Alan Reed
@alanreedwrite.bsky.social
“…Stay at your desk and listen. Or don’t even listen, wait for it to bother you. Don’t even wait, be completely quiet and alone. The world will offer itself to you to be unmasked, it cannot do otherwise, it will writhe in front of you in ecstasies.”
– Franz Kafka
– Franz Kafka
December 20, 2025 at 8:12 PM
“…Stay at your desk and listen. Or don’t even listen, wait for it to bother you. Don’t even wait, be completely quiet and alone. The world will offer itself to you to be unmasked, it cannot do otherwise, it will writhe in front of you in ecstasies.”
– Franz Kafka
– Franz Kafka
“Attention: An intimate gesture that invites self-display in another, responds to self-display of another, or communicatively traverses the boundary of another.”
– Talia Mae Bettcher, Beyond Personhood
– Talia Mae Bettcher, Beyond Personhood
December 14, 2025 at 9:39 PM
“Attention: An intimate gesture that invites self-display in another, responds to self-display of another, or communicatively traverses the boundary of another.”
– Talia Mae Bettcher, Beyond Personhood
– Talia Mae Bettcher, Beyond Personhood
"Clearly, my project was too vast and the announcement of a vast project is always its betrayal. No one can say without being comical that he is getting ready to overturn things: he must overturn, and that is all."
– Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share
– Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share
October 31, 2025 at 5:17 PM
"Clearly, my project was too vast and the announcement of a vast project is always its betrayal. No one can say without being comical that he is getting ready to overturn things: he must overturn, and that is all."
– Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share
– Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share
“Silence is no more neutral than nudity.”
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
October 25, 2025 at 3:41 PM
“Silence is no more neutral than nudity.”
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
“The moment of collaboration is the moment you ask the right person to work with you and then trust them completely.”
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
October 25, 2025 at 3:39 PM
“The moment of collaboration is the moment you ask the right person to work with you and then trust them completely.”
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
“Choreography is about holding on just enough to guide what’s happening without squeezing the life out of it.”
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
October 25, 2025 at 3:07 AM
“Choreography is about holding on just enough to guide what’s happening without squeezing the life out of it.”
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
“Nobody believes me when I say that my long book is an attempt to create a world in which a form of language agreeable to my personal aesthetic might seem real. But it is true.“
– J. R. R. Tolkien
– J. R. R. Tolkien
October 24, 2025 at 10:31 PM
“Nobody believes me when I say that my long book is an attempt to create a world in which a form of language agreeable to my personal aesthetic might seem real. But it is true.“
– J. R. R. Tolkien
– J. R. R. Tolkien
“Stillness and silence are only as powerful as the trust we have that everything will move again eventually.”
– Jonathan Burrows, The Choreographer’s Handbook
– Jonathan Burrows, The Choreographer’s Handbook
October 13, 2025 at 3:19 AM
“Stillness and silence are only as powerful as the trust we have that everything will move again eventually.”
– Jonathan Burrows, The Choreographer’s Handbook
– Jonathan Burrows, The Choreographer’s Handbook
“…it’s about creating a flow of possibilities that allow the watchers and performers to think and feel together, and to go on thinking and feeling even after the performance has finished.”
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
October 4, 2025 at 2:56 PM
“…it’s about creating a flow of possibilities that allow the watchers and performers to think and feel together, and to go on thinking and feeling even after the performance has finished.”
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
“…the nature of dance classes sets up a constant belief in our need to improve. I personally felt a bit sad when I realized I was going to be old before I’d finally improved.”
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
October 3, 2025 at 1:45 AM
“…the nature of dance classes sets up a constant belief in our need to improve. I personally felt a bit sad when I realized I was going to be old before I’d finally improved.”
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
“The audience wants to see something they haven’t seen before, but they want to recognize it when they see it.”
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
October 3, 2025 at 12:58 AM
“The audience wants to see something they haven’t seen before, but they want to recognize it when they see it.”
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
“How much time have you got? Maybe that’s the right amount of time.”
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
October 1, 2025 at 10:48 PM
“How much time have you got? Maybe that’s the right amount of time.”
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
“…and yet, a detective story must still be carefully thought out, developed, it will never be dictated by circumstance or by the gods or the muses, who wouldn’t know how to go about inspiring someone to commit a crime, and reserve their encouragement for poets.”
– Éric Chevillard
– Éric Chevillard
October 1, 2025 at 1:26 AM
“…and yet, a detective story must still be carefully thought out, developed, it will never be dictated by circumstance or by the gods or the muses, who wouldn’t know how to go about inspiring someone to commit a crime, and reserve their encouragement for poets.”
– Éric Chevillard
– Éric Chevillard
“Each thought will suggest the next and I will stop when there are no more thoughts.”
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
September 23, 2025 at 3:09 AM
“Each thought will suggest the next and I will stop when there are no more thoughts.”
