The Wind
Out on the street
The wind will
Blow you around
It blows past
Banners, speakers
Presidents
It blows ducks
Off the pond
One after the other
In rows
It blows around women
Women with eyes
Of deep green water
Water the color of
Madonnas and martyrs
Asking so much
From the wind
The No Committee
From the fine folks of AMERICA
What do I care for your laws now? What are your customs to me? Your morals, your life, your state, your faith? Let your judges judge me. Let me be brought before your courts, before your public courts, and I will declare that I do not recognize anything.
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
I acknowledge no judge, no law, no forbidden thing. All is permissible. Can you imagine a world, having no laws of gravitation, having no above nor below, in which everything is a matter of whim and chance? I am that new world. All is permissible. And I shall prove that. I will simulate normality. I will attain freedom. I will spend the remainder of my life in learning. I will surround me with your books. I will take from you all the might of your knowledge, of which you are so proud, and will seek the one thing of which the world has stood in need for so long a time. That will be the explosive essence. The equal of its force has not been seen: it is more powerful than dynamite, than nitroglycerin, more powerful than the very thought of it. I possess talent, I am persistent, I will find it. And when I do find it, I shall scatter in the air your accursed earth, which has so many gods and not one eternal God.
– Leonid Andreyev
We must preserve liberty while waiting for a fresh historical impulse which may allow us to engage it in a popular movement without ambiguity.
– Maurice Merleau-Ponty
As one jolted over the pavement or read last week’s newspapers, the new man seemed close at hand, for the old one had plainly reached the end of his strength and his failure had become catastrophic. Everyone saw it, and every municipal election shrieked chaos. A traveler in the highways of history looked out of the club window on the turmoil of Fifth Avenue, and felt himself in Rome, under Diocletian, witnessing the anarchy, conscious of the compulsion, eager for the solution, but unable to conceive whence the next impulse was to come or how it was to act. The two-thousand-years failure of Christianity roared upward from Broadway, and no Constantine the Great was in sight.
Having nothing else to do, the traveler went on to Washington to wait the end.
– Henry Adams
We certainly do need a new revelation – a new system – for there seems to be no life in the old one.
– Nathaniel Hawthorne
Wanting to believe in a national credo , we have found ourselves declining to accept one that seems more and more self-evidently composed of eupeptic half-truths. Consequently our most perceptive minds have distinguished themselves from our popular spokesmen by concentrating upon the dark other half of the situation, and their distinctive attitude has been introspection, dissent or irony. Where the voice of the majority is by definition affirmative, the spirit of independence is likeliest to manifest itself by employing the negative: by saying no in thunder – as Melville wrote to Hawthorne – though bidden by the devil himself to say yes.
– Harry Levin
I had no desire to destroy myself even if it destroyed the machine; I wanted freedom, not destruction. I was exhausted, for no matter what the scheme I conceived, there was one constant flaw – myself. There was no getting around it. I could no more escape than I could think of my identity. Perhaps, I thought, the two things are involved with each other. When I discover who I am, I’ll be free,
– Ralph Ellison
It is the duty of intellectuals to commit suicide as a class.
– Che Guevara
I was not born to be forced.
– Henry David Thoreau
Man is an abyss you get dizzy looking into.
– Georg Buchner
Oliver despised the rich and disliked the poor and drank to the bloody extinction of the middle classes.
– Elizabeth Bowen
I also like to watch the birds, animals and children, and to think how fortunate I am they are not mine.
– Stevie Smith
Michael was begging for a paring knife in the stomach.
– Andrea Cross
Cody: …in fact, he’s so relaxed and normal that…he can be a drag, you know what I mean?
Jack: (laughing) Yeah.
– Jack Kerouac
Gradually she became an ordinary good lady, that is a woman who in herself is good, but has reconciled herself to banality and accommodated herself to vegetative life.
– Chernyshevsky
"Everyone in the whole country who’s out of line is going to learn fear and that’ll be very shortly."
"There are some people who are going to learn fear and there are some people who are going to unlearn it," Rainey said. "And that’ll be very shortly."
– Robert Stone
Gimme a cigarette. Give the anarchist a cigarette.
