May 20: Roman Catholic Feast Day of St. Bernardine of Siena, Confessor
The Republic of Siena was the country of St. Bernardine. He was born at Masssa in 1380. Left an orphan at an early age, was educated by his pious aunt. As a member of the Confraternity of Our lady he served the sick in the hospital, “Nor did he desist when the Great Pestilence broke out in 1400.” Prayer: “O Lord Jesus Christ, who granted to blessed Bernardine your confessor, a surprising love for your holy name, we beseech You, by his merits, an intercession, graciously pour upon us the spirit of your love, Amen.”
––from The Lives of the Saints
May 20
Black and white photograph of the floor of stage upon which a rock band is playing: a profusion of cables, various foot pedals, and mini-amplifiers.
“The foot pedals of resonant mastery: a dissonant monsoon, a cacaphonic cathedral, the sounds of a weeping heart.”
Patti Smith, A Book of Days
May 20
We have genuine friendship when it is based on a true human feeling, a feeling of closeness in which there is a sense of sharing and connectedness. I would call this type of friendship genuine because it is not affected by the increase of decrease of the individual’s wealth, status, or power. The factor that sustains that friendship is whether of not the two people have mutual feelings of love and affection.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama, The Path to Tranquility: Daily Wisdom
May 20, 1888, Arles
There is an art of the future, and it is going to be so lovely and so young that even if we give up our youth to it, we must gain in serenity by it. Perhaps it is very silly to write all this, but I feel it strongly; it seems to me that, like me, you have been suffering to see your life pass away like a puff of smoke; but if it grows again, and comes to life in what you make, nothing has been lost and the power to work is another youth.
Vincent Van Gogh, letter to his brother, Theo
May 20, 1926, Mexico City
Diego [Rivera] often said that he would write an article on photography. He did, and Frances [Toor] published it in the current Mexican Folkways. The title is “Edward Weston and Tina Modotti.” Though personalities enter into it, it is really a lucid commentary on the art of today––and photography. “Few of the modern plastic expressions that have given me pure and more intense joy than the masterpieces that are frequently produced in the work of Edward Weston, and I confess that I prefer the productions of this great artist to the majority of contemporary significant painting.” I should be pleased––and am––by such words.
Edward Weston, The Daybooks of Edward Weston, I. Mexico
May 20, 1927, Glendale, California
Is his [Stieglitz’] concern with subject matter? Are not shells, bodies, clouds as much of today as machines? Does it make any difference what subject matter is used to express a feeling toward life! And what about Stieglitz’ famed clouds? Are they any more today than my subject matter? He contradicts himself! . . .
I recall the dream I had two years ago in Mexico––that Alfred Stieglitz was dead. If dreams are symbolic –– this was an important dream to me–– –– ––
Edward Weston, The Daybooks of Edward Weston, II. California
May 20, 1954, Gardenville, New York
It was golden hour. Almost complete solitude––(But two cars went by the whole time we were there). Watching the various birds––redwings, king-birds, swallows, and wild duck. Once a flock of swallows came over the pond, playing the game they so love of circling in dizzy whirls, tagging each other ––
But most delightful of all, it seemed, was to watch the sunstars dancing on the tiny wavelets formed by an intermittent wind––Sometimes the wind would die down completely and the water was almost smooth, with only a tiny star here and there––then far down the long pond we could se hundreds of glittering stars begin to dance, and then sweep us up in a bewildering wave on wave of glittering profusion, until the whole surface of the water in front of us was chopped by the brilliant tiny suns. Almost as if they could be heard.
Charles Burchfield, The Sphinx, and the Milky Way: Selections from the Journals of
May 20, 1970, Ouro Preto
Mary Morse also burned all my letters to Lota [her lover recently who had recently taken her own life], which Lota had saved carefully so that I could use them––the Amazon trip, London, all sorts of little trips when I was away from her. This is the second time this has happened to me–– my correspondence over years, with an old friend, been burned by someone else who had no business to do it. The first time, the friend ––whom I have never met, even––wrote me, “You’ll be glad to hear––“ & I should never write anything indecent––like this! Such nasty forma of unconscious jealousy, envy, etc., take. And now I have certainly lifted the lid off enough horrors for the morning.
Elizabeth Bishop, letter to Ashley Brown, One Art, Letters
May 20, 1970, London
Beyond the window, the tops of the green trees, the center of London quiet as a garden. It’s a house filled with people, and yet absolutely calm, the ingredient, of course, is money.
. . . It’s summer. I’m working in a room the size of yours and dashing out like a swallow looking for straw to see people about my film. . . . Absolutely no sense here of that panic which electrifies the air in New York. No rain. Hotels filled.
James Salter, Letter to Robert Phelps
May 20, 1984, Iquitos
Shooting at the railroad station. I had slept for only an hour because I was trying to get a long-distance call through. It was already getting light outside when I lay down for a while. Piercing sun all day. I was dripping with sweat from the heat, as If I stood in a shower. At night, looking at rushes, some of the worst I have ever seen, but I also know that can be misleading.
Werner Herzog, Conquest of the Useless, Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo
