Quote of the day

[iambiguous]

The Player

June: I don't go to movies.
Griffin Mill: Why not?
June: Life is too short.

And how ironic is that?

Griffin Mill: Movies are art, now more than ever.

And how ironic is that?

Detective Susan Avery: Paul went and saw a movie the other night and he keeps talking about it. What was that movie, Paul?
Detective DeLongpre: Freaks.
Griffin Mill: Oh yeah, Freaks, Tod Browning, It's a classic.
Detective DeLongpre: One of us. One of us. One of us.
Detective Susan Avery: He keeps saying that.

Next up: One of them. One of them. One of them.

June: We can't hurry things any more than we can stop them.

She's an artist, of course.

Tom Oakley: If I'm perfectly honest, if I think about this, this isn't even an American film.

Tell that to Peter Falk and Bruce Willis and Julia Roberts.

Phil: [eulogizing at the funeral] The Hollywood system did not murder David Kahane. Not the $98 million movie, not the $12 million actor, nor the million-dollar deal that David Kahane never landed. No, the most that we can pin on Hollywood is assault with intent to kill, because society is responsible for this particular murder, and it is to society that we must look if we are to have any justice for that crime. Because someone in the night killed David Kahane, and that person will have to bear the guilt. And if David were here right now, I know in my heart that he, he would say, "Cut the shit, Phil. What did you learn from this? Did you learn anything from all of this?" And I'd say, uh, "Yeah, David, I've learned a lot. We here will take it from here." And the next time we sell a script for a million dollars, the next time we nail some shit bag producer to the wall, we'll say that's another one for David Kahane! David was working on something the day he died, I'd like to share it with you.
[starts reading from a script]
Phil: Blackness. A mangy dog barks. Garbage cans are lifted as derelicts on the street hunt for food. Buzzing, a cheap alarm clock goes off. Interior: flophouse room, early morning. A tracking shot moves through the grimy room. Light streams in through holes in the yellowing window shade. Moths dance in the beams of light. Track down along the floor, the frayed rug, stop on an old shoe. It's empty.
Phil: That's as far as he got. That's the last thing he wrote. So long, Dave. Fade out. Thank you.

Next up: Short Cuts.

[iambiguous]

Philosophy

“I do not know how to teach philosophy without becoming a disturber of the peace.” Baruch Spinoza

Not unlike some here? One in particular?

“Problems that remain persistently insoluble should always be suspected as questions asked in the wrong way.” Alan Wilson Watts

Click.

“It is therefore senseless to think of complaining since nothing foreign has decided what we feel, what we live, or what we are.” Jean-Paul Sartre

No, really, how ridiculous is that?

“Generally speaking, the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.” David Hume

How ridiculous? Start here: https://knowthyself.forumotion.net/

“I never found beauty in longing for the impossible and never found the possible to be beyond my reach.” Ayn Rand

Talk about a world of words!

“Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse” Joseph Brodsky

So, don't forget to vote!

[iambiguous]

Welcome to the Dollhouse

Dawn: Mark, is eighth grade better than seventh?
Mark: Not really.
Dawn: What about ninth?
Mark: All of junior high school sucks. High school’s better. It’s closer to college. They’ll call you names…but not as much to your face.

Next up: Welcome to the philosophy forum.

Brandon: Why do you hang out with that faggot?
Dawn Weiner: Just because Ralphie's a faggot doesn't mean he's an asshole.

Or, sure, leave assholes out altogether.

Ralphie: You think you're hot shit, but you're really just cold diarrhea.

That's quite a difference, isn't it?

Mother: Dawn, you are not leaving this table until you tell your sister that you love her!
[Hours later she’s still sitting there]
Mother: Go to bed.

Next up [for others]: days later.

Dawn: Um, Ginger? Can I talk to you for a second? It’s about Steve Rodgers. My brother told me you used to go out with Steve. Is it true?
Ginger: We fingerfucked. Once, last spring. That’s it. It’s all over now.
Later…
Dawn [to Steve]: Do you want to see my fingers?

