death - memory

Death is forgetfulness, and life resists it through developing mnemonic skills: “This is the use of memory: / For liberation – …” (‘Little Gidding’).

If you elicit a confession

My advice to a person finding themselves in my position is: “If you elicit a confession from someone, don’t whatever you do meet their eye.” Especially if it’s bloke to bloke.

2010 reading

Currently reading? Allington framed by Cervantes (Patrick sandwiched by the Don - a politics course in itself).

Backwards to Jan '10:
David Malouf Ransom
Thomas Pynchon Inherent Vice
Shaun Tan Tales from outer suburbia
Gerald Murnane The Plains
J.M. Coetzee Summertime
Tim Winton Cloudstreet (for the first time)

letter

“…Sincerely, Paul Simon. P.S. These are my initials.”

One of the highest-order, intensest points in a sentient animal’s life are nodes of active-minded middle age.

‘Women on the Edge of a Nervous Breakdown’

Carmen Maura was at a beautiful age in this movie, though it seemed as if she was about to pass her peak (that’s a source of beauty, especially Spanish beauty).
Though gay, Almodovar loves and understands women.
He: “How many men do you try to forget?” She: “As many as the women you remember.”

Gen Z

For Gen Z, not-funny is being funny.

Faith, Hope

Does faith offer more than hope? Even vain hope? I don’t think so. Faith may be a great comforter, but some also want intellectual justification.

I have accurately predicted ten of the last four recessions

The result of the near-useless G20 summit was to produce a statement: ‘No trade protectionism’; now they will go home and it won’t happen.

The market bubble, like pyramid schemes, are only bad when they stop.

And the effect of the injection of funds is to give the alcoholic one last drink.

Georgia

Like the Maybelline advertisement, she’s a “metal-luminous hyper-girl.”

I got my wisdom before my intelligence. I got my intelligence before my maturity.

As the environment closes down, civilisation will become more commune-based. But run by warlords. In the end, perhaps, this brutal means of control is the only way to rationally control humans.

There are some things about males that are shit—dark, dirty stuff. But some things are joyous, and should be celebrated.

In 20 years or so, signs will go up on the backs of cars and geriatric cabs, saying: “BABY BOOMER ON BOARD.”

“There is a difference between sex and love. But no-one knows what it is.”

My intelligence helps me give less of a fuck.

Meditation is life minus content.