all in time

depth perception

today only!

human, all too human

[146]
The artist's sense of truth. Regarding truths, the artist has a weaker morality than the thinker. He definitely does not want to be deprived of the splendid and profound interpretations of life, and he resists sober, simple methods and results. Apparently he fights for the higher dignity and significance of mankind; in truth, he does not want to give up the most effective presumptions of his art: the fantastic, mythical, the uncertain and the extreme the sense for the symbolic, the overestimation of the person, the faith in some miraculous element in human genius.

[189]
Thoughts in a poem. The poet presents his thought festively, on the carriage of rhythm; usually because they could not walk.

[361]
The experience of Socrates. When one has become a master in some field one has usually, for that very reason, remained a complete amateur in most other things; but one judges just the other way around, as Socrates had already found out. This is what makes association with masters disagreeable.

[141]
Sign of Rank. All poets and writers who are in love with the superlative want more than they are capable of.

[129]
Readers of aphorisms. The worst readers of aphorisms are the author's friend if they are intent on guessing back from the general to the particular instance to which the aphorism owes its origin; for with such pot-peeking they reduce the author's whole effort to nothing; so that they deservedly gain, not a philosophic outlook or instruction, but - at best, or at worst, - nothing more than the satisfaction of vulgar curiosity.

Opening Paragraph of "On Truth and Lying in a Non-Moral Sense"

In some remote corner of the universe, flickering in the light of the countless solar systems into which it had been poured, there was once a planet on which clever animals invented cognition. It was the most arrogant and most mendacious minute in the 'history of the world'; but a minute was all it was. After nature had drawn just a few more breaths the planet froze and the clever animals had to die.

Someone could invent a fable like this and yet they would still not have given satisfactory illustration of just how pitiful, how insubstantial and transitory, how purposeless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature; there were eternities during which it did not exist; and when it has disappeared again, nothing will have happened. For this intellect has no further mission that might extend beyond the bounds of human life. Rather, the intellect is human, and only its own possessor and progenitor regards it with such pathos, as if it housed the axis around which the entire world revolved. But if we could communicate with a gnat we would hear that it too floats through the air with the very same pathos, feeling that it too contains within itself the flying centre of this world.

Short Story: Freeze! by Etgar Keret

Translated from Hebrew:

Suddenly I could do it. I’d say “Freeze!” and everyone would freeze, just like that, in the middle of the street. Cars, bikes, even those little motor scooters delivery guys use, they’d all stop in their tracks. And I’d walk past them till I found the prettiest girls. I’d tell them to drop their shopping bags or I’d take them off a bus, bring them home and fuck their brains out. It was great — it was really, really great. “Freeze!” “Come here!” “Lie down on the bed!” And after that, wham-bam. The girls I had were incredible, centerfold material. I felt fantastic. I felt like a king. Until my mother butted in.

She told me she didn’t completely approve. I told her there was nothing not to approve of. I tell the girls to come and they come. It’s not as if I rape them or anything. “God forbid,” my mother said. “It’s just that there’s something very impersonal about it. Unemotional. I don’t know how to explain it, but I have this gut feeling that you don’t really connect with them.” So I told my mother that she could keep her gut feelings to herself. She said something and I said something and she said something back and I said “Freeze!” and left her standing there in the middle of Reiness Street in the pouring rain. Since then, it hasn’t been the same. What she said suddenly bothered me, about my not connecting. I kept fucking the girls, but now I didn’t feel connected. Everything was ruined. At first I thought it was the sounds. So I’d say, “Make sounds.” And the girls would make all kinds of sounds: Mickey Mouse, jackhammers, political impersonations. It was a nightmare. I had to demonstrate the actual words I wanted them to say. “Aaaah, aaaah,” “That’s so good,” “Harder.” That kind of stuff. And they’d repeat them when we were fucking, but always in my intonation. “Oh, oh, please don’t stop. I’m coming,” they’d say, lying there on their backs with their eyes glazed. I could tell they were lying and it made me so mad I could’ve strangled them. “If you don’t mean it,” I yelled a few times, “don’t say it,” but I still couldn’t get it up. It was depressing — it was really, really depressing.

It took me a while before I realized what was fucking everything up. The trouble was, I kept on being too specific. So at some point, I figured that out and then I started giving them more general directions like, “Act like you’re really enjoying it,” and when the feeling they were faking it started to bother me, I’d just say, “Enjoy it.” It was terrific — it was really, really terrific. They’d scream. They’d dig their nails into my back. They’d say, “You’re the best.” Can you see what I’m describing? Models, air hostesses, weather girls — in my bed. Telling me I’m the best.

Except that then, knowing they were there just because I told them to be started to bug me. This feeling — this brain wave — hit me out of the blue. I was walking down Reiness Street, where it hits Gordon, and there was my mother, still standing there where I left her looking apologetic, and suddenly I got it: This wasn’t the real thing. It never would be. Because none of those girls really appreciated me. None of them wanted me for who I really am. And if they weren’t with me for who I was, then what was the point? From that moment on, I decided to stop and start hitting on girls the normal way. It sucked. It blew the big one. Girls I used to fuck standing up in the street, leaning on a mailbox, wouldn’t even give me their numbers. They’d tell me I had bad breath, or I wasn’t their type, or they had a boyfriend, or something. It was grim — it was really, really grim. But I wanted a genuine relationship so badly that even though the temptation to go back to fucking like I used to was enormous, I didn’t give in.

After three months of living hell, I saw that gorgeous girl from the cider ads walking right down Ibn Gvirol Street. I tried to make conversation. Then I tried to make her laugh. Then we walked past a florist, so I tried flowers — but she wouldn’t even turn around. When we got to Rabin Square, there was a little Mazda waiting for her with a male model at the wheel, the one from the potato chip ads. She was about to get into his car and drive away. I didn’t know what to do, and without even realizing what I was doing, I yelled “Freeze!” She stopped in her tracks. Everyone did. I looked around at all the people frozen there like that. I looked at her, and she was just as beautiful as she was on the commercials. I didn’t know what to do. On the one hand, I couldn’t, I just couldn’t let her go. On the other, if she was going to be with me, I wanted it to be for who I am — because of my inner self, not because I ordered her to. And that’s when I got it. The solution just came to me. Like an epiphany. I took her hand, I looked into her eyes and I said, “Love me for who I am, for who I truly am.” Then I took her back to my apartment and fucked her like a madman. She screamed and dug her nails into my back and said, “Do it to me, oh yes, do it to me.” And she loved me. No shit, this was the real thing. She loved me for who I am."

the wimp gobblers

we are insignificant