Signs of Order: Kertész and Ruefle

Art Fair Participant Reading, Washington Square, NY, 1977

 

Browse more work by André Kertész here: Bulger Gallery.

And check out this essay by poet Mary Ruefle, which makes for a good companion to Kertész's photos: Someone Reading a Book is a Sign of Order in the World. 

Here's a snippet:

Is there a right time to read each book? A point of developing consciousness that corresponds with perfect ripeness to a particular poet or novel? And if that is the case, how many times in our lives did we make the match? I heard someone say, at a party, that D. H. Lawrence should be read during one's late teens and early twenties. Since I was nearing thirty at the time, I made up my mind never to read him. And I never have. Connoisseurs of reading are very silly people. But as Thomas Merton said, one day you wake up and realize religion is ridiculous and that you will stick with it anyway. What love is ever any different? 

Silly and sticking with it,
--CQ