He doesn't as I recall.

Dawn: I’ve been thinking seriously of building another clubhouse, and I wanted to know…would you be interested in being my first honorary member?
Steve: What? What are you talking about?
Dawn: The Special People Club.
Steve: “Special People”?
Dawn: What’s the matter?
Steve: Do you know what “special people” means?
Dawn: What?
Steve: “Special people” equals retarded. Your club is for retards.

Or, here, for pinheads.

[after seeing Dawn about to enter a school bathroom stall, then going over to the sink]
Lolita: You didn't come in here to wash your hands.
Dawn Weiner: Y - yes, I did.
Lolita: You came in here to take a shit.
Dawn Weiner: No, really. I don't have to go. My hands were just dirty, that's all.
Lolita: Liar. I can smell you from here.

No, not that Lolita.

[iambiguous]

Love and Human Remains

Bernie: Why is everything so fucking hard?
David: Not everything, just the important stuff.

Of course, we know what's important to Bernie.

Sal [at nightspot]: It’s chicken night.
David: Are there any fags here?
Sal: Sure. They just don’t know it yet.

Of course, we know what Sal doesn't know yet.

David [in a crowded supermarket]: You’re having someone over. Who is it the bartender?
Candy: No.
David: It’s the dyke! It is the dyke!! Carpet munching in my own home!!

Anyone munch carpets here?

Candy: I don’t have much luck with men.
David: Well, that’s not exclusively a female problem.

Kane!

Candy: David, the paper boy is here.

Kane!

Jerri: Some people have a problem with gays and lesbians.
Candy: Yeah, well some people wear polyester.

Or elbow patches.

David: So, Candy tells me you’re a lesbian.
Candy: David!
Jerri: That’s right.
David: I’m queer myself.
Jerri: I know.
[pause]
David: Well, we seem to have exhausted that particular topic.

For now, let's say.

David: Here’s to love…in all of its many forms.
Candy: Do you ever get tired of being a professional faggot.
David: Don’t.
Candy: You have nothing and no one in your life.
David: I have what I need.
Candy: You don’t think past the next beer or the next fuck.
David: At least I’m honest about it.
Candy: Honest? Please, you’ve never been honest. You’ve been lying about your feelings for so long they don’t even exist anymore.
David: Why, because they’re not your feelings.
Candy: At least I’m willing to try.
David: With anyone who comes along.
Candy: That guy might have loved me.
David: You’re pathetic Candy.
Candy: You fuck everything up.
David: When are you going to stop blaming me for everything that’s wrong in your life?
Candy: When are you going to admit you were never a good actor?
David: When you admit you’re in love with a faggot because it’s the only way you feel safe.
Candy: Shut up.
David: I don’t need you. I don’t need anybody.
Candy: And you call me pathetic.

So, who won?

David: You’re the one.
Bernie: They were hairdressers and secretaries for Christ’s sake.
David: They were people.
Bernie: Like you fucking care about people.

Then over the ledge he goes...

[iambiguous]

Kalifornia

Parole Officer: You know, you’re supposed to notify me Early, when you lose your job. I stopped by the mirror factory today… you left quite a mess back there.
Early Grayce: Yeah… well, that wasn’t my fault. Besides, it’s dangerous, and they treat me like shit.
Parole Officer: [with sarcasm] Aw… nobody ever has treated you right, have they Early? Your Daddy was picking on you when he threw you out of the house for stealing the tires off his truck. The police were way out of line when they kept you from beating that bartender half to death. You know Early I bet the Lord’s gonna be picking on you come Judgment Day.

On the other hand, where's God when the serial killers are getting started?

Carrie: Oh Brian, you’ve got to be kidding me. Look at them. They look like Okies!
Adele: Oh Jesus, Early, they look kinda weird.

Let's get started!

Brian [narrating]: Carrie was right. If you looked in the dictionary under poor white trash a picture of Early and Adele would have been there. But I knew if I was gonna be a good writer I’d have to ignore the cliches and look at life through my own eyes.

