The tale you’re supposed to take to is the elitist one. And yet you do not know who is the elect only that you are not and part of the story is that you could be but you are not yet. Faith! You must have faith. Faith must precede everything else. Give up faith and the story will never come true. Hold to you faith that you can be rich and powerful too!

No social line divides productive from unproductive workers – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire, 2004 p135

We are, therefore I think

And thus up and down the ladder, like the hierarchy of angels under the Almighty’s Heavenly Throne. And that was why the Empire was Holy, said my father. It was God’s State on earth… It was an idea and an ideal; an ordered image of the world, of human society striving to make God’s will come true – Gregor Von Rezzori –Memoirs of an Anti-Semite p201

Wild hogs do some $400 million in damage annualyl in Texas. There are as many as 6 million wild hogs in at least 39 states. Their populations were nurtured. Hogs were captured and released into new areas because hunters found them ‘challenging’. Eradication is no longer possible. Hogs, wild or otherwise swine  are not native to the Americas. There is no pig hunting season and no limit. You can even hunt them from the air. The more they are hunted the wilier they get.

Man is noble, man is brave / But man’s a weed – Herman Melville – Battle-pieces and Aspect of the War, 2001 –p133


A man is only as good
       As his tool
Fix it. Make it right
Your fee shall be its own
       Reward


Vote for the party
       Of your choice
Wherever men gather
They seek frictionless
       Opportunities
Dosed soliciously with
       Alcohol


Everyone talks to the seller
It sold! For how much?
How long was it
       On the market
Success garners envey
       And it is good
So sayeth the Lord
But greed is better


Cultural studies played into the hands of cultural capitalism – Francois Cusset – French Theory, 2008 p137

There are two traditions in literature – the canonical which comprises 99% of all books and the other tradition that wends its way through various misfits, misanthropes and criminals who constitutionally are incapable of resigning themselves to the social contract. Authors of this later tradition write only to voice a sense of alienation from themselves, from their peers and from their place in history. Only the latter literature is worth the time unless it it time you're trying to kill. It is only from these writers that we learn, if growth and development is what it is all about. Why did we spend so many years in school if not to learn out to learn? Oh, to qualify for a job, you say. It gain a higher income, you say. Yes, to be conventional that would be it and as for you - then yes, you should stick to the cannonical.

The aim of implacable categorizing is not just to map the intellectual territories; taxonomies [need] never be static. Often the point is precisely for one category to subvert the others … [one can] offer classifications to keep maters open – to reserve a place for the uncodified, the enchanted, the intractable, the histrionic – Susan Sontag – Where the Stress Falls, 2001 p68

Liberalism is a set of principles that arose with capitalism to protect among other things private property from the state. The liberty to buy and sell property and the right to invest for profit is its fundamental tenet.

The simple notions are always the most difficult – Oswald Spangler – The Decline of the West, 1965 p61

Even educators cynical of their role must subscribe to the ‘knowledges’ or force their students onto the job market on unfavorable terms

Orphaned pieties overheat sometimes – Susan Sontag – Where the Stress Falls, 2001 p61

Neoliberalism is not inconsistent with Neoconservatism – in fact they are complimentary

The world-fear is stilled when an intellectual form-language hammers out brazen vessels in which the mysterious is captured and made comprehensible… by this symbolizing of extension of space or of things – Oswald Spangler – The Decline of the West, 1965 p60

Do you love me?
Yes, she said that she did
But still she wouldn’t
I thought there still
Might be a burning chance
But every time I got hot
Her fire alarm went off

[To] focus on the message for its one sake is the ‘poetic’ function of language – R Jakobson –Linguistics and Poetics, 1958

