S’i’ fosse fuoco, ardere’ il mondo;
s’i’ fosse vento, lo tempestarei;
s’i’ fosse acqua, i’ l’annegherei;
s’i’ fosse Dio, mandereil’en profondo;

s’i’ fosse papa, serei allor giocondo,
ché tutti cristïani embrigarei;
s’i’ fosse ‘mperator, sa’ che farei?
a tutti mozzarei lo capo a tondo.

S’i’ fosse morte, andarei da mio padre;
s’i’ fosse vita, fuggirei da lui:
similemente faria da mi’ madre,

S’i’ fosse Cecco, com’i’ sono e fui,
torrei le donne giovani e leggiadre:
le vecchie e laide lasserei altrui.

Cecco Angiolieri

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Don’t think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You’re a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

Kerouac, “Belief and Technique for Modern Prose”

I do not have a vision. I am the vision. There are no limits to painting; that´s why I am involved in it. I don’t experience “limits” as limits. There is no resistance when I am painting. The inside and the outside coexist. What appears in the image field is not subordinate to existing reality, it constitutes that reality. I don’t interpret reality; I understand reality as a performative activity that generates itself newly and differently, again and again.

Katharina Grosse, interviewed in BOMB

Whatever, or else!

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the public would have to pay an extra $20 trillion over the next 75 years (an amount that is approximately equal to 4 times the projected Social Security shortfall) if Representative Ryan’s plan for a Medicare voucher system is adopted.

There may be questions of values here, but most immediately the question is whether we want to take money from low and middle income people and give it to these industries [private insurance and healthcare providers].

Everything immediately grows longer or becomes tangled or adhesive, as if every action carried within it its own prolongation and every phrase left a thread of glue hanging in the air, a thread that can never be cut without something else becoming sticky too. Everything persists and continues on its own, even if you yourself decide to withdraw.

Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow: Dance and Dream

“If I wanted to be cynical, I’d say cuts are just a sideshow, a diversion from the main event. They’ll keep rolling on and on and on, because the simple truth is that wealth is being extracted from society at an ever faster rate. The main event? Deep institutional reform, so our institutions create wealth, instead of merely extracting it. The longer we put it off, fail to do it, or, most vitally, fail to understand that logic, the longer and harder this great stagnation will be.”

Umair Haque

The moon traversing the heavens, where is its companion?
The mighty king of beasts, with its powerful fangs,
And the fire that consumes the forest, where are their companions?
For those like us, what need is there of a companion’s strength?
Into the water of the great ocean should one not plunge?
Is there a snakebite that can in no way be cured?
One should cultivate enormous energy that mighty beings witness,
And if, despite the efforts made, one does not succeed, what fault is there? 

“The Story of Prince Súdhana,” The Heavenly Exploits: Buddhist Biographies from the Divyavadana (Clay Sanskrit Library)

Estimated causalities from direct interventions or indirect/proxy/low intensity conflicts involving the U.S.

China (1945-60): 200K
Greece (1947-49): 100K
Korea (1951-53): 2M
Guatemala (1954-2002): 300K
Vietnam (1960-75): 2M
Laos (1965-73): 500K
Cambodia (1969-75): 1M
Indonesia (1965): 500K
Colombia (1966-2002): 500K
Oman (1970): 10K
Bangladesh (1971): 2M
Uganda (1971-1979): 200K
Chile (1973-1990): 20K
East Timor (1975): 200K
Angola (1975-2002): 1.5M
Argentina (1976-1979): 30K
El Salvador (1980-95): 100K
Nicaragua (1980-90): 100K
Mozambique (1981-1988): 1M
Turkey (1984-2002): 50K
Rwanda (1990-1996): 1M
Iraq (1991): 98k
Somalia (1991-1994): 300K
Yugoslavia (1991-2002): 300K
Liberia (1992-2002): 150K
Burundi (1993-1999): 200K
Sudan (1998): 100K
Congo (1998-2002): 3M
Iraq (1993-present): 653k Lancet study
Afghanistan (2001-present): 19.8k

(k = 1,000 m = 1,000,000)

From: http://roundtree7.wordpress.com/2011/03/26/updated-secrets-of-us-history/