Television

11 Mar 2012 /

Television

Not once during those months did there emanate from the screen a genuine idea or emotion, and I came to understand the medium as subversive. In its deceit, its outright lies, its spinelessness, its weak-mindedness, its pointless violence, in the disgusting personalities it holds up to our youth to emulate, in its endless and groveling deference to our fantasies, television undermines strength of character, saps vigor, and irreparably perverts notions of reality. But it is a tender, loving medium; and when it has done its savage job completely and reduced one to a prattling, salivating infant, like a buxom mother it stands always poised to take one back to the shelter of its brown-nippled bosom.

— Frederick Exley, A Fan’s Notes

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David Foster Wallace’s Last House

21 Feb 2012 /

David Foster Wallace's last house

Via Curbed LA on the occasion of what would have been DFW’s 50th birthday today.

What a depressing abode! I’m ready to drive out there right now and hang myself . . .

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Love is Fleeting

6 Feb 2012 /

I recently bought a collection of short novels by Marguerite Duras from my favorite used book store. Inside the front cover is this inscription:

To M—,

Because her work influences me so much, and you inspire me so much. Please read and think about me!!

Love Always,

G—

P.S. Merry Xmas XOXO

I bought the book for $3.95, so M—- couldn’t have gotten more than a buck, maybe two, for unloading it.

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Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this arm? — Captain Ahab


2011: The Year in Books

6 Jan 2012 /

These are the books I read in 2011, roughly in the order listed. The ratings and tags are mine. They don’t represent a consensus of opinion.

Best Novel of the Year: A Fan’s Notes by Frederick Exley

Best Non-Fiction of the Year: Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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You Are Not Alone

7 Oct 2011 /

Many people need desperately to receive this message: “I feel and think much as you do, care about many of the things you care about, although most people don’t care about them. You are not alone.”

— Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake

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Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops. — Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five


In real life, as in Grand Opera, arias only make hopeless situations worse. — Kurt Vonnegut, Timequake


Bokononism

3 Oct 2011 /

“Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before,” Bokonon tells us. “He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.”

— Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle

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How Are Things Going?

2 Oct 2011 /

You go up to a man, and you say, “How are things going, Joe?” and he says, “Oh fine, fine — couldn’t be better.” And you look into his eyes, and you see things really couldn’t be much worse. When you get right down to it, everybody’s having a perfectly lousy time of it, and I mean everybody. And the hell of it is, nothing seems to help much.

— Kurt Vonnegut, The Sirens of Titan

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Monkeys on Typewriters

26 Sep 2011 /
Monkey typing close up

If one puts an infinite number of monkeys in front of (strongly built) typewriters, and lets them clap away, there is a certainty that one of them would come out with an exact version of the Iliad. Upon examination, this may be less interesting a concept than it appears at first: Such probability is ridiculously low. But let us carry the reasoning one step beyond. Now that we have found that hero among monkeys, would any reader invest his life’s savings on a bet that the monkey would write the Odyssey next?

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Fooled by Randomness

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He in his madness prays for storms
And dreams that storms will bring him peace.

— Mikhail Lermontov
Posted by on 14 Sep 2011

A Half-Assed Job of Anything

9 Aug 2011 /

It’s enough to make you cry to see how bad most people are at their jobs. If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you’re a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.

— Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano

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A Man with a Grievance

7 Aug 2011 /

I wanted to be unhappy by myself. I wanted to grieve for Papa. That man suffered a lot. Even more than my poor mother who had to watch him suffer. For she had seven children to worry about as well, and children are a duty. Whereas a broken-hearted man with a grievance is only a liability, a nuisance. And he knows it too.

— Joyce Cary, The Horse’s Mouth

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Plato in 90 Minutes

31 Jul 2011 /

I’ve never gotten anything out of trying to read Plato, and yet you keep hearing that he’s essential to an understanding of man’s existence, so I thought I’d check out a secondary source for guidance: Plato in 90 Minutes by Paul Strathern.

I’m on page 10 when my son says, “That’s taken you longer than 90 minutes.” He looks over to see how far I’ve gotten. “Page 10,” he scoffs.

“It’s not 90 minutes from when you buy the book,” I say. “You understand that, right? You have to give me some time to actually read it.”

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He thought: I didn’t say the right words. Why do I never find the right words? The man needed help and I recited a formula. God forgive me. Will someone only give me a formula too when I come to die? — Graham Greene, Monsignor Quixote


He prayed in his slience: O God, make me human, let me feel temptation. Save me from my indifference. — Graham Greene, Monsignor Quixote


We Aren’t in Business as Shopkeepers

28 Jul 2011 /

[The Mayor, a Communist, has asked what penance Father Quixote would give him for fornication. Ellipses are in the original.]

“You know–of course you don’t know–I don’t like the taste of tomatoes at all. But suppose Father Heribert Jone had written that it was a mortal sin to eat tomatoes and the old lady who lives next door to me came to me in the church to confess she had eaten a tomato. What penance would I give her? As I don’t eat tomatoes myself I wouldn’t even be able to imagine how deep her depravity might be. Of course a rule would have been broken . . . a rule . . . one can’t avoid knowing that.”

“You are avoiding my question, father, what penance . . . ?”

“Perhaps one Our Father and one Hail Mary.”

“Only one?”

“One said properly must surely be the equal of a hundred run off without thought. I don’t see the point of numbers. We aren’t in business as shopkeepers.”

— Graham Greene, Monsignor Quixote

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Belief and Vodka Both Wear Off

27 Jul 2011 /

“I want to believe. And I want others to believe.”

“Why?”

“I want them to be happy.”

“Let them drink a little vodka then. That’s better than a make-believe.”

“The vodka wears off. It’s wearing off even now.”

“So does belief.”

— Graham Greene, Monsignor Quixote

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Huxley Was Right

17 Jul 2011 /
Aldous Huxley painted portrait IMG_7520

Image by Abode of Chaos via Flickr

In Huxley’s vision. no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. . . . Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.

— Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death

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