Tara Isabella Burton
There are things it is better for a person not to know. The day and the manner of your own death, that’s one, or whether or not you’re going to fuck your mother and kill your father. What people say behind your back. The names somebody you love has called somebody else. There’s a reason people are able to function, in this world, as social creatures, and a good part of that reason is that there are a lot of questions intelligent people don’t ask.
Your things might be different. So don't ask us about them.
Louise thinks: we cannot be known and loved at the same time.
If you know what she means. No? Then ask me to explain it.
...stupidity, like happiness, is a luxury...
If you know what she means. No? Then ask me to explain it.
You knew from the second he looked at you that you were the person who cared more, and whoever cares most, loses; you knew that.
Yep, that's how it works alright.
It’s just that when Isobel says things, Laura believes them, and when Virginia says things Laura believes them, too; it’s just that Laura knows she is so soft, soft enough that anyone can shape her, and she knows enough to know this softness makes her weak.
And then, as likely as not, all the rest that flows from that.
But Laura knows she will do whatever Virginia asks. She no longer remembers how to do anything else.
This for example...
Quote of the day
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iambiguous
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Re: Quote of the day
David James Duncan from The River Why
In a head-on collision with Fanatics, the real problem is always the same: how can we possibly behave decently toward people so arrogantly ignorant that they believe, first, that they possess Christ's power to bestow salvation, second, that forcing us to memorize and regurgitate a few of their favorite Bible phrases and attend their church is that salvation, and third, that any discomfort, frustration, anger or disagreement we express in the face of their moronic barrages is due not to their astounding effrontery but to our sinfulness?
So, meet Immanuel Can. Among others.
I truly and deeply wanted to kill him. And I believe I could have done it, with nothing but my hands. But all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Peter had an arm around me. "Let it go, Kade," he was whispering very gently, though his arm was nearly crushing me. "Open your fists," he said, "and let go of the coals.”
That either reminds you of someone, yourself perhaps, or it doesn't.
And so I learned what solitude really was. It was raw material - awesome, malleable, older than men or worlds or water. And it was merciless - for it let a man become precisely what he alone made of himself.
And, hey, look at me!
Music is just a word for something we love largely because it consists of things that words can't express.
Wow, not unlike Alexis Jacobi's philosophy!
And like many a Christian before them, they completely forgot that the only sword-shaped weapon Jesus ever actually used was the one He died on.
So, just a coincidence?
I started having doubts right on top of my certainty.
No, really, Mr. Objectivist, that can actually happen.
In a head-on collision with Fanatics, the real problem is always the same: how can we possibly behave decently toward people so arrogantly ignorant that they believe, first, that they possess Christ's power to bestow salvation, second, that forcing us to memorize and regurgitate a few of their favorite Bible phrases and attend their church is that salvation, and third, that any discomfort, frustration, anger or disagreement we express in the face of their moronic barrages is due not to their astounding effrontery but to our sinfulness?
So, meet Immanuel Can. Among others.
I truly and deeply wanted to kill him. And I believe I could have done it, with nothing but my hands. But all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Peter had an arm around me. "Let it go, Kade," he was whispering very gently, though his arm was nearly crushing me. "Open your fists," he said, "and let go of the coals.”
That either reminds you of someone, yourself perhaps, or it doesn't.
And so I learned what solitude really was. It was raw material - awesome, malleable, older than men or worlds or water. And it was merciless - for it let a man become precisely what he alone made of himself.
And, hey, look at me!
Music is just a word for something we love largely because it consists of things that words can't express.
Wow, not unlike Alexis Jacobi's philosophy!
And like many a Christian before them, they completely forgot that the only sword-shaped weapon Jesus ever actually used was the one He died on.
So, just a coincidence?
I started having doubts right on top of my certainty.
No, really, Mr. Objectivist, that can actually happen.
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iambiguous
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Re: Quote of the day
The Onion
Study Finds Only 5% Of Americans Have Correct Amount Of Pride In Country
Remember when it was 10%?
Area Dad Looking To Get Average Phone Call With Adult Son Down To 47.5 Seconds
Reminds me of this guy: https://youtu.be/A5gAN1P2JbM
Hamburger Creeped Out By Eerie Soy Facsimile Of Itself On Grill
Next up: soy french fries.
Oklahoma Schools To Teach Students That Tulsa Massacre Was Crime Of Passion From Loving Black People Too Much
Taking Woke way, way too far?