– Bob Dylan
What makes me run? I burn, damn it, that’s why I like to run.
– F. Lee Bailey
To all patrons and Grounds Monitors:
It has come to my attention that through the first through the fifth week of the previous month that a certain unknown individual was suspected of rifling through the garbage cans on school grounds in search of plastic lids. Since it is a known fact that these lids are prohibited on school grounds property, we can only hazard the hypothesis that this activity was undertaken in order to embarrass certain school officials. However, it must be admitted that during the preceding 14 months several discrepancies have been discovered concerning the recycling pail wherein the formerly ubiquitous lids have been stored pending an investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Therefore one can only conclude there is an agent of an institution or institutions unfriendly to the present school administration at work in and around our garbage cans. Though these plastic lids may seem unimportant to the uninitiated, we of the Central Committee believe that this is an issue of the highest importance both to ourselves and to all members of our school community. I personally believe that this individual who claims to be an employee of the school system is in fact a reporter looking for some kind of scandal ridden story with which to tar the good reputation of our principal and other members of our school Sensitivity Team. I know, speaking for myself and also for the Commander of the 15th forward County School Group Procedure Administration, that I am loath to criticize or name any of the malefactors who probably spring immediately to your mind as well as my own, including most especially those agitator members of school teachers local 112 who shall remain nameless for the current moment.
I hope the preceding comments speak for themselves because they are made in a spirit of equanimity, and with good feeling toward all, except of course those individuals who have persisted in making an issue of these plastic cup lids, when in fact it is well-known to all members of our community that the Commander, the principal and myself are all vitally interested in this pressing problem that faces all of us as Americans and citizens of the County School Group Procedure Administration. I hope this issue has now become as clear to you as it is to me and the members of the School Sensitivity Cup Lid Task Force.
More to come on this pressing problem in the future, most likely in the form of an announcement during Teacher Awareness Day on the 14th over the PA system by Jingles McDowell, the local radio personality (and my close personal friend) who will be gracing us with her vivacious presence during Teacher Awareness Day. However, it is strongly advised that you do not share the lid situation with Jingles, or any other member of local or national media renown.
Sincerely,
Arnold McOnistupoduch Bellingham,
Concerned Citizen Awareness Liaison
Commentary: Right for Reason, Left For Treason
I’d like to say a word or two here about the bane of human existence: Liberals! How are we supposed to live in a free society when people like that insist on speaking up? How can we defend the Constitution when people, certain people that is, keep being so free with their speech? If our president cannot imprison anyone he pleases without a trial, or eavesdrop on any individual without warrant or court approval then why did our forefathers fight and die to defeat a tyrant like King George? If we cannot invade other countries without provocation, bomb them at our whim, and mislead the American public on the causes for war why did we undergo the attack at Pearl Harbor? Unlike the situation in Vietnam, where we invaded a country under false pretenses, created a puppet government and were mired down for years in an unpopular and fruitless war, the situation in Iraq is clearly much more like World War II where large industrialized nations like Germany fell under the sway of demagogues and committed aggression against other countries. Saddam Hussein is clearly almost exactly like Adolf Hitler and as soon as he is executed it is clear that all resistance to the American benevolent intervention will cease. We’ve caught the number two Al Qaeda terrorist criminal leader over 40 times in Iraq! If that doesn’t show progress what does, Mr. Smarty-pants liberal? Similarly, in Afghanistan we have crushed all Taliban resistance more than 50 times. Those who do not understand, who choose not to understand the true nature of the terrorist threat to our liberty, to our freedom, to our very lives, deserve to be locked up, tortured and shot.
