Mike R
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mikebut.bsky.social
Mike R
@mikebut.bsky.social
86 followers 81 following 140 posts
I hate washing Tupperware. Learning to draw.
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‘The Hand that Signed the Paper’ by Dylan Thomas, reads: “The hand that signed the paper felled a city; Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath, Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country; These five kings did a king to death. The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder, The finger joints are cramped with chalk; A goose's quill has put an end to murder That put an end to talk. The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever, And famine grew, and locusts came; Great is the hand that holds dominion over Man by a scribbled name. The five kings count the dead but do not soften The crusted wound nor pat the brow; A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven; Hands have no tears to flow.”
May 14, 2025 at 2:16 AM
mikebut.bsky.social
“Is not the necessary obverse of my interacting with the object … the situation in which the object itself … deprives me of my own passive reaction of satisfaction … so that it is the object itself which 'enjoys the show' instead of me, relieving me of the superego duty to enjoy myself?”
May 10, 2025 at 2:23 AM
mikebut.bsky.social
Andreï Makine (1995) 'Dreams of My Russian Summers' ('Le Testament français', trans. Geoffrey Strachan)
Excerpt from Andreï Mekine’s ‘Dreams of My Russian Summers’ that reads: “From then onward we talked but said nothing. Coming between us we could see the screen that is formed by those smooth words, those echoes of the everyday we give voice to; the verbal liquid with which we feel obliged, without knowing why, to fill the silence. With stupefaction I discovered that talking was in fact the best way of saying nothing about the essential. Whereas to express it one would have to articulate words in quite a different way, whisper them, weave them into the sounds of evening, into the rays of the sunset. Once again I sensed in myself the mysterious gestation of that language so different from words blunted by use … But we continued to pour useless words and hollow remarks into the silence, as if into a sieve of the Danaids: ‘It's hotter than yesterday! Gavrilych is drunk again… The Kukushka hasn't gone past this evening… There's a fire over there on the steppe, look! No, it's a cloud… I'll make some more tea… Today at the market they were selling watermelons from Uzbekistan…’ The unsayable! It was mysteriously linked, I now understood, to the essential. The essential was unsayable. Incommunicable. And everything in this world that tortured me with its silent beauty, everything that needed no words, seemed to me essential. The unsayable was essential.”
May 3, 2025 at 2:07 PM
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Extract from Tolstoy’s ‘Anna Karenina’ Part 4 Chapter 13 in German, which deals with Levin’s second proposal to Kitty. They formulate and share their desire for each other by marking diffidently on a table the first letter of each word of what they hope to say. And with this, negotiate a new communion and communication, both beyond the imposition of whole words and their response, beyond their circulation within the broader language of society and situation — beyond Anna’s fate. It reads: »Wie soll ich jetzt allein hier bleiben ohne sie?« dachte er mit Schrecken und ergriff nun seinerseits die Kreide. »Bleibt doch,« sagte er, sich an den Tisch setzend. »Schon lange habe ich Euch nach etwas fragen wollen!« Er blickte ihr offen in die freundlichen, wenn auch erschreckten Augen. »Bitte schön, fragt.« »Nun,« begann er, und schrieb mit Kreide eine Anzahl Anfangsbuchstaben auf den Tisch: »A. I. M. A. E. K. N. S. H. D. N. O. N. D.« – Diese Buchstaben bedeuteten: »Als Ihr mir antwortetet ›es kann nicht sein‹, so hieß das, ›niemals‹ oder nur ›damals‹?« – Es war höchst unwahrscheinlich, daß sie diesen verwickelten Satz hätte verstehen können, aber er schaute sie mit einem Ausdruck an, der bewies, daß sein Leben davon abhinge, ob sie diese Worte verstehe oder nicht. Sie blickte ihn ernst an; dann stemmte sie die gerunzelte Stirn auf die Hand und begann zu lesen. Bisweilen blickte sie auf ihn, ihn mit ihrem Blick befragend »ist es das, was ich mir denke?« »Ich habe verstanden,« sagte sie errötend. »Was ist dies für ein Wort?« frug er, auf das N weisend, mit welchem er das Wort »niemals« bezeichnet hatte. »Dieses Wort bedeutet ›niemals‹, sagte sie – »aber das ist nicht wahr!«
March 29, 2025 at 4:01 AM
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One of my favourites is a later one that Hitchcock himself directed, “Bang, You’re Dead!” (S07E02). Brilliant form and structure — a masterclass in editing and direction: gaze and its expectation.
Black and white film still from “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” season 7 episode 2 — a close up of a 6 chamber single action revolver with a bullet in one chamber. Black and white still depicting a hand picking up a bullet. Black and white still of a hand loading the chamber of a single action revolver. Black and white still depicting a young boy with a stetson holding a revolver, and pointing it at a post man with his arms in the air.
March 12, 2025 at 6:32 PM
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Photo from Flaubert’s ‘Madame Bovary’ that reads: “But the flames did die down, perhaps from lack, perhaps from excess of fuel. Little by little, love was quenched by absence, and longing smothered by routine; and that fiery glow which tinged her pale sky scarlet grew more clouded, then gradually faded away. Her benumbed consciousness even led her to mistake aversion toward her husband for desire for her lover, the searing touch of hatred for the rekindling of love; but, as the storm still raged on and her passion burnt itself to ashes, no help came and no sun rose, the darkness of night closed in on every side, and she was left to drift in a bitter icy void.”
March 12, 2025 at 3:34 PM
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Choose 20 films from but slivers and slivers tucked away in but mounds and mounds of titles all but growing taller and taller than all the words and the words that might make up the themes and the topics that you might know.
Film poster for the first US independent syndicalist-socialist 1954 film ‘Salt of the Earth’, featuring main character Esperanza Quintero played by Rosaura Sánchez.
March 11, 2025 at 1:32 AM
mikebut.bsky.social
Choose 20 films from the beginning. That always tell the truth.
Film poster of Akira Kurosawa’s ‘Rashomon’ (1950).
March 10, 2025 at 10:53 PM
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Choose 20 films you spotted 8 metres away without looking.

