The inside dopeThe inside dope
“99 percent of lawyers don’t understand the prison designation and correctional process, and the 1 percent who do are all doing time.” — Ellis & Shummon, Federal Prison Guidebook
Just add waterJust add water
“The beginning of everything is damp and small, but wide-armed oaks—according to myth, legend, and the folk tales of the people—from solitary acorns grow.” — Grace Paley, “In Time Which Made a Monkey of Us All”
That’s because they’re magiciansThat’s because they’re magicians
“Doctors mostly sustain themselves in a medium of false ideas, the word ‘doctor’ casting about them, so they think, a sort of magical aura.” — William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch
Otherwise it’s senselessOtherwise it’s senseless
“There is only one thing a writer can write about: what is in front of his senses at the moment of writing.” — William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch (emphasis in original)
It can be a sneaky beastIt can be a sneaky beast
“Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer.” — William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch
There’s always room for improvement, verdad?There’s always room for improvement, verdad?
“Americans have a special horror of giving up control, of letting things happen in their own way without interference. They would like to jump down into their stomachs and digest the food and shovel the shit out.” — William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch
Put down that weapon, pleasePut down that weapon, please
“Push your mind too hard and it will fuck up like an overloaded switchboard, or turn on you with sabotage.” — William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch
Looks like it’s metastasizedLooks like it’s metastasized
“Democracy is cancerous, and bureaus are its cancer. A bureau takes root anywhere in the state, turns malignant like the Narcotic Bureau, and grows and grows, always reproducing more of its own kind, until it chokes the host if not controlled or excised.” — William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch
But it’s been so upliftingishBut it’s been so upliftingish
“There can be no doubt that American literature has considerably suffered from the platitudinous didactic note.” — George S. Hellman, The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XVII, Book III, Ch. XIII, Sec. 16
Get it right, peopleGet it right, people
“A functioning police state needs no police.” — William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch (emphasis in original)
Is there an app for that?Is there an app for that?
“Western man is externalizing himself in the form of gadgets.” — William S. Burroughs, Naked Lunch
Barge-totin’ and bale-liftin’ with a passionBarge-totin’ and bale-liftin’ with a passion
“Whatever one does with vigor bears fruit.” — Valmiki Ramayana, Sundarakanda Sarga 12
One certainly hopes soOne certainly hopes so
“Perseverance is the source of good fortune.” — Valmiki Ramayana, Sundarakanda Sarga 12
Call me any name you likeCall me any name you like
“Honor is conscious and willing loyalty to the highest inward leading. It is the quality which cannot be insulted.” — George William Curtis (quoted in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Vol. XVII, Ch. XIII, Sec. 4)
Look out, it’s right beside youLook out, it’s right beside you
“It takes so little, so infinitely little, for a person to cross the border beyond which everything loses meaning: love, convictions, faith, history. Human life–and herein lies its secret–takes place in the immediate proximity of that border, even in direct contact with it; it is not miles away, but a fraction of an inch.” — Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (trans. Heim)
A new story is postedA new story is posted
“Lawn” is the only story I had published in 2011. It appeared in Thema in the autumn. I have posted it today to this site, over to your right, in the “Previously Published Stories” menu, at the top and out of alphabetical order. At some future point I’ll probably nudge it down a few notches to where it might be considered to belong.
“Lawn” contains the lyrics of “Twa Corbies,” an English folk ballad first printed in 1912 in Ballads Weird and Wonderful, published by John Lane The Bodley Head (a name weird and wonderful in its own right).
In America, it’s called public educationIn America, it’s called public education
“The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster.” — Milan Hubl (quoted in Milan Kundera’s The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, trans. Heim)
My ears are ringing and no lo entiendoMy ears are ringing and no lo entiendo
“Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding.” — Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (trans. Heim)
A plague upon the nationA plague upon the nation
“Graphomania (an obsession with writing books) takes on the proportions of a mass epidemic whenever a society develops to the point where it can provide three basic conditions: 1. a high enough degree of general well-being to enable people to devote their energies to useless activities; 2. an advanced state of social atomization and the resultant general feeling of the isolation of the individual; 3. a radical absence of significant social change in the internal development of the nation.” — Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (trans. Heim)
I’m ready for my close-upI’m ready for my close-up
“Police files are our only claim to immortality.” — Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (trans. Heim)
You can get a grant for thatYou can get a grant for that
“People are always shouting they want to create a better future. It’s not true. The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it. The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past.” — Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (trans. Heim)
The WeightThe Weight
“The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” — Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (trans. Heim)
Point zero-zeroPoint zero-zero
“Each person must, on some level, take himself as the calibration point for normalcy, must assume that the room of his own mind is not, cannot be, entirely opaque to him. Perhaps this is what we mean by sanity: that, whatever our self-admitted eccentricities might be, we are not the villains of our own stories.” — Teju Cole, Open City
ChristmasChristmas
“If you’re too loyal to your own suffering, you forget that others suffer, too.” — Teju Cole, Open City
Just in time for the holidaysJust in time for the holidays
“There is always a bull market for vengeance and violence in America.” — Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear
Waterboarding, for instanceWaterboarding, for instance
“Different people want different things in this world, and you have to be careful about taking risks. Hungry people have the cunning of wild beasts. A thing that seemed strange and wrong yesterday can seem perfectly reasonable tomorrow, or vice versa.” — Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear
This will not make you feel safeThis will not make you feel safe
“Everybody you see these days might have the power to get you locked up…. Who knows why? They will have reasons straight out of some horrible Kafka story, but in the end it won’t matter any more than a full moon behind clouds.” — Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear (ellipsis in original)
There’s one right over thereThere’s one right over there
“Vicious thieves have always ruled the world.” — Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear
Apples and orangesApples and oranges
“I haven’t found a drug yet that can get you anywhere near as high as sitting at a desk writing, trying to imagine a story no matter how bizarre it is.” — Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear
You can try this at homeYou can try this at home
“Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being squeezed out of a tube.” — Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear