Friday 29 April 2011

Absolutely Worthless

I don't give a damn anymore – 
I've only wound up betrayed. 
It's all been absolutely worthless – 
all the efforts I've made 
to be gentle and kind 
are repaid with contempt, 
degraded by sympathy 
and worthless kindness 
and love that isn't meant. 
I'm through with joy and company, 
I've done with pretty words, 
betrayed – there's no hiding-place 
anywhere in the world.
 — Peter Hammill 'Betrayed'

Stern und Dang!

Thursday 28 April 2011

Somewhere

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where — " said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
" — so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
 — Lewis Carroll 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'

The Cheshire Cat In The Moon

Unwanted: Dead or Alive

no future
no home
 — Peter Hammill 'This Side Of The Looking-Glass'

Tuesday 26 April 2011

The Fish Of The Imagination

As I see it, life is an effort to grip,
before they slip through one's fingers and slide into oblivion,
the startling, the ghastly
or the blindingly exquisite fish of the imagination
before they whip away on the endless current
and are lost for ever in oblivion's black ocean.
— Mervyn Peake

New Enfranchised Noises

We are all imprisoned by the dictionary. We choose out of that vast, paper-walled prison our convicts, the little black printed words, when in truth we need fresh sounds to utter, new enfranchised noises which would produce a new effect.
— Mervyn Peake 'Titus Groan'

The Thrusting Of Senses

Each day I live in a glass room
unless I break it with the thrusting of my senses
and pass through the splintered walls to the great landscape.
 — Mervyn Peake

Sunday 24 April 2011

The Germanic Goddess 'Easter'

Old English Ēostre (also Ēastre) and Old High German Ôstarâ are the names of a putative Germanic goddess whose Anglo-Saxon month, Ēostur-monath (Old English "Ēostre month"), has given its name to the festival of Easter.

Friday 22 April 2011

Always Look On The Bright Side Of Death

Passover

This is a crisis I knew had to come,
Destroying the balance I'd kept.
Doubting, unsettling and turning around,
Wondering what will come next.
Is this the role that you wanted to live?
I was foolish to ask for so much.
Without the protection and infancy's guard,
It all falls apart at first touch.

Watching the reel as it comes to a close,
Brutally taking its time,
People who change for no reason at all,
It's happening all of the time.
Can I go on with this train of events?
Disturbing and purging my mind,
Back out of my duties, when all's said and done,
I know that I'll lose every time.

Moving along in our God given ways,
Safety is sat by the fire,
Sanctuary from these feverish smiles,
Left with a mark on the door,
Is this the gift that I wanted to give?
Forgive and forget's what they teach,
Or pass through the deserts and wastelands once more,
And watch as they drop by the beach.

This is the crisis I knew had to come,
Destroying the balance I'd kept,
Turning around to the next set of lives,
Wondering what will come next.

 — Ian Curtis 'Passover'


See No Mediæval

Hear No Mediæval

Wednesday 20 April 2011

A Matter Of Perception

George Berkeley is important in philosophy through his denial of the existence of matter…He maintained that material objects only exist through being perceived.
 — Bertrand Russell 'The History Of Western Philosophy'

Putting The Negation In Negotiation

[For Spinoza] finite things are defined by their boundaries, physical or logical, that is to say, by what they are not: ‘all determination is negation’.
 — Bertrand Russell 'The History Of Western Philosophy'

Know Your Own Mind

There is thus, in all philosophy derived from Descartes, a tendency to subjectivism, and to regarding matter as something only knowable, if at all, by inference from what is known of mind.
 — Bertrand Russell 'The History Of Western Philosophy'

Without

Hobbes, as might be expected, is an out-and-out nominalist. There is, he says, nothing universal but names, and without words we could not conceive any general ideas. Without language, there would be no truth or falsehood, for ‘true’ and ‘false’ are attributes of speech.
 — Bertrand Russell 'The History Of Western Philosophy'

Monday 18 April 2011

Past-In-Present

the past lingers with me
 — Peter Hammill 'This Side Of The Looking-Glass'

Oxymoronic Anagram


Sunday 17 April 2011

I Only Sing The Tunes

I cannot give the reasons,
I only sing the tunes:
the sadness of the seasons
the madness of the moons.

I cannot be didactic
or lucid, but I can
be quite obscure and practic-
ally marzipan

In gorgery and gushness
and all that's squishified.
My voice has all the lushness
of what I can't abide

And yet it has a beauty
most proud and terrible
denied to those whose duty
is to be cerebral.

Among the antlered mountains
I make my viscous way
and watch the sepia fountains
throw up their lime-green spray.

 — Mervyn Peake 'I Cannot Give The Reasons'

Wednesday 13 April 2011

Life Kills

the life is false, it's killing me…
 — Peter Hammill 'Modern'

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Got To

Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, 'Why, why, why?' 
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land; 
Man got to tell himself he understand.
 — Kurt Vonnegut 'Cat's Cradle'


The Trap Is Set — The Tree Can Now Only Wait

Monday 11 April 2011

Trijocularity

The Law Of Inverse Relevance

The less you intend to do about something,
the more you have to keep talking about it.
 — Sir Arnold Robinson

Is There Anybody In There?