Nudging.
Pulling.
Wanting.

What would they think you think. Oh fourteen year-old you. What would be their questions you question. Oh teenage VHS small town video store you.
Film poster for Alfonso and Carlos Cuarón’s film “Y Tu Mama Tambien” (2001).
March 10, 2025 at 10:48 PM
mikebut.bsky.social
Choose 20 films from those adapted for proud purview. No, don’t denote. You can’t escape a persistence in the passive voice, the voice that proves class pretence is but posture for madness, passion unto Pope: “Life’s poor play is now o’er.”
Film poster for ‘Quills’ (2000) depicting Kate Winslet and Geoffrey Rush.
March 10, 2025 at 10:28 PM
mikebut.bsky.social
Choose 20 films of quiet isolation cut, honoured, stood up yes yes shouted, “Honesta mors turpi vita potior!” above that corporeal exudate of human want and blind willingness.
Film poster of Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Rope’ (1948) with James Stewart, one of three main characters, glaring into the camera holding a piece of rope. The tag line reads: “Nothing ever held you like Alfred Hitchcock’s rope.”
March 10, 2025 at 10:05 PM
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Choose 20 films that stung tips of toes, thrust tight in two heels, tempered too much, tarried and tussled tout suite.
Film poster for Pedro Almodóvar’s ‘Laberinto de pasiones’ (1982) (English: ‘Labyrinth of Passion’).
March 10, 2025 at 9:18 PM
mikebut.bsky.social
Choose 20 films that were coated, conical, you collected that day from four anthers, pollen bursted from stamens that stored beside unswayed stigmata and styles.
Film poster for ‘Network’ (1976) with the title in gold letters above the tag line ‘Still mad as hell’. It also depicts the main characters from left to right: William Holden, Robert Duvall, Peter Finch, and Faye Dunaway.
March 10, 2025 at 7:39 PM
mikebut.bsky.social
Choose 20 films that don't dissolve in the bath, straightened out on dirty fingers, scratchings in the air, steam rising — deep stretch, or the worst: a cleanse.
Film poster for the Romanian film ‘4 Luni, 3 Sǎptǎmîni şi 2 Zile’ (English: ‘4 Monyhs, 3 Weeks and 2 Days’).
March 10, 2025 at 6:10 PM
mikebut.bsky.social
Choose 20 films you once dug with a spade in your sandpit, squashed castles, spread fingers that patted their tender, swallowed brown giggles. No care to open a mouth? No care to eat grains from the sand? No care for the judgement and staphylococcus aureus? No care losing breath with each gulp.
Film poster for Ken Loach’s 2016 film ‘I, Daniel Blake’ showing lead character Daniel Blake (played by Dave Johns) standing with a fist raised. In the background is a wall with the film’s title graffitied.
March 8, 2025 at 3:53 PM
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Reminder … (1935)
Photo of the anti-war book ‘War is a Racket’ (1935) with a red background and with typescript in white, written by Smedley Butler.
March 6, 2025 at 6:45 PM
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Photo of the front cover of an anti-war book ‘War is a Racket’ (1935) written by the US Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler.
March 6, 2025 at 6:39 PM
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Today we revisit a film as we avoid (yet again) all as an attempt to cope with the current ways of the world so wry and sardonic: art, allegory, acting …
Depicts a still from the opening scene of the Chilean film ‘La Nana’ (2009, English: ‘The Maid’) with main character Raquel (played by the mesmerising and brilliant Catalina Saavedra) seated at a table and glaring frontward into the camera. The glare stands in for the superimposition that structures the film: the inward subject’s attempt to control their alienation (qua symptom of a broader class conflict) resulting in anxiety and ‘acting out’ as misdirected ‘outward’ symbolic violence (the glare into the camera). Raquel is wearing a black and white uniform as the film’s eponymous ‘maid’, and eating a meal.
March 4, 2025 at 2:08 PM
mikebut.bsky.social
Friedrich Nietzsche (1883-1885)
Quote from Friedrich Nietzsche’s ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ (German: ‘Also sprach Zarathustra’) that reads: “My solitude does not depend on the presence or absence of people; on the contrary, I hate who steals my solitude without, in exchange, offering me true company.”
February 5, 2025 at 8:08 PM
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“Captain, it’s only Wednesday …”

