December 2009
"Errata" by Charles Simic
crepusculoestelar:
Where it says snow read teeth-marks of a virgin Where it says knife read you passed through my bones like a police-whistle Where it says table read horse Where it says horse read my migrant's bundle Apples are to remain apples Each time a hat appears think of Isaac Newton reading the Old Testament Remove all periods They are scars made by words I couldn't bring myself to say...
Invictus by William Ernest Henley
Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and...
“An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up...”
– Bill Vaughan (via julie911)
Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front (1970)
blogut:
Love the quick profit, the annual raise, vacation with pay. Want more of everything ready-made. Be afraid to know your neighbors and to die. And you will have a window in your head. Not even your future will be a mystery any more. Your mind will be punched in a card and shut away in a little drawer. When they want you to buy something they will call you. When they want you to...
“Life, is like a box of chocolates. Cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that...”
– Cancer Man, The X-Files, 4.07 ‘Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man’ (via noheartbeatz) (via thequietworld) (via keatsandyeatsonyourside) (via sixstepsback)
“We’re so familiar with written language that we sometimes forget how...”
– Grant Morrison on Writing, 2005
“When Nietzsche said God is dead, he forgot to mention that Satan died in the...”
– Grant Morrison
“The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents...”
– Mark Twain, Notebook, 1935
The Witches Creed By Doreen Valiente
Hear now the words of the witches, The secrets we hid in the night, When dark was our destiny’s pathway, That now we bring forth into the light.
Mysterious water and fire, The earth and the wide-ranging air. By hidden quintessence we know them, And will and keep silent and dare.
The birth and rebirth of all nature, The passing of winter and spring, We share with the life universal, ...
onlinejournals:
My back is killing me. I’ve got ball cancer. I’m getting a sinus infection. I’m going to get heart disease. A car is going to slam into me. My plane is going to drop out of the fucking sky. My teeth are falling out. My big stupid frame is going to collapse. I’ll have arthritis in my right hand and right knee. I’m going to get shot in NY. Overdose on pills. Alcohol poisoning....
“The poor and the affluent are not communicating because they do not have the...”
– Peter S. Jennison
Dacryphilia by Gabriel Gadfly
Egyptian Rem: “to weep;” Fish god, Nile god I could gut you. Cast your chalk spine Into the reeds, Barbed hook through your eye To lure shachihoko from The shores of gold Nihon.
Yes, your tears Feed cotton on the Nile, But shachihoko’s tiger howl Stings the sky itself to weeping, And what could depose The ecstasy of ablution? I would bathe with tears plucked from the face of...
arsvitaest:
andthemonster:
California Dreaming...
“Do you know what people did in the old days when they had secrets they...”
– Tak - 2046
onlinejournals:
We spent the day in your basement home, watching youtube videos and singing classic rock and roll off key. You’re a gambler with a deadpan delivery and are so out of my fucking league, it’s ridiculous. You play mah jong with Vietnamese, drink like a champ, you read real shit, you smoke Reds. God damn.
Remember when you said Pinkerton was one of the best albums of all time? Fuck...
“The intense world of differences, in which we find the reason behind qualities...”
– Outlining his “transcendental empiricism”, Deleuze, in Difference and Repetitio
Bogue on Deleuze and Art « Larval Subjects .
(via wildcat2030)
(via pareidoliac)
(via notational)
“These worst mornings with cold floors and hot windows and merciless light—the...”
– Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
“We are being stupid. We have been so successful in the past century at the art...”
– Terry Pratchet
“Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.”
– Bursar 1 - Hex 0 (Terry Pratchett, Hogfather)
“The cry of equality pulls everyone down.”
– Iris Murdoch
Ask. Shout. Storytell.
“In the fortress of justice, one can be killed but one cannot be defeated.”
– Nicolae Iorga, “Thoughts”, 1915
The Waking Life
"Life is not a dream. Beware. And beware. And be ware. And so many think because Then happened, Now isn't. But didn't I mention the ongoing "wow" is happening right now? We are all co-authors of this dancing exuberance where even our inabilities are having a roast. We are the authors of ourselves, co-authoring a gigantic Dostoevsky novel, starring clowns. This entire thing we're involved with called the world, is an opportunity to exhibit how exciting alienation can be. Life is a matter of a miracle that is collected over time by moments, flabbergasted to be in each other's presence. The world is an exam to see if we can rise into direct experience. Our eyesight is here as a test to see if we can see beyond it. Matter is here as a test for our curiosity. Doubt is here as an exam for our vitality. Thomas Mann wrote that he would rather participate in life than write 100 stories. Giacometti was once run down by a car, and he recalled falling into a lucid faint, a sudden exhilaration, as he realized that at last something was happening to him. An assumption develops that you cannot understand life and live life simultaneously. I do not agree entirely. Which is to say I do not exactly disagree. I would say that life understood is life lived. But the paradoxes bug me, and I can learn to love and make love to the paradoxes that bug me. And on really romantic evenings of self, I go salsa dancing with my confusion. Before you drift off, don't forget. Which is to say, remember. Because remembering is so much more a psychotic activity than forgetting. Lorca, in that same poem said that the iguana will bite those who do not dream. And as one realizes that one is a dream figure in another person's dream, that is self awareness."
Order is Emergent →
notational:
fringeelements:
Through their own properties, protons, neutrons and electrons, whatever they are made of, come together to form atoms. Atoms, through their attractive and repulsive properties, come together to form molecules. Molecules, through their interactions, form cells. By combining a great deal of heat and pressure to pyruvic acid and water, an enclosure is formed which...
“The artist alone sees spirits. But after he has told of their appearing to him,...”
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Brain - is wider than the Sky - For - put them side by side - The one the other will contain With ease - and You - beside -
The Brain is deeper than the sea - For - hold them - Blue to Blue - The one the other will absorb - As sponges - Buckets - do
The Brain is just the weight of God - For - Heft them - Pound for Pound - ...
“Going barefoot is the gentlest way of walking and can symbolise a way of living...”
– Adele Coombs, “Barefoot Dreaming”
Watchnotational:
roomthily:
James Geary, metaphorically speaking
via TED
six metaphors a minute
poortaste:
humancomputer:
My eyes are bifocal...
“After researching fate, I’ve come to the conclusion that it works every seventh...”
– Anita Konkka, A Fool’s Paradise (via ontheborderland)
