October 2010
5 tags
3 tags
6 tags
4 tags
4 tags
To Make A Dadist Poem
Take a newspaper. Take some scissors. Choose from this paper an article the length you want to make your poem. Cut out the article. Next carefully cut out each of the words that make up this article and put them all in a bag. Shake gently. Next take out each cutting one after the other. Copy conscientiously in the order in which they left the bag. The poem will resemble you. And there you are...
6 tags
5 tags
Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized...
– H. L. Mencken, Minority Report : H.L. Mencken’s Notebooks (1956)
6 tags
5 tags
5 tags
4 tags
7 tags
5 tags
Temporary Well Being
The pond is plenteous The land is lush, And having turned off the news I am for the moment mellow. With my book in one hand And my drink in the other What more could I want But fame, Better health, And ten million dollars?
Kenneth Burke
5 tags
6 tags
5 tags
We went on in our quiet way. Life was purer and simpler and less annoyed to us,...
– Edward Everett Hale, Ten Times One is Ten (1870)
6 tags
7 tags
4 tags
3 tags
4 tags
Whenever we read the obscene stories, voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and...
– Thomas Paine (via lastchatwithphontaine)
3 tags
5 tags
The Plain Facts
See what a charming smile I bring, Which no one can resist; For I have found a wondrous thing – The Fact that I exist. And I have found another, which I now proceed to tell. The world is so sublimely rich That you exist as well. Fact One is lovely, so is Two, But O the best is Three: The Fact that I can smile at you, And you can smile at me.
Ruth Pitter
7 tags
6 tags
6 tags
6 tags
6 tags
6 tags
5 tags
4 tags
Home-Bound
The moon is a wavering rim where one fish slips, The water makes a quietness of sound; Night is an anchoring of many ships Home-bound. There are strange tunnelers in the dark, and whirs Of wings that die, and hairy spiders spin The silence into nets, and tenanters Move softly in. I step on shadows riding through the grass, And feel the night lean cool...
6 tags
5 tags
5 tags
I don’t know why it is so much more pleasurable to read a book on a train coach...
– Lawrence Wright, In the New World (1988)
6 tags
6 tags
6 tags
3 tags
3 tags
To Be Read in the Morning and at Night
My love Has told me That he needs me. That’s why I take good care of myself Watch out where I’m going and Fear that any drop of rain Might kill me.
Bertolt Brecht
4 tags
6 tags
5 tags
I don’t believe in preserving culture. The real question is, what kind of world...
– Wade Davis, Discover Magazine interview, March 27, 2008
6 tags
6 tags
6 tags
3 tags
4 tags
4 tags
4 tags
4 tags
Learn To Be Quiet
You need not do anything. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, just wait. You need not even wait, just learn to be quiet, still and solitary. And the world will freely offer itself to you unmasked. It has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
Franz Kafka