Man Who’s Been In A Bunch Of Buildings Figures He’d Be A Pretty Good Architect
And, of course, the equivalent of that here.
Elon Musk Sues Mark Zuckerberg For Being Better At Profiting Off Someone Else’s Idea
Too close to call, let's say.
You know, if it is too close to call.
Study Finds Only 5% Of Americans Have Correct Amount Of Pride In Country
Remember when it was 10%?
Area Dad Looking To Get Average Phone Call With Adult Son Down To 47.5 Seconds
Reminds me of this guy: https://youtu.be/A5gAN1P2JbM
Hamburger Creeped Out By Eerie Soy Facsimile Of Itself On Grill
Next up: soy french fries.
Oklahoma Schools To Teach Students That Tulsa Massacre Was Crime Of Passion From Loving Black People Too Much
Taking Woke way, way too far?
Man Who’s Been In A Bunch Of Buildings Figures He’d Be A Pretty Good Architect
And, of course, the equivalent of that here.
Elon Musk Sues Mark Zuckerberg For Being Better At Profiting Off Someone Else’s Idea
Too close to call, let's say.
You know, if it is too close to call.
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iambiguous
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Re: Quote of the day
Jerzy Kosiński
One day he trapped a large raven, whose wings he painted red, the breast green, and the tail blue. When a flock of ravens appeared over our hut, Lekh freed the painted bird. As soon as it joined the flock a desperate battle began. The changeling was attacked from all sides. Black, red, green, blue feathers began to drop at our feet. The ravens ran amuck in the skies, and suddenly the painted raven plummeted to the freshly-plowed soil. It was still alive, opening its beak and vainly trying to move its wings. Its eyes had been pecked out, and fresh blood streamed over its painted feathers. It made yet another attempt to flutter up from the sticky earth, but its strength was gone.
So, what do you think?
When people claim to know who I am, I can no longer act freely.
Fuck 'em, right?
All cats are the same in the dark, says the proverb. But it certainly did not apply to people, with them it was just the opposite. During the day they were all alike, running in their well-defined ways. At night they changed beyond recognition.
Human all too human, says the aphorism.
Wouldn't it be easier to change people's eyes and hair than to build big furnaces and then catch Jews and Gypsies to burn them?
Let's run that by the Nazis here.
So this is insanity. How interesting. What happens next?
"You live with it", as a man once said.
As a child I used to lie on the floor with my eyes tightly closed and hope that people would walk past without noticing me. That would mean I was truly invisible.
Next up: "...on May 3, 1991, he committed suicide by ingesting a lethal amount of alcohol and drugs and wrapping a plastic bag around his head, suffocating himself to death."
One day he trapped a large raven, whose wings he painted red, the breast green, and the tail blue. When a flock of ravens appeared over our hut, Lekh freed the painted bird. As soon as it joined the flock a desperate battle began. The changeling was attacked from all sides. Black, red, green, blue feathers began to drop at our feet. The ravens ran amuck in the skies, and suddenly the painted raven plummeted to the freshly-plowed soil. It was still alive, opening its beak and vainly trying to move its wings. Its eyes had been pecked out, and fresh blood streamed over its painted feathers. It made yet another attempt to flutter up from the sticky earth, but its strength was gone.
So, what do you think?
When people claim to know who I am, I can no longer act freely.
Fuck 'em, right?
All cats are the same in the dark, says the proverb. But it certainly did not apply to people, with them it was just the opposite. During the day they were all alike, running in their well-defined ways. At night they changed beyond recognition.
Human all too human, says the aphorism.
Wouldn't it be easier to change people's eyes and hair than to build big furnaces and then catch Jews and Gypsies to burn them?
Let's run that by the Nazis here.
So this is insanity. How interesting. What happens next?
"You live with it", as a man once said.
As a child I used to lie on the floor with my eyes tightly closed and hope that people would walk past without noticing me. That would mean I was truly invisible.
Next up: "...on May 3, 1991, he committed suicide by ingesting a lethal amount of alcohol and drugs and wrapping a plastic bag around his head, suffocating himself to death."
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iambiguous
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Re: Quote of the day
Eugene Thacker
Traditionally, the Socratic tradition in philosophy has a therapeutic function, which is to dispel the horrors of the unknown through reasoned argument. What cannot be tolerated in this tradition is the possibility of a world that cannot be known, or a world that is indifferent to our elaborate knowledge-producing schemes.