Adele is no Early. Unfortunately, she'll find that out the hard way.

[Discussing Early’s job at the mirror factory]
Adele: Know what, Brian? One night when we was stayin’ up late we was talkin’ ‘bout how much bad luck he must have comin’ from all those mirrors he broke, and I swear we came to 449 years it would take for him to work it all off, and he’d have to - after he died - he’s gonna have to keep comin’ back to earth over and over and over again.
Carrie: Karma.
Adele: What?
Carrie: Karma. You know, when you do something bad to someone and fate pays you back by something bad happening to you.
Adele: [blowing a bubble] Is that French?

Let's run that by Early.

Brian [narrating]: Early seemed harmless. Primitive, but harmless. Of course the fact of the matter was he had killed his landlord less than an hour before we met him. He was even wearing the guy’s ring. Who knows what he did with the finger?

Ate it?

Brian [narrating]: From the moment I began working on the book, I kept asking one question over and over: What’s the difference between a killer and anyone of us? What was it they had or didn’t have that separated them from us?

Genes and/or memes?

[iambiguous]

Susan Orlean

In Senegal, the polite expression for saying someone died is to say his or her library has burned. When I first heard the phrase, I didn’t understand it, but over time I came to realize it was perfect. Our minds and souls contain volumes inscribed by our experiences and emotions; each individual’s consciousness is a collection of memories we’ve cataloged and stored inside us, a private library of a life lived.

See, I told you.

The library is a gathering pool of narratives and of the people who come to find them. It is where we can glimpse immortality; in the library, we can live forever.

Sort of.

The world is so huge that people are always getting lost in it. There are too many ideas and things and people too many directions to go. I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size. It makes the world seem not huge and empty but full of possibility.

Clearly, for better or worse.

The library is a whispering post. You don't need to take a book off a shelf to know there is a voice inside that is waiting to speak to you, and behind that was someone who truly believed that if he or she spoke, someone would listen. It was that affirmation that always amazed me. Even the oddest, most peculiar book was written with that kind of courage -- the writer's belief that someone would find his or her book important to read. I was struck by how precious and foolish and brave that belief is, and how necessary, and how full of hope it is to collect these books and manuscripts and preserve them. It declares that stories matter, and so does every effort to create something that connects us to one another, and to our past, and to what is still to come.

And the equivalent of that here. If there is one.

I have come to believe that books have souls—why else would I be so reluctant to throw one away?

Uh, let alone burn one?

The reading of the book was a journey. There was no need for souvenirs.

That's what highlighters are for.

[iambiguous]

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Martha [seemingly out of the blue to Lucy]: Is it true married people don’t fuck?

She might just as well have been asking Lucy about the weather.

Ted [as Martha skinny dips]: That’s an interesting choice of swimwear.

Buck naked.

Lucy: Martha! What are you doing?
Martha: What?
Lucy: Would you put some clothes on, you can’t swim naked.
Martha: Why?
Lucy: You just can’t. There are kids around and people come by.
Martha: So?

A "cult" thing let's call it.

Patrick: If you feel safe here, and I think you do, let us in. We just want to help you.
Zoe: Yeah, we think you’re fucking awesome.
Patrick: But if you’re going to live here then you really need to be a part of things.

Like this...

Katie [after Marcy May/Martha has basically been raped by Patrick]: I know you feel like something bad just happened Marcy May, but you have to trust me, that was not bad, it was truly good. We’ve all been in this situation, and we wouldn’t all still be here if what happened in that room was bad. We all love each other very much, we are all together on this, you have to trust us. Do you believe me?
[Martha nods.]

You nod or else.

Zoe: You’re so lucky, I’d give anything to have my first time again.
Martha: Really?
Zoe: Yeah, it’s so special.
Martha: I can’t remember anything, I just woke up on the floor and felt this pain
Zoe: That’s the cleansing. It’s good. It means it’s working if you can’t remember things. You’re cleansing yourself of the past and the toxins.
[Martha is distant]
Zoe: You need to share yourself, don’t be so selfish.
Martha: I’m not.
Zoe: So smile then, enjoy this amazing night. It only happens once.

