The Lovers’ Chronicle 5 January – struggle – inauguration of the Palais Garnier – art by Pablo Gargallo, Yves Tanguy & Nicolas de Staël – verse by W. D. Snodgrass

Dear Zazie,  Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag dedicated to his muse. Tell me your struggles.  Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle 

Dear Muse,

dream scenario…
under a full moon, wait there is no full moon tonight but there it is
ok he thought, this is a dream, so where is this one goin’
walkin’ down a not recognized road, cold, is that snow fallin’
comes to an iron gate, opens it and walks through
it is a cemetery and he stops at an open grave
oh, because i am supposed to bury somethin’ here, he thinks
but what, and then he knows, and he leaves it there
before returnin’ to her

© copyright 2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

gotta be Metallica from the legendary Black Album,
“Reaching out for something you’ve got to feel
While clutching to what you had thought was real”
“Oh yes, one of our favorites”
and we know that feelin’ all too well
more than once i reached out for somethin’
only to find it not real, but not anymore
“There is no struggle within for us”

© copyright 2023.2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

the looks, the little gestures, the touches, how we feel, as we lie, wide awake, habitants whisperin’ through this treasured moment who must explore beyond ordinary or else we break our ties that bind and fade away

we wonder as we grow
into this bond so sound

© copyright 2022 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

found
in these thoughts,
these wishes,
this ardour

you therefore
feel once again
that, hey baby,
moves you so

this your purpose
this is your pulse

this need

this flash, this spark
burnin’ in surprise

these ties that bind
growin’ stronger
savin’ us

© copyright 2021 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Pale Love, Pale Rider

well the pull is strong
do not want to think
what might have been
were it not for this

and you, steadfast
these years on

no matter what is said
and written, still comes
back to purpose and why

got nothin’ for why
and purpose is a dish
best served in solitude

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

“But why?”
you know, at some point,
you have to eff why

“Can you say,
you did the best
you could do?”
that hardly matters…

well it is, some days
but that is just
the natural order,
n’est-ce pas

it was not, last night
the attention
of a pretty woman
was nothin’
more than that

limitations
are fully known

© copyright 2019 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

oh yes, well, there was plenty of that
but y’all are tired of tear jerkin’ stuff
the only struggle these days might
be with the snow shovel tryin’
to keep the driveway clear
the words are not puttin’
up a wrangle, they keep on
comin’, that would be the only
tussle i would be worried about
and the solo decision remains easy

© copyright 2018.2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

lost, this single thought
changes in mid-spectrum
these endless wishes,
senseless ardour

would you therefore,
have to hear everything
that heart-rendin’ farewell
cannot move you

at this,
cries are superfluous
bitterly, heard over ashes
“Return no more.”

but no,
not your purpose
all that is,
this is your pulse

illusion
chimera, lie
this ephemeral need

this flash, this spark
burnin’ in surprise
you suddenly forget
and destinies bind

© copyright 2017 mac tag/cowboycoleridge all rights reserved

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On this day in 1875, the Palais Garnier, one of the most famous opera houses in the world, is inaugurated in Paris.

The Palais Garnier is a 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was called the Salle des Capucines, because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier, in recognition of its opulence and its architect, Charles Garnier. The theatre is also often referred to as the Opéra Garnier and historically was known as the Opéra de Paris or simply the Opéra, as it was the primary home of the Paris Opera and its associated Paris Opera Ballet until 1989, when the Opéra Bastille opened at the Place de la Bastille. The Paris Opera now mainly uses the Palais Garnier for ballet.

The Palais Garnier is a symbol of Paris like Notre Dame Cathedral, the Louvre, or the Sacré Coeur Basilica. This is at least partly due to its use as the setting for Gaston Leroux‘s 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera and, especially, the novel’s subsequent adaptations in films and the popular 1986 musical. 

The Palais Garnier also houses the Bibliothèque-Musée de l’Opéra de Paris (Paris Opera Library-Museum). The museum is included in unaccompanied tours of the Palais Garnier.