The fool!
Right, AJ?
There will always be someone who will see the futility of your actions. There will always be someone who is irritated by what you do, whatever you do.
Of course, so far, that includes all of us.
Whenever it occurs, however it occurs, pessimism has but one effect: it introduces humility into thought. It undermines the innumerable, self-aggrandizing postures that constitute the human being. Pessimism is the humility of the species that has named itself, thought furtively stumbling upon its own limitations on black wings of futility.
The most optimistic way to look at it, anyway.
The most devastating thing about suffering is that it is relative. There is always someone who hurts more, someone who hurts less.
On the other hand, considerably more can hurt less.
For optimists, the most perplexing question is how one becomes a pessimist – if one is not born one. For the pessimist, the question is how each person, by virtue of being born, is not already a pessimist.
Next up: the actual answer.
Kierkegaard famously wrote “my sorrow is my castle.” Unfortunately not all of us have as much space.
Want to borrow some of mine?
Traditionally, the Socratic tradition in philosophy has a therapeutic function, which is to dispel the horrors of the unknown through reasoned argument. What cannot be tolerated in this tradition is the possibility of a world that cannot be known, or a world that is indifferent to our elaborate knowledge-producing schemes.
The fool!
Right, AJ?
There will always be someone who will see the futility of your actions. There will always be someone who is irritated by what you do, whatever you do.
Of course, so far, that includes all of us.
Whenever it occurs, however it occurs, pessimism has but one effect: it introduces humility into thought. It undermines the innumerable, self-aggrandizing postures that constitute the human being. Pessimism is the humility of the species that has named itself, thought furtively stumbling upon its own limitations on black wings of futility.
The most optimistic way to look at it, anyway.
The most devastating thing about suffering is that it is relative. There is always someone who hurts more, someone who hurts less.
On the other hand, considerably more can hurt less.
For optimists, the most perplexing question is how one becomes a pessimist – if one is not born one. For the pessimist, the question is how each person, by virtue of being born, is not already a pessimist.
Next up: the actual answer.
Kierkegaard famously wrote “my sorrow is my castle.” Unfortunately not all of us have as much space.
Want to borrow some of mine?
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iambiguous
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Re: Quote of the day
Milan Kundera from The Unbearable Lightness of Being
[Nietzsche's] idea of eternal return is a mysterious one...to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it and that recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum!
Putting it negatively, the myth of eternal returns states that a life which disappears once and for all...is like a shadow, without weight, dead in advance, and whether it was horrible, beautiful or sublime, its horror, sublimity, and beauty mean nothing. We need take no more note of it than a war between two African kingdoms in the 14th century, a war that altered nothing in the destiny of the world, even if a 100,000 blacks perished in excruciating torment....
Let us therefore agree that the idea of eternal return implies a perspective from which things appear other than as we know them: they appear without the mitigating circumstance of their transitory nature. This mitigating circumstance prevents us from coming to a verdict. For how can we condemn something that is ephemeral, in transit...?
Not long ago, I caught myself experiencing a most incredible sensation. Leafing through a book on Hitler, I was touched by some of his portraits: they reminded me of my childhood. I grew up during the war; several members of my family perished in Hitler's concentration camps; but what were their deaths compared with the memories of a lost period of my life, a period that would never return?
This reconciliation with Hitler reveals the profound moral perversity of a world that rests essentially on the nonexistence of return, for in this world everything is pardoned in advance and therefore everything cynically permitted.
[Nietzsche's] idea of eternal return is a mysterious one...to think that everything recurs as we once experienced it and that recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum!
Putting it negatively, the myth of eternal returns states that a life which disappears once and for all...is like a shadow, without weight, dead in advance, and whether it was horrible, beautiful or sublime, its horror, sublimity, and beauty mean nothing. We need take no more note of it than a war between two African kingdoms in the 14th century, a war that altered nothing in the destiny of the world, even if a 100,000 blacks perished in excruciating torment....
Let us therefore agree that the idea of eternal return implies a perspective from which things appear other than as we know them: they appear without the mitigating circumstance of their transitory nature. This mitigating circumstance prevents us from coming to a verdict. For how can we condemn something that is ephemeral, in transit...?
Not long ago, I caught myself experiencing a most incredible sensation. Leafing through a book on Hitler, I was touched by some of his portraits: they reminded me of my childhood. I grew up during the war; several members of my family perished in Hitler's concentration camps; but what were their deaths compared with the memories of a lost period of my life, a period that would never return?
