The Art of Tetman Callis

“War can only exist in a world of tragedy; from the beginning of history man has known only a tragic world and has not been capable of stepping out of it.  The age of tragedy can be ended only by the revolt of frivolity.” — Milan Kundera, Immortality (trans. Kussi) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter […]

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“A man can take his own life.  But he cannot take his own immortality.  As soon as immortality has you aboard, you can’t get off, and even if you shoot yourself you’ll stay on deck along with your suicide.” — Milan Kundera, Immortality (trans. Kussi) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“Does love for art really exist and has it ever existed?  Is it not a delusion?  When Lenin proclaimed that he loved Beethoven’s Appassionata above all else, what was it that he really loved?  What did he hear?  Music?  Or a majestic noise that reminded him of the solemn stirrings in his soul, a longing […]

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“Up to a certain moment our death seems too distant for us to occupy ourselves with it.  It is unseen and invisible.  That is the first, happy period of life.  But then we suddenly begin to see our death ahead of us and we can no longer keep ourselves from thinking about it.  It is […]

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“Nothing is more useful than to adopt the status of a child: a child can do whatever it likes, for it is innocent and inexperienced; it need not observe the rules of social behavior, for it has not yet entered a world ruled by form; it may show its feelings, whether they are appropriate or […]

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“The whole art of politics these days lies not in running the polis (which runs itself by the logic of its own dark and uncontrollable mechanism), but in thinking up ‘sound bites’ by which the politician is seen and understood, measured in opinion polls, and elected or rejected in elections.” — Milan Kundera, Immortality (trans. […]

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“Hate traps us by binding us too tightly to our adversary.” — Milan Kundera, Immortality (trans. Kussi) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“In the end, art is small beer.  The really serious things in life are earning one’s living so as not to be a parasite, and loving one’s neighbor.” — W. H. Auden High Street 8 — “Plus ça Change” is posted today. That is the end of High Street.  Thanks for tuning in.  Please tune […]

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“There is a certain part of all of us that lives outside of time.  Perhaps we become aware of our age only at exceptional moments and most of the time we are ageless.” — Milan Kundera, Immortality (trans. Kussi) High Street 7.4 — “Freedom’s Just Another Word” (fin.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 8 […]

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“Every writer is offering a true account of the activities of the mind.” — Donald Barthelme (from Not-Knowing, ed. Herzinger) High Street 7.3 — “Freedom’s Just Another Word” (cont.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 7.4 — “Freedom’s Just Another Word” (fin.)) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“There’s nothing so beautiful as having a very difficult problem.  It gives purpose to life.” — Donald Barthelme (from Not-Knowing, ed. Herzinger) High Street 7.2 — “Freedom’s Just Another Word” (cont.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 7.3 — “Freedom’s Just Another Word” (cont.)) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“If we want to go on existing we need to summon up all our strength in order to wrench ourselves off the spot where we’re stuck.” — Thomas Bernhard, Concrete High Street 7.1 — “Freedom’s Just Another Word” is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 7.2 — “Freedom’s Just Another Word” (cont.))   Share this… Facebook […]

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“A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.” — Karl Kraus, quoted in Not-Knowing, ed. Herzinger High Street 6.8 — “Life During Wartime” (fin.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 7.1 — “Freedom’s Just Another Word”) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“Mighty is the sin that arises from the destruction of one who has been offered shelter.” — Valmiki Ramayana, Kishkindha Kanda, Sarga 12 High Street 6.7 — “Life During Wartime” (cont.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 6.8 — “Life During Wartime” (fin.)) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“Writing should be playing.” — Donald Barthelme (from Not-Knowing, ed. Herzinger) High Street 6.6 — “Life During Wartime” (cont.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 6.7 — “Life During Wartime” (cont.)) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“The four social classes under late capitalism are artists, rich people, the middle class, [and] poor people—this being the order of rank and precedence.  As the dominant class (morally/intellectually speaking), artists have a clear social responsibility to care for and nurture the three lower classes.  This is not by any means their primary responsibility, which […]

