Saturday, February 28, 2009

The Doctor

“The doctor knows this expression is inappropriate here, but he has put it on once and for all and can’t take it off – like a man who has donned a frock coat in the morning to make a round of social calls.” (pg. 109-110)

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

The Real Thing

“What if my entire life, my entire conscious life, simply was not the real thing?

It occurred to him that what had seemed utterly inconceivable before – that he had not lived the kind of life he should have – might in fact be true. It occurred to him that those scarcely imperceptible impulses of his to protest what people of high rank considered good, vague impulses which he had always suppressed, might have been precisely what mattered, and all the rest had not been the real thing.” (pg. 126-127)

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Good-for-Nothing

"I'm not a good-for-nothing like you, here one day and there the next -- a fine life you gentlemen have! People who think only about how to kill others, yet one day, if you tell them they have to die, they shit their pants." (pg. 272)

Monday, February 23, 2009

When You Look

"...when you look down, it feels like you're looking at the whole thing, but when you look up, you realize you've only been looking at a part." (pg. 45-46)

Friday, February 20, 2009

Power

"The fact is that a basileus can use his power to do good, but to hold on to his power he has to do evil." (Eco, pg. 245)

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Light Sweet Crude

In Texas nothing sets the mood
Like the price of light sweet crude.

Arabia is such a prude
But it goes mad for light sweet crude.

On cable news it’s almost lewd
When Liz says “Light sweet crude.”

It sounds like something done while nude
Probing holes for light sweet crude.

A beauty loves gifts, gold, and food,
But bathes each night in light sweet crude.

People simply come unscrewed
Once consumed by light sweet crude.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

This Day in History

Everything you know
And what is vastly greater, everything you don’t
Fits into little vessels of time, just twenty four hours
Containing everything that has ever happened
Like debris tossed into bottomless wells.

You know the day you were born and the day you were married
Christmas, the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving are easy to remember
Easter is more difficult, depending on certain lunar calculations
But Easter comes as no surprise.

Yet one of these days will be your last
Study the calendar all you want, you can’t find it
Until you stumble on something incomprehensible
The limits of your awareness, no more abstractions
Only life in a suddenly particular case
You cannot feel the motion of the earth
Nor regret the speed of each degree of orbit
But you study each pain like a magi studies the sky
Each sign in the heavens, each tremor of earth.

After death, there will be the usual business
Your obituary will appear on one of those dates
Someone will read it and comment on your age
But no one comprehends the perpetual calendar
The very small, the very large, or the very old
The distance between stars and the flicker of prices
The way nature and markets use whatever is lying about
The designs of work, of love, and suffering
The hope that the next day will be better
The source code of the human heart.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Se non è vero è ben trovato

Se non è vero è ben trovato.

(Italian proverb, roughly translated as, "If it's not true, it's still a damn good story")

Monday, February 16, 2009

God is the Unique

"God is the Unique, and he is so perfect that he does not resemble any of the things that exist or any of the things that do not; you cannot describe him using your human intelligence, as if he were someone who becomes angry if you are bad or worries about you out of goodness, someone who has a mouth, ears, face, wings, or that is spirit, father or son, not even of himself. Of the Unique you cannot say he is or is not, he embraces all but is nothing; you can name him only through dissimilarity, because it is futile to call him Goodness, Beauty, Wisdom, Amiability, Power, Justice, it would be like calling him Bear, Panther, Serpent, Dragon, or Gryphon, because whatever you say of him you will never express him. God is not body, is not figure, is not form; he does not see, does not hear, does not know disorder and perturbation; he is not soul, intelligence, imagination, opinion, thought, word, number, order, size; he is not equality and is not inequality, is not time and is not eternity; he is a will without purpose. Try to understand, Baudolino: God is a lamp without flame, a flame without fire, a fire without heat, a dark light, a silent rumble, a blind flash, a luminous soot, a ray of his own darkness, a circle that expands concentrating on its own center, a solitary simplicity; he is...is..." She paused, seeking an example that would convince them both, she the teacher and he the pupil. "He is a space that is not, in which you and I are the same thing, as we are today in this time that doesn't flow." (Eco, pg. )

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Not an Abstract Man

Ivan Ilych saw that he was dying, and he was in continual despair.

In the depth of his heart he knew he was dying, but not only was he not accustomed to the thought, he simply did not and could not grasp it.