Your Are a True Hero. No, I'm Not! That is for Us to Decide, the President Said

the P

Paul is to join me for a beer at four. It was already now close to that time. I was talking with Joe and during a pause in our conversation someone to my left said something. I looked around. It was Paul. He was already will into his pint – half full or half empty? – it wasn’t for me to say. He has said something about my choice in beers. I was having the beer of the day. He had previously told me how much he disliked this beer. It’s good to have preferences. Some people will only drink Bud Lite. I drink the beer of the day, unless of course, I choose not to. I introduce him to Joe. Joe this is my nephew Paul. They shook hands. Paul said “Paul” and Joe said “Joe”. I didn’t notice you come in, I said. That’s ok, he replied, I didn’t want to interrupt you. Then Rick cames in and procees to talk about John Berryman after noticing that I was reading his “Love and Fame”. That the one with the autobiographical poems, he asked? Rick and I discusse suicide – Berryman jumped off of a bridge, he said. And Crane off a ship, I replied. Weldon Kees supposedly jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge and Rick expressed his horror of dying by drowning . What a horrible way to go. Well, I said, there is usually no way of rescending your option once exercised and usually you die from the fall or from hypothermia and not drowning. Just make sure to jump from a high enough place or into very cold water. Rick turned and left as quickly as he had appeared. I turned to Paul and apologized to him for not introducing him but, I told him, it had been deliberate. I gathered as much after listening to him for thirty seconds, Paul replied. You don’t have a conversation with Rick you listen to him harangue. He’s receptive to being told to shut-up but as a stranger you don’t know this. It is not a wise move to tell a stranger who is ranting at you in a bar to shut up. And if he follows you when you try to leave will it might have been the smart thing to do in have spent a few moments listening to him. It is bliss to emerge yourself totally in to a role. But most of us have to come up for air once in a while.

The greatest reward comes when a man, in so deceiving others, manages at the same time to deceive himself, for in such a case he spares himself shame, which is a painful experience and hypocrisy, which is a hideous vice – Machado De Assis - Epitaph of a small winner, 1952 p71

Procedure: an ostensibly fair process for being unfair. All institutional decisions are based on political expediency (a weighing of the variouis power interests) and a process or a set of rules lends that process the appearance of fairness, but in fact inequity is built into both the rules and the language we use to describe the rules.

It was not Napoleon who found the idea, but the idea that formed Napoleon – Oswald Spangler – The Decline of the West, 1965 p81

Energizer bunny – keeps on
       Giving
Fame only has value if
You don’t have to earn it
And have no one
        To be grateful to
It only has worth if
It’s fortuitous and frivolous
         Otherwise it is called
         Infamy

Nowadays flattery is thought of as disreputable, but only by people who are more concerned about words than about things themselves – Erasmus –In Praise of Folly p170

Success is a sense of how well ideological promises have been accomplished.

Consider how childishly men talk, how frivolously they act when they have decided to indulge in the pleasure to be found in women – Erasmus –In Praise of Folly p30

Naivety is to believe that reality should flow from out of the pronounced ideology

Napoleon’s great plan time and against came to grief in petty details – Oswald Spangler – The Decline of the West, 1965 p82

Sun dog
Sea monkey
Star fish
Earth worm


Celestial solitude
Lunar insertion
Galactic expansion
Deep-sea venture



Lost horizons

Lost in space

Missing and persumed
        Dead

Politics are as dead as the culture / they supported! / Politics are theories regarding the speculated / laws of power – their applications / have never touched men except in shapes / of repression – Michael McClure – Star poems, 1970 p94

Language always falls short when we are cynical of our own ideology or of any ideology for that matter – for only for true believers do words have honesty

The project that is central… to all true-modernists: to try to fathom the nature of “the modern” – Susan Sontag – Where the Stress Falls, 2001 p76

Without restraints order would remain but it would unlikely be the preferred order

I feel myself driven towards an end that I do not know – as soon as I shall have reached it, as soon as I shall become unnecessary, an atom will suffice to shatter me. Till then, not all the forces of mankind can do anything against me – Napoleon

