for good from wicked

I've heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason

Bringing something we must learn

And we are lead to those who help us most to grow

If we let them

And we help them in return.

Well, I don't know if I believe that's true

But I know I'm who I am today because I knew you

Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes a sun

Like a stream that meets a boulder

Halfway through the wood

Who can say if I've been changed for the better?

But because I knew you, 

I have been changed for good

It well may be that we will never meet again in this lifetime

So let me say before we part

So much of me

Is made from what I've learned from you

You'll be with me like a handprint on my heart

And now whatever way our stories end

I know you have re-written mine

By being my friend

Like a ship blown from its mooring by a wind off the sea

Like a seed dropped by a skybird in a distant wood

Who can say if I've been changed for the better?

But because I knew you,

I have been changed for good

nan goldin

marcel duchamp

"The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act."

minimalism

the focus is entirely on the viewer's reaction; self-realization

monet's haystacks

erica jong

“Do you want me to tell you something really subversive? Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.”

arthur danto

"In periods of artistic stability, there can be little doubt that works of art very frequently were found to have properties, the failure of which would call seriously into question their status as artworks. but that time has long passed, and just as anything can be an expression of anything, provided we know the conventions under which it is one and the causes through which its status as an expression is to be explained, so in this sense can anything be a work of art. Of course it does not follow from the fact that anything can be a work of art that everything is one. The typewriter I am writing on could have been a work of art, but it happens not to be one. What makes art so interesting a concept is that in nothing like the sense in which my typewriter could be a work of art could it be a ham sandwich, through of course some ham sandwich could be, and perhaps already is, a work of art."

(from The Transfiguration of the Commonplace)

la vie en rose by edith piaf

Hold me close and hold me fast
The magic spell you cast
This is la vie en rose

When you kiss me,
Heaven sighs
And though I close my eyes
I see la vie en rose

When you press me to your heart
I'm in a world apart
A world where roses bloom
And when you speak
Angels sing from above

Every day words
Seem to turn into love songs
Give your heart and soul to me
And life will always be
La vie en rose

I thought that love was just a word
They sang about in songs I heard
It took your kisses to reveal
That I was wrong, and love is real