This reconciliation with Hitler reveals the profound moral perversity of a world that rests essentially on the nonexistence of return, for in this world everything is pardoned in advance and therefore everything cynically permitted.
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iambiguous
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Re: Quote of the day
Oscar Wilde from The Picture of Dorian Gray
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.
Wake up, Ron!
To define is to limit.
Define limit?
Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Not counting inflation, of course.
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
With tons and tons of exceptions, of course.
Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.
Not much that can't be misconstrued as meaning.
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
Next up: every post...
The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.
Wake up, Ron!
To define is to limit.
Define limit?
Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Not counting inflation, of course.
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
With tons and tons of exceptions, of course.
Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.
Not much that can't be misconstrued as meaning.
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
Next up: every post...
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iambiguous
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Re: Quote of the day
Pessimism...
“We are good to others only because we think that that is, or will be, good for us.” Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Let's keep that between ourselves.
“That is the way we decided to talk, free and easy, two young men discussing a boxing match. That was the only way to talk. You couldn't let too much truth seep into your conversation, you couldn't admit with your mouth what your eyes had seen. If you opened the door even a centimeter, you would smell the rot outside and hear the screams. You did not open the door. You kept your mind on the tasks of the day, the hunt for food and water and something to burn, and you saved the rest for the end of the war.” David Benioff
Free and easy bullshit here too.
For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.
Take that, AJ!
“The mind is an intricate mechanism that can be run on the fuels of both victory and defeatism.” Pat Conroy
When you can tell them apart.
“It is possible for things to get worse without limit.” Dr. Herbert R.J. Grosch
Collectively as it were.
"Once something becomes aware of its existence, once something is born to nothing, it cannot compel itself to cease except by cruelly wishing with futility for deliverance.” Jacob H. Kyle
Let's file this one under "the ring of truth". And then move on.
“We are good to others only because we think that that is, or will be, good for us.” Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Let's keep that between ourselves.
“That is the way we decided to talk, free and easy, two young men discussing a boxing match. That was the only way to talk. You couldn't let too much truth seep into your conversation, you couldn't admit with your mouth what your eyes had seen. If you opened the door even a centimeter, you would smell the rot outside and hear the screams. You did not open the door. You kept your mind on the tasks of the day, the hunt for food and water and something to burn, and you saved the rest for the end of the war.” David Benioff
Free and easy bullshit here too.
For an author to write as he speaks is just as reprehensible as the opposite fault, to speak as he writes; for this gives a pedantic effect to what he says, and at the same time makes him hardly intelligible.
Take that, AJ!
“The mind is an intricate mechanism that can be run on the fuels of both victory and defeatism.” Pat Conroy
When you can tell them apart.
“It is possible for things to get worse without limit.” Dr. Herbert R.J. Grosch
Collectively as it were.
"Once something becomes aware of its existence, once something is born to nothing, it cannot compel itself to cease except by cruelly wishing with futility for deliverance.” Jacob H. Kyle
Let's file this one under "the ring of truth". And then move on.
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iambiguous
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Re: Quote of the day
Barbara Kingsolver from Demon Copperhead
Maggot calmed me down by explaining Bible stories were a category of superhero comic. Not to be confused with real life.
Okay, sure, but is that actually true?
The first to fall in any war are forgotten.
Though eventually all of them.
Because DSS pay is basically the fuck-you peanut butter sandwich type of paycheck. That’s what the big world thinks it’s worth, to save white-trash orphans.
Next up: DOD pay.
I wondered if DSS had anything like Step 9, where you eventually have to apologize to all the kids you’ve screwed over.
Spot the Catch-22 yet?
Brain of a deer tick, but that’s not something to hold against a running back.
Let alone a quaterback.
Like every boy in Lee County I was raised to be a proud mule in a world that has scant use for mules.
Suckers let's call them.
Maggot calmed me down by explaining Bible stories were a category of superhero comic. Not to be confused with real life.
Okay, sure, but is that actually true?
The first to fall in any war are forgotten.
Though eventually all of them.
Because DSS pay is basically the fuck-you peanut butter sandwich type of paycheck. That’s what the big world thinks it’s worth, to save white-trash orphans.
Next up: DOD pay.
I wondered if DSS had anything like Step 9, where you eventually have to apologize to all the kids you’ve screwed over.
