The Art of Tetman Callis

High Street has been accepted for publication by Outpost19, “Provocative Digital Publishing” (http://outpost19.com/), so I have removed it this morning from this website.  Excerpts from it may be re-posted here soon as part of the marketing of the book, which should be available for purchase as an e-book through Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com (and [...]

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“The great and almost only comfort about being a woman is that one can always pretend to be more stupid than one is and no one is surprised.” — Freya Stark (quoted in “East Is West” by Claudia Roth Pierpont)

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“While the tale of how we suffer, and how we are delighted, and how we may triumph is never new, it always must be heard.  There isn’t any other tale to tell, it’s the only light we’ve got in all this darkness.” — James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues”

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“99 percent of lawyers don’t understand the prison designation and correctional process, and the 1 percent who do are all doing time.” — Ellis & Shummon, Federal Prison Guidebook

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“Every child is born an artist.  The trouble is how to stay one as you grow up.” — Pablo Picasso

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LHC results put supersymmetry theory ‘on the spot’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14680570 (Dark matter is space.  Remember, you may have heard it here first.)

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“The truth, for all its power, is merciless.” — from “A Murder Foretold,” by David Grann

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“It’s better to die standing up than live on your knees.” — Alexey Navalny (from “Net Impact,” by Julia Ioffe)

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“You’re abandoning a lot of ideas when you are too into comfort.” — Christian Louboutin (from “Sole Mate,” by Lauren Collins)

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“Countries may fall, but their rivers and mountains remain.  When spring comes to the ruined castle, the grass is green again.” — Basho (from “Aftershocks,” by Evan Osnos)

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Colorado is one of the places where God kissed Mother Earth.  Susanne and I spent the past few days there, in and around the Conejos River valley. When we arrived at our lodge, the first thing management wanted us to know was that a bear had been through the compound the night before, thoroughly inspecting [...]

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“Parenting is hard.  As any one who has gone through the process and had enough leisure (and still functioning brain cells) to reflect on it knows, a lot of it is a crapshoot.  Things go wrong that you have no control over, and, on occasion, things also go right, and you have no control over [...]

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“The US government’s disregard for human rights in fighting terrorism in the years following the September 11, 2001 attacks diminished the US’ moral standing, set a negative example for other governments, and undermined US government efforts to reduce anti-American militancy around the world.  In particular, the CIA’s use of torture, enforced disappearance, and secret prisons [...]

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“Never work before breakfast; if you have to work before breakfast, eat your breakfast first.” — Josh Billings

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“A prince should deliver the citizens from the sufferings brought upon themselves but should not bring suffering to the people for his own cause.” — Valmiki Ramayan, Ayodhyakanda Sarga 46

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You know what a “blue moon” is, and if you don’t, you can look it up, but you don’t have to because I’ll tell you right here and right now–a conjunctive spatio-temporal indicator, by the way, which is both fixed and flexible in, not only the virtual world of the internet, but the virtual world [...]

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This week I’m posting another of those lower-case short-shorts I wrote in the mid-90s, “mama when she’s really pretty.”  I was channeling a six-year-old girl when I wrote this.  It was published in Chiron Review, a litmag run by Michael Hathaway for nearly thirty years before folding earlier this year.

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“I do believe in simplicity. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation from all encumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real.” — Henry David Thoreau

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“We like to pretend that our experiments define the truth for us.  But that’s often not the case.  Just because an idea is true doesn’t mean it can be proved.  And just because an idea can be proved doesn’t mean it’s true.  When the experiments are done, we still have to choose what to believe.” [...]

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“It can be felt as love when you want to fuck someone and can’t.” — E. L. Doctorow, “Assimilation”

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“Duty, as well as inclination, urges the Lay Preacher to sermonize, while others slumber. To read numerous volumes in the morning, and to observe various characters at noon, will leave but little time, except the night, to digest the one or speculate upon the other. The night, therefore, is often dedicated to composition, and while [...]

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“To better imagine zoo life, you might picture yourself living with your brother (if you are male) or sister (if you are female) in a department store’s window display that looks like a luxuriously furnished home.  Satin drapes shroud the French doors, white woolen upholstery encases the armchairs and the sofa, and a thick silk [...]

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“A few years ago, a group of economists looked at more than a hundred Fortune 500 firms, trying to figure out what predicted how much money the C.E.O. made.  Compensation, it turned out, was only weakly related to the size and profitability of the company.  What really mattered was how much money the members of [...]

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“Art is a sort of experimental station in which one tries out living.” — John Cage (from “Searching for Silence,” by Alex Ross)

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“The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoint them.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1774

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“I like to do things that frighten me.  When I’m afraid, I understand more things.” — David Grossman (from “The Unconsoled,” by George Packer)

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“The dream of artists–which is simply the dream of friends and lovers, magnified–is to plant themselves in other people’s heads.” — Tad Friend, “Sleeping with Weapons”

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“All the dreams you show up in are not your own.” — Gil Scott-Heron

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“Life is an end in itself, and the only question as to whether it is worth living is whether you have had enough of it.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (from Steel’s Walter Lippmann and the American Century)

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“If a cat walks around smelling like yesterday’s lunch it is much more likely to attract the unwanted attention of both what it is hunting and what is hunting it.” — Dodman, The Cat Who Cried for Help

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