2 September (1916): Willa Cather to Dorothy Canfield Fisher
It’s blooming full-blooded ignorance that makes the bright show, after all. And, my dear, whether it’s a wheat-thrashing or an opera, it’s the Bright Show that I love.
29 August (1967): Graham Greene to Christopher Sykes
He said, ‘He had no right to bring his mistress to Carol Reed’s house for dinner.’ I said, ‘But I had my mistress with me.’ Evelyn’s reply was, ‘That is quite different. She is a married woman.’
28 August (1926): Rebecca West to John Gunther
It isn’t, as my family has always conspired to make me believe and as H. G. in his sadism loved to tell me, that I am a neurotic who cannot stand up to life, but that I am healthy and I have been preyed on by neurotics till they have bled me nearly white. So there we are. I feel better, but accursedly alone.
27 August (1962): Ted Hughes to Vicky Watling
Marriage, of course, is a bloody monster, but it eats up many little snakes.
Tough BeautyFrom the Print
They’re covered in their secret sitting and being calmly dark featured, and their history is a thing blood kept, but in their historical minds nothing but landscapes or bloodbaths, how can I know?
26 August (1912): Wallace Stevens to Elsie Viola Kachel
Walking through the dark, to a strange place, with that mystical lantern in the trees, I could hear the early bells, calling for vesper-services. All day long, I had been reading scrawls on rocks in red paint: “Jesus Saves”; “Prepare to meet thy God”….All told, you see, it was a devil of a solemn hour.
25 August (1819): Lord Byron to Teresa Guiccioli
…I feel I exist here, and I feel I shall exist hereafter,—to what purpose you will decide; my destiny rests with you…
What Will Happen to Kim Kardashian in the Revolution?
Guy Debord tells us the spectacle is what our modern economy looks like: it is what we have produced, and what we consume, congealed into an image. “The spectacle is capital to such a degree of accumulation that it becomes an image.” In an earlier piece, I suggested that the capital accumulated in the images of Ferguson is our squandered defense budget, expressed on suburb streets and pointed at our own citizens.
It all makes more sense if you don’t distinguish between E! and CNN, between Kim Kardashian and Rosemary Church. The TV is just trying to entertain you, to give you what you want to see so you’ll keep buying. That is, you who it thinks it knows but no longer does…
The Prince Returns: In Defense of Lawrence Durrell
And now, in 2014, Durrell has failed to be appreciated in any substantial way by modern audiences. In fact, the opposite is true: he is positively derided in most serious literary circles nowadays, and his books are rarely studied in universities. His novels are said to be antiquated and selfish, indulgent and over-written. His prose, once thought to be incisive and muscular, is now judged as florid and confusing…
22 August (1944): Allen Ginsberg to Jack Kerouac
I’ve been escorting la belle dame sans mercip [Edie Parker] around all morning — first to Louise’s, now to jail. I haven’t a permit, so I won’t visit you.