Below are two passages from two great books. Random but precise, unrelated but ageless.


Nabakov's Laughter In The Dark:

'Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Alibinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; he was not loved; and his life ended in disaster.
This is the whole of the story and we might have left it at that had there not been profit and pleasure in the telling; and although there is plenty of space on a gravestone to contain, bound in moss, the abridged version of a man's life, detail is always welcome.'


Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness:

' "...they were no colonists; their administration was merely a squeeze, and nothing more, I suspect. They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force--nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others. They grabbed what they could get for the sake of what was to be got. It was just robbery with violence, aggravated murder on a great scale, and men going at it blind--as is very proper for those who tackle a darkness. The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much. What redeems it is the idea only. An idea at the back of it; not a sentimental pretence but an idea; and an unselfish belief in the idea--something you can set up, and bow down before, and offer a sacrifce to...." '

Hmmm....America's foriegn policy anyone?


xero blogged on 4/29/2005 01:13:00 PM


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displaced in this era, erased from this picture, Fractured leg, limp, limp, thump the twisted mangled foot on the dying ground, the cracked residue of what is inside, of what is bleeding on the outside, the gurgling screams of failure, the twisted lines of reality. Blame me sister for the calloused stride I ride, for my eyes only see my feet and the equations drawn on yours, recursive, submissive contigency.

Echo on, Echo off....

Fleece, oh my god! absorb the sweating embarresement of my thoughts.......love, ricochet....ricochet.


xero blogged on 4/28/2005 12:29:00 AM


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