But I pulled you and I called you here
(Didn’t I? Didn’t I? Didn’t I?)
And I caught and I brought you here
(Didn’t I? Didn’t I? Didn’t I?)
The hazards of love
Never more will trouble us
And these hazards of love
Never more will trouble us
— The Decemberists, “The Hazards of Love IV: The Drowned” (via springtimeofhisvoodoo)
Fear and The Invisible Minorities from A Single Man
The Nazis were obviously wrong to hate the Jews. But their hating the Jews was not without a cause… But the cause wasnʼt real. The cause was imagined. The cause was FEAR.
Letʼs leave the Jews out of this for a moment and think of another minority. One that can go unnoticed if it needs to.
There are all sorts of minorities, blondes for example, but a minority is only thought of as one when it constitutes some kind of threat to the majority. A real threat or an imagined one. And therein lies the FEAR. And, if the minority is somehow invisible……the fear is even greater. And this FEAR is the reason the minority is persecuted. So, there always is a cause. And the cause is FEAR. Minorities are just people. People……like us.
Fear, after all, is our real enemy. Fear is taking over our world. Fear is being used as a tool of manipulation in our society. Itʼs how politicians peddle policy and how Madison Avenue sells us things that we donʼt need. Think about it. Fear that weʼre going to be attacked, fear that there are communists lurking around every corner, fear that some little Caribbean country that doesnʼt believe in our way of life poses a threat to us. Fear that black culture may take over the world. Fear of Elvis Presleyʼs hips.Well, maybe that one is a real fear. Fear that our bad breath might ruin our friendships… Fear of growing old and being alone.
The way to love someone is to lightly run your finger over that person’s soul until you find a crack, and then gently pour your love into that crack.
— Keith Miller (via endlesshorizons)
And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter— they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long.
— Sylvia Plath (via vlvt)
Dear Sir:
I like words. I like fat buttery words, such as ooze, turpitude, glutinous, toady. I like solemn, angular, creaky words, such as straitlaced, cantankerous, pecunious, valedictory. I like spurious, black-is-white words, such as mortician, liquidate, tonsorial, demi-monde. I like suave “V” words, such as Svengali, svelte, bravura, verve. I like crunchy, brittle, crackly words, such as splinter, grapple, jostle, crusty. I like sullen, crabbed, scowling words, such as skulk, glower, scabby, churl. I like Oh-Heavens, my-gracious, land’s-sake words, such as tricksy, tucker, genteel, horrid. I like elegant, flowery words, such as estivate, peregrinate, elysium, halcyon. I like wormy, squirmy, mealy words, such as crawl, blubber, squeal, drip. I like sniggly, chuckling words, such as cowlick, gurgle, bubble and burp.
I like the word screenwriter better than copywriter, so I decided to quit my job in a New York advertising agency and try my luck in Hollywood, but before taking the plunge I went to Europe for a year of study, contemplation and horsing around.
I have just returned and I still like words.
May I have a few with you?
Robert Pirosh
385 Madison Avenue
Room 610
New York
Eldorado 5-6024
—
My new favorite job application letter, from 1934. He ended up winning an Oscar for screenwriting!
(via Letters of Note)
If those in charge of our society - politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television - can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves.
— Howard Zinn (via pieceinthepuzzlehumanity)
The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.
—
Karl Marx (via jesteractivist)
A lovely interpretation of ‘representative’ government. Sprinkle in the corruption and counterproductivity of the two party system and we have oligarchy.
(via occupyla)
For some reason I see a connection between life and death and being sick all the time and I’m a little obsessed with all that.
— Kurt Cobain. (via sickbody-sicksoul)
The major problem — one of the major problems, for there are several — one of the major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.
To summarize: it is a well known fact, that those people who most want to rule are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem.
— Douglas Adams, from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (via bluff-check)