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“Art is always aimed (like a rifle, if  you wish) at the middle class.  The working class has its own culture and will have no truck with fanciness of any kind.  The upper class owns the world and thus needs know no more about the world than is necessary for its orderly exploitation.  The notion […]

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“Where does desire go?  Always a traveling salesperson, desire goes hounding off into the trees, frequently, without direction from its putative master or mistress.  This is tragic and comic at the same time.  I should, in a well-ordered world, marry the intellectual hero my wicked uncle has selected for me.  Instead I run off with […]

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“Every woman artist will tell you that she exists in a universe of discourse created by men, works with a language created by men, a language suffused, colored, drenched in male desire.  That is, every woman artist is speaking a foreign language, like Beckett writing in French.  This should not be overstressed, because the languages […]

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“It seems to me sometimes that we never got used to being on this earth and life is just one great, ongoing, incomprehensible blunder.” — W. G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn High Street 6.1 — “Life During Wartime” is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 6.2 — “Life During Wartime” (cont.)) Share this… Facebook Pinterest […]

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“Art is a commodity, art criticism is a commodity, the apple is a commodity, the air is a commodity, the ground under our feet is a commodity.  God is very much a commodity.  My emotions are a commodity, my desires the very locus of commodification.  My last illness is a commodity (twenty-two days at so […]

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“One of the pleasures of art is that it enables the mind to move in unanticipated directions, to make connections that may be in some sense errors but are fruitful nonetheless.” — Donald Barthelme, “Reifications” (from Not-Knowing, ed. Herzinger) High Street 5.4 — “Criminal Defense” (cont.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 5.5 — “Criminal […]

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“One of the characteristics of the ideal is that it is always receding, slipping away from us, ungraspable.” — Donald Barthelme, “Nudes” (from Not-Knowing, ed. Herzinger) High Street 5.3 — “Criminal Defense” (cont.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 5.4 — “Criminal Defense” (cont.)) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“It is the vocation of the artist, the fiction writer, the playwright, and the poet, to create new language.” — Walker Percy, quoted in “A Symposium on Fiction” (from Not-Knowing, ed. Herzinger) High Street 5.2 — “Criminal Defense” (cont.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 5.3 — “Criminal Defense” (cont.)) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter […]

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“You are not obliged to complete the work, but neither are you free to evade it.” — Rabbi Tarfon, Pirkei Avot High Street 5.1 — “Criminal Defense” is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 5.2 — “Criminal Defense” (cont.)) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“Words get worn out, and instead of conveying meaning they act either as simulacra to conceal meaning or as if they were transparencies with no meaning.” — Walker Percy, quoted in “A Symposium on Fiction” (from Not-Knowing, ed. Herzinger) High Street 4.9 — “Radio Stars and Hemp TV” (fin.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street […]

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“Not everything is unsayable in words, only the living truth.” — Eugene Ionesco, quoted in “A Symposium on Fiction” (from Not-Knowing, ed. Herzinger) High Street 4.8 — “Radio Stars and Hemp TV” (cont.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 4.9 — “Radio Stars and Hemp TV” (fin.)) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“It is no Disgrace to be Poor; it is simply Inconvenient.” — George Ade, from Fables in Slang High Street 4.7 — “Radio Stars and Hemp TV” (cont.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 4.8 — “Radio Stars and Hemp TV” (cont.)) Share this… Facebook Pinterest Twitter Linkedin Email Print

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“A little thing may be perfect, but perfection is not a little thing.” — Thomas Bailey Aldrich (from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XVII, Ch. X, Sec. 3) High Street 4.6 — “Radio Stars and Hemp TV” (cont.) is posted today. (Tomorrow: High Street 4.7 — “Radio Stars and Hemp TV” […]

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“Every writer in the country can write a beautiful sentence, or a hundred.  What I am interested in is the ugly sentence that is also somehow beautiful.  I agree that this is a highly-specialized enterprise.” — Donald Barthelme, “On ‘Paraguay’” (from Not-Knowing, ed. Herzinger) High Street 4.5 — “Radio Stars and Hemp TV” (cont.) is […]

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