...submersed in a static sublime

theparisreview: “Like any literary tourist, I am searching for...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:34:40 -0700

“Like any literary tourist, I am searching for traces of something. Do buildings absorb traces of their former inhabitants? Can yesterday’s private joys and pains retire—like stale nicotine—into the walls?”

A literary tour of Elizabeth Bishop in Manhattan.

theatlantic: In Focus: Protests Spread Across Brazil Starting...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:39:04 -0700

theatlantic:

In Focus: Protests Spread Across Brazil

Starting late last week, with several small protests denouncing a hike in public transport fares, demonstrations flared up yesterday, encompassing larger public anger at poor public services, police violence and government corruption. More than 200,000 took to the streets of Brazil’s biggest cities yesterday, voicing frustration with the billions of dollars set aside for upcoming sports events like the World Cup and the 2014 Olympics, despite crushing levels of poverty in some places, and underfunded public education, health, security and transportation. Though the majority of the protests were peaceful, a few violent demonstrations were broken up by police in Rio de Janeiro.

See more. [Images: AP, Reuters, Getty]

"The deluge nonviolent undertow watch your slacks the stain glassed windows won’t come down the..."

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:43:20 -0700

“The deluge nonviolent undertow watch your slacks the stain glassed windows won’t come down the monument the ass is fracked like a melancholy haberdasher he ran out of quilts the clapboard was a balanced bear of squires without a smile in all of Jamaica the coffee upon bitter mamals of youth culture undesired yet quite insane”

- Charles Scott’s Palimpsest: Deluge

thevonnegutreview: “Every passing hour brings the Solar System...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:47:41 -0700

thevonnegutreview:

“Every passing hour brings the Solar System forty three thousand miles closer to Globular Cluster M13 in Hercules — and still there are some misfits who insist that there is no such thing as progress.”

- Kurt Vonnegut, The SIrens of Titan, 1959

Visit The Vonnegut Review for our second review of the summer, on Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titan.

Keep up with The Vonnegut Review by reading Mother Night, Vonnegut’s third novel.

"Being an “atheist” is not a simple matter. When Derrida says that there are “theological prejudices”..."

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:51:45 -0700

“Being an “atheist” is not a simple matter. When Derrida says that there are “theological prejudices” imbedded in “metaphysics in its entirety, even when it professes to be atheistic”, he means that when metaphysics poses as the supreme authority that pronounces “there is no God,” it simply reenacts the role of God. It leaves the “center” standing and reoccupies it with other metaphysical pretenders to the throne: Man, History, Science, Reason, any version of Žižek’s “Big Other.” That is nothing more than a palace coup that leaves the palace system standing. Such atheism, which a lot of us would call “modernist,” Watkin says, “imitates” theism and is “parasitic” on the very framework it purports to negate. Atheism, he argues, is “difficult,” a difficulty Nietzsche proposed to meet when he said “God is dead,” where “God” meant not just the Deity but the whole system of “values,” of “truth” and the “good,” from Plato to the present, every attempt to establish a center, a foundation of knowledge and morals, including modern physics, which is also an “interpretation.” Watkin thinks this atheism is exposed to a “difficulty” of its own, which he calls its “ascetic” approach, because it calls upon us to make do with the resulting debris or “residue” of lost foundations (the “death of God”), to live with finitude and imperfection, giving up on a satisfying transcendence and putting up with an unsatisfying immanence … It does not really annul the place of God but merely leaves it empty … like Camus’ “absurd man” shaking his fist at the void. This is an atheism that regrets that it is right.”

- John Caputo, reviewing Christopher Watkin’s new book, Difficult Atheism (via existenti-al)

"Human beings are unhappily part of nature, perhaps nature became conscious of itself … I love..."

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:56:15 -0700

“Human beings are unhappily part of nature, perhaps nature became conscious of itself … I love Nietzsche, who called man ‘the sick animal.’”

- James Wright (The Art of Poetry No. 19)

"I always end by falsifying and fictionalizing—I’m a liar, in fact. That means I’m a novelist, after..."

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:28:16 -0700

“I always end by falsifying and fictionalizing—I’m a liar, in fact. That means I’m a novelist, after all. I write about what I know.”