The real threat to America, besides these free speech fanatics, is high taxes, especially on corporations and the wealthy. Why should our citizens be punished for being successful? Isn’t that another word for terrorism? Shouldn’t the unsuccessful, rather, be penalized for dragging the rest of us down? Why tax shining light citizens like Kenneth Lay whose only sin is to know how to play the game and live life to the fullest and grab the biggest piece of the pie without government intervention as all Americans should? We should be going after waiters who do not declare their tips, babysitters who do not own up to their income, and welfare recipients who buy luxury items like Coca-Cola. Why should someone like Paris Hilton, who has really put herself out there and made it on her own have to pay any kind of inheritance tax? People really depend on her to exhibit the grace and beauty of rich people in nightclubs and restaurants, and now some lousy liberal wants her to have to work too! Let someone without rich parents work, it’s their own fault if their lazy ancestors couldn’t get any money together or were too busy being slaves or some other excuse. I’m glad that there are gigantic corporations out there to straighten us out in their news programs as to why they shouldn’t have to pay taxes. It’s great that we finally have a government and a Republican Party (and they should be the same thing) that understands the corporations have to be protected from people who want them to stop destroying the environment, exploiting their workers and evading taxes. They’ve earned the right to do all these things by making all that money, and if YOU Mr. Liberal had been a real success you could be out there destroying the environment too. Forget global warming it sounds more like sour grapes to me! If a large corporation that employs many people here and in China or a large Oil Company that brings gas to our pumps has to pay a penny in taxes then the terrorists have won.
In conclusion, it seems to me that this country is doing great! I don’t see how anyone can criticize the Bush administration after they’ve been so successful in everything they’ve done! If they want to invade another country or put anyone they please in prison than they ought to be able to. Iraq may not have had any weapons of mass destruction or have had anything to do with September 11th, but the country was clearly filled with rebellious people who cannot listen to the wisdom of an invading force that wants to occupy their country and bring them freedom. If Mr. Bush wants to jail them, torture them and bomb them to bring them freedom then why don’t we let him! Who can say that if the Sunnis and Shiites want to fight each other they wouldn’t choose a place like the Hollywood Bowl to blow each other up if our troops weren’t in Iraq to serves as targets? If there’s going to be collateral damage, and the lot of civilian deaths wouldn’t you rather have it happen over there rather than the Hollywood Bowl? And shouldn’t Muslims love us for that decision, because who knows maybe someday they will get an opportunity to see Jessica Simpson there? You can see there are many things that the average liberal has never thought of.
It should be clear to anyone who’s read the preceding that anyone who does not believe that George Bush should have a free hand to do anything he wants to completely control our country and the world is some kind of totalitarian. People that speak in disagreement, or write in opposition, or vote for or run as a Democrat are clearly opposed to the Constitution, democracy, freedom or our way of life. Also those who still believe in taxation of the wealthy and corporations are last gasp communists who would try to enforce equality and other un-American concepts. So remember vote Republican in November because they are the only ones who understand that an administration with total power is our only protection against tyranny.
Just the opinion of one highly educated man who knows a lot of secret facts about terrorists threats involving prominent members of the Democratic party and fascist Muslim sleeper cells among the ACLU that the public does not,
Justin St. Clair
Fox Bloggers Group
"Fair and balanced, just the facts, the truth in our own interest."
Cracking the Case of The Missing Cracks: The Oracle by William J. Broad
I’ve always been fascinated by the Oracle of Delphi. It seems like the Pythia (as she was known) was one of the few authentically supernatural things in the universe – certainly the classical world considered her so. Along with the equally compelling rites at Eleusis, my fascination has been heightened by the mystery, the secrecy that still surrounds these two most famous centers of ancient religion. In this unfortunate age of instant, total exposure and the gossipy trivialization of any kind of truth, I can only look with envious nostalgia at mysteries that were able to remain mysterious.
Though the ancients wrote quite a bit about the succession of Oracles (certainly there’s a lot more historical documentation of the Pythia than there is about, say, that fellow Jesus Christ), there’s not that much modern work about her/them (many different women serving one voice), so when I saw the book The Oracle: The Lost Secrets and Hidden Message of Ancient Delphi by William J. Broad in the Penguin catalog I ordered it. The book (like Gaul) is divided into three parts. The first is an overview of the history of Delphi, then a look at the modern world’s interpretation of it and an account of the efforts of several contemporary scientists to "unlock its secret" and reverse the accepted verities.
These revelations are followed by a brief final section that examines how these new discoveries question reductive science and the dominant status quo materialist world view.
