A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty

"A Chinaman of the T'ang Dynasty—and, by which definition, a philosopher—dreamed he was a butterfly, and from that moment he was never quite sure that he was not a butterfly dreaming it was a Chinese philosopher. Envy him; in his two-fold security."

~~ from Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard

his symptoms

GUILDENSTERN: We got his symptoms, didn't we?

ROSENCRANTZ: Half of what he said meant something else, and the other half didn't mean anything at all.

GUILDENSTERN: Thwarted ambition—a sense of grievance, that's my diagnosis.

~~ from Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard

The Day of Atonement

"Yom Kippur. The Day of Atonement. Should we fast? The question was hotly debated. To fast could mean a more certain, more rapid death. In this place, we were always fasting. It was Yom Kippur year-round. But there were those who said we should fast, precisely because it was dangerous to do so. We needed to show God that even here, locked in hell, we were capable of singing his praises.

"I did not fast. First of all, to please my father who had forbidden me to do so. And then, there was no longer any reason for me to fast. I no longer accepted God's silence. As I swallowed my ration of soup, I turned that act into a symbol of rebellion, of protest against him."

~~ from Night by Elie Wiesel

Save Chinatown

 

W.D. Clarke

 

W.D. Clarke's White Mythology and She Sang to Them, She Sang are published by Rick Harsch's Corona\Samizdat Press.

election long-form

On the impending election, among other articles, tweets, and asides, I've read The New Yorker's "Can Harris Stop Blue-Collar Workers from Defecting to Donald Trump?" and Vanity Fair's James Pogue piece: "Steve Bannon Has Called his 'Army' to Do Battle—No Matter Who Wins in November."