Not to mention luckNot to mention luck
“To be able to die of old age and be put to rest with a lavish funeral required exceptional talent.” – Gao Xingjian, Soul Mountain (trans. Mabel Lee)
Category: Verandah
What’s love got to do with itWhat’s love got to do with it
“I went on through the post town of Sekimoto, where the citizens in their rows of houses offer lodgings and wait upon the traveler as their master for a night, while the girls singing in the windows entice him in to treat him as a husband. How sad, to pin such vows of eternal love on a night’s transient dream, a long life’s faithful bond on the desires of a passing traveler. Though so different from all the rich trappings of bridal jade-green curtains and scarlet boudoir, life together in a humble hut with rustic brushwood door is the same, for both are no more than brief pleasures of a passing lifetime.” – Anonymous Monk, “Journey Along the Sea Road” (trans. Meredith McKinney)
Would you like fries with thatWould you like fries with that
“The fisherman hauls his nets, tiring his body in the very act of shielding it from starvation; the starving fish takes the bait, its very need for life condemning it to death. Just how much can a man profit in this world; how much can a little fish consume? Each feels the same about existence, each treasures life. Further, the woodsman sweating on the hillside, who returns at evening bearing the north wind at his back, the limping seller plying his trade through the fields, who sets out at dawn through the thick white dew—their work may differ but for all, the sufferings of this life are one.” – Anonymous Monk, “Journey Along the Sea Road” (trans. Meredith McKinney)
In a galaxy far, far awayIn a galaxy far, far away
“No one ever really falls in love with anyone they know. To fall in love with someone that one knows is to fall in love with someone that one already fell in love with a long time ago.” – Tan Lin, “Ambient Stylistics”
The call of the museThe call of the muse
“There are no empty hopes. But knowing what to hope for is steady work. What was ever so important to you you left your daily life to heed it?” – Joanna Klink, “The Infinities”
Woman and child, tooWoman and child, too
“Man has long talked somewhat arrogantly about the conquest of nature; now he has the power to achieve his boast. It is our misfortune—it may well be our final tragedy—that this power has not been tempered with wisdom, but has been marked by irresponsibility; that there is all too little awareness that man is part of nature, and that the price of conquest may well be the destruction of man himself.” – Rachel Carson, “Of Man and the Stream of Time” (emphasis in original)
We’re working on itWe’re working on it
“How melancholy is the Reflection, that the Folly & Wickedness of Man, under the abused Titles of Prudence & Patriotism, shall ruin the finest Countries, and proceed, as far as they may, to desolate the Earth!” – Ambrose Serle, Journal, August 28th, 1776
The shiningThe shining
“It happened late Friday night. That morning no one suspected anything. I sent my son to school, my husband went to the barber’s. I was preparing lunch when my husband came back. ‘There’s some sort of fire at the atomic station. They’re saying we are not to turn off the radio.’ This wasn’t any ordinary fire, it was some kind of shining. It was pretty. I’d never seen anything like it in the movies. That evening everyone spilled out onto their balconies, and those who didn’t have balconies went to friends’ houses. We were on the ninth floor, we had a great view. People brought their kids out, picked them up, said: ‘Look! Remember!’ And these were people who worked at the reactor—engineers, laborers, physics instructors. They stood in the black dust, talking, breathing, wondering at it. People came from all around in their cars and on their bikes to have a look. We didn’t know that death could be so beautiful.” – Nadezhda Petrovna Vygovskaya (from Voices from Chernobyl, by Svetlana Alexievich, trans. Keith Gessen)
The ontic telos of needThe ontic telos of need
“The logic of the present situation is no longer of an economic but of an ethico-political kind. Work is the linchpin of the citizen factory. As such, it is indeed necessary, as necessary as nuclear reactors, city planning, the police, or television. One has to work because one has to feel one’s existence, at least in part, as foreign to oneself.” – Tiqqun, This Is not a Program (emphases in original)