Sadly, I found the sum of the parts to be less compelling than they sound. Don’t get me wrong, The Oracle is an interesting and fun read, but, Mr. Broad’s background being journalistic, it reads more like a long New York Times article than the truly profound or groundbreaking book it could have been. The opening history of the Oracle was somewhat thin – although Broad gives a real sense of the ubiquitous and unique position Delphi held in the ancient world, the portrait is sketchy, omitting the possible matriarchal origins of the site, the origin of the Omphalos (a black rock the Greeks believed represented the center of the earth) and even giving short shrift to many fascinating classical commentaries on the Oracle.
Clearly ancient history is not where his expertise lies. He’s more of a science writer, and the second section shows him more sure of himself and his material. It’s a rather standard scientific "detective story" about two dedicated, colorful scientific sleuths, geologist Jelle de Boer and archeologist John Hale, who follow the clues and crack the case of the missing cracks. For years Oracle-ologists have been puzzled by the contradiction between the certainty of the Classical commentators that the Pythia received inspiration from the sweet smelling effluvia which wafted up from a crack beneath her feet and the equally rock solid certainty of the French archeologists who first excavated Delphi that, well, the rock was solid, with no possible fissures or intoxicating gasses. The ever intellectually arrogant French were, of course, not geologists, and when an actual member of the profession looked at the site he discovered that it was situated at the intersection of two seismic faults that would have certainly produced a lot of cracks, as well as subterranean strata that would have released the euphoria producing, naturally occurring gas ethylene. This section allows Broad to explain faults, rocks, gasses and many other matters scientific, which although they are all interesting enough, fail to bring the reader any closer to the Oracle. Similarly the profiles of those dogged savants de Boer and Hale are more on the level of good journalism than great literature.
The final summation also treats a compelling subject in not quite enough depth. Broad uses the oracle as a stick with which to flog the reductive (i.e. the belief that all things may be reduced to basic component parts) wing of contemporary science. He pussyfoots around the central revelation of the book – the fact that the Oracle of Delphi achieved her fantastic results and acclaim with the aid of consciousness altering agents. It’s odd to me how our culture has so quickly gone from the Romantic idea that nothing great can be achieved without some heightened or altered state to the contemporary, conservative concept that nothing but nonsense can be achieved in such a state. The dismissive reception of Daniel Pinchbeck’s fascinating, provocative book 2012 or the sneering reviews of the recent spate of books about Timothy Leary, which present him as a hedonistic charlatan, simply because no one could really believe than any benefit could come from hallucinogens.
This is part of the materialistic reductionism Broad excoriates, although he doesn’t engage it, perhaps for fear of being marginalized himself. [We all know UBU has no such fear – he was pushed beyond the margins long ago!] Ever since that font and apologist for so much bad philosophy Ronald Reagan, our culture has been conditioned to see drugs as a criminal and social problem, a potentially dangerous fault line in the Uber American world view. Even today’s stoner adherents see drugs more as just another recreation and consumer product than as agent of revelation. Like so much of conservatism, this view relies on an extreme ignorance of history, a view through the make believe lens of Hollywood. Is it really a shock that the Oracle relied on consciousness altering agents when the Shamanic origins of religion places them at the very dawn of human spirituality, and even, some postulate, the genesis of consciousness itself?
Certainly many of the major architect of modern culture – Poe, Coleridge, Freud, even, as Broad points out William James, were no strangers to drugs, not to mention the last great literary generation of America, Kerouac, Burroughs and Ginsberg, and almost virtually every major rock musician of the sixties. The signal philosophical insight of the twentieth century, call it Relativity, The Uncertainty Principle or just plain Subjectivity, is apparent to anyone who has stepped away from not only the consensually perceived world view but in some way themselves by the use of consciousness altering agents. But it wasn’t just the ethylene that made the Oracle holy, it was the framework she operated in, her seriousness of purpose, her set and setting, that all contributed to her visionary successes, the very elements that are so sadly lacking in our reductive, degraded, materialistic world. Broad should be commended for raising these questions and summoning this disconcerting ghost of the past, even though he does so with disappointing superficiality. I guess we all get The Oracle we deserve, and it should come as no surprise that today Oracle is just another highly revered tech stock.
