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I couldn’t sleep last night, so at about daybreak I went for a swim/pipe smoke. Canadian geese...

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 09:41:07 -0400

I couldn’t sleep last night, so at about daybreak I went for a swim/pipe smoke. Canadian geese flew over head. I had my long-awaited reunion with gray squirrels after having worked out west all summer. Who needs sleep?

Like all boys, they never walked anywhere, but named a goal and lit for it, scissors and elbows....

Sun, 12 Aug 2012 18:55:18 -0400

Like all boys, they never walked anywhere, but named a goal and lit for it, scissors and elbows. Nobody won. Nobody wanted to win. It was in their friendship they just wanted to run forever, shadow and shadow. Their hands slapped library door handles together, their tennis shoes beat parallel pony tracks over lawns, trimmed bushes, squirreled trees, no one losing, both winning, thus saving their friendship for other times of loss.

(Something Wicked This Way Comes, Bradbury)

NOTICE: Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons...

Sat, 11 Aug 2012 18:49:48 -0400

NOTICE: Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR

Per G. G., CHIEF OF ORDINANCE

(The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Twain)

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in...

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 18:58:10 -0400

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

“That some catch, that Catch-22,” he observed.

“It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed.

(Catch-22, Heller)

He was older than the days he had seen and the breaths he had drawn. He linked the past with the...

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 18:54:01 -0400

He was older than the days he had seen and the breaths he had drawn. He linked the past with the present, and the eternity behind him throbbed through him in a mighty rhythm to which he swayed as the tides and seasons swayed.

(The Call of the Wild, London)

Here was a gorgeous triumph; they were missed; they were mourned; hearts were breaking on their...

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 18:59:07 -0400

Here was a gorgeous triumph; they were missed; they were mourned; hearts were breaking on their account; tears were being shed; accusing memories of unkindnesses to these poor lost lads were rising up, and unavailing regrets and remorse were being indulged: and best of all, the departed were the talk of the whole town, and the envy of all the boys, as far as this dazzling notoriety was concerned. This was fine. It was worth being a pirate, after all.

(The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Twain)

Although there was no enemy or other danger to be perceived, they felt the apprehension and doubt...

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 18:50:13 -0400

Although there was no enemy or other danger to be perceived, they felt the apprehension and doubt of those who have come unawares upon some awe-inspiring place where they themselves are paltry fellows of no account. When Marco Polo came at last to Cathay, seven hundred years ago, did he not feel — and did his heart not falter as he realized — that this great and splendid capital of an empire had had its being all the years of his life and far longer, and that he had been ignorant of it? That it was in need of nothing from him, from Venice, from Europe? That it was full of wonders beyond his understanding? That his arrival was a matter of no importance whatever? We know that he felt these things, and so has many a traveler in foreign parts who did not know what he was going to find. There is nothing that cuts you down to size like coming to some strange and marvelous place where no one even stops to notice that you stare about you.

(Watership Down, Adams)

Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no...

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 18:51:27 -0400

Guys like us, that work on ranches, are the loneliest guys in the world. They got no family. They don’t belong no place… . With us it ain’t like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us. We don’t have to sit in no bar room blowin’ in our jack jus’ because we got no place else to go. If them other guys gets in jail they can rot for all anybody gives a damn. But not us.

(Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck)

In the late night Doc might be working at his old and battered microscope, delicately arranging...

Sun, 05 Aug 2012 18:52:59 -0400

In the late night Doc might be working at his old and battered microscope, delicately arranging plankton on a slide, moving them with a thread of glass. And there would be three voices singing in him, all singing together. The top voice of his thinking mind would sing, “What lovely little particles, neither plant nor animal but somehow both—the reservoir of all the life in the world, the base supply of food for everyone. If all of these should die, every other living thing might well die as a consequence.” The lower voice of his feeling mind would be singing, “What are you looking for, little man? Is it yourself you’re trying to identify? Are you looking at little things to avoid big things?” And the third voice, which came from his marrow, would sing, “Lonesome! Lonesome! What good is it? Who benefits? Thought is the evasion of feeling. You’re only walling up the leaking loneliness.”

(Sweet Thursday, Steinbeck)

The ravine was indeed the place where you came to look at the two things of life, the...

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 18:59:41 -0400

The ravine was indeed the place where you came to look at the two things of life, the ways of man and the ways of the natural world. The town was, after all, only a large ship filled with constantly moving survivors, bailing out the grass, chipping away the rust. Now and again a lifeboat, a shanty, kin to the mother ship, lost out to the quiet storm of seasons, sank down in silent waves of termite and ant into swallowing ravine to feel the flicker of grasshoppers rattling like dry paper in hot weeds, become soundproofed with spider dust and finally, in avalanche of shingle and tar, collapse like kindling shrines into a bonfire, which thunderstorms ignited with blue lightning, while flash-photographing the triumph of the wilderness.