And she really, really believed it.

[iambiguous]

Despair

“Bach, he said, was a person's best ally in the battle against despair, against the thought of how immeasurably great one's solitude is in the endlessness of the universe.” Wolf Wondratschek

Or, for others, Joy Division, Depeche Mode and Ultravox.

“It’s a big black bloody world full of a million black and bloody hells, and when those hells collide it’s time for us to sit up and take fucking notice.” David Peace

I do what I can to encourage that here, of course.

“Death for a noble cause, I understand, but...death for its own sake? Death as the...as the noble cause? That's not a good answer, either. It's not as bad as theirs, not as bad as those who are marching against you out there, but that...the fact that it's the worst answer doesn't make it a good answer. Isn't...isn't worshiping the inevitability of death just, like, just another bullshit way of trying to have the illusion of control over it?” Phillip Andrew Bennett Low

Death? Your take is as good as mine. Or maybe not.

“No one's despair is like my despair..." Louise Glück

And not just philosophically, he groused.

“Laughing at yourself does more to heal the heart and mind than any medicine. Discouragement and despair cower under a good dose of laughter.” Richelle E. Goodrich

If that's actually an option, of course.

“And now, the entire world has fallen into despair. In other words, if you see despair as the enemy, then your enemy is the world itself!” Kazutaka Kodaka

The whole fucking universe for some.

[iambiguous]

Notes on a Scandal

Barbara Covett: People like Sheba think they know what it is to be lonely. But of the drip, drip of the long-haul, no-end-in-sight solitude, they know nothing. What it's like to construct an entire weekend around a visit to the launderette. Or to be so chronically untouched that the accidental brush of a bus conductor's hand sends a jolt of longing straight to your groin. Of this, Sheba and her like have no clue.

No end in sight solitude? That's actually the whole point for some of us.

Barbara Covett: People languish for years with partners who are clearly from another planet. We want so much to believe that we've found our other. It takes courage to recognise the real as opposed to the convenient.

Or, here, as opposed to a world of words.

[Barbara is upstairs, watching Sheba and Richard having a blazing row about her affair with Steven Connolly]
Barbara Covett: [voiceover] By the time I took my seat in the Gods, the opera was well into its final act.
Richard Hart: You're his teacher!
Sheba Hart: And you were mine! I'm not justifying. I'm not trying to justify it...
Richard Hart: You are so full of shit! It's totally different. You were twenty!
Sheba Hart: He's sixteen in May. He's not some innocent...
Richard Hart: Of course he's innocent! He's fucking fifteen! Are you insane? If you meant to destroy us, why not do it with an adult? That's the convention, it's worked for centuries!

So, is his point more or less reasoanble than her point?

Barbara Covett: Here come the local pubescent proles. The future plumbers, shop assistants, and doubtless the odd terrorist too. In the old days, we confiscated cigarettes and wank mags. Now it's knives and crack cocaine. And they call it progress.

Then there's the American rendition of that...the odd mass shooter.

Sheba Hart: So that's your vicious father?
Steven Connolly: You wanted a sob story, I gave it to you. Made you feel like Bob Geldof.
Sheba Hart: You lied to me!
Steven Connolly: Ooooh, sorry, Miss! What, would you prefer it if I lived in a shithole?
Sheba Hart: And your mother?
Steven Connolly: I think she's gonna pull through. What do you want? What're you doin' here?

What about that, Sheba?

Barbara Covett: I had expected a suave young lawyer, and two perfect poppets. Not so. She's married some crumbling patriarch, he's nearly as old as me. And there's the daughter, a pocket princess. And finally, a somewhat tiresome court jester.

That would be their "special needs" son.

[iambiguous]

Kalifornia

Brian Kessler: Early lived in the moment. He did whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. I don't know if I was fascinated or frightened by him.

Think Jesse Lujack?

