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DzBut in disposing these plants and trees according to his own plan he had not
strayed from Natureǯs; with her as his guideǥdz

DzWhen Paul saw that this place was a favourite of hers, he brought to it the nests
of every sort of bird from the neighbouring forest.dz

Madame de la La Tour Ȃ Dzseeking some hidden retreat where she could live alone
and unnoticed, she turned her steps from the town towards these rocks, where
she might shelter as in a nest.dz (p 41)

DzThe land thus divided into two parts, I invited the ladies to draw lots for them.
The upper part fell to Madame de la Tour, the lower to Marguerite. Each was
content with her portion, though they particularly requested me not to separate
their dwellings.dz (p 43)

DzMarguerite gave her the name Virginia. ǮShe will be virtuous,ǯ she said, Ǯand she
will be happy. I met misfortune only when I wandered from the path of virtue.ǯdz
(p 44)

DzBut what is public consideration compared to domestic happiness? If these two

ladies had to endure some slights abroad, their pleasure was the greater on
returning home.dz (p 45)

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DzThe special pleasures of miniaturization: replicating the great things in

handicraft dimensions that you can put together by yo urself and test, as with
home chemical sets, or change and rebuild in a never-ending variation fed by
new ideas and information. Model railroads of the mind, these utopian
constructions convey the spirit of non-alienated labour and of production far
better than any concepts of ÷

÷or ÷.Dz

DzIts function lies not in helping us to imagine a better future but rather in
demonstrating our utter incapacity to imagine such a future Ȃ our imprisonment
in a non-utopian present without historicity or futurity Ȃ so as to reveal the
ideological closure of the system in which we are somehow trapped and
confined.dz
DzWhether the utopias of male bonding have anything as rich to offer may not be
exactly the right question to ask, although I would think that the recr udescence
of military SF and the hierarchical satisfactions of warrior communities might be
one place to look.dz
DzSomething is to be said for the proposition that the fear of utopia is intimately
linked with the fear of aphanisis, or loss of desire: the sexlessness of utopians is a
constant in the anti-utopian traditionǥBut something is also to be said for the
idea that the features I have mentioned, addictiveness and sexuality, are the very
emblems of human culture as such, the very supplements that define us as
something other than mere animals: competitiveness and passion or frenzy Ȃ are
these not what paradoxically make up the mind or spirit itself, as opposed to the
merely physical and material? In this sense, it is only too humanly
comprehensible that we might draw back from that utopia which Adorno
described as a community of Ǯgood animalsǯ. On the other hand, it also seems
possible that a genuine confrontation with utopia demands just such anxieties,
and that without them our visions of alternative futures and utopian
transformations remain politically and existentially inoperative, mere though
experiments and mental games without any visceral commitment.dz

  

Joseph Cornell has his own simple house, which becomes his utopia. A box within
a box, it is a constructed world. He was always after that perfect thing which
would change his life. He was an amateur scientist, a man with a distinct
scientific sensibility. By making this world, it is a way of obsessing control.

Ǯhomesǯ Ȃ places where his unconscious can play out controlled dramas of desire.

The idea of nests Ȃ birds build their homes with their bodies, they take on the
actual shape of their body. Island as refuge, Utopia parkways as refuge Ȃ nesting
of islands.

Shakers and the shaker boxes that are part of a realized utopia.

Ernst Bloch Ȃ DzAll art contains images of hope illuminating ways of creating a
Utopian society.dz (The Spirit of Utopia - first published in 1918).


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Back to the future sensibility, pre-industrialization, disconnection with nature,
hand-made things and an emphasis on everyday life and making everyday life a
beautiful thing.
Like Morris and his emphasis on making everyday life a beautiful thing, Cornell
found inspiration not only in the romantic ideals of a distant age but also in
prosaic, everyday objects and materials (items found in local junk shops and
dime stores Ȃ cheap reproductions, maps, toys, marbles, springs, feathers,
sequins).