- Alberto Moravia, The Art of Fiction No. 6 (The Paris Review, Summer 1954)

"We continue to perform the gestures demanded by existence for many reasons, the first of which is..."

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 14:09:05 -0700

“We continue to perform the gestures demanded by existence for many reasons, the first of which is habit.”

- Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus” (via not-a-socialist)

thevonnegutreview: The Sirens of Titan as a postmodern...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 13:17:24 -0700

thevonnegutreview:

The Sirens of Titan as a postmodern retelling of Homer’s Odyssey:

“The Sirens threat is that of never returning home. Vonnegut’s counter is that home is with the Sirens, in a state of harmony, beauty, and love. The human, Vonnegut suggests, must find meaning outside from history and inside the existential self.”

From Wilson’s review of The Sirens of Titan.

"There is always something, a remnant, which will never come out from your brain, but will remain..."

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:25:53 -0700

“There is always something, a remnant, which will never come out from your brain, but will remain there with you, and you alone, for ever and ever, and you will die, perhaps, without having imparted what may be the very essence of your idea to a single living soul.”

- The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (via normalhumanparanoia)

bozobooks: Pretty awesome bookshelf…

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 11:34:44 -0700

bozobooks:

Pretty awesome bookshelf…

"The books that help you most are those which make you think the most. The hardest way of learning is..."

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:43:14 -0700

““The books that help you most are those which make you think the most. The hardest way of learning is that of easy reading; but a great book that comes from a great thinker is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth and beauty.””

- Pablo Neruda (via light-essence)

"Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world."

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 09:51:44 -0700

“Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.”

- Miyamoto Musashi (via light-essence)

eaeolian: all the punished women conceal their grief with reluctant smiles as they pass, the salt...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 16:17:58 -0700

eaeolian:

all the punished women

conceal their grief with reluctant smiles as they pass, the salt and pepper to familiar hands, known to make impetuous demands.

Pew Research Center: Fact Tank: 5 Facts About Fathers

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 13:17:17 -0700

Pew Research Center: Fact Tank: 5 Facts About Fathers:

pewresearch:

Happy Father’s Day! From the Fact Tank, 5 Fast Facts about Fathers:

Last year there were about 189,000 stay-at-home dads in the U.S., caring for an estimated 369,000 children.

Fathers have nearly tripled the amount of time they spend with their children, from 2.5 hours in 1965 to 7.3…

ONLY A DAD By Edgar Albert Guest Only a dad, with a tired...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 12:25:46 -0700

ONLY A DAD

By Edgar Albert Guest

Only a dad, with a tired face,
Coming home from the daily race,
Bringing little of gold or fame,
To show how well he has played the game,
But glad in his heart that his own rejoice
To see him come, and to hear his voice.

Only a dad, with a brood of four,
One of ten million men or more.
Plodding along in the daily strife,
Bearing the whips and the scorns of life,
With never a whimper of pain or hate,
For the sake of those who at home await.

Only a dad, neither rich nor proud,
Merely one of the surging crowd
Toiling, striving from day to day,
Facing whatever may come his way,
Silent, whenever the harsh condemn,
And bearing it all for the love of them.

Only a dad, but he gives his all
To smooth the way for his children small,
Doing, with courage stern and grim,
The deeds that his father did for him.
This is the line that for him I pen,
Only a dad, but the best of men.

"In a separation it is the one who is not really in love who says the more tender things."

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 11:34:43 -0700

“In a separation it is the one who is not really in love who says the more tender things.”

- Marcel Proust (via bloodbonesvoice)

"The angel of history is flown now meet the janitor down in the basement, who shirtless, smoking has..."

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 10:43:10 -0700

“The angel
of history is
flown
now meet the janitor
down
in the basement, who
shirtless, smoking
has the job of stoking
the so-called past
into the so-called present”

- Benjamin Revisited, Adrienne Rich (via newfragileyellows)

leames1701: Background and Discussion This is pretty badass, so...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 09:51:42 -0700

leames1701:

Background and Discussion

This is pretty badass, so listen.

“[Art] means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage.”
- Adrienne Rich

"A thinking woman sleeps with monsters."

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 14:08:50 -0700

““A thinking woman sleeps with monsters.””

- Adrienne Rich, from “Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law” (via odettecarotte)