Spot the Catch-22 yet?
Brain of a deer tick, but that’s not something to hold against a running back.
Let alone a quaterback.
Like every boy in Lee County I was raised to be a proud mule in a world that has scant use for mules.
Suckers let's call them.
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iambiguous
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- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
The Onion
Loving Mother Only Wants Daughter To Be Different In Every Possible Way
Next up: Her trans daughter today.
White Artist Reassures Self That People Will Love Painting Of Emmett Till Dunking Basketball
New thread?
Chevron Promises Shareholders It Will Double Temperatures
No, really.
Experts Confirm Best Response In Active Shooter Situation Just Being Yourself
Next up: being your fractured and fragmented self.
Company Hits Diversity Quota By Claiming New AI Is A Woman
A black lesbian to boot.
Mysterious White Powder Found In West Wing Identified As President Biden
Next up: the orange powder found there.
Loving Mother Only Wants Daughter To Be Different In Every Possible Way
Next up: Her trans daughter today.
White Artist Reassures Self That People Will Love Painting Of Emmett Till Dunking Basketball
New thread?
Chevron Promises Shareholders It Will Double Temperatures
No, really.
Experts Confirm Best Response In Active Shooter Situation Just Being Yourself
Next up: being your fractured and fragmented self.
Company Hits Diversity Quota By Claiming New AI Is A Woman
A black lesbian to boot.
Mysterious White Powder Found In West Wing Identified As President Biden
Next up: the orange powder found there.
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iambiguous
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Re: Quote of the day
Cormac McCarthy from The Passenger
It’s all right to say that the reason we can't fully grasp the quantum world is because we didn't evolve in that world.
Actually, there, it's all right to say anything.
There is mass hatred and there is mass grief. Mass vengeance and even mass suicide. But there is no mass forgiveness. There is only you.
In that case, "forget about it".
Then pick one: https://youtu.be/FV9y0nySqMg
Do you carry a gun? No. I own one. You think I should carry it? Statistically it will shorten your life, not lengthen it. The unpleasant truth is that if someone is trying to kill you there is not a whole lot you can do about it. Your only real safety would be in disappearing. And even with that there are no guarantees.
Next up: do you carry a bazooka?
...do you think if you died drunk you’d sober up before you met Jesus?
More to the point: does it matter?
He got me into AA. I had trouble with the God thing. A lot of people do. And then I woke up one night in the middle of the night and I was lying there and I thought: If there is no higher power then I’m it. And that just scared the shit out of me.
Well, he ought to know by now.
People will tell a stranger on a bus what they won't tell their spouse.
What, for example?
It’s all right to say that the reason we can't fully grasp the quantum world is because we didn't evolve in that world.
Actually, there, it's all right to say anything.
There is mass hatred and there is mass grief. Mass vengeance and even mass suicide. But there is no mass forgiveness. There is only you.
In that case, "forget about it".
Then pick one: https://youtu.be/FV9y0nySqMg
Do you carry a gun? No. I own one. You think I should carry it? Statistically it will shorten your life, not lengthen it. The unpleasant truth is that if someone is trying to kill you there is not a whole lot you can do about it. Your only real safety would be in disappearing. And even with that there are no guarantees.
Next up: do you carry a bazooka?
...do you think if you died drunk you’d sober up before you met Jesus?
More to the point: does it matter?
He got me into AA. I had trouble with the God thing. A lot of people do. And then I woke up one night in the middle of the night and I was lying there and I thought: If there is no higher power then I’m it. And that just scared the shit out of me.
Well, he ought to know by now.
People will tell a stranger on a bus what they won't tell their spouse.
What, for example?
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iambiguous
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Re: Quote of the day
Stupidity...
“You cannot argue with stupidity, you just have to accept it patiently as one of those things.” Nevil Shute
Tell me about it!
“He was stupid. If I killed everyone who was stupid, I wouldn't have time to sleep.” Tamora Pierce
Let alone post here.
“Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever, when they are only wasting their time. ” George Bernard Shaw
Next up: checkers.
“If stupidity got us in this mess, how come it can't get us out.” Will Rogers
Maybe next time.
“We're not stupid! We're just poor! And we have a right to insist on this distinction.” Orhan Pamuk
Tell that to the ruling class.
“I'm fairly certain that YOLO is just Carpe Diem for stupid people.” Jack Black
Let's discuss.
