dennis scharnberg

Pretending to be indifferent was never William’s strong suit.

Christina Rubb,  The Awful Puzzle.

Where’s the uncertainty?

Godfrey Tooke,  Collected Aphorisms.

As a concept, modernist art is fascinating.  But the material reality of it brings us to the likes of Kandinsky and Dubuffet.  To Robert Motherwell!

Christopher Jayne,  A Critique of Sincerity.

Palestrina’s masses summarize all the preceding years of polyphony.  And they haunt all subsequent western music—right up through Wagner.  They tap this music on the shoulder, to remind it:  “This is where you came from.”

Baldwin Tavinger,  Toward a Rhetoric of Number.

“Jeremy wants to be talked about, Linda.  That’s what it amounts to.”

Jane Chetwynde,  The Have-Not Faradays.

“So you laughed out loud, you say?  Well, that must have been somewhat noisy.  Hmmm?”

Sebastian Sleeve,  The Random Walk and Other Stories.

Modernism was the announcement of a new kind of barrenness.

Lajos Munczi,  Casting Shadows.

“He’s a dictator, Bob.  He has a right to execute people.”

Burdyce Goode,  Wonderful With Dogs.

“Everyday words threaten to crumble into drifting dust when they march out of Mr. Derrida’s mouth,”  exclaimed Stapleton, in a single breath.

Mark Anthony,  The Tale of the Mirror.

“But that’s the whole point, Joanie.  What is it that gets dark?  Is it the air?”

Will Southey,  Government Cheese, the Novel.