Meanwhile, back at the PFJ HQ…
Reg: Right, now, eh. item four: attainment of world supremacy within the next five years. Eh, Francis, you've been doing some work on this.
Francis: Yeah, thank you, Reg. Well, quite frankly, siblings, I think five years is optimistic, unless we can smash the Roman empire within the next twelve months.
Reg: Twelve months?
Francis: Yeah. Twelve months. And let's face it... as empires go, this is the big one, so we've got to get up of our arses, and stop just talking about it.
PFJ: Hear Hear!!!
Loretta: I agree. It's action that counts, not words, and we need action now.
PFJ: Hear Hear!!!
Reg: You're right. We could sit around here all day talking, passing resolution, making clever speeches, it's not going to shift one Roman soldier.
Francis: So let's just stop gabbing on about it, it's completely pointless, and it's getting us nowhere.
PFJ: Right.
Loretta: I agree. This is a complete waste of time.
Judith runs in, panic-stricken.
Judith: They've arrested Brian!!
PFJ: What?
Judith: They've dragged him off. They're going to crucify him.
Reg: Right. This calls for immediate discussion.
Judith: What?!?
Rebel1: Immediate.
Rebel2: Right.
Loretta: new motion. Eh, That, ah. That there be, ah, immediate action,
Francis: ... ah, once the vote has been taken.
Reg: Well, obviously once the vote has been taken, you can't act on a resolution 'till you've voted on it.
Judith: Reg, for God's sake, let's go now, please!
Reg: Yeah, yeah. Right, right. In the, in the ligh of fresh information from ah, sibling Judith.
Loretta [Who's taking notes]: Ah, not so fast, Reg.
Judith: Reg, For God's sake. It's perfectly simple. All you've got to do is to go out of that door now, and try to stop the Romans nailing him up. It's happening, Reg. Something's actually happening, Reg. Can't you understand? Aaawoooooo!!!!!
She rushes out in a rage.
Francis: Ooh. Ooh dear.
Reg: Hello... and a litle ego-trip for the feminists.
Loretta: What?
Reg: Ah, oh, sorry, Loretta. Aah. Aah, read that back, would you?

Sunday 10 April 2011

Ignorance, Stupidity, And Nothing Else

It is often said that a disproportionate obsession with purely academic or abstract matters indicates a retreat from the problems of real life. However, most of the people engaged in such matters say that this attitude is based on three things: ignorance, stupidity, and nothing else.
 — Douglas Adams 'The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy'

Mediocracy

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
 — Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (Adagia III, IV, 96)

Saturday 9 April 2011

Resignation

Dr Cartwright: "I shall rise no further."
Jim Hacker: "Why?"
Dr Cartwright; "Alas, I'm an expert."

Friday 8 April 2011

But you stand there so nice, in your blizzard of ice,
oh please let me come into the storm.

Wednesday 6 April 2011

When

Nothing left to do
when you know that you've been taken.
Nothing left to do
when you're begging for a crumb
Nothing left to do
when you've got to go on waiting
waiting for the miracle to come.

When you've fallen on the highway
and you're lying in the rain,
and they ask you how you're doing
of course you'll say you can't complain --
If you're squeezed for information,
that's when you've got to play it dumb:
You just say you're out there waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.
 — Leonard Cohen 'Waiting For The Miracle'

Passenging

Oh the passenger
He rides and he rides
He sees things from under glass
He looks through his window side
 — Iggy Pop 'The Passenger'

Tuesday 5 April 2011

Feels Unfair

Here I go 
out to see again
The sunshine fills my hair
And dreams hang in the air
Gulls in the sky 

and in my blue eyes
You know it feels unfair
There's magic everywhere

 — Black 'Wonderful Life'

Doing Your Duty

And I thank you,
I thank you
for doing your duty,
you keepers of truth,
you guardians of beauty.
Your vision is right,
my vision is wrong,
I'm sorry for smudging
the air with my song.
 — Leonard Cohen 'A Singer Must Die'

Monday 4 April 2011

Doing

Do you like what you’re doing?
Would you do it some more?
Or will you stop once and wonder
What you’re doing it for?

Do you hope to find new ways
Of quenching your thirst?
Do you hope to find new ways of doing
Better than your worst?
 — Nick Drake 'Hazy Jane I'

Sunday 3 April 2011

Suspension Of Disbelief

It is the mark of an educated mind
to be able to entertain a thought
without accepting it.
 — Aristotle

Friday 1 April 2011

The 38th ISFC Organising Committee

Estupidez

It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful.
 — Anton LaVey

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe.
 — Albert Einstein

The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
  — Anonymous (often attributed to Albert Einstein)

The only way to comprehend what mathematicians mean by Infinity is to contemplate the extent of human stupidity.
 — Voltaire

Stupidity has a knack of getting its way.
 — Albert Camus

Just think of how stupid the average person is, and then realise half of them are even stupider!
 — George Carlin

The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
 — Harlan Ellison

O Lunatics Tomou O Controle Do Asilo

Wee, Sleekit, Cowrin, Tim'rous Anagram