Crime & the City Solution, The Bride Ship (Alternative Version)

William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin, The Third Mind, 1965

The School of Life: Why Socrates Hated Democracy

Henry Fuseli, Puck, or Robin Goodfellow, ~1815

Henry Fuseli, Lady Macbeth Seizing the Daggers, 1812

John Martin, The End of the World (aka The Great Day of His Wrath), 1853

Francis Danby, The Deluge, 1840

John William Waterhouse, Ulysses and the Sirens, 1891

Tortoise, Six Pack

Marc Chagall, America Windows, 1977

"Degüello" is a Spanish noun from the verb "degollar", to describe the action of throat-cutting. More figuratively, it means "give no quarter." It "signifies the act of beheading or throat-cutting and in Spanish history became associated with the battle music, which, in different versions, meant complete destruction of the enemy without mercy." It is similar to the war cry "¡A degüello!" used by Cuban rebels in the 19th century to launch mounted charges against the Spanish infantry.

Dimitri Tiomkin, El Degüello

Franz von Stuck, Wild Chase, 1889

Bruce Springsteen, Radio Nowhere

Happiness by Raymond Carver

So early it's still almost dark out.
I'm near the window with coffee,
and the usual early morning stuff
that passes for thought.
When I see the boy and his friend
walking up the road
to deliver the newspaper.
They wear caps and sweaters,
and one boy has a bag over his shoulder.
They are so happy
they aren't saying anything, these boys.
I think if they could, they would take 
each other's arm.
It's early in the morning,
and they are doing this thing together.
They come on, slowly.
The sky is taking on light,
though the moon still hangs pale over the water.
Such beauty that for a minute
death and ambition, even love,
doesn't enter into this.
Happiness. It comes on
unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really,
any early morning talk about it.

William S. Burroughs, ...The Chair of Death is Absurdly Uncomfortable, 1993

Peder Balke, The Tempest, 1862

Currently being exhibited at Tate Modern

Robert Rauschenberg, Untitled

Died this day

The arabic words say "He who took drugs, the intoxication of death made this truth appear". They are a play on The Holy Quran, Surat Qaf, Chapter 50, Verse/Ayah 19 which actually says: "And the intoxication of death will bring the truth; that is what you were trying to avoid". By suppressing the last words and adding the "drugs"-prefix, Falero reverses the meaning from announcing death into an ecstatic narcotic-induced apparition.

Luis Ricardo Falero, The Enchantress, 1878

José Clemente Orozco, Gods Of The Modern World - The Epic Of American Civilisation, 1932 - 1934

Austin Osman Spare, Ascension of the Ego from Ecstasy to Ecstasy, 1913