(Dandelion Wine, Bradbury)

At about this time in California it became the stylish thing for school nurses to visit the classes...

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 22:43:00 -0400

At about this time in California it became the stylish thing for school nurses to visit the classes and to catechize the children on intimate details of their home life. In the fires grade, Alfredo was called to the principal’s office, for it was thought that he looked thin.

The visiting nurse, trained in child psychology, said kindly, “Freddie, do you get enough to eat?”

“Sure,” said Alfredo.

“Well, now. Tell me what you have for breakfast.”

“Tortillas and beans,” said Alfredo.

The nurse nodded her head dismally to the principal. “What do you have when you go home for lunch?”

“I don’t go home.”

“Don’t you eat at noon?”

“Sure, I bring some beans wrapped in a tortilla.”

Actual alarm showed in the nurse’s eyes, but she controlled herself. “At night what do you have to eat?”

“Tortillas and beans.”

Her psychology deserted her. “Do you mean to stand there and tell me you eat nothing but tortillas and beans?”

Alfredo was astonished. “What more do you want?”

(Excerpt from Tortilla Flat by Steinbeck)

The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this...

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 19:42:00 -0400

The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit—and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains.

There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And they stand still and watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy,

growing heavy for the vintage.

(Excerpt from The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck)

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Sat, 11 Feb 2012 02:28:14 -0500

"No one was there. But there was a cloth spread upon the table that stood against the wall, and a..."

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:34:50 -0500

““No one was there. But there was a cloth spread upon the table that stood against the wall, and a cover was laid for one, with a crusty brown loaf and a bottle of wine beside the plate. Edna bit a piece from the brown loaf, tearing it with her strong, white teeth. She poured some of the wine into the glass and drank it down. Then she went softly out of doors, and plucking an orange from the low-hanging bough of a tree, threw it at Robert, who did not know she was awake and up.
An illumination broke over his whole face when he saw her and joined her under the orange tree.
‘How many years have I slept?’ she inquired. ‘The whole island seems changed. A new race of beings must have sprung up, leaving only you and me as past relics. How many ages ago did Madame Antoine and Tonie die? and when did our people from Grand Isle disappear from the earth?’
He familiarly adjusted a ruffle upon her shoulder.
‘You have slept precisely one hundred years. I was left here to guard your slumbers; and for one hundred years I have been out under the shed reading a book.’” The Awakening ch. 13, Kate Chopin”

“I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game...

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:08:33 -0500

“I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I’d do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be. I know it’s crazy.”

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Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:37:26 -0500

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Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:21:07 -0500

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Thu, 12 Jan 2012 20:09:39 -0500

trappersandwoodsmen: Evelyn Cameron, Montana, 19th century (via...

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 03:20:47 -0500

trappersandwoodsmen:

Evelyn Cameron, Montana, 19th century (via bryanschutmaat)

"It was all so very businesslike that one watched it fascinated. It was porkmaking by machinery,..."

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 16:21:07 -0500

“

It was all so very businesslike that one watched it fascinated. It was porkmaking by machinery, porkmaking by applied mathematics. And yet somehow the most matter-of-fact person could not help thinking of the hogs; they were so innocent, they came so very trustingly; and they were so very human in their protests—and so perfectly within their rights! They had done nothing to deserve it; and it was adding insult to injury, as the thing was done here, swinging them up in this cold-blooded, impersonal way, without a pretense of apology, without the homage of a tear. Now and then a visitor wept, to be sure; but this slaughtering machine ran on, visitors or no visitors. It was like some horrible crime committed in a dungeon, all unseen and unheeded, buried out of sight and of memory.

One could not stand and watch very long without becoming philosophical, without beginning to deal in symbols and similes, and to hear the hog squeal of the universe. Was it permitted to believe that there was nowhere upon the earth, or above the earth, a heaven for hogs, where they were requited for all this suffering? Each one of these hogs was a separate creature. Some were white hogs, some were black; some were brown, some were spotted; some were old, some young; some were long and lean, some were monstrous. And each of them had an individuality of his own, a will of his own, a hope and a heart’s desire; each was full of self-confidence, of self-importance, and a sense of dignity. And trusting and strong in faith he had gone about his business, the while a black shadow hung over him and a horrid Fate waited in his pathway. Now suddenly it had swooped upon him, and had seized him by the leg. Relentless, remorseless, it was; all his protests, his screams, were nothing to it—it did its cruel will with him, as if his wishes, his feelings, had simply no existence at all; it cut his throat and watched him gasp out his life. And now was one to believe that there was nowhere a god of hogs, to whom this hog personality was precious, to whom these hog squeals and agonies had a meaning? Who would take this hog into his arms and comfort him, reward him for his work well done, and show him the meaning of his sacrifice?”
-The Jungle, pp. 39-40, by Upton Sinclair

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