December 2011
10 posts
4 tags
“Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and...”
– Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22 (via hitch-22)
Dec 27th
72 notes
2 tags
“Cuenta la historia oficial que Vasco Núñez de Balboa fue el primer hombre que...”
– Eduardo Galeano, Espejos: una historia casi universal. “The official history tells that Vasco Núñez de Balboa was the first man who saw, from a summit in Panama, the two oceans. Those who already lived there, where they blind? Who were the first to give names to corn and potatoes and tomatoes and...
Dec 25th
116 notes
2 tags
“And so this was how it would go: talk about books and politics, then he dozed...”
– - from Ian McEwan’s “Christopher Hitchens, Consummate Writer, Brilliant Friend” in the NYT (via Hal Espen) Also this: Talking and dozing were all very well, but Christopher had only a few days to produce 3,000 words on Ian Ker’s biography of Chesterton. Whenever people talk of Christopher’s...
Dec 18th
3 notes
1 tag
excerpt from one of Christopher Hitchens last...
Richard Dawkins: I've always been very suspicious of the left-right dimension in politics.
Christopher Hitchens: Yes; it's broken down with me.
Richard Dawkins: It's astonishing how much traction the left-right continuum [has] . . . If you know what someone thinks about the death penalty or abortion, then you generally know what they think about everything else. But you clearly break that rule.
Christopher Hitchens: I have one consistency, which is [being] against the totalitarian - on the left and on the right. The totalitarian, to me, is the enemy - the one that's absolute, the one that wants control over the inside of your head, not just your actions and your taxes. And the origins of that are theocratic, obviously. The beginning of that is the idea that there is a supreme leader, or infallible pope, or a chief rabbi, or whatever, who can ventriloquise the divine and tell us what to do.
Dec 17th
47 notes
6 tags
Calvino on the importance of the frame in...
Both in art and literature, the function of the frame is fundamental. It is the frame that marks the boundary between the picture and what is outside. It allows the picture to exist, isolating it from the rest; but at the same time, it recalls - and somehow stands for - everything that remains out of the picture. I might venture a definition: we consider poetic a production in which each...
Dec 13th
23 notes
nthword asked: Have you been able to find a copy of "The Temple of Iconoclasts?"
Dec 11th
5 tags
WatchWatch
untitledfilmblog: Trent Reznor - “Immigrant Song” (Feat. Karen O) [Dir. David Fincher] So fucking cool.
Dec 10th
17 notes
5 tags
Dec 10th
59 notes
4 tags
Dec 6th
1,208 notes
4 tags
“…more tender and erotic than Cormac McCarthy…”
– This is from the jacket copy of Micheline Aharonian Marcom’s The Mirror in the Well, put out by Dalkey. You can use it, though, to describe LITERALLY ANYTHING. (via mcnallyjackson) This has probably made my day.
Dec 1st
96 notes