Yrs Delphicly,
UBU (King Numa)
Hello, my name is Alexander Smoot. I’ve come all the way from Kansas City, Missouri to tell you about an exciting new product that will make your toenails curl. It’s known to those of us in Kansas City as the electric plastic sponge mop. It’s guaranteed to cause you to leap into the air and singe your underwear! If anyone has ever even smelled this product they will know that it is the latest thing in mop technology, designed to send you, your mate, or a close personal friend to a place that they have never been before or even dreamed of going in their wildest imagination even after having eaten a dinner of Welsh rarebit or a cheeseburger from Uncle Frank’s Burger Mart in downtown Ashtabula. I’m not saying that this project will change your life, I’m saying that it will revolutionize consciousness on this entire planet and will cause all problems or heartaches to dry up and become one with their maker, Satan, who is also known as a bulldog named Frank who currently resides in an overturned barrel in the city of Odessa, Russia.
No one knows exactly how this whole thing began. Some posit that it was because of the special lens developed by an optometrist named Elmer Olden Burke, who installed this lens in a pair of eyeglasses which enabled him to see the vibrations emanating from a previously unknown cave located on the coast of California. Within this cave he discovered a pit in which a gigantic crystal glowed, showering the walls with tiny inscriptions which seemed to indicate that the stock market was a colossal fraud perpetrated by Native American squaws who wanted revenge for defective Pampers. However, it was soon learned that this was not true.
No, the secrets of the electric sponge mop will perhaps never be known at least not at our dimensional vibration. But what is important is that the mop works! It works on your floor! It works on your ceiling! It will even work on your baby brother or a small ceramic object that your cousin Ralph purchased from a shady shaman vendor in Tijuana! But what Ralph didn’t know is that the power of this small ceramic object will be activated by the electric sponge mop! Who knows what sort of hilarity will result when he finds out! But one thing is certain, somewhere in Odessa a bulldog named Frank is sweating bullets, that is if dogs could sweat anywhere but between their toes.
I’ve probably said too much already. No doubt there are some, such as Elmer Olden Burke, who would try to drown a fellow in a puddle for exposing such a painful truth about the electric plastic sponge mop. I’m not saying that it was developed using alien technology obtained in a barter program for the bodies of 15 month old babies which are considered delicacies among the discerning inhabitants of the Dog Star, but I will guarantee that it will be a boon to you, your housekeeper, or your indentured servant. No one can say for sure how vast the benefits will be in unlocking the hidden vibrational frequencies in your closet or linens, but I think it’s safe to say that whoever tries the electric plastic sponge mop will find that it is the finest electric plastic sponge mop that they have ever brought into their home, workplace, or place of worship.
How can I say this? Easy! I know it’s hard to believe but I too was once an ignorant fool such as yourself. Like you, I had no idea which way was up, or even the name or location of Satan. But, as the preceding narrative clearly displays I was granted sanity by the agency of the electric plastic sponge mop. No drugs were used, no yoga, no yogurt, no dietary salt supplements of any kind. This sort of product cannot be purchased on the open market, but must be made in basement or garage workshops by devoted hunters such as yourself. Remember the place for a gun is in the forest or woods and the place for an electric plastic sponge mop is in your home, work or place of worship. Well, I don’t have much more to say, I think my words say it all! No one has to urge you to do what you’re doing, or to find what you found, but remember, if you don’t already have an electric plastic sponge mop in your life, you’re missing something that can only be described as something super special! I really mean that, and you know I do, because I’m not getting paid for making this testimonial, I’m not doing it at knife point or at the barrel of a gun, I’m only doing it because I had a dream last night that you and you alone wanted to hear this important message. You may expect to see a whole lot more of me in the days and weeks to come! I know you’ll enjoy hearing all about the electric plastic sponge mop from me its humble creator. What days will you be home? Please leave the key under the mat, so that I can come in and wait for you if you’re not there. A cheese tray would also be nice. But no cottage cheese please. Perhaps someday I will tell you the truth about cottage cheese!
