bremen volume four, the various EPs and the last single to come (release date october 4th).

‘there are two cardinal human vices, from which all others derive: impatience and carelessness’ - zürau aphorism no.3, franz kafka. 

horsemouth suppose he added kafka to his list of aphorists not so much because of his actual aphorisms (which horsemouth always forgets about) but because benjamin writes about him - but it's true kafka is not so much an aphorist, he's more of a parable-ist (think before the law etc.). but again you could accuse kafka of a willful obscurity both in stripping down the details to the barest outlines (where is all this action taking place? where is the castle?) and in terms of what the story is supposed to mean. 

horsemouth supposes there are the 109 zürau aphorisms of kafka, written from september 12th 1917 to april 1918 and published by the book-burner max brod in 1931, and the 41, culled from kafka’s diary written january 6 to february 29, 1920. we think of kafka as a novelist because brod did not do his job. 

horsemouth supposes his point was that both kafka and benjamin must be persevered with (but also you can read too much at one sitting of them and spoil your digestion).  . 

horsemouth has a slight cough and the sniffles. he has pretty much continuously had a sore throat since april (of and on). his sense of taste is as bad as ever. today he was to work from home (briefly) but it has been cancelled. friday he puts in a payclaim. saturday he goes to plan to film. monday he goes to a meeting in a garden (weather permitting). wednesday/thursday end of the month book and film lists. the danger is social transmission in the home.