"We must accept our pain, change what we can, and laugh at the rest." ~ Camille Paglia, the Stoic

Born this day

"Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly." ~ Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka, The Thinker, 1913

"I thought of that old joke: This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, 'Doc, my brother's crazy, he thinks he's a chicken.' And the doctor says, 'Well why don't you turn him in?' and the guy says, 'I would, but I need the eggs.' Well, I guess that's pretty much now how I feel about relationships. They're totally irrational and crazy and absurd, but I guess we keep going through it because most of us need the eggs."

Woody Allen, Annie Hall, 1977

Died this day.

“A poet makes himself a visionary through a long, boundless, and systematized disorganization of all the senses. All forms of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself, he exhausts within himself all poisons, and preserves their quintessences. Unspeakable torment, where he will need the greatest faith, a superhuman strength, where he becomes all men the great invalid, the great criminal, the great accursed--and the Supreme Scientist! For he attains the unknown! Because he has cultivated his soul, already rich, more than anyone! He attains the unknown, and if, demented, he finally loses the understanding of his visions, he will at least have seen them! So what if he is destroyed in his ecstatic flight through things unheard of, unnameable: other horrible workers will come; they will begin at the horizons where the first one has fallen!”

Arthur Rimbaud, Letter of the Seer, 15 May 1871

"Next to the hypermarket was an automobile repair yard, its forecourt filled with used cars. They sat in the sunlight with numerals on their windshields, the advanced guard of a digital universe in which everything would be tagged and numbered, a doomsday catalogue listing each stone and grain of sand under my feet, each eager poppy." ~ J. G. Ballard, The Unlimited Dream Company, 1979

Astutely prescient for 1979.

“I drank to drown my sorrows, but the damned things learned how to swim.” ~ Frida Kahlo

Frida Kahlo, Self Portrait with Necklace of Thorns, 1940

“Capitalism has survived communism. Now, it eats away at itself.” ~ Bukowski

"Capitalism has defeated communism. It is now well on its way to defeating democracy" ~ David Korten

"Our subjectivities are all cyborgian collages of flesh with signs and images, and with past and present tech." ~ McKenzie Wark

fightpunch, Cyborg 3, 2013

To be, or not to be, that is the question—
Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer
The Slings and Arrows of outrageous Fortune,
Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep—
No more; and by a sleep, to say we end
The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep,
To sleep, perchance to Dream; Aye, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes Calamity of so long life:
For who would bear the Whips and Scorns of time,
The Oppressor's wrong, the proud man's Contumely,
The pangs of despised Love, the Law’s delay,
The insolence of Office, and the Spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his Quietus make
With a bare Bodkin? Who would these Fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
No Traveler returns, Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have,
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all,
And thus the Native hue of Resolution
Is sicklied o'er, with the pale cast of Thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment,
With this regard their Currents turn awry,
And lose the name of Action. Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia. Nymph, in all thy Orisons
Be thou all my sins remembered.

William Shakespeare, Hamlet, ~1600

"Despise not death, but welcome it, for nature wills it like all else."

"The impediment to action advances action.
What stands in the way becomes the way."

Marcus Aurelius, 26 April 121 - 17 March 180

Written when he was only 16.

I say that one must be a seer, make oneself a seer. The poet makes himself a seer by a long, prodigious, and rational disordering of all the senses. Every form of love, of suffering, of madness; he searches himself, he consumes all the poisons in him, and keeps only their quintessences. This is an unspeakable torture during which he needs all his faith and superhuman strength, and during which he becomes the great patient, the great criminal, the great accursed – and the great learned one! – among men. – For he arrives at the unknown! Because he has cultivated his own soul – which was rich to begin with – more than any other man! He reaches the unknown; and even if, crazed, he ends up by losing the understanding of his visions, at least he has seen them! Let him die charging through those unutterable, unnameable things: other horrible workers will come; they will begin from the horizons where he has succumbed!

Arthur Rimbaud, Letter of the Seer, 15 May 1871

Highsmith once attended a London cocktail party with a "gigantic handbag" that "contained a head of lettuce and a hundred snails" who she said were her "companions for the evening".

J.T. Dockery, Leg art set: 9 of 9, 2013

"The Murray persona has become familiar without becoming tiring: The world is too much with him, he is a little smarter than everyone else, he has a detached melancholy, he is deeply suspicious of joy, he sees sincerity as a weapon that can be used against him, and yet he conceals emotional needs. He is Hamlet in a sitcom world." ~ Roger Ebert, 2005

"Seeing L.A. from the air was more frightening than memory permitted. Real, vivid, science fiction. It was just after sundown when we began to land. The natural light of day was gone, replaced by billions of smog particles that gave the coming darkness the hue of blood in a draining sink. This enormous, overfed, infected pink pig of a city rolled across the landscape as far as the eye could see, coughing, snorting and sucking up whatever was once natural and undisturbed. As the plane descended over the clogged freeways I felt eaten, swallowed within the canopy of filth. A primal instinct warned me that being here was a mistake. Demands would be required of me that I was unprepared to fulfill. The darkness here was too large to defend against." ~ Dan Fante, Chump Change, 1999

I missed his birthday on the 16th. Belated thoughts for the dirtiest of dirty old men.

"'Baby,' I said, 'I'm a genius but nobody knows it but me.'" ~ Charles Bukowski, Factotum, 1975

"No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin." ~ Aneurin "Nye" Bevan

"Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences." ~ Roy Ascott via Brian Eno.

Everything you'd rather not have known about Brian Eno, Chrissie Hynde, 1974

Tracey Emin, My Bed, 1998

"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations." ~ George Orwell