A Man Was Coming Out of the Woods With a Gun.

Consumer choices: First movie this year. First movie for almost a year – The King’s Speech – Sir! Sir! The first show has not yet let out. I know, I said. The next showing was at 1:50 and I had almost 30 minutes to wait. I read in the lobby outside of screening room number 14. I had bought David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster. I had wanted Infinite Jest it was not in stock at Barnes & Noble. Then I walked around the corner to the theater. Later I bought Infinite Jest on Amazon. It arrived my mail yesterday.

I was not in love with her, far from it, but I certainly did want her – especially now, after having described the lucid sparks we threw off – but probably not so much her as a person as the role she played in my little melodrama; any other actress would have done as well, just as any understudy could have stepped in for me – Gregor Von Rezzori –Memoirs of an Anti-Semite p181

Your scent signature is
        Unknown and I want
        To bark but put it off
Such a threat could be deadly
        But instead you must
        Be dealt with teeth
Torn asunder rendered
        Harmless if not benign
And for this stealth is
         a necessity

If a rock falls on your head that is certainly bad for you. But shame, disgrace, reproaches, curses do harm only insofar as they are perceived – Erasmus –In Praise of Folly p49

Revenue from foreign films as a percentage of total US box-office revenue:
        1975       10%
        1985        7
        1998        0.5

Folly’s praising folly leads into a maze like that of the Cretan liar. Folly is being praised and therefore is praiseworthy, but what Folly praises can hardly be praiseworthy. What is said often seems right, but if we consider the source, we know it must be wrong - Clarence H Miller – The Praise of Folly, Introducit9on, 1979

The estimate of the number of stars in the universe has recently been tripled from 100 billion to 300 billion

The highest to which man can obtain is wonder; and if the prime phenomenon makes him wonder, let him be content; nothing higher can it give him and nothing further should he seek behind it; here is the limit – Goethe

The only real question is – how much (do you/will it/does it) make –meaning – well, no mystery here, everyone knows – everything is about the same thing, its all about what it is worth – for how many dollars it can be sold, that is, it is all about its money value, was this even necessary to say?

Fear obscurity… fear everything that is not big. Look here, there are different ways for a man to amount to something, but the surest of all is to amount to something in other men’s opinion – Machado De Assis - Epitaph of a small winner, 1952 p79

Life is a gradual process of eliminating everything (all one’s options) other than for suicide

It is something beyond comprehension, that transformation of future into the past, and true time, in its contrast with space, has always a queer, baffling, oppressive ambiguity from which no serious man can wholly protect himself – Oswald Spangler – The Decline of the West, 1965 59

The familiar smells better if at all

Sexual pleasure, the propagation of the human race, the pleasures of the table, friendship and marriage, the glories of warfare, the investigation of science, the inventions of technology and vainglorious aspiration. Natural fools are among the happiest of men - Clarence H Miller – The Praise of Folly, Introduction, 1979

When it is only utility that you demand, it’s ideal is of no consequence – a cube is a cube even if all its faces cannot be seen simultaneously. If there were a truth it would have been discovered by now. It may have been discovered but be too ubiquitous to have received your notice. The obvious must always be delineated

All of the multitude is productive and all of it is poor – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire, 2004 p134

The population of bumblebees may half dropped by much as 96% and their geographic range has contracted by as much as 87%. The annual contribution to the global economy from bees is estimated to be at $26 billion. British beekeepers have just found out that the trade association logo has been sold to market the very chemicals supported to have causes the bee collapse. They are pissed (mad as hornets?).

Our universe of infinite space… simply does not exist for Classical man. It is not even capable of being presented to him – Oswald Spangler – The Decline of the West, 1965 p61

True tone deafness or amusica only affects about 4% of the population. An amusic in addition to being tone deaf cannot recognize a simple melody, cannot keep or maintain a tempo with a piece of music, and is unable to determine if a pitch is above or below another pitch.

But then they [the aged] have lost their grip on reality, some one may say; their minds are wandering. True enough, but that’s what it means to return to childhood. Isn’t childhood distinguished by a weak grasp of reality and a wandering mind? Isn’t the principle charm of childhood the fact that it knows nothing? - Erasmus –In Praise of Folly p21

It’s ok to do stupid things, but when you are aware that they are stupid you should cease doing them for to continue them is to be truly and irrevocably stupid.

At eight one is truly God-fearing – I mean in a fundamentalist way – Gregor Von Rezzori –Memoirs of an Anti-Semite p183

Handling cash register receipts from the store may enhance your risk of cancer

The question… is how an outsider can be sure that one school of thought is less entitled to our trust than a rival one. In many instances such confidence would be unwarranted. Certain indicators of bad faith, however, are unmistakable – Frederick Crews – Follies of the wise, 2006 p10

It is estimated that there remains more species of marine life undiscovered than has yet been species identified

Every culture possesses a wholly individual way of looking at and comprehending the world as nature; or … it ‘has’ it own peculiar ‘nature’ which no other sort of man can possess in exactly the same form – Oswald Spangler – The Decline of the West, 1965 p78

Its noble to be the champion of the underdog, especially when you don’t happen to be one yourself

The poor have no need of poor laws – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire, 2004 p137

Well done. I congratulate myself. One problem solved.
There’s a man coming out of the woods with a gun. It is getting dark.
All problems are contained within their own solutions.

I, who had thought of going to meet death, didn’t dare force it when it came to meet me – Machado De Assis - Epitaph of a small winner, 1952 p62