Privileged youth like
      An only Chinese son
Talk of touring the great
      Waterfalls – the Andes
      And Venezuela
Mothers begging them
      Take their daughters back
      To America, they just
            Laughed
Christian missionaries from
       The suburbs of Wichita
       The best of the best
Not necessarily the brightest
        Of the brightest

I had paid him well, perhaps too well… For, after all, he had not thought about a reward or about the virtue of his act, he had merely yielded to a natural impulse, to his temperament, to the habits of his trade. One way or the other there was really no personal merit in his act. He had been merely an instrument of Providence. This though made me miserable. I called myself wasteful. – Machado De Assis - Epitaph of a small winner, 1952 p67

All that is really valued has no price yet everything has its price

The less cause they have to remain in this life, the more they want to stay alive – so little are they touched by the tedium of life – Erasmus –In Praise of Folly p48

Healthy, Wealthy and a Whole Lot Less Wise

There is no career to be made in dissent. Apologetics and exclamations of legitimacy are what pays, if you’re to make a living selling make it houses or bonds – something negoiatable. Don't sell yourself short.

They swim in honey up to their ears – Erasmus –In Praise of Folly p49

The richest 1% of US households have increased their net wealth from 190 times that of the average household to 225 times that of the average household between the years 2004 and 2009. The poorest US households’ wealth further decreased to a negative $27,000 doubling their debt in just the two years from 2007 to 2009.

Sometimes I forget that I am writing, and the pen moves along, eating up paper, with grave detriment to me as author – Machado De Assis - Epitaph of a small winner, 1952 p69

In the sixth grade we were assigned names – I became Derrick (a crane for loading and unloading cargo, erecting skyscrapers, building America). We learned to play chess. I was never very good and haven’t played a game in over forty years. Occasionally I’ll get roped into a game of cards, but I don’t like cards either. I did my first research project. I tried to figure out the difference between kinetic and potential energy. Difference has been important ever since. The High School was still under construction, they used our lunch room. One of them tried to convince me to get a feel of one of my more well endowed class mates. It was an education I did not avail myself of. Do I regret it? Maybe. I've always been rather naive when it comes to the opposite sex. I could have used a good education. But then who knows? Maybe I'm better off. I don't know. I feel left out when all the guys exchange stories. I had a love. I wanted to murder her. Chris Rock says if you've not stared at a box of rat posison for at least thirty minutes, you've never really been in love. I didn't like my dark side.

A writer must continually defend his borders. But a writer is someone who must abandon borders – Susan Sontag – Where the Stress Falls, 2001 p103

“Society” is the ruling class and its employees chatting among themselves

I define the intellectual as an exile, someone on the margins, an amateur, and finally the author of a language that attempts to speak truth to power – Edward Said

There is always something of ‘gospel’ in a philosophical text

45% of the 1.7 million drugs arrests annually in the US are for marijuana. A RAND study indicates that the California state budge might have been enhanced by as much as $2 billion if Prop 19 had passed ($1.b bin in tax revenue and $200m in reduced law enforcement requirements).

What is, has become – Oswald Spangler – The Decline of the West, 1965 p35

Flags flapping low gray
Clouds southwest to
     Northeast
Condensation arising
     From tailpipes
     At the light
The sun is coming out
     It was expected
Above freezing had been
     Forecast
In the fifties
     Later in the week
Than another cold front
      Moving in
While watching bowl games
      Playing entertaining
      Laughing, crying, shouting
At the time – life was
      A festival – a funfest
      At least until you die
At least this is the theory

The presumption was that it was the destiny of a novel to “become” a film – Susan Sontag – Where the Stress Falls, 2001 p124

I went to see True Grit. I keep hearing it said that it is a remake of the John Wayne movie. It is not a remake I inform them, it is a re-dramatizartion. Altought Matt Damon did a pretty good Glen Cambell. There is a difference but that is something that is difficult form most people to grasp.