Adele Corners: My God, Carrie. If Early ever saw me in a picture like that I'd be black-and-blue for a week.
Carrie Laughlin: You shouldn't let him do that to you.
Adele Corners: You think Early's mean to me? Well, he's not. He may punish me once in a while, but he's not mean. Um, when I was 13 there was these three boys and they raped me in the back of this truck. They hurt me so bad that I was in the hospital for, like, four months. And I feel safe with Early cos most of the time he treats me really nice. I know that he'd never. He would never let anything like that ever happen to me again.

Of course, he does end up killing her too.

Adele Corners: You know, I used to smoke before I met Early. But he broke me of that.
Carrie Laughlin: Broke you?
Adele Corners: Oh. Yeah. Cos Early don't think women should smoke or drink or cuss. So you know what I do? I spell all my cuss words.

I'm sure that fools him.

Brian Kessler: How many people have you killed, Earl?
Early Grayce: How many have you seen me kill?
Brian Kessler: None.
Early Grayce: That's how many I've killed.
Brian Kessler: If you say so.
Early Grayce: Damn right I do! Eat your food!

Best to just go along with him, right?

Early Grayce: Look mama, there's a purdy little house. Maybe they got some beer.
[scene shifts to large garden with lots of various giant cactus plants as we hear Adele admiring/describing the cactus plants and a sort of jiggling sound effect. The camera pans to the Lincoln]
Adele Corners: Look at all the cactuses. They sure are beautiful. You know what makes a cactus so strong? You can forget about them forever and they'd just keep on growing.
[scene now shifts to Brian who has his hands cuffed inside the steering wheel. He's trying to get free, while Adele keeps rambling on about the cactus plants]
Brian Kessler: Adele listen, we got to do something before Early kills someone else.
Adele Corners: And they breed.
Brian Kessler: [voice raising] Adele.
[Adele finally stops rambling and looks over]
Brian Kessler: Would you listen to me?
Adele Corners: [hopeless voice crying] You can't do anything Brian. Just sit still.

Best to just go along with him, right?

Brian: I’m talking about the mind and culpability of a serial killer. Someone who has no ability to distinguish between right and wrong is like a child in the eyes of the law. He should be treated like a child. He should not be imprisoned, let alone executed.
Eric: Oh, here we go again. Let’s just lay it all at the altar of misfiring synapses, amok biochemicals and horrendous childhoods.
Brian: Look, it’s a fact, most of these people suffer from a severe chemical brain imbalance. The answer is research and treatment under hospital supervised conditions. Not the electric chair.

Next up: Early.

Brian: You know, I didn’t know this about you, I didn’t know you were so prejudiced.
Carrie: Oh please, because I object when someone takes off their shoe and scratches their foot while I’m eating in a restaurant you call me prejudiced?

And then those socks!

Brian: You didn’t have to kill the gas station attendent. You wanted to. Why? Help me out, Early, you’re right. I don’t know shit about killing. Why? Did it make you feel good? Powerful? Superior? Who are you angry with, your mother? Your father?
Early: You wanna know about my daddy? I’ll tell you about my daddy…

Want to hear about mine?

[iambiguous]

Kalifornia

Brian Kessler: Early lived in the moment. He did whatever he wanted whenever he wanted. I don't know if I was fascinated or frightened by him.

Think Jesse Lujack?

Adele Corners: My God, Carrie. If Early ever saw me in a picture like that I'd be black-and-blue for a week.
Carrie Laughlin: You shouldn't let him do that to you.
Adele Corners: You think Early's mean to me? Well, he's not. He may punish me once in a while, but he's not mean. Um, when I was 13 there was these three boys and they raped me in the back of this truck. They hurt me so bad that I was in the hospital for, like, four months. And I feel safe with Early cos most of the time he treats me really nice. I know that he'd never. He would never let anything like that ever happen to me again.

Of course, he does end up killing her too.

Adele Corners: You know, I used to smoke before I met Early. But he broke me of that.
Carrie Laughlin: Broke you?
Adele Corners: Oh. Yeah. Cos Early don't think women should smoke or drink or cuss. So you know what I do? I spell all my cuss words.

