Literature & Art Exploring Walls


Literature About Walls

From Walls: Enclosure & Ethics In The Landscape by Thomas Oles, University of Chicago Press, 2015

"It is only to say that, like all the objects that people make, walls have never been any one thing. They have always been violence and nurture, separation and exchange, barbarism and mercy, destruction and creation – all at once. " p. 22

"Walls were not "tools" designed to solve a problem, but complex and enduring parts of the symbolic system of the cultures were they arose. Surveying the long arc of human history and prehistory, then, it is necessary to ask not what walls did, but what they were." p. 24

"The strength of Maki's proposal lay in its invitation to think of urban walls not simply as objects enclosing things of value, but as valuable sites of exchange in themselves." p. 134

"I have thought, that a good fence helpeth to keepe peace between neighbors; but lets take heed that we make not a high stone wall, to keepe us from meeting." - Reverend Ezekiel Rogers (From Walls, p. 3)

  • Ezekiel Rogers (1590 – January 23, 1660) was an English nonconformist clergyman, and Puritan settler of Massachusetts


"Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." - World Health Organization

 

Mahmoud Darwis: “Identity is our legacy and not our inheritance;  our invention and not our memory." 

Regarding the Pain of Oneself (2013)

Written for the catalogue of Beyond the Last Sky exhibition
(contemporary Palestinian photography and video)
The Australian Centre for Photography
curated by Chirsoula Lionis

The Protocitycom: 25 Years of Post-Wall Change in Berlin

Stone wall at Frost's farm in Derry, New Hampshire, which he describes in "Mending Wall"

Stone wall at Frost's farm in Derry, New Hampshire, which he describes in "Mending Wall"

"Mending Wall" 
by Robert Frost (1874–1963), published in 1914

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.'
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.' 



Visual Art & Events About Walls

The Impact of Conditions in Gaza on Children

“The issue is the condition of chronic war, which doesn’t lead to speedy recovery,” said Dr. Elena Chere- panov, a mental-health specialist whose expertise is in collective and cultural trauma. She compares the psychological impact of the violence in Gaza to the public-health crises she’s seen in Chechnya, Liberia, and Abkhazia. “Ongoing war means a really severe and systemic traumatic impact on the community, which permeates all areas of life.There are generations who grow up never having the chance to live in safety or plan for the future, which is crucial for trauma recovery.” - Jen Marlowe in The NationGaza’s Mental-Health Crisis and the Trauma of Permanent Wa


Humor and Walls


Songs & Sounds About Walls

The Wall Album: Released Nov 30, 1979, by Pink Floyd


The Wall is the eleventh studio album by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd. As with Pink Floyd's previous three albums, The Wall is a concept album and explores themes of abandonment and personal isolation. … all contribute to his eventual self-imposed isolation from society, represented by a metaphorical wall. The Wall features a harsher and more theatrical style than Pink Floyd's previous albums. Rolling Stone magazine placed The Wall at number 87 on its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

"Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else." - Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities 

"The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space." - Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

 

Michael FrantiMichael Franti & Spearhead

http://www.metrolyrics.com/everybody-ona-move-lyrics-michael-franti.html

Everybody On a Move

Everybody ona move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

Ah aha ha ha ha

And you don't stop

And you don't quit

And you don't quit

Everybody ona move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

The movement (the movement)

Is like a phenomenon (is like a phenomenon)

You never know where it's comin' from

You never know when the next big sound gonna come

Baghdad, Hong Kong

Tokyo, King Kong

Synagogue, singsong

Hot beat, car bomb

Don't matter who's on the chart number one

Spearhead sound for the people everyone

Thunder comes from the bass and the drum

Rain or shine never stop anyone

I like my bass loudy, loudy, louder!

I like my bass loudy, loudy, louder!