BBQ Beckies allBBQ Beckies all
“Citizens, insofar as they are made to compensate more and more frequently for the failures of the welfare state, will be paid more and more overtly for their work in comanaging social pacification. A citizen’s dividend will therefore be established as a form of coercion to maintain self-discipline, in the form of strange, extremely tight-knit, community policing. If necessary, they maight even call it ‘existence wages,’ since it would in fact entail sponsoring those forms-of-life most compatible with Empire.” – Tiqqun, This Is not a Program
So don’tSo don’t
“If you let one demon in the front door, he will let all of his friends in the back door.” – Patrick Glenn Jeffries, “A Mother’s Earth”
Try it and see what happensTry it and see what happens
“To be truly hospitable you don’t ask someone if they’re thirsty or hungry—you offer them food, you offer them drink. They will not turn down what you put in front of them if they’re hungry and thirsty.” – Patrick Glenn Jeffries, “A Mother’s Earth”
No more and no lessNo more and no less
“Always look a man in his eyes. Even when you are afraid of him. After a while you will see he is only a man.” – Patrick Glenn Jeffries, “A Mother’s Earth”
And carry a big stickAnd carry a big stick
“Never talk tough before a fight. Losing a fight is one thing. Looking foolish and losing a fight is another.” – Patrick Glenn Jeffries, “A Mother’s Earth”
And afterwards, too, sometimesAnd afterwards, too, sometimes
“Before flaws look like style, they look like flaws.” – Maria Adelmann, “Basket Weaving 101”
And probably should flossAnd probably should floss
“A man who resembles a rodent should never wear tweed.” – Mark Helprin, “The Schreuderspitze”
Pro tipPro tip
“Most problems aren’t rocket science, but when they are rocket science, you should ask a rocket scientist about them.” Captain Scott Kelly, “What I Learned in Space” (emphasis in original)
Hard to sayHard to say
“I think that if people began thinking about death sooner they’d make fewer foolish mistakes.” – Dmitri Shostakovich (quoted by David Dubal in The Essential Canon of Classical Music)
A never-ending taleA never-ending tale
“Of all minor afflictions, house-cleaning is the worst.” – Rachel Henning, March 1, 1854, The Letters of Rachel Henning, ed. David Adams
I didn’t want it to turn out like thisI didn’t want it to turn out like this
“Nobody really says anything honest until they know they are dying.” – Alex McElroy, “Responsible Fear”
Coin of the realmCoin of the realm
“Look, the sun is a sort of bribe, you know, and so is a heavy thunderstorm or a snowfall. So is a dawn, though not I think a sunset. So is a warm bath or a shower, and a sound sleep. Bribes all, in the conspiracy of everything to continue to exist.” – Renata Adler, Pitch Dark
In the beginningIn the beginning
“The world is everything that is the case. And in the second place because.” – Renata Adler, Pitch Dark
And right nowAnd right now
“You must do the things you think you cannot do.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
That bush is not burningThat bush is not burning
“None see God and live.” – Emily Dickinson
Famous last wordsFamous last words
“An optimist is not the first to shout ‘hurray,’ but the last to shout ‘we’re finished.’ ” – Andrey Stavnitser (quoted by Tim Judah, In Wartime)
Out, damn spotOut, damn spot
“The past is not made out of time, out of memory, out of irony but is also a crime we cannot admit and will not atone.” – Eavan Boland, “Making Money”
Here, there, and everywhereHere, there, and everywhere
“You will not be able to find the boundaries of the soul even if you walk every path, so deep is its measure.” – Heraclitus (quoted by John Bussanich in “The Roots of Platonism and Vedanta”)
Doan dwitDoan dwit
“Girls, never trust a man under 40, because he’s still a boy.” – John Mellencamp (interviewed by Edna Gundersen in AARP The Magazine)
It’s cold and dark in thereIt’s cold and dark in there
“Marriage is the tomb of love.” – Giacomo Girolamo Casanova, Memoirs
It’s not hardIt’s not hard
“The best of us will try to live by a few simple rules: do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with thy God, and never draw to an inside straight.” – Stephen Jay Gould, “The Streak of Streaks”