Anton Chekhov, born on this day in 1860, considers in a letter to his older brother Nikolai, an artist.

Cultured people must, in my opinion, satisfy the following conditions:

1. They respect human personality, and therefore they are always kind, gentle, polite, and ready to give in to others. They do not make a row because of a hammer or a lost piece of india-rubber; if they live with anyone they do not regard it as a favour and, going away, they do not say “nobody can live with you.” They forgive noise and cold and dried-up meat and witticisms and the presence of strangers in their homes.
2. They have sympathy not for beggars and cats alone. Their heart aches for what the eye does not see…. They sit up at night in order to help P…., to pay for brothers at the University, and to buy clothes for their mother.
3. They respect the property of others, and therefor pay their debts.
4. They are sincere, and dread lying like fire. They don’t lie even in small things. A lie is insulting to the listener and puts him in a lower position in the eyes of the speaker. They do not pose, they behave in the street as they do at home, they do not show off before their humbler comrades. They are not given to babbling and forcing their uninvited confidences on others. Out of respect for other people’s ears they more often keep silent than talk.
5. They do not disparage themselves to rouse compassion. They do not play on the strings of other people’s hearts so that they may sigh and make much of them. They do not say “I am misunderstood,” or “I have become second-rate,” because all this is striving after cheap effect, is vulgar, stale, false….
6. They have no shallow vanity. They do not care for such false diamonds as knowing celebrities, shaking hands with the drunken P., [Translator's Note: Probably Palmin, a minor poet.] listening to the raptures of a stray spectator in a picture show, being renowned in the taverns…. If they do a pennyworth they do not strut about as though they had done a hundred roubles’ worth, and do not brag of having the entry where others are not admitted…. The truly talented always keep in obscurity among the crowd, as far as possible from advertisement…. Even Krylov has said that an empty barrel echoes more loudly than a full one.
7. If they have a talent they respect it. They sacrifice to it rest, women, wine, vanity…. They are proud of their talent…. Besides, they are fastidious.
8. They develop the aesthetic feeling in themselves. They cannot go to sleep in their clothes, see cracks full of bugs on the walls, breathe bad air, walk on a floor that has been spat upon, cook their meals over an oil stove. They seek as far as possible to restrain and ennoble the sexual instinct…. What they want in a woman is not a bed-fellow … They do not ask for the cleverness which shows itself in continual lying. They want especially, if they are artists, freshness, elegance, humanity, the capacity for motherhood…. They do not swill vodka at all hours of the day and night, do not sniff at cupboards, for they are not pigs and know they are not. They drink only when they are free, on occasion…. For they want mens sana in corpore sano [a healthy mind in a healthy body].

And so on. This is what cultured people are like. In order to be cultured and not to stand below the level of your surroundings it is not enough to have read “The Pickwick Papers” and learnt a monologue from “Faust.” …
What is needed is constant work, day and night, constant reading, study, will…. Every hour is precious for it…. Come to us, smash the vodka bottle, lie down and read…. Turgenev, if you like, whom you have not read.

i cant sleep cos im picturing you taking some girl on a date to the moonlight cinema and im sad cos we never really went on dates... and im creating valentines day cards for you in my head.