Inauguration of the Paris Opera in 1875 (Édouard Detaille, 1878)

The theatre was formally inaugurated with a lavish gala performance attended by Marshal MacMahon, the Lord Mayor of London and King Alfonso XII of Spain. The program included the overtures to Auber‘s La muette de Portici and Rossini‘s William Tell, the first two acts of Halévy‘s 1835 opera La Juive (with Gabrielle Krauss in the title role), along with “The Consecration of the Swords” from Meyerbeer‘s 1836 opera Les Huguenots and the 1866 ballet La source with music by Delibes and Minkus. As a soprano had fallen ill one act from Charles Gounod’s Faustand one from Ambroise Thomas’s Hamlet had to be omitted. During the intermission Garnier stepped out onto the landing of the grand staircase to receive the approving applause of the audience.

Today is the birthday of Pablo Gargallo (Pablo Emilio Gargallo Catalán; Maella, Aragon, Spain; 5 January 1881 – 28 December 1934 Reus, Tarragona, Spain); sculptor and painter.

He spent a significant part of his life in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris, France. In 1903, he invested a studio at the Cité d’Artistes, rue Vercingétorix in the 14th arrondissement of Paris. There he met Max Jacob and Carlos Casagemas, both friends of Pablo Picasso.

In 1907, he stayed at the artists commune Le Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre with Max Jacob, Juan Gris and other artists. He spent his first night in the studio of his friend Picasso, whose head he modeled as a sculpture. There he was able to contemplate Picasso’s seminal proto-Cubist painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Shortly thereafter, Juan Gris introduced him to Magali Tartanson, whom he married in 1915. During this period, Gargallo was influenced by the work of Picasso.

Among Gargallo’s works are three pieces based on Greta Garbo: “Masque de Greta Garbo à la mèche,” “Tête de Greta Garbo avec chapeau,” and “Masque de Greta Garbo aux cils.” Together with Dídac Masana, Gargallo sculpted the great arch over the front of the stage of the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona. The work depicts the Ride of the Valkyries in Richard Wagner’s opera Die Walküre (The Valkyries).

Gargallo suffered from fulminating bronchial pneumonia and died in Reus, Tarragona. He is considered to be one of the most significant artists of the Spanish avant-garde, and in 1985 the Pablo Gargallo Museum in Zaragoza opened in the former Argillo Palace. Gargallo’s birthplace and early home, on the street now dedicated to his name in Maella, Zaragosa, has been transformed into a museum dedicated to his life and works

Galería

1922, Femme au repos en creux bronze

• Retrato de Picasso, 1913
• 1930, Portrait de Greta Garbo steel
• 

Today is the birthday of Yves Tanguy (Raymond Georges Yves Tanguy; Paris; January 5, 1900 – January 15, 1955 Woodbury, Connecticut); surrealist painter.

Throughout the 1930s, Tanguy adopted the bohemian lifestyle of the struggling artist with gusto, leading eventually to the failure of his first marriage. He had an intense affair with Peggy Guggenheim in 1938 when he went to London with his wife Jeannette Ducrocq to hang his first retrospective exhibition in Britain at her gallery Guggenheim Jeune. The exhibition was a great success and Guggenheim wrote in her autobiography that “Tanguy found himself rich for the first time in his life”. She purchased his pictures Toilette de L’Air and The Sun in Its Jewel Case (Le Soleil dans son écrin) for her collection. Tanguy also painted Peggy two beautiful earrings. The affair continued in both London and Paris and only finished when Tanguy met a fellow Surrealist artist who would become his second wife.

In 1938, after seeing the work of fellow artist Kay Sage, Tanguy began a relationship which led to his second marriage. With the outbreak of World War II, Sage moved back to her native New York, and Tanguy, judged unfit for military service, followed her. He would spend the rest of his life in the United States. Sage and Tanguy were married in Reno, Nevada, on August 17, 1940. Their marriage proved durable but tense. Both drank heavily, and Tanguy assaulted Sage verbally and sometimes physically, pushing her and sometimes even threatening her with a knife privately and at social gatherings. Sage, according to friends’ accounts, made no response to her husband’s aggression. Toward the end of the war, the couple moved to Woodbury, Connecticut, converting an old farmhouse into an artists’ studio. They spent the rest of their lives there. In 1948, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

In January 1955, Tanguy suffered a fatal stroke at Woodbury. His body was cremated and his ashes preserved until Sage’s death in 1963. Later, his ashes were scattered by his friend Pierre Matisse on the beach at Douarnenez in his beloved Brittany, together with those of his wife.

