PHANTOM RIDE

[questcequecestqueca]

Rolf Winquist. Sculptor's model 1940s

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"let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine"

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"This is the story of a boy who loses his inner world, his mythical world, in this one night of crisis, a life crisis, it dissolves into nothingness, and he has to jump into this nothingness, because that is what we Europeans have to do too. We have succeeded in dissolving all values, and now we have to jump into it, and only by having the courage to jump into this nothingness can we reawaken our own innermost creative forces and build a new Phantásia, i.e. a new world of values".

Michael Ende

[charnel-grounds]

Norman Lindsay (1879–1969), “Yellow Lady”

etching, soft ground, engraving & stipple, 1920

source

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"Because if I tell the story, it doesn't hurt as much."

Nora Ephron, Heartbreak

[soupsoup]

“The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars. One of the basic and difficult lessons every artist must learn is that even the failed pieces are essential. X-rays of famous paintings reveal that even master artists sometimes made basic mid-course corrections (or deleted really dumb mistakes) by overpainting the still-wet canvas. The point is that you learn how to make your work by making your work, and a great many of the pieces you make along the way will never stand out as finished art. The best you can do is make art you care about — and lots of it!”

David Bayles, Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

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“For most of human history, there was no way to look up anything at all. There was no reference material and so forth. And as such, people had to optimize their communication for the conditions of that time. Through a lot of study of Homer and other ancient epics, people realized that there were certain patterns of communication. People spoke with rhythm and rhyme and musicality, because it helps people memorize things.”

- Joe Weisenthal from The Orality Theory of Everything in The Atlantic

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Helix, published in Seattle (1967 to 1970) Here is a selection of covers dating from 1967 and 1968.

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“All space is occupied by the enemy. We are living under a permanent curfew. Not just the cops—the geometry.”

Raoul Vaneigem

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“Climate catastrophe, fascism, ecocide, genocide, mass violence, “BookTok”, the world is fucked. We all know we’re headed for a crash - everyone feels that the bridge is out up ahead - but we shop and post and comment and text and work as if everything were normal.”

• The Domme Songs by Michael Robbins from Harper’s Magazine, September 2025

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I see some version of this sentiment daily. This just so happens to be the one I landed on today. It has become reflexive and lazy for everyone from the literati to your average social media poster to spout such virtue signaling BS. No one who feels this terror is proceeding as if everything were normal. We just have no idea what else to do. The solutions now exist to make Earth a literal paradise for all species that live on it. Those with true power choose not to pursue these solutions do so out of greed. And short term thinking. The idea that us individuals are at fault because we continue on rather than becoming monks or setting ourselves on fire is exactly what those in power want us to think. That this is our fault and we are choosing it. We are not. (see BP hiring an ad agency to create the term “climate footprint” as just one example) If someone with power stepped up to lead we would follow. And writers need to keep saying this over and over and over. It’s ok to say it’s not your fault.

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“I asked how many in the room wanted to one day be serious, talented writers. Soon most hands were up. Then I said, how many of you are willing to be poor? Virtually all the hands went down. You have a fucking problem, I said. I go to work every day because I have to. Someday you might have to as well. Me, I hate it. I hate every minute of it. I know what I should be doing and this isn’t it. But if you’re going to have a family and help support a household, this is what happens. We make compromises that we swore we would never make.”

- Vince Passaro from In The Aftermath of the American Dream, Harper’s Magazine, January 2026

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"The Amorite he is dressed in sheep skins, he lives in tents in wind and rain, he doesn't offer sacrifices. Armed vagabond of the steppes, he digs up truffles and is restless. He eats raw meat, lives his life without a home, and when he dies he is not buried according to proper rituals".

- from the ancient Sumerian clay tablet known as the Myth of Martu c. 1900–1600 BCE

"I'm guessing the Amorites were also accused of being lazy while also stealing all the good Sumerian jobs. Ah progress."

- Scott Chesworth, The Ancient World podcast, episode 3

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It can be seen that the history of the American Negro problem is not merely shameful, it is also something of an achievement. For even when the worst has been said, it must also be added that the perpetual challenge posed by this problem was always, somehow, perpetually met. It is precisely this black-white experience which may prove of indispensable value to us in the world we face today.

- James Baldwin from Stranger in the Village, 1953

[wictorwictor]

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through. -- Ira Glass