Consumerism & science: a popular religion & a
priestly one. Technology is where they intersect,
& increasingly that which justifies them both; art
exists only on the sufferance of its consumerist
uses.

Fable. Everyone has a cough. The old wizard listens
as they all shuffle past. He pronounces the fate of
each according to the quality of the sound.

"In diesem Amethyst
sind die Zeitalter der Nacht gelagert" --Nelly Sachs
('The ages of night/ are embedded in this amethyst')

"...suffering is the tension between what is and what is
not." --The Jungian Senoi dreamwork Manual

"Intellectus noster non tangit terminum eius." --Albertus
Magnus

The Insomnia of Reason is what produces Monsters.

"It seems as if heaven had sent its insane angels into our
world as to an asylum, and here they will break out in
their native music and utter at intervals the words they
have heard in heaven; then the mad fit returns and they mope
and wallow like dogs." --Emerson

A joke told by Mikhail Gorbachev: "They say that Mitterrand
has 100 lovers. One of them has AIDS, but he doesn't know
which one. Bush has 100 bodyguards. One is a terrorist, but
he doesn't know which one. Gorbachev has 100 economic
advisors. One is smart, but he doesn't know which one.
(quoted in 12.10.90 Time magazine)

"Sakyamuni, Confucius, and Laotse once stood before a
jar of vinegar--the emblem of life--and each dipped in his
fingers to taste the brew. The matter-of-fact Confucius
found it sour, the Buddha called it bitter, and Laotse
pronounced it sweet." --The Book of Tea

The selling of paintings is still as mysterious to me
as if there should exist a traffic in fairy toadstools.

Rewriting a poem is like patching a meteorite with
concrete. (Sometimes, however, years or months later,
another chunk from the same swarm falls into its
ordained place!)

"Snake slander is everywhere." --Bly

Toward midnight i heard about ten gunshots (more than
one kind) & called the police. An hour later some sort
of siren came around... The next night i slept soundly.