why there's no point doing interviews

Literary writing does not explain, does not teach: It simply offers the presence of its own mystery, its own experience, in its absence of explanation, thus inviting not some illusory ‘understanding' … but precisely a reading.

Hence the vanity of asking the writer what he ‘wanted to say' ... as if writing came from his wanting, from his free and sovereign will.

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Jonathan Littell, quoted here: http://bit.ly/esUPo6

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what to do in event of exposure to higher than normal levels of radiation

General Decontamination Procedure (if water is unavailable)

• Remove your clothes and shoes and place them in a plastic bag.

• Wipe yourself down with cloth or a wet tissue (afterwards place the cloth or wipe in the plastic bag and throw the bag and its contents away).

General Decontamination Procedure (When water is available)

• Remove your shoes and clothes and place them in a plastic bag.

• Wipe yourself down with cloth or a wet tissue (afterwards place the cloth or wipe in the plastic bag and throw the bag and contents away).

Follow the procedure below if shower is available

• Wash your hair with shampoo.

• Wash your face. (with soap or body wash)

• Wash your body. Including the inside of your ears and under your fingernails (with soap or body wash)

• Wash the clothes in the laundry or if you are still concerned, dispose of the clothes.

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the jesus sutras

This comes from a 7th Century Chinese text, as quoted by Martin Palmer, offering an insight into how 7th Century Chinese Christianity was evolving, incorporating elements of Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism

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The Four Essential Laws of Christian Dharma


Now, what are the Four Essential Laws of the Dharma?
The first is no wanting. If your heart is obsessed with something,
It manifests in all kinds of distorted ways.
Distorted thoughts are the root of negative behavior . . .

The second is no doing. Don't put on a mask and pretend to be what you’re not . . .
The effort needed to hold a direction is abandoned,
And there is simply action and reaction.
So walk the Way of No Action.

The third is no piousness. And what that means
Is not wanting to have your good deeds broadcast to the nation.
Do what's right to bring people to the truth
But not for your own reputation’s sake.
So anyone who teaches the Triumphant Law,
Practicing the Way of Light to bring life to the truth,
Will know Peace and Happiness in company.
But don't talk it away. This is the Way of No Virtue.

The fourth is no absolute. Don't try to control everything,
Don't take sides in arguments about right and wrong.
Treat everyone equally, and live from day to day.
It’s like a clear mirror that reflects everything anyway:
Green or yellow or in any combination-
It shows everything, as well as the smallest of details.
What does the mirror do? It reflects without judgement.

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quoted from: http://www.sevenpillarshouse.org/article/the_jesus_sutras_an_ancient_message_for_a_post_modernist_future/

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the arrow maker who gives birth to a new century

The most extraordinary festival of all those celebrated by the Indians of America was surely the Toxiuh molpilia (the binding of the years) which took place at the end of every century, at the end of a cycle of fifty-two solar years. This was the festival of the new fire... It was the most beautiful, the most tragic, and the most meaningful of festivals, since it took place at the time when, according to the Indians' counting of time, all the stars having completed their cycle, the entire cosmos would begin again the revolution which lead it from the year One Rabbit to another year One Rabbit.

...

There was something tragic and dreamlike in that terrifying wait for the end of the world which the Christian Sahagun could not accept, because for him it has the inevitable sense of a damnation: it was, he says, "an invention of the devil so they would renew the pact they had made with him... by plunging them into terror of the end of the world and by making them believe he was prolonging their time and was having mercy on them, by allowing the world to continue."

...

The priests then arrived, each one wearing the insignias of his god, and they began to walk slowly, silently, "and they were then called teonenemi, which means, they walk like gods".

Then, at a given moment, a man was sacrificed, enabling the entire universe to continue on its course. They chose a warrior, captured during combat, chosen from among the most courageos, who had to bear, by the date of his birth, the name of his destiny. Born on the first day of the year, he was called xiuhtlanin, he who arrowed the new year. The high priest placed a stick of wood upon his chest and quickly rubbed the tapered stick between his hands, thus producing a spark. When the fire caught "the captive's chest was immediately opened, his heart ripped out and thrown into the fire, which they kept fanning, and then the whole body was consumed in the flames". And all around the people who were waiting in anguish, seeing the fire rise up, "immediately cut their ears with knives, collected their blood and threw it in the direction where the light had appeared"; fire was taken to all parts of the province by runners carrying torches and, says Sahagun, "it was an admirable sight, that multitude of fire in all the villages, so such a degree it seemed to be daylight." The last ceremony of the new fire took place in 1507, according to Sahagun, "they did it in complete solemnity, for the Spanish had not yet come to that land".