“You cannot argue with stupidity, you just have to accept it patiently as one of those things.” Nevil Shute
Tell me about it!
“He was stupid. If I killed everyone who was stupid, I wouldn't have time to sleep.” Tamora Pierce
Let alone post here.
“Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever, when they are only wasting their time. ” George Bernard Shaw
Next up: checkers.
“If stupidity got us in this mess, how come it can't get us out.” Will Rogers
Maybe next time.
“We're not stupid! We're just poor! And we have a right to insist on this distinction.” Orhan Pamuk
Tell that to the ruling class.
“I'm fairly certain that YOLO is just Carpe Diem for stupid people.” Jack Black
Let's discuss.
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iambiguous
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Re: Quote of the day
Criss Jami from Killosophy
The biggest challenge after success is shutting up about it.
Trust me: not always.
Telling an introvert to go to a party is like telling a saint to go to Hell.
No, really. And then some.
If you build the guts to do something, anything, then you better save enough to face the consequences.
How's that going for you? Posting here I mean.
At first, they'll only dislike what you say, but the more correct you start sounding the more they'll dislike you.
See! Didn't I tell you!!
Popular culture is a place where pity is called compassion, flattery is called love, propaganda is called knowledge, tension is called peace, gossip is called news, and auto-tune is called singing.
Auto-tune?
Everyone pretends to be 'free thinkers', but few individuals pass the line into expressive territories that may be detrimental to their own social well-being.
Though here you might only be banned.
The biggest challenge after success is shutting up about it.
Trust me: not always.
Telling an introvert to go to a party is like telling a saint to go to Hell.
No, really. And then some.
If you build the guts to do something, anything, then you better save enough to face the consequences.
How's that going for you? Posting here I mean.
At first, they'll only dislike what you say, but the more correct you start sounding the more they'll dislike you.
See! Didn't I tell you!!
Popular culture is a place where pity is called compassion, flattery is called love, propaganda is called knowledge, tension is called peace, gossip is called news, and auto-tune is called singing.
Auto-tune?
Everyone pretends to be 'free thinkers', but few individuals pass the line into expressive territories that may be detrimental to their own social well-being.
Though here you might only be banned.
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iambiguous
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- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
J.G. Ballard from Crash
I wanted to rub the human race in its own vomit, and force it to look in the mirror.
Who doesn't?
After being bombarded endlessly by road-safety propaganda it was almost a relief to find myself in an actual accident.
Start here: https://youtu.be/KFPpJGijXPI
We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind—mass merchandising, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of advertising, the instant translation of science and technology into popular imagery, the increasing blurring and intermingling of identities within the realm of consumer goods, the preempting of any free or original imaginative response to experience by the television screen. We live inside an enormous novel. For the writer in particular it is less and less necessary for him to invent the fictional content of his novel. The fiction is already there. The writer's task is to invent the reality.
Next up: the philosopher's task.
Trying to exhaust himself, Vaughan devised an endless almanac of terrifying wounds and insane collisions: The lungs of elderly men punctured by door-handles; the chests of young women impaled on steering-columns; the cheek of handsome youths torn on the chromium latches of quarter-lights. To Vaughan, these wounds formed the key to a new sexuality, born from a perverse technology. The images of these wounds hung in the gallery of his mind, like exhibits in the museum of a slaughterhouse.
Different folks, different strokes?
I guessed that he was one of those ambitious young physicians who more and more fill the profession, opportunists with a fashionable hoodlum image, openly hostile to their patients. My brief stay at the hospital had already convinced me that the medical profession was an open door to anyone nursing a grudge against the human race.
Don't get me started.
The long triangular grooves on the car had been formed within the death of an unknown creature, its vanished identity abstracted in terms of the geometry of this vehicle. How much more mysterious would be our own deaths, and those of the famous and powerful?
Get back to us on this.
I wanted to rub the human race in its own vomit, and force it to look in the mirror.
Who doesn't?
After being bombarded endlessly by road-safety propaganda it was almost a relief to find myself in an actual accident.
Start here: https://youtu.be/KFPpJGijXPI
We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind—mass merchandising, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of advertising, the instant translation of science and technology into popular imagery, the increasing blurring and intermingling of identities within the realm of consumer goods, the preempting of any free or original imaginative response to experience by the television screen. We live inside an enormous novel. For the writer in particular it is less and less necessary for him to invent the fictional content of his novel. The fiction is already there. The writer's task is to invent the reality.