The syllogism he had learnt from Kiesewetter's Logic: "Caius is a man, men are mortal, therefore Caius is mortal," had always seemed to him correct as applied to Caius, but certainly not as applied to himself. That Caius — man in the abstract — was mortal, was perfectly correct, but he was not Caius, not an abstract man, but a creature quite, quite separate from all others. He had been little Vanya, with a mamma and a papa, with Mitya and Volodya, with the toys, a coachman and a nurse, afterwards with Katenka and will all the joys, griefs, and delights of childhood, boyhood, and youth. What did Caius know of the smell of that striped leather ball Vanya had been so fond of? Had Caius kissed his mother's hand like that, and did the silk of her dress rustle so for Caius? Had he rioted like that at school when the pastry was bad? Had Caius been in love like that? Could Caius preside at a session as he did? "Caius really was mortal, and it was right for him to die; but for me, little Vanya, Ivan Ilych, with all my thoughts and emotions, it's altogether a different matter. It cannot be that I ought to die. That would be too terrible."

Such was his feeling.

"If I had to die like Caius I would have known it was so. An inner voice would have told me so, but there was nothing of the sort in me and I and all my friends felt that our case was quite different from that of Caius. and now here it is!" he said to himself. "It can't be. It's impossible! But here it is. How is this? How is one to understand it?"

He could not understand it, and tried to drive this false, incorrect, morbid thought away and to replace it by other proper and healthy thoughts. But that thought, and not the thought only but the reality itself, seemed to come and confront him. (Chapter 6)

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Aunt Sallie's Song

The Master’s got a sack that he says he’s gonna fill.
He’s gonna to take it to the gin for a dollar bill. 
He says he’s gonna burn everything he doesn’t sell. 
Master, put me in that sack. I don’t wanna go to hell. 

The Master’s got a mule that will not pull a plow. 
He’s gonna take it to the barn, and trade it for a cow. 
He says he’s gonna burn everything he doesn’t sell. 
Master, let me drive that mule. I don’t wanna  go to hell. 

The Master’s got a river, where he kneels to take a drink.  
He’s gonna walk on water, where evil men will sink.
He says he’s gonna burn everything he doesn’t sell. 
Master, let me cross that river. I don’t wanna go to hell. 

The Master’s got a baby that’s as gentle as a lamb. 
He’s gonna ask the people “Who do you say I am?”
He says he’s gonna burn everything he doesn’t sell. 
Master, let me hold that baby. I don’t wanna go to hell.  

The Master’s got an army, and it’s marchin' from the sea.
 It’s comin' here in glory to fight for you and me. 
He says it’s gonna bring a final tribulation
The day of jubilee and the blood of our salvation. 

Friday, February 13, 2009

The Diving Board


The boy’s feet move too fast to count, 
Too fast to think about, really, 
Sprinting the short distance to the end of the board
Where they suddenly stop
And everything changes at once. 

He uses the laws of motion to rise in the air   
Where he crosses his legs and hangs motionless,
Like a little Buddah in equipoise
A floating monk in swimsuit and goggles.

His achievement does not last.
His secret is he does not expect it to. 
With knowledge bound by experience,
Something he can use but not explain, 
He falls with mathematical precision  
In a private vision of brief happiness. 

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Extreme Unction

"The priest rose to take the crucifix; then she stretched forward her neck as one who is athirst, and glueing her lips to the body of the Man-God, she pressed upon it with all her expiring strength the fullest kiss of love that she had ever given. Then he recited the Misereatur and the Indulgentiam, dipped his right thumb in the oil, and began to give extreme unction. First upon the eyes, that had so coveted all worldly pomp; then upon the nostrils, that had been greedy of the warm breeze and amorous odours; then upon the mouth, that had uttered lies, that had curled with pride and cried out in lewdness; then upon the hands that had delighted in sensual touches; and finally upon the soles of the feet, so swift of yore, when she was running to satisfy her desires, and that would now walk no more."

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Practicing Virtue

"Disdainful of honours, of titles, and of academies, like one of the old Knight-Hospitallers, generous, fatherly to the poor, and practising virtue without believing in it, he would almost have passed for a saint if the keenness of his intellect had not caused him to be feared as a demon." (Flaubert)

Laughing at Locksmiths

“One should always assume that rules, then as now, were made to be broken. Business, like love, laughs at locksmiths.” (Landes, 42)

Monday, February 9, 2009

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Endless Forms Most Beautiful


"Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." (Darwin)

Saturday, February 7, 2009

Advice to Prophets

Declaiming on hell
A prophet dines well
One thing is for sure
Good news doesn't sell.

