From The Great Fire

Isolation had made me arrogant, too. I wasn't prepared for the quality of thought in others.
— Shirley Hazzard, The Great Fire, 124.

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When we're indecisive, yes, the wishes of others gain.
— Ibid., 146.

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There can be danger in supplying what people say they want...
— Ibid.,

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"The illusory quiet of the world": small flaring hubbub of humanity, and the encompassing night. That ancient balance had tipped long since.
— Ibid., 147.

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When a life goes off the rails, the casualties are many. One grows by turns patient, even saintly, and furiously resentful. These fluctuations occur in rapid succession or simultaneously, and the habit of abnegation loses its interest. Like others, I turn to my work, which occasionally palls.
— Ibid., 312.

One wants, of course, to simply copy out the whole thing.
 

Satisfaction

I should know better than to derive satisfaction from experience.
— J. Nathan Matias, in his blog Notebook of Sand, 27 Jul 2006.
 

Tragedy in life

...in life, tragedy is not one long scream.
— Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin, 417.

The universe

Why is the universe so complicated? Why is it so over our heads?
— Martin Amis, interviewed by Bill Moyers on NOW.

The only way you can write the truth

The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.

Impossible, of course.

— Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin, 283.

Rooms

You live in your head.
You live in your heart.
You live in your gut.
You live in your genitals.

Each is a room — in an apartment, say — and each room communicates to each other room — you can go from any to any.

Living only in your head makes you crazy.
Living only in your heart makes you sad.
Living only in your gut makes you sick.
Living only in your genitals makes you disgusted.

Each can purify each. Any purges any.

A word

She stubs out her cigarette in the brown glass ashtray, then settles herself against him, ear to his chest. She likes to hear his voice this way, as if it begins not in his throat but in his body, like a hum or a growl, or like a voice speaking from deep underground. Like the blood moving through her own heart: a word, a word, a word.
— Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin, 112.

Some people.../Morning after

...some people can't tell where it hurts. They can't calm down. They can't ever stop howling.
— Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin, 2.

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The sun was up, the room already too warm. Light filtered in through the net curtains, hanging suspended in the air, sediment in a pond. My head felt like a sack of pulp. Still in my nightgown, damp from some fright I'd pushed aside like foliage, I pulled myself up and out of my tangled bed, then forced myself through the usual dawn rituals — the ceremonies we perform to make ourselves look sane and acceptable to other people. The hair must be smoothed down after whatever apparitions made it stand on end during the night, the expression of staring disbelief washed from the eyes. The teeth brushed, such as they are. God knows what bones I'd been gnawing on in my sleep.
— Ibid., 35.

Prejudice

By definition a prejudice is a principle that its owner does not intend to examine. Which does not prove it wrong. And what a comforting thing it is.

— Wallace Stegner, The Spectator Bird, 156.

Aegypt delivered

Eight years ago, at a hypertext conference in my home town Pittsburgh, M.D. Coverley did a demo of her new work, Egypt: The Book of Going Forth by Day.

Last month she sent me a copy on CD, the artist's book version. I can't express my gratitude.

I've been reading it through and through for the past month, and haven't found the bottom yet, but want to share four quotes that struck me along the way:

We need, too, silence and watchfulness, attention to the ritual. Any hour of the night we could fall prey to the forces that seek to steal our hearts, make us walk upside down, leave us putrid beside the water's edge, separate us from what we love most. — Papyrus 12

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One thing we do not know is our responsibility in the outcome. Does Osiris guarantee us safe passage? Or must we depend on the magic we have gathered ourselves? The ritual guarantees us nothing, perhaps, once we have embarked. — Papyrus 16

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And what of the point, in the middle of the way, further than the middle of the way, in the shambles of the gods, when the journey back is too long to undertake, and we can only go forward? — Papyrus 22

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Nothing can be saved up against the emptiness of the journey. — Papyrus 25

Street scene, Staten Island

The landscapers attack my neighbors house like a swarm of giant pissed-off bees.

Taken out of context...

Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own countree?
— Rime of the Antient Mariner

Sloganeering for Jesus

Sign out front of Epworth Methodist, on the way to Speech class:

SPIRITS LOW? COME IN FOR A FAITH LIFT!

There's gotta be a book in this...

People-watching at the Star City Diner

I didn't ask to be princess, but the crown fits.
— T-shirt on a 9-year-old a couple tables away at breakfast.

And we wonder why they hate our freedoms.

Street scene, Bethlehem

I heard the bawling baby approaching first, a young infant with a good set of lungs, then it passed beneath my deck overhanging Prospect Ave, at last revealed in a 3-wheel racing stroller pushed by its jogging father, who patted behind at a fair clip, hydrator sloshing at his hip, Borg phone clipped to his near ear, free hand leashed to 2 trotting spaniels.

My dear, the gear...

Max Weber's definition of government

Government is an organization claiming a monopoly on the licit first use of force in a specified geographic region.
— paraphrased in Eric S. Raymond's "Why I Am an Anarchist"

"Boys" on Verse Daily

It's a small thing, but good news is always welcome. My poem "Boys," recently published in Runes: Signals, was featured April 2 on the poetry site Verse Daily.

Thanks to CB ('Lyn) Follett & Susan Terris, co-editors of RUNES, for the heads-up — and always for their encouragement & enthusiasm.

Life at work

Life at work is like a tree full of monkeys, all on different limbs at different levels.

Some monkeys are climbing up, some down.

The monkeys on top look down and see a tree full of smiling faces.

The monkeys on the bottom look up and see nothing but assholes.

— sign on the door of 19 Old Main, Kutztown U

Pilgrim's Progress

I was driven out of my native country by a dreadful sound that was in mine ears, to wit, that unavoidable destruction did attend me, if I abode in that place where I was.
— Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress

Heuristic

Staten Island

Across the street, a pregnant mother & her 2-year-old daughter (son? the hair's short & silky) make their slow way up the sidewalk in front of Roberta's house, each pushing a fold-up stroller, one child-sized, one doll-sized. The mom's wearing dark blue overalls w/ white polka dots cross-tied over her shoulders, the toddler a pink hooded sweatshirt over pink jeans — her stroller's pink, too, just like her mother's is dark blue [mom also wears a red back pack just under her longish brown pony tail]. Right at Roberta's gate there's a raised seam in the sidewalk & the little one gets stuck, but the mom just stops & waits, murmuring encouragement until the little one works it out. Then they're on their way.