Everybody ona move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

Ah aha ha ha ha

And you don't stop

And you don't quit

And you don't quit

Everybody ona move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

Ha ha ha ha, ah yes yes yes yes

Touchin' down on mother earth

I take mud and turn it into pottery

Lottery, I give all a chance

As I welcome all to the dance

Angel (oh?), criminal (who?), animal (wha?), mineral

And spiritual

All sinners, all head-spinners

So-called experts, we're all beginners

Enter, the age of aquarians

Carnivores, and vegetarians

It's the next sound wave

Soon I may ah, ask you to behave

El presidente, you behave

Once war stops sendin' us to the grave

Vamanos, Vamanos, all walls will fall like dominoes

Earthquakin' and shakin'

Please don't stop, rock

Everybody ona move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

Ah aha ha ha ha

And you don't stop

And you don't quit

And you don't quit

Everybody ona move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

Yes, all walls will fall

All walls will fall

I never quit, I never give up

I'd hate to have me as my own enemy

Because

Music is not competition

Music is not repetition

Music is love, love for the masses, for all classes

Love conquers all

Love accepts all

Love respects all

Love dares to dream (A Love Supreme, A Love Supreme)

Soldier of fortune, open your cookie

Unfold the paper, stop looky looky

Takin' order, the march to the kitchen

Food for the masses, that's the new mission

Salam shalom, shalom salam

The one sound louder than a bomb

The whole world sings this song

Check it, stop, rock

Everybody ona move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

Ah aha ha ha ha

And you don't stop

And you don't quit

And you don't quit

Everybody ona move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

Hold up, hold up, I forgot something

I like my bass loudy, loudy, louder (x2)

This track is love fortified

This track is love amplified

This track combats genocide

Seven inch jamaican forty five

Take a trip, Gaza, strip

IDs, a bob up ? flip

I rock, black scorpions

And a shout out to ethiopians

Shot rings out everybody gonna run

A woman cries out for the loss of her son

Hold it high everybody everyone

All roads lead to love or the one

Don't you forget why you came to the dance

Might never ever be another better chance

Might never ever be another better chance

Don't you forget why you came to the dance

The drums and bass are the king of the dance

Everybody ona move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

Ah aha ha ha ha

And you don't stop

And you don't quit

And you don't quit

Everybody ona move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

Big people ona the move

Little people ona move

Young people ona the move

Old people ona move

Everybody ona move

Everybody let's move

Everybody let's move

Touchin' down on mother earth

I take mud and turn it into pottery

Lottery, I give all a chance

As I welcome all to the dance

Ona move

Everybody let's move

And you don't stop

And you don't quit

Keep rockin'

Keep shockin' it

Come on

Read more: Michael Franti - Everybody Ona Move Lyrics | MetroLyrics mercial use only.

Time To Go Home

Michael Franti, Michael Franti & Spearhead

Those who start wars, never fight them

And those who fight wars, they never like them

And those who write laws, they can recite them

And those of us who just fight laws

We live and die them

But I know, they never gonna tell you why, no

They only wanna tell you lies, no

Never ever gonna tell you why, no

They only wanna tell you lies, no

Never ever gonna tell you why, no

They only wanna tell you lies

It's time

It's time to go home

Don't take our boys away, no

Don't take our girls away, no

Don't take our boys away, no

Don't take our girls away, no

It's time to go home

Don't take our boys away, no

Don't take our girls away, no

Don't take our boys away, no

Those who build walls are pretending

That forever they can defend them (No, no, no)

Those who dam streams can build fountains (Yes they can)

But those of us who just let them run free

We can move mountains

But I know, they never gonna tell you why, no

They only wanna tell you lies, no

Never ever gonna tell you why, no

They only wanna tell you lies, no

Never ever gonna tell you why, no

They only wanna tell you lies

It's time

It's time to go home

Don't take our boys away, no

Don't take our girls away, no

Don't take our boys away, no

Don't take our girls away, no

It's time to go home

Don't take our boys away, no

Don't take our girls away, no

Don't take our boys away, no

(It's time, it's time!)

How many people were they runnin' from and

How many people never saw it comin'

How many people never heard the warnin'

How many people never stayed at home and

How many people never heard the callin'

How many people never saw it all and

How many people did they spend it on and

How many people got to sing the song and

How many people never heard the cry and

How many people gotten pushed aside

How many people never saw the dust fly

How many people never said goodbye and

How many people never saw the fall and

How many people did we end it all and

How many people never saw the wrong and

How many people did we drop the bomb on

Don't take our boys away, no

Don't take our girls away, no

Don't take our boys away, no

Don't take our girls away, no

Don't take our boys away, no

Don't take our girls away, no

Don't take our boys away

It's time

It's time to go home!

Away

Away

Away

Away

Away

Away

Away

Away

Songwriters: CARL ROGERS YOUNG, DAVID SHUL, MICHAEL FRANTI

© Universal Music Publishing Group

For non-commercial use only.

Data from: LyricFind

 

 

 
Amanda Verdery Young