THINGS BLOG

This is life below the white line, the permafrost. People sitting in renovated kitchens, decent, sad, a little bitter in an undirected way. I felt I knew them. Bass fishermen. Presbyterians.When children race out of rooms the noise of their leaving remains behind. When old people die, she’d once been told, they leave a smell on things.

[A] noted [Tory]…was standing at his door, with as pretty a child in his hand, about eight or nine years old, as I ever saw, and after speaking his mind as freely as he thought was prudent, finished with this unfatherly expression, "Well! Give me peace in my day." Not a man lives on the continent but fully believes that a separation must some time or other finally take place, and a generous parent should have said, "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;" and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty.

The phrase 'Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam,'  (“Moreover I am of the opinion that Carthage be destroyed,”) was used by Cato to conclude every speech on any topic whatever, until he finally goaded the Romans into the third Punic War.

A noted [tory], who kept a tavern at Amboy, was standing at his door, with as pretty a child in his hand, about eight or nine years old, as I ever saw, and after speaking his mind as freely as he thought was prudent, finished with this unfatherly expression, "Well! give me peace in my day." Not a man lives on the [American] continent but fully believes that a separation must some time or other finally take place [with the British], and a generous parent should have said, "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;" and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty.

What possible link is there between the great delta of the Mississippi River and the poverty and violence of Ciudad Juárez? Answer: The delta of the Mississippi River is the richest land on earth and for two centuries it has produced the poorest people in the United States. Ciudad Juárez was to be the model for American free-trade theories and for decades it has produced corruption, poverty, and violence. If you ask what food and cooking has to do with all this, then you do not understand appetite and if you do not understand appetite you will be baffled by love, violence, and death.

"White Collar," by Denis Johnson (From: The Incognito Lounge)