dennis scharnberg

by all means

When the author says “I was in a state of despair,” do we believe him?  Was he?  Was he in despair?  What does it mean to write down that sequence of words?

Ellis Nobodaddy,  The Theory of Ice.

off and running

The radical just keeps going and going and going.  He does not do this out of nobility of purpose.  He does it because he cannot think of anything else to do.

Elihu Marras, A World of Smudges and Stains.

distracting the self

Who will be contented in that world where people get what they deserve?

 William Davy,  Revolutions of the Nineteenth Century.

overwhelmed and dizzied

Let’s delineate a world!  By means of sentences!  Or has Marx done that for us?

Ernest Ingram,  The Unclean Sweep. 

token of affection

Why should anyone be excluded from anything?  Or ever be denied anything?

Tanner Faust,  A Scrapbook of Impertinent Interrogatives.

such complicated misery

One thing in particular to which the contemporary artist conforms is the proposition that the artist is (or can be) radically inventive.

Albrecht Luggens,  Ways of Serving Time.

beyond all recognition

If all cultures are equal, then why is it that only one culture—the western Europeans—developed the study of other cultures?

Evelyn Harbuckle,  The Signs of Belonging.

victory of emptiness

Time has but one direction: backward.  Photographs point inexorably to the past, to that which is old.  As do our thoughts.

Mathew Muntz,  Entropic Processes in Architecture.

condensed matter enthusiast

We have what we believe to be interminable well-being.  But it is only a belief.  As always, we will find out later whether we were actually well-off.  And for how long.

Godfrey Daniel,  Inspecting the Time Domain.

the initial conditions

Sometimes, we must simply feel our dishonesty.  We know it’s there, but we cannot delineate it.

Enos Slaughter,  Speaking Out of the Ground.