Friday, February 6, 2009

Impressions of the San Andreas Fault


The deformity makes life visible here
Amid a dry land, sand and broken stone
A little moisture creeps to the surface
Where living things cluster around the cracks
Even prophets need water and a little shade
They wander the shattered face of the planet
Lead congregations of ingrates who grumble
"We are hungry," "We are thirsty," "Where is the Lord?"
Until in their discomfort they finally discover
The best places for life are sometimes the most dangerous.

The Whole Congregation Grumbled

They set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness, and the people of Israel said to them, "Would that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger."

Then the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not. On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily." So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, "At evening you shall know that it was the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you shall see the glory of the LORD, because he has heard your grumbling against the LORD. For what are we, that you grumble against us?" And Moses said, "When the LORD gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the LORD has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him—what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the LORD."

Then Moses said to Aaron, "Say to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, 'Come near before the LORD, for he has heard your grumbling.'" And as soon as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the people of Israel, they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud. And the LORD said to Moses, "I have heard the grumbling of the people of Israel. Say to them, 'At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. Then you shall know that I am the LORD your God.'"

In the evening quail came up and covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay around the camp. And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, "It is the bread that the LORD has given you to eat. This is what the LORD has commanded: 'Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer, according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.'" And the people of Israel did so. They gathered, some more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat. And Moses said to them, "Let no one leave any of it over till the morning." But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat; but when the sun grew hot, it melted.

On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers each. And when all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, he said to them, "This is what the LORD has commanded: 'Tomorrow is a day off solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD; bake what you will bake and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over lay aside to be kept till the morning.'" So they laid it aside till the morning, as Moses commanded them, and it did not stink, and there were no worms in it. Moses said, "Eat it today, for today is a Sabbath to the LORD; today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is a Sabbath, there will be none."

On the seventh day some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. And the LORD said to Moses, "How long will you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? See! The LORD has given you the Sabbath; therefore on the sixth day he gives you bread for two days. Remain each of you in his place; let no one go out of his place on the seventh day." So the people rested on the seventh day.

Now the house of Israel called its name manna. It was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. Moses said, "This is what the LORD has commanded: 'Let an omer of it be kept throughout your generations, so that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.'" And Moses said to Aaron, "Take a jar, and put an omer of manna in it, and place it before the LORD to be kept throughout your generations." As the LORD commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the testimony to be kept. The people of Israel ate the manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land. They ate the manna till they came to the border of the land of Canaan.

All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the LORD, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, "Give us water to drink." And Moses said to them, "Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?" But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?" So Moses cried to the LORD, "What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me." And the LORD said to Moses, "Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink." And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. And he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the LORD by saying, "Is the LORD among us or not?"

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Nothing Worth the Trouble

"She was not happy--she never had been. Whence came this insufficiency in life--this instantaneous turning to decay of everything on which she leaned? But if there were somewhere a being strong and beautiful, a valiant nature, full at once of exaltation and refinement, a poet's heart in an angel's form, a lyre with sounding chords ringing out elegiac epithalamia to heaven, why, perchance, should she not find him? Ah! How impossible! Besides, nothing was worth the trouble of seeking it; everything was a lie. Every smile hid a yawn of boredom, every joy a curse, all pleasure satiety, and the sweetest kisses left upon your lips only the unattainable desire for a greater delight." (Flaubert)


"Nonetheless she was not happy, had never been happy. Why then was life so inadequate? Why did she feel this instantaneous decay of the things she relied on? If there existed somewhere a strong and hansome being, a valiant nature imbued with both exaltation and refinement, the heart of a poet in the shape of an angel, a lyre with strings of bronze, souding elegiac nuptial songs toward the heavens -- why, why could she not find him? How impossible it seemed! And anyway, nothing was worth looking for; everying was a lie. Each smile hid a yawn of boredom, each joy a curse, each pleasure its aftermatch of disgust, and the best of kisses left on your lifps only the unattainable desire for a higher delight." (Flaubert, Bucccaneer Books translation, pg. 267)

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

We Must Not Touch Our Idols

"One must not touch idols; the gilt rubs off on one's hands." (Flaubert, Buccaneer Books translation, pg. 265).

"We must not touch our idols; the gilt sticks to our fingers." (Flaubert, Google Books, pg. 261)

Sunday, February 1, 2009

A Cracked Kettle

"The human language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out a tune for a dancing bear, when we hope with our music to move the stars." (Flaubert, pg. 188)