I'm sure that fools him.

Brian Kessler: How many people have you killed, Earl?
Early Grayce: How many have you seen me kill?
Brian Kessler: None.
Early Grayce: That's how many I've killed.
Brian Kessler: If you say so.
Early Grayce: Damn right I do! Eat your food!

Best to just go along with him, right?

Early Grayce: Look mama, there's a purdy little house. Maybe they got some beer.
[scene shifts to large garden with lots of various giant cactus plants as we hear Adele admiring/describing the cactus plants and a sort of jiggling sound effect. The camera pans to the Lincoln]
Adele Corners: Look at all the cactuses. They sure are beautiful. You know what makes a cactus so strong? You can forget about them forever and they'd just keep on growing.
[scene now shifts to Brian who has his hands cuffed inside the steering wheel. He's trying to get free, while Adele keeps rambling on about the cactus plants]
Brian Kessler: Adele listen, we got to do something before Early kills someone else.
Adele Corners: And they breed.
Brian Kessler: [voice raising] Adele.
[Adele finally stops rambling and looks over]
Brian Kessler: Would you listen to me?
Adele Corners: [hopeless voice crying] You can't do anything Brian. Just sit still.

Best to just go along with him, right?

Brian: I’m talking about the mind and culpability of a serial killer. Someone who has no ability to distinguish between right and wrong is like a child in the eyes of the law. He should be treated like a child. He should not be imprisoned, let alone executed.
Eric: Oh, here we go again. Let’s just lay it all at the altar of misfiring synapses, amok biochemicals and horrendous childhoods.
Brian: Look, it’s a fact, most of these people suffer from a severe chemical brain imbalance. The answer is research and treatment under hospital supervised conditions. Not the electric chair.

Next up: Early.

Brian: You know, I didn’t know this about you, I didn’t know you were so prejudiced.
Carrie: Oh please, because I object when someone takes off their shoe and scratches their foot while I’m eating in a restaurant you call me prejudiced?

And then those socks!

Brian: You didn’t have to kill the gas station attendent. You wanted to. Why? Help me out, Early, you’re right. I don’t know shit about killing. Why? Did it make you feel good? Powerful? Superior? Who are you angry with, your mother? Your father?
Early: You wanna know about my daddy? I’ll tell you about my daddy…

Want to hear about mine?

[iambiguous]

Martha Marcy May Marlene

Lucy: Why would you think it’s okay to come in here like that?
Martha: I don’t know. It’s a big bed. You guys were on the other side.
Lucy: You can’t just come into our room when we’re having sex. That’s not normal. It’s private.
Martha: Sorry.
Lucy: You don’t need to apologize. Just - I need you to understand why it’s not okay.
Martha: Okay.
Lucy: Do you?
Martha: Yeah.
Lucy: Well?
Martha: Because it’s private and not normal.
Lucy: Oh, God.

If there is one, of course.

Lucy: I’m her only family, you know. She needs to know that she can depend on me right now. It’s complicated.
Ted: As complicated as it might be, we can’t ignore the fact that her behavior is fucking insane.

Just what we need, another failure to communicate.

Martha: People don’t need careers, people should just exist. [Ted laughs.]
Ted: I have moments when I would love to move to France and just exist but it doesn’t work that way.
Martha: You can do that if you want to.
Ted: It’s not that simple.
Martha: (cautiously): It’s not your fault but you learned that success is measured by money and possessions. It’s just not the right way to live.
Ted: And what do you think the right way to live is? Is it vanishing off the face of the earth, not calling your family for two years or until they are worried sick about you. Is that the right way to live? Or is it, I don’t know, living without possessions until you actually need someone and then showing up on pour doorstep where you know you can get some? You sit there lecturing us about our lives and so far, I have not witnessed one sign that you have any values pf your own. You should remember that you sleeping under my roof and you are eating my food so watch your mouth because you are rude.
Martha: You don’t know anything about it.

