“There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed.”
- Buddha

Critic:

You’ve made the right choice.
Believe me, today is a good day for you.
These are tough decisions, I know.
But we intellectuals, and I say “we” because I consider you as such,
must remain lucid to the bitter end.
This life is so full of confusion already,
that there’s no need to add chaos.
Losing money is part of a producer’s job.
I congratulate you.
You had no choice.
And he got what he deserved for having joined
such a frivolous venture so lightheartedly.
Believe me, no need for remorse.
Destroying is better than creating,
when we’re not creating those few, truly necessary things.
But then is there anything so clear and right
that it deserves to live in this world?
For him, the wrong movie is only a financial matter.
But for you, at this point, it could have been the end.
Better to quit and strew the ground with salt,
as the ancients did, to purify the battlefields.
In the end what we really need is-
some hygiene, some cleanliness, disinfection.
We’re smothered by images, words and sounds
that have no right to exist, coming from, and bound for, nothingness.
Of any artist truly worth the name we should ask nothing
except this act of faith: to learn silence.
Do you remember Mallarmé’s homage to the white page?
And Rimbaud, a poet, my friend, not a movie director.
What was his finest poetry?
His refusal to continue writing and his departure for Africa.
If we can’t have everything, true perfection is nothingness.
Forgive me for quoting all the time.
But we critics – do what we can.
Our true mission is -
sweeping away the thousands of miscarriages that everyday -
obscenely – try to come to the light.
And you would actually dare leave behind you a whole film,
like a cripple who leaves behind his crooked footprint.
Such a monstrous presumption to think
that others could benefit from the squalid catalogue of your mistakes!
And how do you benefit from stringing together
the tattered pieces of your life?
Your vague memories, the faces of people
that you were never able to love.

Guido:

What is this sudden happiness that makes me tremble,
gives me strength, life?
Forgive me, sweet creatures.
I hadn’t understood.  I didn’t know.
It’s so natural accepting you, loving you.
And so simple.
Luisa, I feel I’ve been freed.
Everything seems so good, so meaningful.
Everything is so true.
I wish I could explain.
But I don’t know how to.
So. Everything is confused again, as it was before.
But this confusion is – me.
Not as I’d like to be, but as I am.
I’m not afraid anymore of telling the truth,
of the things I dont know, what I’m looking for and haven’t found.
This is the only way I can feel alive and
I can look into your faithful eyes without shame.
Life is a celebration.
Let’s live it together!
This is all I can say Luisa, to you or the others.
Accept me for what I am, if you want me.
It’s the only way we might be able to find each other.

- 8 1/2 IDEATO E DIRETTO DA FEDERICO FELLINI

Pressed rat and warthog have closed down their shop.
They didnt want to; twas all they had got.
Selling atonal apples, amplified heat,
And pressed rats collection of dog legs and feet.

Sadly they left, telling no one goodbye.
Pressed rat wore red jodhpurs, warthog a striped tie.
Between them, they carried a three-legged sack,
Went straight round the corner and never came back.

Pressed rat and warthog have closed down their shop.
The bad captain madman had told them to stop
Selling atonal apples, amplified heat,
And pressed rats collection of dog legs and feet.

The bad captain madman had ordered their fate.
He laughed and stomped off with a nautical gate.
The gate turned into a deroga tree
And his pegleg got woodworm and broke into three.

Pressed rat and warthog have closed down their shop.
They didnt want to; twas all they had got.
Selling atonal apples, amplified heat,
And pressed rats collection of dog legs and feet.

- written by Ginger Baker and Mike Taylor

something broke that day
unjustified temperament
maximal advantage
minimal benefaction

all changes
beginning in time
lost by the meander
forward in hewn subjects

false patterns
grotesque mask
in pleasure, blindness ensues
cloven dance

I lied there at Mapledurham for days
water flowing over me
the wheat and laughter of youth unseen
a cold wind season of time
lord of all

I was angry with my friend:
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I water’d it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears;
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright;
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine,

And into my garden stole
When the night had veil’d the pole:
In the morning glad I see
My foe outstretch’d beneath the tree.

- William Blake 1794

I found this written on a half sheet of notebook paper in a local alley:

…and as the cascading folds of extensive meme-connectors sheer and fall upon the crests of superficial ego-structures, the underlying none-ness is slowly revealed to the non-existent exterior body.  It is then realized that there is no body, the notion of illusions is found to be in itself a meta-illusion, recursively parenthesised infinitely.  Upon shedding waste, a decrease in overall substitution is gained throughout all related subjects – but only if the subject-object surface is penetrated by itself, thus ceasing any separation.

This has seen it to be so.

Whereas, It has become necessary to call into service, not only volunteers, but also portions of the militia of the States by draft, in order to suppress the insurrection existing in the United States, and disloyal persons are not adequately restrained by the ordinary processes of law from hindering this measure, and from giving aid and comfort in various ways to the insurrection. Now, therefore, be it ordered, that during the existing insurrection, and as a necessary measure for suppressing the same, all rebels and insurgents, their aiders and abettors within the United States, and all persons discouraging volunteer enlistments, resisting militia drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice affording aid and comfort to the rebels against the authority of the United States, shall be subject to martial law, and liable to trial and punishment by courts-martial or military commission.

Second: That the writ of habeas corpus is suspended in respect to all persons arrested, or who are now, or hereafter during the rebellion shall be, imprisoned in any fort, camp, arsenal, military prisons, or other place of confinement, by any military authority, or by the sentence of any court-martial or military commission.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this Twenty-fourth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By the President.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

“Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth): Make the growth choice a dozen times a day.” – Abraham Maslow