Monday
Monday
“The idea that we’re the greatest people in the world because we have the most money in the world is ridiculous. Wait until this wave of prosperity is over! Wait ten or fifteen years! Wait until the next war on the Pacific, or against some European combination! … The next fifteen years will show how much resistance there is in the American race.”
“There has never been an American tragedy,” Fitzgerald ended. “There have only been great failures.”
—The Great Gatsby and the American dream [The Guardian]
Saturday
Scientific American Reference Book. A Manual for the Office, Household and Shop
Albert A. Hopkins, A. Russell Bond
The Editor of the Scientific American receives during the year thousands of inquiries from readers and correspondents covering a wide range of topics. The information sought for, in many cases, can not readily be found in any available reference or text-book. It has been decided, therefore, to prepare a work which shall be comprehensive in character and which shall contain a mass of information not readily procured elsewhere. The very wide range of topics covered in the Scientific American Reference Book may be inferred by examining the index and table of contents. This work has been made as nontechnical as the subjects treated of will admit, and is intended as a ready reference book for the home and the office.
(via sabrinacampagna: source)
Friday
Ever since he came to power — till then, like nearly everyone, I had been deceived into thinking that he did not matter — I have reflected that I would certainly kill him if I could get within reach of him, but that I could feel no personal animosity. The fact is that there is something deeply appealing about him. One feels it again when one sees his photographs — and I recommend especially the photograph at the beginning of Hurst and Blackett’s edition, which shows Hitler in his early Brownshirt days. It is a pathetic, dog-like face, the face of a man suffering under intolerable wrongs. In a rather more manly way it reproduces the expression of innumerable pictures of Christ crucified, and there is little doubt that that is how Hitler sees himself. The initial personal cause of his grievance against the universe can only be guessed at; but at any rate the grievance is there. He is the martyr, the victim. Prometheus chained to the rock, the self-sacrificing hero who fights single-handed against impossible odds. If he were killing a mouse he would know how to make it seem like a dragon. One feels, as with Napoleon, that he is fighting against destiny, that he can’t win, and yet that he somehow deserves to. The attraction of such a pose is of course enormous; half the films that one sees turn upon some such th —Orwell Reviews Mein Kampf
Tuesday
Reblogged from Reading Markson Reading Original: Reading Markson Reading
The last page of David Markson’s copy of A Ringing Glass: The Life of Rainer Maria Rilke by Donald Prater:
On which David Markson wrote:
“‘Rilke was a jerk.’
-John Berryman”—
On pg. 163 of Markson’s Reader’s Block, we find Berryman’s same sentiment:
“John Berryman:
Rilke was a jerk.”—
David Markson’s copy of A Ringing Glass: The Life of Rainer Maria Rilke by Donald Prater is owned by John Harrison. The above scan is used with his permission. Copyright © John Harrison.
Sunday
All existence makes me anxious, from the smallest fly to the mysteries of the Incarnation; the whole thing is inexplicable, I most of all; to me all existence is infected, I most of all. My distress is enormous, boundless; no one knows it except God in heaven, and he will not console me…. —Kierkegaard, Danish Doctor of Dread
Monday
Reblogged from Something Changed. Original: virginia's vivid nightmares
Virginia and Leonard announcing their engagement to Lytton Strachey 6th June 1912 via vwvw.
Thursday
![“The demand that I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole life to reading my works.”
[via millionsmillions]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyrt2uIAV71r6xvfko1_1280.jpg)
“The demand that I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole life to reading my works.”
[via millionsmillions]
Monday
![I started wearing bandannas in Tucson because it was a hundred degrees all the time. When it’s really hot, I would perspire so much that I would drip on the page. Actually, I started wearing it that year, and then it became a big help in Yaddo in ’87 because I would drip into the typewriter, and I was worried that I would get a shock. And then I discovered that I felt better with them on. And then I dated a woman who…said there were these various chakras, and one of the big ones was what she called the spout hole, at the very top of your cranium. And in a lot of cultures, it was considered better to keep your head covered. And then I began thinking about the phrase, Keeping your head together, you know? …. It’s a security blanket for me… . It makes me…feel kind of creepy that people view it as an affectation or trademark or something. It’s more just a foible, it’s the recognition of a weakness, which is that I’m just kind of worried my head’s going to explode.”
[Flavorwire]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lym9l1INRe1qcfxdfo1_1280.jpg)
I started wearing bandannas in Tucson because it was a hundred degrees all the time. When it’s really hot, I would perspire so much that I would drip on the page. Actually, I started wearing it that year, and then it became a big help in Yaddo in ’87 because I would drip into the typewriter, and I was worried that I would get a shock. And then I discovered that I felt better with them on. And then I dated a woman who…said there were these various chakras, and one of the big ones was what she called the spout hole, at the very top of your cranium. And in a lot of cultures, it was considered better to keep your head covered. And then I began thinking about the phrase, Keeping your head together, you know? …. It’s a security blanket for me… . It makes me…feel kind of creepy that people view it as an affectation or trademark or something. It’s more just a foible, it’s the recognition of a weakness, which is that I’m just kind of worried my head’s going to explode.”
Monday
There must be, in the writing of a cult writer, something that tends to the sacred and the secret. Something that makes you feel, as a reader, unique and chosen. It’s a religious category, which relates the book to one of its most controversial functions: to be the depository of the word of god, and writers his priests. —What makes a cult author?