Gallery

Today is the birthday of Nicolas de Staël (Nikolai Vladimirovich Stael von Holstein; Saint Petersburg; January 5, 1914 – March 16, 1955 Antibes, France); painter known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting. He also worked with collage, illustration and textiles.

He eventually studied decoration and design at the Brussels Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts and architecture at the Académie de St Gilles (1932). In the 1930s, he traveled throughout Europe, lived in Paris (1934) and in Morocco (1936) (where he first met his companion Jeannine Guillou, also a painter and who would appear in some of his paintings from 1941–1942) and Algeria. In 1936 he had his first exhibition of Byzantine-style icons and watercolors at the Galerie Dietrich et Cie, Brussels. He joined the French Foreign Legion in 1939 and was demobilized in 1941. Sometime in 1940 he met one of his future dealers, Jeanne Bucher.

In 1941, he moved to Nice where he met Jean Arp, Sonia Delaunay and Robert Delaunay, and these artists would inspire his first abstract paintings, or “Compositions”. In 1942, Jeannine and Nicolas de Staël’s daughter Anne was born. The growing family also included Jeannine’s nine-year-old son Antoine. In 1943 (during the Nazi occupation), de Staël returned to Paris with Jeannine, but the war years were extremely difficult. During the war his paintings were included in several group exhibitions and in 1944 he had his first one-man exhibition at the Galerie l’Esquisse. In April 1945, he had a one-man exhibition at the Galerie Jeanne Bucher and in May 1945 his paintings were included in the first Salon de Mai. De Staël’s work was also included in the Salon d’Automne that year. In Paris in 1944, he met and befriended Georges Braque, and by 1945 his exhibitions brought him critical fame. However times were difficult, and successes came too late, since Jeannine died in February 1946 from illness brought on by malnutrition.

By 1953, de Staël’s emotional state led him to seek isolation in the south of France (eventually in Antibes). He suffered from exhaustion, insomnia and depression. On 16 March 1955, in the wake of a disappointing meeting with disparaging art critic Douglas Cooper, de Staël leapt to his death from his eleventh story studio terrace, in Antibes. He was 41 years old. He is buried at the Montrouge Cemetery.

Gallery

And today is the birthday of W. D. Snodgrass (William De Witt Snodgrass; January 5, 1926 – January 13, 2009); poet who also wrote under the pseudonym S. S. Gardons. He was studying poetry at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in the early 1950s when his marriage began to fall apart, and he began writing about it in his poems. He showed some of hispoems to his teacher, the poet Robert Lowell, but Lowell didn’t like them. He said, “You’ve got a brain; you can’t write this kind of tear-jerking stuff.”

Lowell later helped Snodgrass get his poetry collection, Heart’s Needle, published in 1959. It was Snodgrass’s first book, and it won the Pulitzer Prize. Lowell called it “a breakthrough for modern poetry.”

Snodgrass’s work helped inspire other poets to write openly about their personal lives.

Snodgrass married his first wife, Lila Jean Hank, in 1946. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1953. The following year Snodgrass married his second wife, Janice Marie Ferguson Wilson. Divorcing again in 1966, he married his third wife, Camille Rykowski in 1967 but this ended in 1978. His fourth marriage to Kathleen Ann Brown was in 1985.

Verse

The hills, the little houses, the costumes:
How real it seems! But he comes, wide awake,
A tourist whispering through the priceless rooms
Who must not touch things or his hand might break

Their sleep and black them out. He wonders when
He’ll grow into his sleep so sound again.

……

The only reality which [a poet] can ever surely know is that self he cannot help being. If he pretties it up, if he changes its meaning, if he gives it the voice of any borrowed authority, if in short he rejects this reality, his mind will be less than alive. So will his words.

thanks for stoppin’ by y’all

Mac Tag

By god, D. H. Lawrence was right when he had said there must be a dumb, dark, dull, bitter belly-tension between a man and a woman, and how else could this be achieved save in the long monotony of marriage?

– Stella Gibbons

Happiness can never hope to command so much interest as distress.

– Stella Gibbons