Henry Miller

I've spent too much time away from reading Henry due to school - which I know he'd be disappointed in me for sticking it out this long and not just living. I flip through a few pages from The Time of the Assassins and see all my highlights which in turn causes flooding of all these other brilliant things he said from everything of his I have read.

And in that moment I realize I have lost myself in this city many times over.

"... I saw finally that no matter how much I did it was just a drop in the bucket. I'm not saying that I grew indifferent, or hardened, no, but I realized that it would take a revolution to make any appreciable change in conditions. And when I say revolution, I mean a real revolution, something far more real and sweeping than the Russian Revolution for instance. I still think that, but I don't think it can be done politically or economically. Governments can't bring it about. Only individuals, each one working quietly in his own way. It must be a revolution of the heart. Our attitude towards life has to be fundamentally altered. We've got to advance to another level, a level from which we can take in the whole of the earth with one glance. We have to have vision of the globe, including all the people who inhabit it - down to the lowest and most primitive man."
Henry Miller - "The Alcoholic Veteran with the Washboard Cranium", From Nights of Love and Laughter. p 39 1955

Max Horkheimer from Dawn and Decline - as cited in Michael Löwy's Fire Alarm:

When you are at the lowest ebb, exposed to an eternity of torment inflicted upon you by other human beings, you cherish, as a dream of deliverance, the idea that a being will come who will stand in the light and bring truth and justice for you. You do not even need this to happen in this lifetime, nor in the lifetime of those who are torturing you to death, but one day, whenever it comes, all will nonetheless be repaired... It is bitter to be misunderstood and to die in obscurity. It is to the honor of historical research that it projects light into that obscurity.

* this is not in the English Translation of Dawn and Decline.
* I think of this passage often, and was surprised I hadn't posted this already.

it has been awhile

oh life. Since we last met under these circumstances, I lost a loved one to breast cancer (slightly dramatic phrasing; she's alive and well actually, just on the other side of the planet, 10,000 miles almost exactly from door to door), been super busy with school, and just trying to figure out what's next?
I have a lot of fragments of things that I need to finish writing, a bunch of quotes that I won't explain (cause I think they speak for themselves, even out of context), and even some label news: Morrow's S/T record will be here on vinyl in a few short weeks. Morrow is getting some attention in the blogs and such.

I raised this point with a journalist:
As a somewhat cynical but curious person, I was thinking about music journalism, which lead me to wonder... does the greater world of journalism at all operate the way music (and pretty much all media) journalism does; ie either through payola, who you know, or due to pressures put forth by higher ups to compete with what others are reporting? Is there any genuine sincerity left in journalism? 'cause there certainly isn't in media reporting...

This thought, and its consequences, spills over into so many areas of the everyday, that I just don't know where to start. I invoke Adorno, Tolstoy, Horkheimer, Nietzsche, Goethe, (Henry) Miller, Marcuse, Marx, and I end up feeling like Schopenhauer.

if one dismisses what they did yesterday, what's the point of today?

Marx:
"The existence of what I truly love is felt by me as a necessity, as a
need, without which my essence cannot be fulfilled, satisfied, complete."

Karl Marx and Australia

Karl Marx seems to mention Australia in his works quite a bit (ie The German Ideology, Capital, he also wrote articles ie in the Neue-Oder Zeitung, March 7, 1855, and elsewhere).
I'm going to make this claim and not fully back it up, because: one, I'm lazy, and two, it's something I want to explore further at a later time / really it's rather insignificant, and is mostly due to commentaries on colonization, the newness at the time, labor movements, and so on. This is a note to self, that will never be fulfilled.

I may just notice it more than the others because of my sentimental attachments to Australia. It's sorta like the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon, a form of synchronicity.

Love and Stupidity

Love and Stupidity: The pleasure the animal trainer takes in the affection of a lion may sometimes be attenuated by the realization that the stupidity of the beast has a good deal to do with it. Because a heightened consciousness of its power would destroy the tie, the animal's present tenderness isn't worth much. The more reason the trainer has to think highly of his art, the less he need feel flattered by the affection of the lion. We don't like it when we are loved from a lack of intelligence. The pride many fine ladies and gentlemen take in the loyalty of their servants, or the Junker in their workers, caricatures the confidence we feel because we know we are genuinely loved.
Max Horkheimer. Dawn and Decline. p 72.

lose a friend.
make new ones.
find old ones, even better yet, be found by old ones.

I need more sun and warmth, not speaking solely of weather. yes, spring's promise is welcomed.


Sometimes things don't add up and we need reference points, things to consider, substantiate claims. ie let's say someone was influenced by something, someone, or what have you, I personally would like proof. or let's say you heard a rumor, and you wanted to know if it's true - or if it has some semblance of truth - going to the source(s) would be better than just believing the claim. People say stupid things to suit their needs, whether that's out of hurt, pride, jealousy, confusion, malice, hearsay, or simply not knowing the facts, and it is of great consequence. I tend to believe most things I'm told, especially when it comes from someone I admire, respect, or have some sense of attachment to. However, the confrontation can be, and in all probability will be, damaging, resulting in loss. Maybe there are some things we are not meant to know. But when one's driving force is after truth, how to walk away in confusion and doubt, well it's not easy. I've never been one to be dismissive.

I always wondered if Nietzsche ever commented on Marx, according to a footnote in Kaufman's biography of Nietzsche, no (see page 292 n7 which is continued from pg 291). I may have mentioned this already. That could have been real interesting.

and maybe that's where I get hung up, in the possibilities. the promise. again, there is no beginning, there is no end. nothing is finite.

If you suppose man to be man and his relationship to the world to be a human one, then you can only exchange love for love, trust for trust, etc. If you wish to appreciate art, then you must be a man with some artistic education; if you wish to exercise an influence on other men, you must be a man who has a really stimulating and encouraging effect on other men. Each of your relationships to man - and to nature - must be a definite expression of your real individual life that corresponds to the object of your will. If you love without arousing reciprocal love, that is, if your love does not as such produce love in return, if through the manifestation of yourself as a loving person you do not succeed in making yourself a beloved person, then your love is impotent and a misfortune...
pp 119-120 Karl Marx Selected Writings ed David McLellan

Assume man to be man and his relationship to the world to be a human one: then you can exchange love only for love, trust for trust, etc. If you enjoy art, you must be an artistically-cultivated person; if you want to exercise influence over other people, you must be a person with a stimulating and encouraging effect on other people. Every one of your relations to man and to nature must be a specific expression, corresponding to the object of your will, of your real individual life. If you love without evoking love in return - that is, if your loving as loving does not produce reciprocal love; if through a living expression of yourself as a loving person you do not make yourself a loving person, then your love is impotent - a misfortune.
p 140 - Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 Karl Marx translated by Martin Milligan.

1789
1848
1914
1968