dennis scharnberg

face the music

And what would Alinsky have us do?  Lie, lie, lie, and lie.  Then, point at our enemy and say, “Liar!”

Paul McCutcheon,  A Phenomenology of Moral Theater.

creating a scene

We must never notice the way things are.  We must confine our attention to how our theories are.

Titus Musgrave,  The Enigma of the Box.

dark and unfamiliar

This always:  What is the normal thing to be doing at this instant?

Christopher Jayne, A Critique of Sincerity.

frown of recollection

How could there possibly be any unintended consequences?  How?  How?

Charles Pfanning,  Mild Interrogations.

fog and filthy

—Are you lost?  At all?  Possibly?

—Shut up.

Philip Cavendish,  Tilly’s Treasury of Colloquial Bits.

shall not lack

Frederick had it.  Oh he had it, all right.  He had that “alienation” that he could not stop dramatizing.

Anselm Bligh,  A Collection of Miniatures.

choosing a tattoo

Secularism unleashes self-expression.  Nineteenth-century Romanticism was not an aberration but an inevitability.

Malcolm Scrivener,  The Reclining of the West.

patch of boulders

What he really liked—what he loved—was the lying.  His misbehavior was always mere necessity.  Just what was needed to provide a pretext for the thrilling lies.

Thaddeus Crewes,  The Seven Long Years.

into a cupboard

We believe in freedom of expression—that is, we did before we didn’t.  Thus, we never believed.

Chalmers Van Nest,  The Trivial Quadrivium.

one never knows

Sex with whomever and whenever.  That is now the way.  No more Victorianism.  And, alas, no more culture.

Jonathan Culpp,  Post Means After.