“Question: What is the most difficult task to perform in the twenty-first century?
Answer: To notice what is right in front of you, and to call it what it is.”
Will Bestwyck, Letters from Mr. Palindrome.
“I was afraid that he was going to say space-time, you see, and I’m pretty sure that he thought about saying it.”
William Garrick, My Friend Bryson.
“Yes, and nobody would stand up to Picasso. Nobody would tell him to stop. Just stop.”
Theo Darden, Watching for Earthquakes.
When he returned from this sojourn in Portugal, Kenneth resumed work on what he called his “big project”: a definitive—and precise—elaboration on those thoughts and behaviors that might qualify one for “full membership” in Modernity.
Adrian Caliban, The Magnificent Egglestons.
“If that is the hair-do of a reasonable man, I will chew on a sock!”
Heywood Wakefield, The Humdrum Demon.
December 7, 2019. Regarding the more or less innocent word “literally”—Won’t someone (anyone) please do the following? Print the word on a sheet of clean paper, place that inside a cake tin, and bury it six feet deep in a hardwood forest? And leave it there for at least thirty-nine years? Thanks.
Reginald Boyington, Dear Dreadful Diary.
[Geist] claims to have uncovered a total of nine rules of objects (or of “things”). Here, I present only three of these.
Hans Paulus, How Pictures Look at Us.
“But you’re not seeing it, George. That joker was being evasive by being forthcoming.”
Chase Tipton, Enjoying Prison Pizza.
About the allegories he made the usual claims—that they are complex, fascinating, like a strange puzzle, etc. But he went on to say that it was the portraits that are truly distinguished works—both those thought to be painted by Bosch himself and those by members of his circle.
Hans Paulus, How Pictures Look at Us.
It is almost impressive how much elaboration, disputation, quibbling, dissembling, arguing, posturing, legislation, disruption—even how much war—has been engendered by such a simple and direct message.
Tristram Speaker, A Book of Postulates.
dennis scharnberg 