Your pal,
you BU
Greetings!
You may well wonder at what point it is appropriate to begin thinking about the Wax Bean Festival that will occur this October at the Wax Beans Grounds. The answer is simple for the time is now. Who can say at what point that the wax beans will begin to mature? Certainly no human agency can come up with that information! Only one person can help us there and he is currently residing in Modesto, California. Of course I refer to our founder, Mr. Jesse Ad Davis.
In the absence of Mr. Jesse Ad Davis, we can only turn to more fallible human agents such as Miss Sally Fotheringham, who currently serves as our main director for scheduling those pesky sprouts. Miss Sally at this present time believes that the leaves will begin their full maturity at approximately 3:10 p.m. on October 15. There are many who do not agree with this assessment, but they are presently being incarcerated in the wax bean facility in the north of town. It must be reiterated that there is no room in the wax world for false controversy.
Cutting-edge technology will enable us to bring wax beans into the 21st century. Certain advancements have been made in this direction by our own Dr. Fernswoggle McKnight. But as to what those advancements are I cannot reveal until the appropriate time, or else I will end up incarcerated in the wax bean facility myself!
But what can you, the lowly average wax bean peon, do to advance our noble cause? It is quite simple, money is always needed, as well as human tissue and body parts. Even your pet or spouse can be utilized to further the growth of baby wax beans. In addition to these important contributions, Miss Sally Fotheringham could certainly use a new bra, girdle, or support garment, preferably in black, red, or of a lacy, transparent nature. Dr. Fernswoggle McKnight also informs me is looking for an alternator for a late model American motors Gremlin.
I hope this brief missive answers some of your myriad questions concerning the Wax Bean Festival. Remember that many are called but few are chosen, and those of us that have assumed the vast responsibility of directing the Wax Bean Festival must be amply compensated in ways that may appear excessive to the uninitiated and ignorant such as yourself. But that will be covered in a future memo that will be delivered in approximately 3 to five days.
Remember, only you can produce wax beans!
Your Grand Leader,
Elmira Midnight Smith Jones
Here’s a couple of book reviews I did for a pair of neglected modernist novels:
The Juggler (Paperback) by Melanie Rachilde, translated by Melanie C. Hawthorne
Rutgers University Press $12.95
"The Juggler" is an unjustly neglected work. Gracefully poised between decadence and dada, it combines the sensuousness, love of the artificial and sexual ambiguity of Huysman with the word play, subversion and dramatic irony of (Rachilde’s friend) Alfred Jarry. The story of the relationship between the "juggler" of the title (in fact a well to do widow), Eliante Donalger, and her younger, somewhat callow suitor, the medical student Leon Reille, the novel alternates between their dramatic exchanges and their equally dramatic letters. The gender reversal and strong female character are reminiscent of Rachilde’s more famous work, the scandalous "Monsieur Venus," but "The Juggler" is more nuanced, sure footed and mature, while being just as scandalous. It’s a sexy book, even though there’s nothing explicit in it, mostly through the author’s attention to the minutest of sensations and her appreciation of the elastic wonders of the female body. Eliante’s defiantly outsider pose and her suggestion of the artificiality of gender itself make reading "The Juggler" a strangely contemporary and immediate experience, and I must admit I savored every word.
Sanin
: A Novel (Paperback)
by Mikhail Artsybashev, translated by Michael R. Katz
Cornell University Press $19.95
I found "Sanin," as you probably did, sort of by accident, but have enjoyed it as much as anything I’ve read for a while. Although the back cover uses the word "pornography" umpteen times, Sanin isn’t explicit in the slightest, although it does address sexuality in a refreshingly straightforward way. It’s wonderful at capturing the way that young bodies call to each other under the fashionable facades, and how the most elevated of thoughts can be hijacked by lust. Being Russian, it’s also a novel of ideas, in this case the titular character’s free spirited nihilism, the sort of anarchy of ideas that were released from the pandora’s box of oppression, placing it in the tradition of Lermontov’s Hero of our Time, or Dostoevsky’s The Devils. It’s also more ambigious than it might seem, allowing the reader to see exactly how destructive those ideas can become and letting us make our own judgement on the nominal "hero." (I think he’s kind of a jerk myself, though there are plenty of teens and twenty year olds who would idolize him.) This is the kind of book that completely shames what passes for literature today. It’s vigorous, full of ideas, well written, titillating without being sensationalistic, extremely ambitious and not overwhelmed with having "sympathetic" characters or being commercial or politically correct. Love him or hate him Sanin will blow your mind and there aren’t many books of today that can say that!
