A thing made of holes (Macdonald)

There is a time in life when you expect the world to be always full of new things.  And then comes a day when you realise that is not how it will be at all.  You see that life will become a thing made of holes.  Absences.  Losses.  Things that were there and are no longer.  And you realise, too, that you have to grow around and between the gaps, though you can put your hand out to where things were and feel that tense, shining dullness of the space where the memories are.

Helen Macdonald, H Is For Hawk

On art

Art is anything that both succeeds and fails.

The problem

Observing the problem does not oblige one to solve the problem.

Take everything

Take everything, and, in reducing it,
increase it.

Should not

Liberalism should not be synonymous with sentimental romanticism, nor conservatism with a habit of senile denial.

The hidden thing

Treasure the hidden thing, for far more things are lost than are hidden.

Our undoing

It is what we are unaware of
that is our undoing.

New poems

+15

On death

Death is the part of nonexistence
that exists because of life.

Always dying

What a fuss we make about one death
when everything is always dying.

Instead

We want to strive
and are forced instead to struggle.

A story (Green)

These men...don't care who gets hurt because they're telling themselves a story in which they're the hero.  I've listened to that story too many times to see anything in it but vanity.

Hank Green, A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor

The most boring dream (Green)

...the endless well of rich people who can only dream the most boring dream a rich person can dream:  being even more rich.

Hank Green, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

Obscurity

Obscurity is obscenity.

Shocking

The most shocking thing about people, individually and in groups, is their choices.

Expression

Something expressed simply enough to be understood has been expressed simply enough to be refuted.

Needhams

I can't believe I haven't made these in 30 years! So good.

Stranger

Nothing is stranger than the usual, slightly changed.

Attention

Attention attunes attitude.

Should art

Should art ask "how?" or "why?"
Art laughs at "should."

The only reason

The only reason time is precious
is because all the precious things
depend upon time.

Beauty but no art

There is beauty, but no art, without intent.

On existence

Existence without context is incomprehensible.

On genius

Genius is always gratuitous.

New poems

+15

This heaven of gadgets and commodities (Fromm)

Modern man, if he dared to be articulate about his concept of heaven, would describe a vision which would look like the biggest department store in the world, showing new things and gadgets, and himself having plenty of money with which to buy them. He would wander around open-mouthed in this heaven of gadgets and commodities, provided only that there were ever more and newer things to buy, and perhaps that his neighbors were just a little less privileged than he.

Erich Fromm, The Sane Society

On madness

When you reject reason, madness seems reasonable.

On commitment

Commitment is always to something
that no longer exists.

It's love (Carter)

Oh, it's love, I suppose. It's love the way sugar is food: it's got lots of calories, but no nutrition. You can't live on it for long.

Raphael Carter, The Fortunate Fall

On forgiveness

Forgiveness without repentance is an abomination.

New poems

+15

The better way

Propose, don't impose.

No understanding

There is no understanding
without context and nuance.

On technology (Cronenberg)

Technology is not the nameless Other.  To embrace technology is to embrace, and face, ourselves.

David Cronenberg

I don't

If I don't love it, I don't like it.

On marriage

The advantages of marriage seem primarily financial. Who could endure such prolonged proximity to another disaster?

The simplest thing

It is the simplest thing:  I feel like a writer when I'm writing and when I have written.

New poems

+15

On cultural appropriation (Ellison)

It is here, on the level of culture...that elements of the many available tastes, traditions, ways of life, and values that make up the total culture have been ceaselessly appropriated and made their own—consciously, unselfconsciously, or imperialistically—by groups and individuals to whose own backgrounds and traditions they are historically alien. Indeed, it was through this process of cultural appropriation (and misappropriation) that Englishmen, Europeans, Africans, and Asians became Americans...

Everyone played the appropriation game.... Americans seem to have sensed intuitively that the possibility of enriching the individual self by such pragmatic and opportunistic appropriations has constituted one of the most precious of their many freedoms.... [I]n this country things are always all shook up, so that people are constantly moving around and rubbing off on one another culturally.

Ralph Ellison, from "The Little Man At Chehaw Station"

On art (Barot)

Art in its intention wants to be in the condition of poetry, but most art is in the condition of prose.

Rick Barot, from "Black Canvas"

Too much

Too much of what we have is the worst of our best and the best of our worst.

One leaf

What is saved from what is lost is one leaf from the tree.

Clarity

The muddleheaded tend to either underrate or overvalue clarity as a virtue.

On life

Life is too short for absolutes.

New poems

+15