Since we have heard only lies all our lives
we must assume the truth is unintelligible
and start from there. It's like panning
for gold and not knowing what gold is.
pubished in *Theoretical Objects*
(Green Integer, 1999)
****************************************
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
229
"If a war has lasted twenty years it can well
go on to last a hundred. For war has
now become a *status*. People who have
enjoyed peace die out."
Notebook:J 1789-1793
(Penguin Classics
translated by RJ Hollingdale)
101
"I would give something to know for
precisely whom the deeds were really
done of which it is publicly stated it was
done *for the fatherland*.
Notebook K 1793-1796
***************************************
"To be born to create, to love, to win at games
is to be born to live in time of peace. But war
teaches us to lose everything and become what
we were not. It all becomes a question of style."
Albert Camus
April 1939-February 1942 Notebook III
***************************************"
"The Americans are not realists. I discovered
this while watching an American film remade
from an old French film. What had been *real*
atmosphere, a geniune setting, was now a shabby
backcloth. Their vaunted realism 1920-1940
was a particular kind of romanticism about "living
reality." The fanciful idea that everything is realism
(Dos Passos). The point of view is not tragic,
but "voluntaristic." Tragedy is a clash with reality:
"voluntarism" is to make a comfort of it, a way
to escape from reality."
28th April, 1949
The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950
Cesare Pavese
Walker and Company, NY
1961
****************************************************
Chemotherapy is
Dying to
get well
10 12 83
Wystan Curnow
*Cancer Daybook*
Van Guard XPress
1989
********************************************
The Letters of Sigmund Freud
1932-1939
295 to Max Eitington
Vienna IX.Berggasse 19
February 6, 1938
Dear Friend,
I have often asked myself in bewilderment if it is absolutely
necessary for newspapers to tell lies so regularly and without
restraint. In any case, it is good to hear you don't believe the
news this time, either. Our brave and in its way decent government
is now more energetic than ever in keeping the Nazis at bay.
although in view of the latest events in Germany no one can be
sure what is going to happen...."
cordially,
your
Freud
***********************************************************
Debussy Letters
to Robert Godet
31 October 1917
Tres cher,
...Don't be upset if I haven't mentioned my plans
for some time. . . Music's completely abandoned
me. Even if it's not a cause for tears, it's a trifle
ridiculous, at least. But there's nothing I can do about
it, and I've never forced anyone to like me. If music thinks
I'm treating her badly, then she can go elsewhere: if
necessary I can give her some useful addresses if not
particularly sympathetic ones. The hard part if all of
this is to have to go on writing about it: that's certainly
the worst thing! Why haven't I the energy to write on
military matters? That's a good life at the moment. Look
at Bidou in the*Debats* and Laloy in *Excelsior*- you'd
think they were born wearing zoave's trousers. Seriously,
I think Bidou is marvelously clear at explaining the most
complex military situations- perhaps his skill as a drama
critic's more help to himthan one can imagine!
yours, but a little exhaustedly,
CD
*********************************************************
from Dream Time
Chapters in the Sixties
Geoffrey O'Brien
"They could not help observing that the war was still
going on. Every night the footage of smoke and rubble
and the recitation of body counts continued, while they
sat watching it in a world invulnerable to mortar fire.
The spectable numbed them. They had to keep reminding
themselves that the flat pictures- wedged between Alpo
commercials and summer reruns of *Hogan's Heroes*-
pertained to irreversible deaths. "I can't believe it's
still happening. They *have* to stop it pretty soon." Something
would change. Johnson's advisors, after watching the
protests from a balcony would take him aside. "Sir,
they're just not buying it anymore, I'm afraid we have
no choice but to pull out."
But the change was not coming fast enough. It would take more
than peace buttons and chanted slogans. The powerful
vibrations that had been unleashed in the march on the Pentagon
- a mustering of all the energy the underground had to
offer- were lost on an enemy insensitive to anything but
the grossest applications of force. For the pigs to get
the message, it would be necessary to hit them where
they lived. Commando teams were better suited than crowds
for such tactics. One morning the newspaper announced
that the induction center had been reduced to ashes by'
unknown arsonists. The counterescalation had begun..."
****************************************************************