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
– Jonathan Burrows, A Choreographer’s Handbook
Robert Walser thought he could be a servant and of course he couldn’t but today I realized how he could have imagined it: to see the powerful in their helpless vulnerability, to attend to the nakedness beneath their station. Their flesh somehow soft and tender. The unspeakable intimacy of it.
September 6, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Robert Walser thought he could be a servant and of course he couldn’t but today I realized how he could have imagined it: to see the powerful in their helpless vulnerability, to attend to the nakedness beneath their station. Their flesh somehow soft and tender. The unspeakable intimacy of it.
“it takes a lot of grieving. but one day you will look up, and you will finally understand what it is you have been collecting.”
– Rowan Perez, Body’s a Bad Monster
– Rowan Perez, Body’s a Bad Monster
August 23, 2025 at 2:52 PM
“it takes a lot of grieving. but one day you will look up, and you will finally understand what it is you have been collecting.”
– Rowan Perez, Body’s a Bad Monster
– Rowan Perez, Body’s a Bad Monster
"at some point, to accept what we are, we must empty ourselves to the horror of it. the unknown and ugly. the dangerous, lurid, replete.
and we have to say: okay. if i will be lost in the bloodied space for all of my life, at least while i'm here—let me feast."
– Rowan Perez, Body's a Bad Monster
and we have to say: okay. if i will be lost in the bloodied space for all of my life, at least while i'm here—let me feast."
– Rowan Perez, Body's a Bad Monster
August 10, 2025 at 6:23 PM
"at some point, to accept what we are, we must empty ourselves to the horror of it. the unknown and ugly. the dangerous, lurid, replete.
and we have to say: okay. if i will be lost in the bloodied space for all of my life, at least while i'm here—let me feast."
– Rowan Perez, Body's a Bad Monster
and we have to say: okay. if i will be lost in the bloodied space for all of my life, at least while i'm here—let me feast."
– Rowan Perez, Body's a Bad Monster
“The body that contains a spirit is the one true god.”
– Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit
– Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit
July 31, 2025 at 10:54 PM
“The body that contains a spirit is the one true god.”
– Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit
– Jeanette Winterson, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit
If poetry is not about anything said, if it is instead to do with the desire to speak: how it is the possibility of imagining desire, of turning towards it, to see it gently and clearly; if it is how desire could be tempted into speech.
July 27, 2025 at 3:37 PM
If poetry is not about anything said, if it is instead to do with the desire to speak: how it is the possibility of imagining desire, of turning towards it, to see it gently and clearly; if it is how desire could be tempted into speech.
“People hold books in a special way—like they hold nothing else. They hold them not like inanimate things but like ones that have gone to sleep. Children often carry toys in the same manner.”
– John Berger, Bento’s Sketchbook
– John Berger, Bento’s Sketchbook
June 18, 2025 at 11:33 PM
“People hold books in a special way—like they hold nothing else. They hold them not like inanimate things but like ones that have gone to sleep. Children often carry toys in the same manner.”
– John Berger, Bento’s Sketchbook
– John Berger, Bento’s Sketchbook
“A protest is not principally a sacrifice made for some alternative, more just future; it is an inconsequential redemption of the present. The problem is how to live time and again with the adjective inconsequential.”
– John Berger, Bento’s Sketchbook
– John Berger, Bento’s Sketchbook
June 18, 2025 at 11:28 PM
“A protest is not principally a sacrifice made for some alternative, more just future; it is an inconsequential redemption of the present. The problem is how to live time and again with the adjective inconsequential.”
– John Berger, Bento’s Sketchbook
– John Berger, Bento’s Sketchbook
“(Carelessness for him is a reminder of the farce that life risks becoming.)”
– John Berger
– John Berger
June 16, 2025 at 12:24 AM
“(Carelessness for him is a reminder of the farce that life risks becoming.)”
– John Berger
– John Berger
“For it seemed to me that much more truth could be found in the reasonings which a man makes concerning matters that concern him than in those which some scholar makes in his study about speculative matters.”
– Rene Descartes
– Rene Descartes
June 13, 2025 at 1:30 AM
“For it seemed to me that much more truth could be found in the reasonings which a man makes concerning matters that concern him than in those which some scholar makes in his study about speculative matters.”
– Rene Descartes
– Rene Descartes
“The tradition of the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the minds of the living.”
– Karl Marx
– Karl Marx
June 12, 2025 at 3:20 AM
“The tradition of the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the minds of the living.”
– Karl Marx
– Karl Marx
“Because subjectivity is always alienated, far from mastering the world, it is necessarily in a skewed relation to the world. To be a subject is always to relate to one’s world from a distance.”
– Todd McGowan, Embracing Alienation
– Todd McGowan, Embracing Alienation
June 7, 2025 at 3:44 AM
“Because subjectivity is always alienated, far from mastering the world, it is necessarily in a skewed relation to the world. To be a subject is always to relate to one’s world from a distance.”
– Todd McGowan, Embracing Alienation
– Todd McGowan, Embracing Alienation