The spoon is not quite grownup in the way the knife and fork are. It doesn’t menace. It isn’t a tamed weapon… Grownups throw knives. Children throw spoons. Nobody (I think) would throw a fork – Susan Sontag – Where the Stress Falls, 2001 p181
You cannot dismantle the welfare state without also dismantling the wealthfare state – and hence the state itself
‘Tis dream to think that reason can / Govern the reasoning creature man – Herman Melville – Battle-pieces and Aspect of the War, 2001
The disappearance of a multitude’s political action is not a defeat as there in no-one to write its history. History is a revisionist process and is not written by newsreaders or scribblers.
Let there be mountains where arms / are waterfalls that splash – Michael McClure – Star poems, 1970 p67
The idea of MWDs used by terrorists is a by-product of imperial thinking – and if it happens the result will be a consolidation of imperial power. Such fears (though not necessarily unfounded) directly result from an already existed condition of asymmetrical violence
War yet shall be, but warriors / Are now but operatives – Herman Melville – Battle-pieces and Aspect of the War, 2001 p89
Text it! Text it!
To Texas
About taxes
On taxies
Text Taxes
To Texas in Taxies
This is the Text
Of it form
A Taxi in Texas
The symbol of the West is an idea of which no other Culture gives even a hint, the idea of ‘Function’ – Oswald Spangler – The Decline of the West, 1965 p55
A thief in the night is better than a barbarian at the gate.
‘I never imagined that they’d sentence an innocent man to ten years,’ he said. ‘Sentencing an innocent man to five years, that’s something I’ve heard of, but the, that’s a bit too much – Jaroslav Hasek – The Good Soldier Svejk, 1973 p47
To have freedom, one must be free (rid) of something which was previously troubling
Rations were eaten cold and raw / The men well soaked, came snow; and more - / A midnight sally. Small sleeping done – Herman Melville – Battle-pieces and Aspect of the War, 2001 p72
Of the 18 species of penguins, 13 are endangered or threatened
A photograph is really a work of individual seeing but almost inevitably a (potential) unit in an archive – Susan Sontag – Where the Stress Falls, 2001 p217
Bees are being used to monitor the environment at eight German airports
Travelers who would never dream of living like the natives general still want the natives to stay wholesome, rustic, sexy and uncomfortable – Susan Sontag – Where the Stress Falls, 2001 p277
The most implausible of the Bible stories is the flood – that was so devastatingly as to even drown the whales and the pelicans
The accuracy of a translation is not merely a technical question. It is as well an ideological one – Susan Sontag – Where the Stress Falls, 2001 p341
Regardless of the ‘truth’ of structuralism or post-structuralism – the post structuralist and the post post-structuralist world is fundamentally difference from the pre-structuralist or the pre post-structuralist world, just as post-modern world is not the same as the Postmodern world
The less skillful anything is, the more admirers it obtains, according to the rule that the worst things usually please most people – Erasmus –In Praise of Folly p69
Three times as many Americans consider themselves to be anglers (40 million) as deem themselves to be hunters
The bombing of Asian fishing villages can be equaled / to the new music // save that one is beautiful / and one is not – Michael McClure – Star poems, 1970 p96
Hindsight always makes it look obvious. We only see what succeeds as if that outcome had been the only possibility.
Power would be a fragile thing if its only function were to repress – Michel Foucault – Power/Knowledge, 1979 59
The same cognitive process that allows us to believe in a God also allows us to make money
Wealth is no longer what one possesses, but what one makes a profit out of – Michel Foucault – Power/Knowledge, 1979 p44
About a quarter of the populations of Europe and America in any given year exhibit symptoms which if diagnosed could be defined as a mental illness. Anxiety disorder in the most common mental condition
Insurance has become what ‘practically’ links us to one another, outside of the ‘free’ and ‘voluntary’ relationships of the family; it is the social bond itself, its ‘materiality’ – Francois Ewald
To Nabokov reality would be knowing everything which he believed you can approach through specialization (expertise) which if you limited your scope you could not reach. For Barthes there was no there there.
Those who call themselves Marxists… play a game whose rules aren’t Marxist but Communistological, in other words defined by Communist parties who decide how you must use Marx so as to be declared by them to be a Marxist – Michel Foucault – Power/Knowledge, 1979 p53
Conservatives want to eat their debt and have it too
It is certain… that a pretty woman can very well love both the Greeks and their gifts – Machado De Assis - Epitaph of a small winner, 1952 p59
OLIVE FACTS: There are about 800 million olive trees in the world with 90% of them fringing the Mediterranean. China has four times as many olive trees as does France even though France is self in on the Mediterranean. The olive industry is valued at $10 billion annually. There are at least 700 cultivated varieties of the olive.
The murmur of an olive grove has something very intimate, immensely old. It is too beautiful for me to try, to conceive of it, or dare to paint it – Vincent Van Gogh
Popeye Eye’s Olive Oyl has a brother who was named Castor Oil. The Spanish cannot bear to translate her name literally and call her Rosario instead.
Look at the lights on the olives. It sparkles like diamonds. It is pink, it is blue, and the sky that plays across them is enough to drive you mad – Renoir
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