Wheel Words

Religion
Christians have been far more successful at rejecting Jesus than any Jew has ever been.
            --Thomas Cahill, Desire of the Everlasting Hills (2000).

Politics
The truth about human beings seems to be the truth of violence. Poverty and the desctruction of the planet are going hand in hand. I once had political beliefs. I thought there were answers. I am no longer sure.
             --Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado (2000).

Refuge
For a person who has lost the homeland, writing becomes a place to live.
             --German exile Theodor Adorno (1941).

Interstate Poetry
Such sullen silliness fills cracked votives with crush amber.
             --On the wall of a rest area men's room, I-85, northwest of Boise.

Last Words 1
"Why Not?"
            --Timothy Leary.

Last Words 1
"I thought I would be terrified. Instead, I am exhiliarated."
                                                                    --Allen Ginsberg.

Say What?
More and more I am aware of people who are successful in every visible way and who have no sensitivity to art, no interest in history, and are essentially indifferent to lagnuage. It's hard to imagine that anything in their experience other than the birth of a child might elicit from them the word transcendent; ecstasy for them has a purely physical meaning, and yet they are happy. Culture is not necessary for them although they like to keep up with movies and music and perhaps the occasional bestseller. Is culture essential, then? Not pop culture but something higher, something that may endure?
                                      --James Salter (New York Times, p. B2, 9/13/99).

The Marriage of Christianity and Zen at the Convenience Store:
"Show me a man or woman without sin and I'll show you an elephant ain't got no color."
                                        --Overheard in line at 7-Eleven.

The World of Business
Some guys sell little ones, some guys sell big ones, some of it comes in on trains and some of it goes out in barges, a guy named Irving is locked up in a closet somewhere to figure it all out, most of it adds up to an argumnet in a courtroom, and all the people who're lucky enough to be hanging around drinking at all the country clubs get to shit on everybody else.
                                        --Dan Jenkins, Dead Solid Perfect, p. 24.

An American Truth
Dropping bombs is a very profitable business. Whenever America policy seems inscrutable, remember the military-industrial complex.
                                         --Doris Lessing, quoting Gore Vidal.

Better Living through Eyesight
The real act of discovery is not in finding new lands, but in seeing with new eyes. (Marcel
                                         --Proust)

A Little Elbow-patch Humor
"A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into thereoms."
                                         --Paul Erdos

One Less Thing to Worry About
"Black holes are where God divided by zero."
                                        --Steven Wright

One of Life's Little Secrets
"Giving well is the best revenge."
                                        --Douglas Milburn

Basic Metaphysics
"There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread."
                                        --Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

In Search of the German Sense of Humor
"Sometimes when reading Goethe I have the paralyzing suspicion that he is trying to be funny. "
                                        --Guy Davenport

In Search of Beauty
"When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if
the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. "
                                        --Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983)

In Search of Logic
"Logic is in the eye of the logician. "
                                        --Gloria Steinem

The Trouble with Wagner
"Mr. Wagner has beautiful moments but bad quarters of an hour. "
- Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868)

The Trouble with Brahms
"There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms
Requiem. "
                                        --George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

The Trouble with Europe
"I think it would be a good idea. "
                             --Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), when
                                asked what he thought of Western civilization

Literacy Is as Literacy Does
"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. "
                                        --Mark Twain (1835-1910)

The Trouble with Life
"There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. "
                                        --Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

A Gauntlet Flung
[Adversity] can never rival the steadying power given us when we praise being.
                    --Alfred Corn, in the New York Times Book Review

A Swedish Truth
There are a lot of realities in our reality. We don't know abything about those realities. The musicians and the prophets and the saints have given us some messages--have given us intimations of the ineffable. For example, at the end of Beethoven's Ninth, the chorus is going higher and higher, and suddenly is silent. Then you hear four or five bars, and you have a feeling that reality has opened up. Beethoven, deaf Beethoven had heard something that never had been written before.
                        --Ingmar Bergman, in a New Yorker interview.

Thank you, Oscar
Religions die when they are proved to be true. Science is the record of dead religions.
                                                        --Oscar Wilde

Thank you, Leonard
God is alive, magic is afoot. God is afoot, magic is alive. Alive is afoot, magic never died. God never sickened. Many poor men lied. Many sick men lied. Magic never weakened. Magic never hid. Magic always ruled. God is afoot, God never died. God was ruler. Though his funeral lengthened, though his mourners thickened, magic never fled. Though his shrouds were hoisted, the naked God did live. Though his words were twisted, the naked magic thrived. Though his death was published round and round the world, the heart did not believe

Many hurt men wondered. Many struck men bled. Magic never faltered. Magic always led. Many stones were rolled. But God would not lie down. Many wild men lied. Many fat men listened. Though they offered stones, magic still was fed. Though they locked their coffers, God was always served. Magic is afoot, God is alive. Alive is afoot. Alive is in command. Many weak men hungered. Many strong men thrived. Though they boast of solitude, God was at their side. Nor the dreamer in his cell. Nor the captain on the hill. Magic is alive. Though his death was pardoned round and round the world, the heart would not believe.

Though laws were carved in marble, they could not shelter men. Though altars built in parliaments, they could not order men. Police arrested magic and magic went with them. For magic loves the hungry. But magic would not tarry. It moves from arm to arm. It would not stay with them. Magic is afoot. It cannot come to harm. It rests in an empty palm. It spawns in an empty mind. But magic is no instrument. Magic is the end.

Many men drove magic. But magic stayed behind. Many strong men lied. They only passed through magic and out the other side. Many weak men lied. They came to God in secret. And though they left Him nourished, they would not tell who healed. Though mountains danced before them, they said that God was dead. Though his shrouds were hoisted, the naked God did live. This I mean to whisper to my mind. This I mean to laugh within my mind. This I mean my mind to serve till service is but magic moving through the world. And mind itself is magic coursing through the flesh. And flesh itself is magic dancing on a clock. And time itself the magic length of God. .
                                           --Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers
                                           --Set to music by Buffy St.-Marie

And you too, Stephen
Civilization is not an attitude of mind, it is an attribute of wealth.
                                            --Stephen Fry, The Hippopotamus.

Scapegoats for the cowardly
There are two kinds of stereotypes, two kinds of minority groups. One is the working-class kind of stereotype. It's the group that comes in and lacks the skills, the education, the background to get up. So you exclude them. You give them the undesirable jobs, and you sort them out, residentially and otherwise. And, of course, you fashion a stereotype to justify what you've done and to perpetuate it. So you say of this group that they are lazy, shiftless; they have too many children; their sexual morals are terrible, etcetera, etcetera. And then there is another kind of stereotype. It involves another kind of minority. And you say of this kind of minority, 'They're too smart. They're too clever. They're too resourceful. They're too clannish.' It's a stereotype, but it's quite a different kind of stereotype because it has to different kind of situation. They're both rationalizations, of course."
                                                --Carey McWilliams

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