Since I don’t speak German I can’t claim to have translated this. However I have taken about five different translations, selected the best parts and UBUIZED them for your reading pleasure. So sit back and enjoy this timely seasonal classic….
Summer
by Georg Trakl
In the evening
The sound of the birds
Stops in the woods
The tall grass bends lower
The red poppy
Black thunderclouds
Bloom
Above the hills
The ancient song of the cicada
Dies in the fields
The leaves of the trees
Are still
On the spiral stair
Your dress rustles
A silent candle shines
In the dark room
A silver hand
Extinguishes it
No wind, no stars
Night
Within a Rapidly Degrading Tan Citation
or
Organ Sensation as a Tool of Natural Research: Quote Bag
The Tattling Harlot: A Dialogue Between Bess O’Bedlam and her Brother Tom
We are the apes who dreamed and woke still dreaming.
– Kathryn Morton
Looked upon by society as a bankrupt, I was born again in another world where no one could follow me. Things that would previously have lacked significance now attracted my attention. The dreams I had at night assumed the guise of prophecies. I thought of myself as one of the dead, passing my life in another sphere.
– August Strindberg
Ah, sir I was mad and violent. I thought to fight my way with my literature and my wit; so I disregarded all power and all authority.
– Samuel Johnson
I was going to grow up to walk in sleet in fields; didn’t know it then.
– Jack Kerouac
dada was there before dada was there.
– Hans Arp
I don’t know how radical you are, or how radical I am. I am certainly not radical enough. One can never be radical enough; that is, one must always be as radical as reality itself.
– V. I. Lenin
Reality can only partially be attacked by logic.
– Fredrich Durrenmatt
Instead, the observer who stands before a disciplined and well-proportioned Mondrian or an apparently uncontrolled Kandinsky feels that he is himself being judged by some enigmatic intelligence, some representative of a world of values to which he was a stranger. In graphic art, perceptions too radical for overt expression are embodied in non-representational elements; in modern literature they are expressed through deviations from the conventional idiom.
– Jacob Korg
The human tongue is like a cracked cauldron on which we beat out tunes to set a bear dancing when we would make the stars weep with our melodies.
– Gustave Flaubert
Those who would still be called artists, and who in advanced civilizations have not lost contact with natural sources and are the sole performers and prophets os a speech in which, periodically, the world must come to quench its thirst.
– Artaud
To understand and judge a society, one has to penetrate its basic structure to the human bond upon which it is built; this undoubtedly depends on legal relations, but also upon forms of labor, ways of loving, living and dying.
– Maurice Merleau-Ponty
I’m interested in women’s arguments with men, what else is there? The rest doesn’t amount to a row of monkeys.
– Jane Bowles
The impulse of her poetry is not confessional but visionary.
– M. D. Uroff
The emblem of Expressionism is existence; the existence of man, and at the same time the existence of the image.
– Giuseppe Gott
The essential character of life is consciousness of vision.
– Oskar Kokoschka
When imagination begins to skid out of control, so do events.
– General Alexander M. Haig, Jr.
To put it succinctly: instead of identifying with the characters, the audience should be educated to be astonished at the circumstances under which they can function.
– Walter Benjamin
The poet’s function used to be to write good poetry, now it’s to make bad jokes.
– James Agnew
It is integrity which separates art from non-art.
– Annie Dillard
Beautiful! Beautiful! Magnificent desolation!
– Buzz Aldrin
When thy mind leaves its dark forest of delusion, thou shalt go beyond the scriptures of times past and those still to come.
– Bhagavad Gita
From your old pal
UBU
voted
outstanding individual
in the field of
Written Communication
1983-1984
