ordinary eternal machinery @ordinaryeternalmachinery - Tumblr Blog

It is impossible to understand how millions and millions of people all obey a sickly collection of gentlemen that call themselves 'Government'! The word, I expect, frightens people. It is a form of planetary hypnosis, and very unhealthy.

THE HEARING TRUMPET by leonora carrington

#the hearing trumpet #leonora carrington #government #authority #control #anarchy #revolt #revolution #fear

People under seventy and over seven are very unreliable if they are not cats. You can't be too careful.

THE HEARING TRUMPET by leonora carrington

#the hearing trumpet #leonora carrington #elders #children #honesty #truth #trust #adults #cats

All that remained were the bloodstains, and they only until the next snow.

THE BOOK OF BLAM by aleksandar tisma

#the book of blam #aleksandar tisma #yugoslav literature #serbian literature #novi sad #wwii #holocaust #genocide #death #murder #blood #snow

We really are far apart, or rather, you're far ahead of me. You've already begun to build, while I'm still tearing down and making room. I've learned nothing except to distrust and analyze. I don't know whether I'll ever be able to do anything else.

TALES OF STUDENT LIFE by hermann hesse

#tales of student life #hermann hesse #german literature #student #life #criticism #analysis #theory #praxis #learning #unlearning #distrust #deconstruction

Mateus Correia took her to the Museum, to the Zoo, to the National Aquarium. That was how he kept showing her what he was made of: showing her things he'd seen; patient, waiting for that woman to become just like him.

THE BESIEGED CITY by clarice lispector

#clarice lispector #the besieged city #brazilian literature #latin american literature #men #women #fuckboy #soft boy

I knew that my creative process was neither neat nor entirely purposeful. I wrote deep into the night during bouts of depression. I wrote because it was a way of living that didn't flatten the intensity of my sadness.

LITERARY FESTIVAL (from the short story collection COEXISTENCE) by billy-ray belcourt

#billy-ray belcourt #coexistence #literary festival #canadian author #indigenous author #indigenous poet #short story #depression #sadness #mental illness #writing #creativity #creative process #writer #process #purpose

There's a pleasure in spotting someone else's errors. It's how one demonstrates their aesthetic superiority.

YOUNG ADULTS (from the short story collection COEXISTENCE) by billy-ray belcourt

#billy-ray belcourt #coexistence #young adults #canadian literature #indigenous literature #indigenous poet #art school #critique #aesthethics #short story

I have found that battling despair does not mean closing my eyes to the enormity of the tasks of effecting change, nor ignoring the strength and the barbarity of the forces aligned against us. It means teaching, surviving and fighting with the most important resource I have, myself, and taking joy in that battle.

THE CANCER JOURNALS by audre lorde

#audre lorde #the cancer journals #feminism #african american literature #despair #joy #change #struggle #community #survival

fuckin tell me about it

#weed #math #wizard #african cinema #south african cinema #kagiso lediga #obsession #addiction #mental health

School, someone has said, is where learning stops. How sad; how true.

TO MY CHILDREN'S CHILDREN by sindiwe magona

#to my children's children #sindiwe magona #african literature #south african literature #school #education #learning #academia #colonialism #unlearning #relearning #childhood #children #child abuse

Spanish bullfighting is really and truly bulls fighting. It's bulls resisting the curse of their fate, the struggle of life. The bulls cannot vanquish the spears, swords, and various opponents who take turns wearing them down, and they die having exhausted their strength. Ordinary cows have no room for a final battle and can only await their inevitable demise. Do the cows destined for slaughter possess a sixth sense? No one cares about the cows' feelings. If the world were divided only into two categories, those who slaughter and those who are slaughtered, I'd still choose to be slaughtered.

MOURNING A BREAST by xi xi

#mourning a breast #xi xi #chinese literature #hong kong literature #hong kong #cancer #breast cancer #bullfighting #slaughter #death #oppression #predation

Tom didn't smile back, because he didn't feel like it.

RIPLEY UNDER WATER by patricia highsmith

#tom ripley #ripley under water #patricia highsmith #american fiction #thriller #alienation #autism #smiling #masking

Lóri stood on the terrace, somewhat suffocated by the intense perfume. Through the drunkenness of the jasmine, for a moment a revelation came to her, in the form of a feeling—and in the next instant she'd forgotten whatever she'd learned from the revelation. It was as if the pact with the God were this: see and forget, in order not to be struck down by the unbearable knowledge.

AN APPRENTICESHIP OR THE BOOK OF PLEASURES by clarice lispector

#an apprenticeship or the book of pleasures #clarice lispector #the book of pleasures #apprenticeship #revelation #knowledge #understanding #heaviness #miracle #drugs #intoxication #fumes #perfume

You need to walk with your head held high, you have to suffer because you're different from other people—cosmically different, that's what your cards say, so accept that you can't have the middle-class life other people do and go to the party today, and walk into the room with your head held high.

AN APPRENTICESHIP OR THE BOOK OF PLEASURES by clarice lispector

#an apprenticeship or the book of pleasures #the book of pleasures #clarice lispector #apprenticeship #suffering #pride #pain #life #cosmology #stars #cards #fate

No matter how great the torture, it is not the torture of the language of the living. It's almost nothing like it. No matter how great the desolation, it is not the desolation of the living. It's almost nothing like it. What do the living know ... what do all these herds of humanity that batter their horns against the rocks of the days know?

THE STONE OF LAUGHTER by hoda barakat

#the stone of laughter #hoda barakat #arabic literature #lebanese literature #life #death #humanity #mortality #desolation #emptiness #bleakness

There were some who joined in the combat and acted on their words and they were a minority ... as for the rest, some found the path of psychological cries and nervous breakdowns easier and forgave themselves, and others saw an escape from the sin of talking in making written confessions and so were included in the lesser amnesty of writing. People deliberately forgot each other's faults while the martyrs, those who were tempted to listen more than they should, persevered in their martyrdom as if driven by some malice within that had seduced them and did not allow forgiveness. They forgot each other's faults but deep hatred reigned in their hearts for each was true to himself and, if he happened to see one of those friends of his, he remembered his despised self and was certain how much his friend resembled his own self, he found no way out of despising this thing that was so similar to him and he loathed it, out of self-pity — and all's fair where self-defense is concerned — even inventing new colorings and delights through gambling, or infidelity, or dancing to pop music which unfortunately, in a word, is a waste of time, and they lost a lot of time.

THE STONE OF LAUGHTER by hoda barakat

#the stone of laughter #hoda barakat #arabic literature #lebanese literature #war #oppression #community #depression #self-hatred #self-pity #self-destruction #hatred

You see, crossing out is the real skill. Sometimes I find no resemblance between my first draft and how the poem ends up in its final form. I do not just cross out words or lines or sections. I will cross out the whole text and laugh at my own ineptitude.

AN INTERVIEW WITH MAHMOUD DARWISH (appended to the poetry collection I DON’T WANT THIS POEM TO END and conducted by editor mohammed shaheen) by mahmoud darwish

#mahmoud darwish #palestinian literature #palestinian poetry #arabic literature #arabic poetry #interview #editing #poetry #poet #writing #writer #craft

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