The Art of Tetman Callis

“The lining of a heavy money bag is sewn with tears.” – Isaac Babel, “The King” (trans. Peter Constantine)

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“One feels right away that this is the kingdom of books. People working at the library commune with books, with the life reflected in them, and so become almost reflections of real-life human beings. Even the cloakroom attendants—not brown-haired, not blond, but something in between—are mysteriously quiet, filled with contemplative composure. At home on Saturday […]

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“Who in his youth has not dozed off on the edge of a sofa with his head propped on the breast of a high school girl, met by chance on life’s winding path? It is not necessarily such a bad thing, and more often than not there are no consequences, but one does have to […]

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“People are good. They’ve been taught to think that they’re evil, and they ended up believing it.” – Isaac Babel, “Elya Isaakovich and Margarita Prokofievna” (trans. Peter Constantine)

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“Paradise itself is no more than a group fantasy of the childhood of the individual. That is why mankind were naked in Paradise and were without shame in one another’s presence; till a moment arrived when shame and anxiety awoke, expulsions followed, and sexual life and the tasks of cultural activity began. But we can […]

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“Dreams are the GUARDIANS of sleep and not its disturbers.” – Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (trans. James Strachey) (emphasis in original)

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“The realm of jokes knows no boundaries.” – Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (trans. James Strachey)

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“What is true, what is false, is but wind in a horse’s ear.” – Takuan Soho, Painting of the Master of Mount Yu Riding a Donkey (trans. Stephen D. Allee)

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“It seems a bad thing and detrimental to the creative work of the mind if Reason makes too close an examination of the ideas as they come pouring in—at the very gateway, as it were. Looked at in isolation, a thought may seem very trivial or very fantastic; but it may be made important by […]

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“Fujiwara Sadanobu (1088-1156) was the grandson of Fujiwara Yukinari (Kozei, 972-1027), one of the greatest calligraphers of Japan, and the son of Sadazane (1063-ca. 1131) . . .. He is known for having copied single-handedly onto nearly six hundred scrolls the entire Issaikyo, the Chinese translation of the Tripitaka, a task that spanned twenty-seven years. […]

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“ ‘Every cynic is a romantic’? Well. A romantic is just a cynic for whom, as yet, the nickel hasn’t dropped. You can’t get your heart broke if you don’t give a shit. A ‘fool’s paradise’ is a perfect redundancy. The paradise, whether it’s love or success, consists not in its, no doubt, pleasant attributes, […]

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“There’s this to say for a broken heart, it keeps your weight down. And it makes you pale and interesting to the opposite sex.” – David Mamet, Chicago

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“When you cannot find the correct answer, ask a different question.” – David Mamet, Chicago

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“Why do you think girls fall in love? I am sure, pick one or some, ‘He can: bring me off; buy me shit; protect me and my children; leave me a lot of money.’ That’s the list.” – David Mamet, Chicago

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“What is government but the nom de guerre of thugs and whores; of greed, which, were it practiced by those out of office, would result in their dismemberment.” – David Mamet, Chicago

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“A newspaper is a joke. Existing at the pleasure of the advertisers, to mulct the public, gratifying their stupidity, and render some small advance on investment to the owners, offering putative employment to their etiolated, wastrel sons.” – David Mamet, Chicago (emphasis in original)

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“Mrs. Smith runs out into the street shrieking and screaming, ‘Spare the children, spare the children, dear God in heaven, couldn’t you at least do something to make them stop and spare the children!’ Suddenly there is all of a sudden a bolt of lightning and thundering and here is what God answers the woman. […]

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“We looked into each other’s eyes for a long while. Oh! what power a woman’s eye has! How it agitates us, how it invades our very being, takes possession of us, and dominates us! How profound it seems, how full of infinite promises! People call that looking into each other’s souls! Oh! monsieur, what humbug! […]

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“Monsieur, beware of love! It is lying in ambush everywhere; it is watching for you at every corner; all its snares are laid, all its weapons are sharpened, all its guiles are prepared! Beware of love! Beware of love! It is more dangerous than brandy, bronchitis or pleurisy! It never forgives and makes everybody commit […]

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“People need rules and boundaries, and if society doesn’t provide them in sufficient measure, the estranged individual may drift into something deeper and more dangerous. Terrorism is built on structure. A terrorist act is a structured narrative played out over days or weeks or even years if there are hostages involved. What we call the […]

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“Listen: imagination is all we have as defense against capture and its inevitable changes.” – Sherman Alexie, “Captivity”

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“The net of circumstances that constitutes in the broadest sense my physical situation, the world into which I am flung—or rather into which, when I come to any kind of awareness, I have always already been flung—is, nevertheless, a world only through my projection of what I mean to make it.” – Marjorie Grene, Introduction […]

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“The study of history is useful to the historian by teaching him his ignorance of women; and the mass of this ignorance crushes one who is familiar enough with what are called historical sources to realize how few women have ever been known.” – Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams

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“One must have heroes, which is to say, one must create them. And they become real through our envy, our devotion. It is we who give them their majesty, their power, which we ourselves could never possess. And in turn, they give us some back. But they are mortal, these heroes, just as we are. […]

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“The more clearly one sees this world, the more one is obliged to pretend it does not exist.” – James Salter, A Sport and a Pastime

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“Everything takes time. Bees have to move very fast to stay still.” – David Foster Wallace, “Forever Overhead”

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“Certain things I remember exactly as they were. They are merely discolored a bit by time, like coins in the pocket of a forgotten suit. Most of the details, though, have long since been transformed or rearranged to bring others of them forward. Some, in fact, are obviously counterfeit; they are no less important. One […]

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“The free artist is the symbol of a healthy society; the encouraged artist a symbol of an enlightened one.” – Barry B. Spacks, The Penn Review, 1951

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“I took up with a nice lad I met on the bridge and we were married in due time under a shed on the place where his family lived high in the mountains. A fine Sunday this was, with relatives in to play the accordion. Oh, the songs I heard that day! I was so […]

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“We all play our roles, but some of us remain forever a certain way. Crossing the street, putting up our hair, utterly free.” – Denise Jarrott, “Atopos”

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