Halloween

Filled raisin cookies

From this recipe, color-adjusted for Halloween.

Banality (Pollak)

The "banality of evil"
is small comfort in times of upheaval.
But the really disturbing reality
is the evil of banality.

Felix Pollak

Inanity

The definition of inanity is saying the same thing over and over and expecting it to eventually become interesting.

Pan-fried red snapper with a tabouli topping

Cogitas me (Pollak)

Reflected in your thinking of me,
I am.
Cogitas me, ergo sum.

Felix Pollak

New poems

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The Junta Issues Guidelines on Torture (Pollak)

I wonder if Pollak ever imagined this would apply to the United States when he published it in 1984...

It is strictly forbidden to use torture
without there being just cause for torture.

Whether there is just cause for torture
can best be determined by torture.

If it appears in the course of torture
that there is no just cause for torture

You will eliminate all traces of torture
by eliminating the recipient of torture.

Death is therefore never caused by torture
though it may be the consequence of torture.

Whosoever denies the truth about torture
is thereby giving just cause for torture.

Felix Pollak, "The Junta Issues Guidelines on Torture"

On utilitarianism

A utilitarian must come to love violence, for it's such an easy route to so much.

Stewed chicken

From this recipe (more or less), with oven-roasted vegetables and purple rice.

Vacation from poetry (Gale)

You can’t go on vacation from poetry. You have to feel its alive wild throbbing while you think and walk around. I don’t believe in po-biz or in having a poetry career or being mid career or late career. Poetry is something you choose to do instead of a career.

Kate Gale

New poems

+8

Breakfast casserole

Recipe from Cook's Country magazine.

Easy apple cake

From this recipe.

Perspective

To surrender to the temptation of perspective
is to shrink and to shirk.

On beauty

All preconceptions of beauty are wrong,
presumptuous. Beauty instructs upon arrival.

The light

Science is the light of the sun at noon; religion, that of the new moon.

Only

One only requires a soul if one rejects the self.

New poems

+8

Moroccan-inspired fried rigatoni

Any kind

Our defense against the bullying of probability is that any kind of man can have any kind of thought.

Expression

Expression, not repression. But a thoughtful, considered expression, not mere reaction.

Salmon with a balsamic reduction

Trying to achieve

Trying to achieve in life is like trying to enjoy a seven-course meal before the elevator doors open.

Assimilation

New knowledge is sometimes so rapidly assimilated into the known that it feels rather more recovered than acquired.

New poems

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The least is more

The logic of the least sophisticated atheist is more sophisticated than the theology of 9 out of 10 religious people.

Freedom, Justice, Truth

No one believes in freedom who does not believe in freedom for all. No one desires justice who does not desire justice for all. No one loves truth who accepts or excuses lies.

More on freedom

When something is reduced to a buzzword or an advertisement, we are content to wear its slogan, to declare fealty to its brand, and no longer feel obliged to actually acquire it, to own it, to defend it. Freedom is rapidly achieving this status in American culture.

Freedom

It is hard to respect men and women who deny the freedom of others; harder yet to live among those who reject their own freedom.

Society

Whatever its advantages, society will always be a source of frustration and unhappiness to the individual, because it relies upon collective judgment, which will never always coincide with individual judgment.

New poems

+6

Sacrifice

Every sacrifice, even those which may reasonably be deemed necessary, is a failure.

Crackling corn bread

From this recipe.

Luxury

Real luxuries may not be essential but are never superfluous, never capricious.

Braised pork with peppers & onions

From this recipe.

Spellcasting

Good poetry is spellcasting, not annotation.

Precautions

Find precautions to permit you the forbidden.

So much the worse (Sartre)

Tomorrow, after my death, some men may decide to set up Fascism, and the others may be cowardly and muddled enough to let them do it. Fascism will then be the human reality, so much the worse for us.

Jean-Paul Sartre, from "Existentialism"

The same proportions

Our dreams reflect our fears and desires in the same proportions in which they dominate our waking thoughts and behaviors.

Also

They also serve who counter hate.

The principles of selection

How can we trust perception
without knowing the principles of selection?

Misunderstanding

Sometimes misunderstanding understands what understanding misses.

New poems

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