Nay, a tumblelog.

"[Garfield] refused to seek an appointment or promotion of any kind. ‘I suppose I am morbidly..."

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 20:55:00 -0800

“

[Garfield] refused to seek an appointment or promotion of any kind. ‘I suppose I am morbidly sensitive about any reference to my own achievements,’ he admitted. ‘I so much despise a man who blows his own horn, that I go to the other extreme.’”

“He had sternly instructed his backers that ‘first, I should make no pledge to any man or any measures; second, I should not work for my own nomination.’”

“After a landslide victory [for election to the U.S. Senate], his campaign’s expenses amounted to less than $150

”

- From Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard

Photo

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:19:22 -0800

"The imagination will not perform until it has been flooded by a vast torrent of reading. Announced..."

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 20:28:00 -0800

“The imagination will not perform until it has been flooded by a vast torrent of reading.
Announced Petronius.
You have to read fifteen hundred books in order to write one.
Flaubert put it.”

- David Markson in The Last Novel

"Venomously malignant. Noxious. Blasphemous. Grotesque. Disgusting. Repulsive. Entirely bestial...."

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:13:00 -0800

“Venomously malignant. Noxious. Blasphemous. Grotesque. Disgusting. Repulsive. Entirely bestial. Indecent.
Being among the critical greetings for Leaves of Grass.
Not to omit ithyphallic audacity.
Plus garbage.

Profound stupidity. Maniacal raving. Pure nonsense.
Among some for the best of Shelley.
Which was also called abominable.
Infantile. Absurd. Driveling. Nauseating.
Reserved for Wordsworth.”

- David Markson in The Last Novel

"The old triumvirate of tyrants in the human soul, the libido sciendi, the libido sentiendi, and the..."

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 21:37:00 -0800

“The old triumvirate of tyrants in the human soul, the libido sciendi, the libido sentiendi, and the libido dominandi [the lust of the mind, the lust of the flesh and the lust for power], is just as powerful today as it ever was, and no one can ignore its tyranny with impunity.”

- James Luther Adams

"Bread and circuses."

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 22:43:53 -0800

“Bread and circuses.”

- Juvenal

"Learning to program teaches you how to think. Computer science is a liberal art."

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 09:08:08 -0800

“Learning to program teaches you how to think. Computer science is a liberal art.”

- Steve Jobs

"Busy remaking the world, man forgot to remake himself."

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 15:39:39 -0800

“Busy remaking the world, man forgot to remake himself.”

- Andrei Platonov

"Lead the people by laws and regulate them by penalties, and the people will try to keep out of jail,..."

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 15:16:04 -0800

“Lead the people by laws and regulate them by penalties, and the people will try to keep out of jail, but will have no sense of shame. Lead the people by virtue and restrain them by the rules of decorum, and the people will have a sense of shame, and moreover will become good.”

- Confucius

The amazing story of the Polaroid SX-70.

Sun, 09 Oct 2011 02:02:23 -0700

The amazing story of the Polaroid SX-70.

"Get rid of the judgement, get rid of the ‘I am hurt,’ you are rid of the hurt itself."

Sat, 08 Oct 2011 15:39:15 -0700

“Get rid of the judgement, get rid of the ‘I am hurt,’ you are rid of the hurt itself.”

- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations viii.40

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have..."

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 09:44:10 -0700

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

- Steve Jobs

"He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his..."

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:00:29 -0700

“

He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family must pay it along with him! & only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!

Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?

”

- David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas

"All bad poetry is sincere."

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 19:17:06 -0700

“All bad poetry is sincere.”

- Oscar Wilde

Video

Sun, 04 Sep 2011 20:55:49 -0700

"What we seek is the worthy adversary. For we strike out to fall flailing through demons of wire and..."

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 18:01:05 -0700

“What we seek is the worthy adversary. For we strike out to fall flailing through demons of wire and crepe and we long for something of substance to oppose us. Something to contain us or to stay our hand. Otherwise there were no boundaries to our own being and we too must extend our claims until we lose all definition. Until we must be swallowed up at last by the very void to which we wished to stand opposed.”

- Cormac McCarthy -The Crossing

"For this world also which seems to us a thing of stone and flower and blood is not a thing at all..."

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 22:11:26 -0700

“For this world also which seems to us a thing of stone and flower and blood is not a thing at all but is a tale. And all in it is a tale and each tale the sum of all lesser tales and yet these also are the selfsame tale and contain as well all else within them. So everything is necessary. Every least thing. This is the hard lesson. Nothing can be dispensed with. Nothing despised. Because the seams are hid from us, you see. The joinery. The way in which the world is made. We have no way to know what could be taken away. What omitted. We have no way to tell what might stand and what might fall.”

- Cormac McCarthy - The Crossing

"To have come on all this new world of writing […] was like having a great treasure given to..."

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 18:01:06 -0700

“To have come on all this new world of writing […] was like having a great treasure given to you. You could take your treasure with you when you travelled too […] there were always the books, so that you lived in the new world you had found, the snow and the forests and the glaciers and their winter problems […] in the daytime, and at night you could live in the other wonderful world the Russian writers were giving you. At first there were the Russians; then there were all the others. But for a long time there were the Russians.”

- Ernest Hemingway - A Moveable Feast

"Memory is hunger."

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 15:00:00 -0700

“Memory is hunger.”

- Ernest Hemingway - A Moveable Feast

"Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one..."

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 20:21:00 -0700

““”Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.” So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say.”

- Ernest Hemingway - A Moveable Feast