In Cuba, when they have tornadoes, they kill them. When they see one coming, they start shooting it with their rifles and shotguns, and the explosions make the tornadoes disappear. When I tell people in America that they shoot tornadoes in Cuba, they don’t believe me. But I believe because I’ve seen it happen; I’ve … Read more
The knowledge of evil is an inadequate knowledge. —Spinoza, Ethics But the most important thing is that one can no longer be sure nowadays who is and who is not in a state of temporary insanity. —Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov The Shatterer has come up against you. Man the ramparts; Watch the road. —The Book … Read more
Bloom of fireworks above a black field, the idle of insects throbbing from the damp ditches. Distant petroleum carnival of light, dark steeples, and a watertower announcing the presence of a town. Is that the rattle of a snare drum from somewhere out in the fields? Tell me again what lives in that place beyond … Read more
I’m not talking about that old world, mister. I’m trying to forget I ever lived there. All those bastards had ants in their pants, and you’d think it wouldn’t be possible to cram that many drunken jackasses in a Volvo, but you’d be sadly mistaken. I saw it all with my own eyes. Oh, Lord, … Read more
Gogol’s last words: ‘A ladder, quick, a ladder!’ —Elias Canetti, The Agony of Flies I’ve never been able to sleep like a normal person, and I literally could count the number of dreams I remember in my lifetime on one hand. This last week, however, I’ve been trying a new medication, and experiencing the sort … Read more
I never stop talking, even when I’m just muddling around the house by myself (which is, to be perfectly honest for a change, most of the time). I’m always spitting out words and pushing them around, hoping to carve a new language out of all the silence and empty space, or at least build something … Read more
There may be nothing in the world so amusing as a purely rational man. The rational man is a fellow who has not yet been able to convince himself that he’s seen a ghost. The poor bastard has repressed his memories of alien abductions and fits of religious mania. He thinks this world is round. … Read more
…on the one hand, the correct political line is demanded of the poet; on the other, one is justified in expecting his work to have quality. Such a formulation is of course unsatisfactory as long as the connection between the two factors, political line and quality, has not been perceived. Of course, the connection can … Read more
‘The question at stake,’ said Epictetus, ‘is no common one; it is this: Are we in our senses, or are we not?’ —The Golden Sayings of Epictetus We cannot truly know whether we are not at this moment sitting in a madhouse. —Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Aphorisms There are those to whom one must advise madness. … Read more
I stopped over to visit my old friend Rich last night. Rich is having a bit of a tough time, or so he had told me on the phone. I go way back with this guy, and on a certain level I’ve always gotten a kick out of him. That said, he is, like many … Read more