Next up: the philosopher's task.
Trying to exhaust himself, Vaughan devised an endless almanac of terrifying wounds and insane collisions: The lungs of elderly men punctured by door-handles; the chests of young women impaled on steering-columns; the cheek of handsome youths torn on the chromium latches of quarter-lights. To Vaughan, these wounds formed the key to a new sexuality, born from a perverse technology. The images of these wounds hung in the gallery of his mind, like exhibits in the museum of a slaughterhouse.
Different folks, different strokes?
I guessed that he was one of those ambitious young physicians who more and more fill the profession, opportunists with a fashionable hoodlum image, openly hostile to their patients. My brief stay at the hospital had already convinced me that the medical profession was an open door to anyone nursing a grudge against the human race.
Don't get me started.
The long triangular grooves on the car had been formed within the death of an unknown creature, its vanished identity abstracted in terms of the geometry of this vehicle. How much more mysterious would be our own deaths, and those of the famous and powerful?
Get back to us on this.
-
iambiguous
- Posts: 11317
- Joined: Mon Nov 22, 2010 10:23 pm
Re: Quote of the day
Tara Isabella Burton
I just want to do the whole thing right. I want to take it seriously.
But do you—I mean—do you really believe it?
Virginia snorts. That's not the right framework, she says. Believing is all about feeling, she says at last. Affirming is about deciding. There's a difference.
Snorting. Like we do here.
So, Laura thinks, this is how it ends: everybody deserves what they get, one way or another. So Virginia was a fraud; so Isobel was a patsy; so Laura’s a fool; so the boys were just coddled, callous idiots who circulated a sex tape of the girl they couldn’t fuck, until poor, stupid Ivan Dixon sent it to Freddy because he couldn’t fuck her, either; so Sebastian Webster wrote a mediocre book and died on the wrong side of history, for no reason but that he was rich, and young, and bored, and the sclerotic modern world was the same then as it is now, and always will be; world without end; and all Webster meant by the rocks and the harbor are one is that in the end you die.
She snorted.
At last, at last Laura understands.
Of course, I never expect that here.
Self-care has become a marketing slogan, one designed to lend legitimacy to behavior that might, in other moral systems, be considered merely selfish.
Capitalism let's call it.
You know what your problem is, Laura? You're young. When you're young, you want to make excuses for everyone. The thing about growing up, Isobel says, is that you learn sometimes, bad people are just bad people. And most people, in the end, are bad people.
Especially the good people as often as not.
She messages him about Keats. She messages him about Byron. She messages him about the wild, gasping loneliness that comes from being someone who hungers, really hungers, for all those glorious, vanished things of the world, which in this desiccated day and age have all puttered, like a stopped engine, into mediocrity and decay.
Define desiccated?
I just want to do the whole thing right. I want to take it seriously.
But do you—I mean—do you really believe it?
Virginia snorts. That's not the right framework, she says. Believing is all about feeling, she says at last. Affirming is about deciding. There's a difference.
Snorting. Like we do here.
So, Laura thinks, this is how it ends: everybody deserves what they get, one way or another. So Virginia was a fraud; so Isobel was a patsy; so Laura’s a fool; so the boys were just coddled, callous idiots who circulated a sex tape of the girl they couldn’t fuck, until poor, stupid Ivan Dixon sent it to Freddy because he couldn’t fuck her, either; so Sebastian Webster wrote a mediocre book and died on the wrong side of history, for no reason but that he was rich, and young, and bored, and the sclerotic modern world was the same then as it is now, and always will be; world without end; and all Webster meant by the rocks and the harbor are one is that in the end you die.
She snorted.
At last, at last Laura understands.
Of course, I never expect that here.
Self-care has become a marketing slogan, one designed to lend legitimacy to behavior that might, in other moral systems, be considered merely selfish.
Capitalism let's call it.
You know what your problem is, Laura? You're young. When you're young, you want to make excuses for everyone. The thing about growing up, Isobel says, is that you learn sometimes, bad people are just bad people. And most people, in the end, are bad people.
Especially the good people as often as not.
She messages him about Keats. She messages him about Byron. She messages him about the wild, gasping loneliness that comes from being someone who hungers, really hungers, for all those glorious, vanished things of the world, which in this desiccated day and age have all puttered, like a stopped engine, into mediocrity and decay.
Define desiccated?