Olive Oly and Her Brother Castor

There are sports fans over there. They are talking about sports over there of course. “If there’s something to travel for people will travel.” Sports always dwells on the obvious but cloaks its vulgarity in metaphors (if one is to function as a sports commentator – and these guys cannot). “It is better to win than to lose”. “I would prefer to watch a good game than a bad game.” It is always safe to parrot what the talking heads had just said and throw in a couple of historical elusions – statistics or other great sports moments. But don't make it too historical - after all sports is about what might happen - whose going to win and by how much (there's money on it after all) or whose going to set a new record (whose records will he beat - and its always he - and when and where were the record was set - that's where history comes in). Oh, I like my sprots, don't get me wrong - it's the banality of all of this talk which seem to occur most of the time. There are great sports moments in literature for example - William Hazlitt on boxing is my  favorite

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

“Public Opinion” is the political equalivent of a “Free Market”

28°- it’s already one week beyond the solstice – Joe said that he and Leo had a discussion about how much longer the day already was. Leo had thought that it might be as much as half an hour already. Joe thought that it was no more than half of that. A few minutes, I claimed and certainly no more than 15. It starts up slow and gains momentum as the equinox approaches and then the rate of changes begins to slow down again. A graph of the derivative of rate of change (the tangent) would have a maximums at the equinoxes and a minimum at solstices


Knowledge has a point of enhanced return. There is an information overload but there is no such thing as a knowledge overload.

These critics show me more credit than I want. In fact, I care nothing about such praise especially coming from people who in my judgment have neither wit nor learning nor eloquence – Erasmus – In Praise of Folly p145

One of the aspects of power is its ability to turn polyphonic narrative into monologic histories

From the standpoint of the State, individuals who were rejected by the law of alliances became a source of danger… Inevitable causalities of this family regime: the unmarried men and women and the abandoned children – Jacques Donzelot – The Policing of Families, 1979 p24

I’m affixed to this
     Chair by my super-
     Glued derriere
Life is a better than
     Average with a large screen
     That is ceaselessly watched
I’m bored, channel
     Surfing can become
     Monotonous too
All the songs that they
Play remind me of girls
      That got away
This is not the wistful
       Nostalgia that I desire

When I sleep
I can escape
I hate it
When I’m awake

Hello! Is there anyone
Out there?

What does it matter if I doze
Off in front of the big screen
I’ve got to get hold of a thread
Did anything happen while I
      Was gone?

And I want to see women’s naked breasts! // and grace fullness returned to faces – Michael McClure – Star poems, 1970 p55

It is always the conservative who is first in the reformulation of political theory, as they merely recycle old solutions to new problems – first out of the starting gate and leading the pack but they are quarter horses and this is a mile track.

I don’t want to say that the State isn’t important; what I want to say is that relations of power, and hence the analysis that must be made of them, necessarily extends beyond the limits of the State – Michel Foucault – Power/Knowledge, 1979 p122

The radical solution of yesterday becomes the conservative solution of tomorrow

In a world where no violence can be legitimated, all violence can potentially be called terrorism – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire, 2004 p27

One of the contributing factors to the success of the unionization of service works especially in Southern California was the fact that many of the janitors had been former members of the FMLN in El Salvador

Only poetry of the highest order [converts]… the arbitrary into the provisionally significant – Rosana Warren – Dark Knowledge, Meville’s Poems of the Civil War

The bulwark against democracy became the model for modern definition of democracy itself – representative government was invented as a way to prevent democratic rule and is now definition of what we mean by the word democracy.

The network form [means that] the organization becomes less a means and more an end in itself – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire, 2004 p83

Having more humans and having numerically large numbers (but not necessarily a larger percentage) of people significantly better off materially material is not a proof of progress. But having more and more humans getting worse and worse off is a counter proof to progress.

