Saturday commute cxlviii: Reading away

The choice of nutrition; the choice
of climate and place: the third
point at which one must not commit
a blunder at any price is the choice
of one's own kind of recreation. 
Reading is precisely my recreation
from my own seriousness. During per-
iods when I am hard at work you will
not find me surrounded by books: I'd
beware of letting anyone near me talk,
much less think. And that is what 
reading would mean.

He possessed that divine malice

              without which I cannot imagine perfection:

              I estimate the value of men, of races, ac-

              cording to the necessity by which they can-

              not conceive the god apart from the satyr.

Friedrich Nietzsche

  on Heinrich Heine

1888

Ecce Homo

  How one becomes

  what one is

Walter Kaufmann

  translation

op. cit.

Random House, 1966©

The last Thanksgiving of one's present decade

                       The thousand glimpses -
                    do they add up to a life

                       seen sideways, seen right?

J.D. McClatchy

Ten Commandments

  Poems

  Stolen Hours

  [fragment]

Alfred A. Knopf, 1999©

Sailor

   I do not think it altogether inappropriate

   to introduce myself to this audience. I am

   the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy

   to Paris. And I've enjoyed it.

   

Patrice Molinard

Le jardin des Tuileries

1952

Filip Hanning

President of the United States

Palais Chaillot

June, 1962

The beauty, the truth

Possibly - just possibly - the ultimate
injurious flight of fancy of the new Am-
erican government has been an infinitely
shameless repression of transgender per-
sons in the exercise of their citizenship.
It turns out, unbeknownst to those who've
been fighting the last war, that this new
front in the endlessly vengeful selection
of innocents, to punish for the decline of
the illegitimate, is populous and every
bit as irresistible as its predecessors.

One cannot claim, under the circumstances,
to be able only to pray for the safety and
safekeeping of transgender citizens and 
guests of our jurisdiction. The commitment
of equal protection is the birthright of
this nation in its second burst of free-
dom, the war to subdue the Southern Se-
cession. It is the law. It is the glory
of the victory over involuntary servitude.

In a majestically restrained but emphatic
ruling, a United States District Court judge
in Baltimore has found that this government
has endeavored to harm not merely the career,
not merely the dignity, not merely the live-
lihood, but the health of its American victim,
a sailor in the nation's service. We now know,
this new government is not just the procurer 
for our enemies. It is their switch-blade.

Walker Evans

1933

Petty Officer First Class Brock Stone, USNR

Baltimore, Maryland

November 21, 2017

Sanctuary

Under the freest of political systems

and governments there is no sanctuary -

only resort, respite, remission from

invasion. I think, what we mean when

we think of sanctuary, is that these

invasions will not be discriminatory

or arbitrary, two categories of dep-

ravity in government at which the

present 'administration' in America

strives to set the most glittering

benchmarks since the hounding of in-

digenous peoples into barren wastes.

But there has come a day, more than

once this year, when a United States

District Court Judge has upheld the

connection between the English lan-

guage and its plain meaning, as the

unarguable basis for rejecting the

theology of this 'administration,'

in pursuit of any sanctuary from its

arbitrary, discriminatory conduct.

Judge Orrick probably hasn't adopt-

ed the term, gangsters, for the hap-

less implementarians of the Presid-

ent's own rhetoric, when they dabble

in frivolous paraphrases of his prom-

ises to inflict harm on selected

peoples by impermissible means. Yes-

terday, their blunder was to over-

look that Congress hadn't authorized

the 'administration' to place impromp-

tu conditions on their appropriations.

He would not have trifled with the ob-

vious metaphor, highjackers, for the

stark usurpation of the powers of the

other Branch. But even the stooges of

Sessions seem to have taken his point, 

resorting to their classic vengeance,

in mockery of the system they exploit:

Fox News has denounced him for helping

the President's predecessor - lawfully.

It is hard to parse what might derange

the 'administration' more, the imper-

tinence of its own petards, or the ex-

posure of their congenital imbecility.

Having little use for the mind, they

probably aren't particular in tracing

the origins of their fury, so long as

they can sustain its righteousness.

They are, in every way, the agents of

their mob. They'll be back.

It goes against a sensible character's

nature, to celebrate these interim re-

missions of the onward march of decad-

ent misrule. But I think, now, one can

learn from the mob the sustaining pow-

er, the sanctuary of a little red hat.

I happen to think well of a new sweater.

 Filip Hanning