When You Loved Me

Jan. 22, 2013

By Charlotte Green

There was a time when I was sure of everything. I would wake up in the morning and, no matter what would happen to me that day, I would know that I could go home and be with someone who truly cared about me. We don’t realize how important it is to have a true cheerleader — someone who is unfailingly on our team — until we don’t have it anymore. It’s like walking around everywhere with a warm, fuzzy security blanket on. There will always be a shock absorber for the more difficult-to-stomach moments of life, and someone there with whom to share your pains and your joys. It’s a luxury that so few of us are afforded, and yet, we are so quick to convince ourselves when we have it that it will last forever. It becomes a constant in our lives that we take for granted, the hum of a car that is driving us safely home as we fall asleep in the backseat.
And then, one day, it’s gone. You wake up and realize that your entire day will be navigated alone, and there won’t be someone there to ask you how it was and really care to hear your answer. When something wonderful or terrible happens, there won’t be that person you know you can immediately call to make sense of everything. Yes, you have friends, yes you have family. But there isn’t that sense of navigating the stream together, of being part of a team, of having someone who will always think of you first. The partnership is different — less all-encompassing, less implied. You know that you can call them, but you want to call the one you love. The one who, inconvenient as it is, no longer loves you.
There is something more difficult in losing the partner than losing the lover. You can almost accept that the sex, the kissing, the spooning, the whispered conversations at 3 AM are all over. What seems almost impossible to comprehend is this idea that you are now alone again after having someone else to depend on for so long. You get so used to the world being seen through the prism of “us” and “we” that to exist as an “I” again no longer seems to make sense. We had a plan, we had inside jokes, we had an entire world constructed between the two of us which has forever closed its gates. It feels as though everything has disappeared behind me, and even if I could physically retrace my steps, nothing would look the same.
It’s strange because I’m not even sure if “I want you back” would be an accurate description of the feelings I have, or a fair statement to make, given the awkward position of refusal it would put you in. It’s more that I miss how easy things were when we were together, and I’d like that sense of confidence back. I’d like the security, the knowledge of who I was and where I was going, and the certainty about what my desires were in life. There are many wonderful things to discover by yourself, but it’s natural to be afraid of loneliness and facing things with no support — and I am afraid. Your love gave me strength to do things that I am now re-learning how to do on my own. I must flex my own my own muscles, remember my own shortcuts, make my own networks.
Sometimes I come home and my apartment is empty. It seems so quiet, so cold, so big. I curl up alone with the whole evening in front of me — the freedom to do whatever I want. There are a million things I could do, a million people to call, a million choices to make which could lead me directly into the arms of someone I could end up loving more than I ever did you. And it’s at moments like these where I pick up my phone, look at your number, and wonder what you’ve been doing. I don’t call you, of course, but I wonder what you would have told me if we were still together and I was feeling so lonely, so unsure. “You’re so strong,” you would say, “You have nothing to worry about.” I guess what matters now is just remembering that it is true, even if you’re no longer here to remind me of it.

Learning to Be Me

Greg Egan
I was six years old when my parents told me that there was a small, dark jewel inside my skull, learning to be me.

i love this i want it so bad

id have that day with you again

here i am again. heartbroken.

“No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.”
- John Donne, excerpt from “Devotions upon Emergent Occasions”

i just woke up

life in movement.

i just finished watching this doco this morning about tanya liedtke the 29yr old choreographer, artist. so inspiring how her whole life was dedicated to her art form. she was just made creative director of the sydney dance company and two months before she started she was killed by a garbage truck on a walk one night. d i loved the way she worked with her partner. and she documented her creative process constantly with a camera. anyway i cried an cried in it. a def must see for anyone who cares about being good at what you do.
Life in Movement Trailer (OFFICIAL) from Closer Productions on Vimeo.

i think i need to take it easy and take a step back. thats the key. i always try to do it all at once and lose patience or energy and give up. always wanting to be the best or get stuff done but then never getting it done. i love my boyfriend and i dont want to lose him. he is patient. i hope he stays patient with me.
One of the most remarkable characteristics of Sherlock Holmes was his power of throwing his brain out of action and switching all his thoughts on to lighter things whenever he had convinced himself that he could no longer work to advantage.
Forcing your mind to take a step back is a tough thing to do. It seems like giving up.. to walk away from a problem that you want to solve. or learn something and try and drill it in your brain. i discovered this tonight and last night i learnt about the Zeigarnik effect. which is when people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks. The Zeigarnik effect suggests that students who suspend their studying, during which they do unrelated activities (such as studying unrelated subjects or playing games), will remember material better than students who complete study sessions without a break.
anyway the greatest genius is that who loves loves loves... and i think thats what ill stick to becoming.

Pictured: How I Know I’m Here 1985-2000 • The Vitreous Body 2001
Kiki Smith, who was born in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1954, grew up in New Jersey and has lived in New York City since 1976. In the late 1970s and early 1980s she was associated with the artist’s collective Collaborative Projects, Inc. (Colab). During that period she began to focus on the constituent parts of the human anatomy, a subject that continues to figure in her art.
The Museum of Modern Art features work from her 2003 exhibition Kiki Smith: Prints, Books, and Things. An interactive website (using the incredibly cool “zoomify” technology) showcases the scope of Smith’s printed art and present it thematically, focusing on such topics as anatomy, self-portraiture, nature, and female iconography.

charles blackman