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From The Mexican Dream, J.M.G. Le Clezio, p54.

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funny how these things have a way of coming together

What we watched was a work by Harold Pinter called Betrayal...
'What did you think?' he asked.
'Of the play?'
He nodded as he chewed. I shrugged.
'Good.' I said. 'Pretty good.'
Rodney's expression demanded an explanation.
'Well'. I admitted, 'the truth is I'm not sure I understood it all.'
'I, on the other hand, am sure I didn't understand any of it,' Rodney said after emitting a grunt...'But I fear that's not Wong's fault but Pinter's. I can't remember where I read how he discovered his writing method. The guy was with his wife and he said to her: "Darling, I've got quite a few good scenes written, but they've nothing to do with each other. What should I do?" And his wife answered: "Don't worry: you just put them all together, the critics will take care of explaining what they mean." And it worked: the proof is there's not a single line of Pinter the critics don't understand perfectly.

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Javier Cercas, The Speed of Light

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pelevin on writing; on buddhism; on writing and buddhism

Life is a bitch, and then you die. Death is a bitch, and then you are born. Writing is very much like this, as it is living multiple short lives within your longer one.

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Buddhism seemed to me to be the only religion that didn’t resemble the projection of the Soviet power onto the domain of spirit. It was only much later that I understood that it was exactly the other way around—the Soviet power was an attempt to project the alleged heavenly order onto Earth. Well, Buddhism was totally out of this vicious circle and there was something so strangely compelling and soothing about it.

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http://bombsite.com/issues/79/articles/2481

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on a flying visit home from the peruvian rainforest

In New York I went to the entryway, only two blocks from my apartment. where John Lennon was shot. In Central Park a crowd had gathered spontaneously for a silent vigil that kept growing and growing. The degree to which people were feeling genuine shock and dismay made an impression on me, even if the demonstration was plagued by all the inanities that also form part of his era: joints were passed around, posters of gurus were held up in the crowd, and vague demands for peace were voiced - for what peace, where? A young woman wearing a paleo-hippie outfit held up a banner reading, "All he said is give peace a chance."

Werner Herzog, December 1980, from Conquest of the Useless

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quotation from a plastic bag from libreria del teatro el galpon, av 18 de julio 1618-20

Uno no se llega a ser quien es por lo que escribo sino por lo que lee.

Jorge Luis Borges

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what he said in caracas

What then is writing of quality? Well, what it has always been: knowing to stick one’s head into the dark, knowing to jump into the void, knowing that literature is basically a dangerous occupation. To run along the edge of the precipice: on one side the bottomless abyss and on the other the faces one loves, the smiling faces one loves, and books, and friends, and food. And to accept that fact, though sometimes it may weigh on us more than the flagstone that covers the remains of every dead writer. Literature, as an Andalusian folk song might say, is dangerous.

bolano

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2 quotations courtesy of enrique vila-matas

To those who ask me the reason for my travels, I tend to respond: I am well aware of what I am fleeing from, but not what I am searching for. In any case it's better to exchange a bad state for an uncertain one.

Montaigne

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The soul while travelling is constantly being exercised as it observes new and unknown things; and I know of no better school for the formation of life than consistently bringing before it the diversity of so many other lives.

Montaigne

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the artabatirae

"towards the west [of the Aithiopian kingdom of Meroe] are . . . the Artabatirae, who have four legs and rove about like wild animals" Pliny the Elder, Natural History

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It should never be forgotten that the power of the image is far greater than the word.

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The creation of moving, reproducible images might have changed the world more than any other invention.

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The image is seductive. It beseeches covetousness. The eyes swallow images like candy.

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Nothing is more likely to make an individual want to change their life than the sight of an image.

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Even though, no matter how authentic the image appears, it is never anything more than a rumour.

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