"Aside of the Torturer"

theres no need now for secrecy he says
everyone thinks as i do

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"There is nothing you can show on your face that can match the horror of this time. Do not even try. You will only hold yourself up to the scorn of those who have felt things deeply." --Leonard Cohen, Death of a Lady's Man (1978)

'I admire tinsel as much as gold: indeed, the poetry of tinsel is even greater, because it is sadder.' --letters of Flaubert

My one-minute antidote to binary thinking: else also. Whenever you think you have exhausted the alternatives, say to yourself: "There must be something else, also."... 'Each being cries in silence to be read otherwise. Not to be deaf to these cries.' --notebooks of Simone Weil

Five good things about America: its highway system, its postal system, the openness of its society, the Great Western Desert, & its musical heritage.
Four bad things about America: its prison system, its regressive taxation, its militarism, & television.
Things that are both good & bad about America: its movies, its rowdiness, its artists, & the American language.