Notes On Dinner Conversation (In Times of "War")

When someone with power (contacts, influence, money, etc. etc...) calls your argument "reductionist," don't take it personal, it just means that the truth is a pain in the ass.

~12/22/08

I Was 10...

when this was painted.

I didn't see it until I was 25.

It took me slightly longer to begin to know what it meant, truthfully, and not as some childrens' game.

I see new things in it (the painting and the words) all the time, about people I know and people I don't, or don't anymore.

All of this is for better and worse simultaneously, which is what makes it (the painting, the words, the idea) alive, I think.

"Where is the most intense realm of the heart, the soul, the faculties? In passion or in reason? Everything is logical in this world. Age of passions first; the age of reason next.

He who has not gone through these phases has only half-lived.

The person who has had only passions knows but one side of life; he who has had only reason is no better off; and he who upsets the natural order of the two periods has been nothing but a fool from beginning to end...

And I should see you again as I saw you, and I should love you again as I loved you, you of whom I try in vain to say nothing here, although my thoughts are all filled with you--you who appear to me still young and beautiful and charming as in other days..."

~From the Journal of Baron Philippe Regis de Trobriand
December 31, 1867
Dakota Territory