The ambiguity of the notion of the sovereign people turns out to be a kind of duplicity since the legitimating relationship always tends to privilege authority and not the population as a whole – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire, 2004 p79

Art replaces nature

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure –Samuel Johnson

Not all monsters are the same

And I say / if the last vast natural philosopher / vanishes – the grizzly bear from the peak - / or the soft hallucination moth / from the cactus blossom… // WATCH OUT! / They are not replaceable / by robots – Michael McClure – Star poems, 1970 p27

“Public Opinion” is the political equalivent of a “Free Market”

Black Bird Black Bird Singing the Rain

he R

Short boots that do not intersect with her tights – this was diffently not today’s fashion – she was probably mixing and matching – buying a few new items as she could afford them and recycling others from her closet. Today’s fashion requires a new trip to the rack with every change. Grunge had long ago been recycled back to the used clothing shops. This is not the way these upwardly mobile young mothers of this neighborhood dressed – the barista perhaps, but not the women sitting at these tables gabbing. Behind me two heavy set black men in work clothes were politely talking in quiet voices about their personal relationships with Jesus

The clock of history does not turn backward. These recognitions of the reappearance of old elements are really just first, inadequate attempts to grasp the new – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire, 2004  p37

Learning is not a gradual refining but a process of wild gyrations with intermittent boredom

History has no ‘meaning’, though this is not to say that it is obscure or incoherent. On the contrary, it is intelligible and should be susceptible to analysis down to the smallest detail – but this is in accordance, with the intelligibility of struggles, of strategies and tactics – Michel Foucault – Power/Knowledge, 1979 p114

Charitable giving in the US (2009) - $300b  – 70% comes from individuals with incomes greater than $200,000 (individuals and estate bequests):

•          10% to the poor and needy
•         33% to religious organizations
•          13% to education
•            7% to healthcare
•            4% to arts and culture
•            3% to international relief
•            2% to environmental and animal related causes
•      28% unspecified

 Money and politics are a universe of discourse / entrapping physiques. / Abortion’s a little closer – Michael McClure – Star poems, 1970  p55

An authoritarian society has no need for censorship – you can spot an open society by how many times it resorts to censorship – the greater the number of incidents the more open the society is. The State Department has warned students not to discuss Wikileaks on Facebook or Twitter comments on it – for to do so would be indicative of their inability to handle secrets which is an important aspect for federal employment. It is up to those who are not longer fearful of being denied employment (the retired) to be the social critiques – but then most of us have opted for the Tea Party. So I guess that leaves the saboteurs and a few old farts.

I hope the victory goes to those who will have made war without loving it – Andre Malraux – Antimemories

Life is what someone else is willing to pay to tell you that it is. Your value is the cost of the message aimed at your. The most valuable are those who get abducted by aliens

Political theory has never ceased to be obsessed with the person of the sovereign. What we need, however is, a political philosophy that isn’t erected around the problem of sovereignty, nor therefore about the problems of prohibition. We need to cut off the King’s head – Michel Foucault – Power/Knowledge, 1979 p121

Nest no nest

Come to feed

Move about

Brown to gray

Greenish, bluish and

            Creamy white

Polymorphic white-throated

Bogs and coniferous trees

Jet black with red and

            Yellow patches

Widespread and numerous

Will repeat call

Showing off epaulets

In thick stands

Insects during summer

Dense woods with undergrowth

Now is my red roar car! Now is my muscle arm! / Joy that I shall be dead to rest for ten billion tomorrows! – Michael McClure – Star poems, 1970  p104

Its ones right to ownership of what is created by one’s labor that is sold in the labor contract, not the labor itself

Mercantile economy… signifies the accumulation in the hands of individuals, of the legal or moral claim upon, or power over, the labour of others; every claim implying precisely as much poverty or debt on one side, as it implies riches or rights on the other – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin, 1963 p246

A democratic process cannot exist without constant epistemological enquires at a fundamental level

