I Would Like To Metamorphose

All Human Knowledge Takes The Form Of Interpretation.

This Is How One Pictures The Angel Of History. His Face Is Turned Toward The Past. Where We Perceived A Chain Of Events, He Sees One Single Catastrophe Which Keeps Piling Wreckage And Hurls It In Front Of His Feet. The Angel Would Like To Stay, Awaken The Dead, And Make Whole What Has Been Smashed. But A Storm Is Blowing From Paradise; It Has Got Caught In His Wings With Such Violence That The Angel Can No Longer Close Them. This Storm Irresistably Propels Him Into The Future To Which His Back Is Turned, While The Pile Of Debris Before Him Grows Skyward. The Storm Is What We Call Progress.

Thinking Involves Not Only The Flow Of Thoughts, But Their Arrest As Well.

There Was The Pedestrian Who Wedged Himself Into The Crowd, But There Was Also The Flneur Who Demanded Elbow Room And Was Unwilling To Forego The Life Of The Gentleman Of Leisure. His Leisurely Appearance As A Personality Is His Protest Against The Division Of Labour Which Makes People Into Specialists. It Was Also His Protest Against Their Industriousness. Around 1840 It Was Briefly Fashionable To Take Turtles For A Walk In The Arcades. The Flneurs Liked To Have The Turtles Set The Pace For Them.

Painting, By Its Nature, Cannot Provide An Object Of Simultaneous Collective Reception... As Film Is Able To Do Today... And While Efforts Have Been Made To Present Paintings To The Masses In Galleries And Salons, This Mode Of Reception Gives The Masses No Means Of Organizing And Regulating Their Response. Thus, The Same Public Which Reacts Progressively To A Slapstick Comedy Inevitably Displays A Backward Attitude Toward Surrealism.