Television

The news of television, however, is what I particularly go for when I get a chance at the paper; for I believe television is going to be the test of the modern world, and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision we shall discover either a new and unbearable disturbance of the general peace or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by television - of that I am quite sure. 


E.B. White - 'Removal', Harper's Magazine, July 1938

nostro oroscopo di oggi - Bilancia

Siete in forma perfetta e se occorre forza pura che riporta le parole al silenzio. Sapete aspettare. Contemplare e stupire con la potenza di una domanda. Recondite armonie di bellezza e verità. Più luminose, più chiare del cristallo. Venere bellissima vi rende seducenti e sulla soglia di un nuovo amore.

...

You are in the state you most prefer, and if it happens you need pure strength, the words will come back to you in the silence. Know to wait. Contemplate and be amazed with the potency of a question. The innermost harmonies of beauty and truth. More luminous, clearer than crystal. The beautiful Venus renders you enticing, seductive and on the edge of a new love.

Thus Spake Dionysus

"It's the same thing watching anybody doing something they're really good at, like watching a symphony, or watching porn. They do it all the time; they're really good at it. I may never make the Ducale lasagna with the fifty layers and the meatballs in the one and the quail egg in the other, but just knowing that it exists makes me happy, and knowing that somebody can make it and do the Mexican cartwheel on the porn channel makes me really excited about the future of both porn and food. "

Mario Batali - 'Batali Beat'

Lucky Peach 3, 2012

prajñā

Coming back after seven months in Indian villages, I saw the craziness of the Western world, as well as its capacity for rational thought. If you just sit and observe, you will see how restless your mind is. If you try to calm it, it only makes it worse, but over time it does calm, and when it does, there's room to hear more subtle things - that's when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your mind just slows down, and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much more than you could see before. It's a discipline; you have to practice it.

- Steve Jobs

Walter Isaacson - 'Atari and India' Steve Jobs, 2011

Occupy Something Better

"My generation and the boomers who followed have lived like reckless royalty and thoughtlessly partied like there's no tomorrow. We forgot the lessons taught to us by our parents and grandparents who came through the Great Depression: live within your means and save some for tomorrow; satisfy your needs and not your wants; help your neighbours; share and don't be greedy; money doesn't make you a better or more important person. Well, the party's over. It's time to clean up our mess and think about our children and grandchildren."

David Suzuki

the uplift

the earth is all before us
a beautiful life sticks to us
diaphanous mist

last tour

no!
don't leave my body on the shore!
i've never wanted to inhabit it more!
enjoy it
nurture it
un-poison it
join it
root it
sharpen it
knit it together at the mouth of another
sailor with cold limbs in need of ease
good food
warm bed
sleep
and a view

beyond!
again!
no!
i want to live my own imagination
not cede it to dead men's
while my body suffers
emptied
abandoned
torn away
again obliged to open water
while an unwilling heart
rages to keep intact

my home is a sliver on the horizon
i am there! i am there!
meet me there! meet me there!
weighted down with spoils
to adorn the promised land
and revel around a true centre
join our bodies
to finally stay
grafted
alight
whole
grown

same actions expecting different results

A Klee painting named ‘Angelus Novus’ shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such a violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.

Walter Benjamin - "Theses on the Philosophy of History"

the world

slowly reconciles itself to the rightest possible way.

sidewalk vs le tree massif

once, thinking himself clever, a smug sidewalk bullied its way over a tree's roots.

'deaf dog, dirty manger,' thought the tree.

the tree stretched and whispered to the sidewalk, 'i will out-wait you.'

the leaves of the next tree over got wind of the plot chiming, 'vive le revolution!'
and grew onward.

the wind shook his head and laughed at the fat, happy sidewalk, facedown wallowing in the mud, and zephyred west.

in all forms

art is fundamentally pleasure-chasing. this is how it moves forward and evolves - our tastes change, often randomly, as we desire and pursue the most beautiful.

q: what do you want to be when you grow up?

a: an oracle

hot red porsches & acqua di parma

the


slowest


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ttttttttttttttttttttteeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaassssssssssssssseeeeeeee


in



the




whole






world.






(amendment: rationale: either everything is connected, or nothing, or some things are and then aren't, respectively. as per conjure or coincidence, observe and choose which way you like it the most; it's all just preference in the end, really, as far as adventure goes.)