No one is more eager for glory than an ignorant man who thinks he knows something – Erasmus – In Praise of Folly p161

When ‘having’ is everything ‘being’ is nothing

Liberals have a tendency to think that when the ‘right’ person wins, order has been restored. The idea of permanent trench warfare between liberals and conservatives in an abstraction to them not a call to arms – Jonathan Alter – Liberalism – New York Times Book Review – 10/24/10 p15

It was an Ambassador, maybe a 1949 and it was bark blue, but the color has faded in my memory

 

Is it not always true that the brain does not do anything that it is not already predisposed to – or at least something analogous too it. And if this were not true our brains would be over our heads – to deep to plumb – only good for bobbing for apples in. It is not coincidental that the brain is the way it is for otherwise we would not know that we are the way we are. What we can do (or what we are capable of doing) is to occupy the ecological niches of our brains

Art is not alone in imparting charm and mystery to the most insignificant things; pain is endowed with this same power to bring them into intimate relations with ourselves – Marcel Proust – The Fugitive p81

The multitude has refused the organic unity of the body, and hence cannot be a political party

Counterinsurgency is a full time job – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire, 2004 p54

Its to bad that the appropriate theory itself is the only means by which supporting data can be collected – no other empirically based objection is possible.

It is astonishing what a want of imagination jealousy, which spends its time making petty suppositions that are false, shows when it comes to discovering what is true – Marcel Proust – The Fugitive p20

She drove on unabashed
      Nash which she
      Proceeded to crash
She was somewhat lucky
      In not having paid cash

The two poles of distinctively modern sentiment are nostalgia and utopia – Susan Sontag – Where the Stress Falls, 2001 p271

It is considered progress when an economic system deals with inequality by eliminated equality, across time and space rahter then by eliminating the inequities themselves

The intellectual ‘par excellence’ used to be the writer: as a universal consciousness, a free subject, he was counterpoised to those intellectuals who were merely ‘component instances’ in the service of the State or Capital – Michel Foucault – Power/Knowledge, 1979 p127

Poetry describes
It doesn’t attempt
     To explain
That’s in the gap
Between the writer
     And the reader
Meaning is in the
     Middle of the
         Void
Irritating, scratching
     Annoying
It’s the tiger in
     The night
With its eyes glowing
      Glaring, gnawing
      Clamoring clawing

Writing is… a series of permissions you give yourself to be expressive in certain ways. To invent. To leap. To fly. To fall – Susan Sontag – Where the Stress Falls, 2001 p264

I have a fascination for bourgeois ladies though I don’t actually want one – I’m just fascinated by them – them and their big SUVs and their big houses and the latest fashion and all of their cosmetics and all the care and fuss they go through to before they venture out. And then they open their mouths and begin to talk. God, I want to scream.

Perfection’s / no accomplishment. / But desire is, to feel the self melt / before shear grace. And sense dissolve in time and space - Michael McClure – Star poems, 1970 p36

It would seem to be the limited plasticity of the brains neural networks and to be molded by repetitive patterns that allows for semi-stable cultural process to come into being and persist.

Power is not built up out of ‘wills’ (individual or collective), nor is it derivable from interests. Power is constructed and functions on the basis of particular powers, myriad issues, myriad effects of power – Michel Foucault – Power/Knowledge, 1979 p188

There is noting wrong with reading literature so long as we understand that we are reading literature – and it is always literature that one reads when one reads – but there are also other attributes to a text other than its being a piece of literature which we need to be mindful of although all those attributes may not be present in any one text – among such attributes are: context, validity, viewpoint, beauty, and clarity.

Empires collapse. Gang leaders / Are strutting about like statesmen – Bertolt Brecht

Freud must have offered something useful to a class society – which may have been of having put the onus on the individual for social problems

Before this, when it was still attached to her, we supposed that our happiness was dependent upon her person; it depended merely upon the cessation of our anxiety – Marcel Proust – The Fugitive p28