Today’s bearing …

#Art #ArtSky #Drawing #Mood #LearningToDraw
Graphite pencil sketch on A4 natural white paper depicting a man’s head / face with an open mouth screaming, and with tightly closed eyes. To the right and left of the head are black streaks of varying width.
January 22, 2025 at 1:48 PM
mikebut.bsky.social
Learning a new hobby (drawing), and with it, a quick-ish sketch whilst waiting for dinner.

I suppose when learning something — a skill, language, etc. — one confronts that universal lesson few can ignore: the need to persist with the errors and their doubts.

#Drawing #Art #ArtSky #Trees #Nature
Graphite pencil sketch on A4 paper depicting a tree in the foreground with shrubbery in the background. The tree is shaped in a V-form, with the trunk split into two and then further up, into more branches.
January 21, 2025 at 6:03 PM
mikebut.bsky.social
🚪
GIF of a scene from the television series ‘Peep Show’ (S02E04), depicting Peter Capaldi (as Professor Alistair MacLeisch) in his office asking, “The world’s just people going into rooms and saying things? It’s all a swizzle?”
January 10, 2025 at 5:40 PM
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Screenshot from Dostoevsky’s ‘The Idiot’ (1868-1869)
January 10, 2025 at 4:37 PM
mikebut.bsky.social
Slowly persisting with learning a new hobby, begun in December. This is the latest with ~5 hours before I gave up.

I suppose the most rewarding aspect of this new hobby is being taught to notice, with each new attempt, a bit more character in nature.

#Drawing #TreeOfTheDay #Art #ArtSky #Trees
A pencil (graphite/lead) sketch on A3 paper of a tree trunk (closeup) in a forest next to some undergrowth and thinner trees in the background. The bark has multiple holes and cavities.
January 10, 2025 at 1:28 PM
mikebut.bsky.social
#PeepShow
A subtitled frame from the television series ‘Peep Show’ depicting the first person perspective of lead character Mark Corrigan (played by David Mitchell) looking out and down onto a kitchen counter. His two hands are buttering toast as he remarks despondently, “Butter the toast, eat the toast, shit the toast. God life’s relentless.”
January 9, 2025 at 2:58 PM