So, who won?

Patrick: You know that death is the most beautiful part of life, right? Death is beautiful because we all fear death. And fear is the most amazing emotion of all because it creates complete awareness. It brings you to now, and it makes you truly present. And when you’re truly present, that’s nirvana. That’s pure love. So death is pure love.

Uh, right. How do these people mange to convince themselves of things like that? Or, perhaps, more to the point, why can’t I?

Martha: [about their robbery victim] Zoe, I can’t stop thinking about that man.
Zoe: Yeah. I know. We’re never really dead or alive; we just exist. So he’s still existing, but it’s in a parallel time. Just don’t think about it.

Cult stuff, right, Squeaky?

[first lines]
Watts: [as Martha runs away] Marcy! Marcy May! Where ya goin'?

And then the enigmatic ending...

[iambiguous]

Suicide

“What the hell is it with you kids and suicide? You think you've got it bad? What the hell have you had happened in your whole damn life that would be worth stretching your neck out?” Thomm Quackenbush

Blah, blah, blah.

“You can be killed during a suicide attempt.” Tamerlan Kuzgov

Suicide by cops, say?

“I can handle the pain, it's the hope that kills me.” Nick Hornby

On the other hand, come on, how much pain?

“Suicides are the residue left after the human brain has done the best it can with the information to hand.” Riadh Abed

Theoretically.

“Any animal aware that it could relieve its suffering by ending its own life would be expected to seize the opportunity. By this light, suicide can be understood as the default human response to intolerable distress.” Riadh Abed

In a nutshell?

“Some psychic bombardment of the will to live had begun, a new particle of love's mysterious atom had been discovered — the itch to jump.” Norman Mailer

And, for some, not just intellectually.

[iambiguous]

Shane

Marian Starrett: Guns aren't going to be my boy's life!
Joey: Why do you always have to spoil everything?
Shane: A gun is a tool, Marian; no better or no worse than any other tool: an axe, a shovel or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remember that.
Marian Starrett: We'd all be much better off if there wasn't a single gun left in this valley - including yours.

How about including the 400 million guns in the hands of American citizens today? And the one I own?

Joe: Looks like your friends are a little late. What are the Ryker boys up to this time?
Shane: Rykers?
Joe: That’s what I said.
Shane: I wouldn’t know a Ryker from your Jersey cow.
Joe: Don’t forget to close the gate on your way out.
Shane: Do you mind putting down that gun? Then I’ll leave.
Joe: What difference does it make, you’re leaving anyway.
Shane: I’d like it to be my idea.

The start of a beautiful friendship...

Joe [to Shane]: In case you wanted to know, that’s Ryker’s spread all over there. He thinks the whole world belongs to him.

The range wars.

Shane: Good morning, Joey.
Joey: How did you know it was me?
Shane: Well, I figured the cow couldn’t work that latch.

And most can't, of course.

Shane: How much do I owe you?
Grafton: Now, let’s see…Pants, a dollar. Two shirts, 60 cents. Belt…Young man, you owe me two dollars and two bits.
Fred: What’s the matter, son? You look kinda pale.
Shane: Been a long time since I got store-bought clothes.
Fred: Money don’t go very far these days.

And the cost of pants, two shirts and a belt today...?

Ernie: I’m wore down and out. Tired of being insulted by them fellas. Called a pig-farmer. Who knows what comes next?
Joe: Well, don’t throw your tail up. Tell you what, we’ll all get together here tonight and figure out something.
Ernie: I don’t know about me.
Joe: I’ll get the word around. You tell Shipstead and Torrey.
Ernie: All right, but if we’re having a meeting, it’d better be more than pokin’ holes in the air with your finger.

Poking holes in the air with your fist?

[iambiguous]

Slavoj Žižek

...as in Heinrich Heine’s (a contemporary of Kierkegaard’s) well-known saying that one should value above everything else ‘freedom, equality and crab soup’. ‘Crab soup’ stands here for all the small pleasures in the absence of which we become (mental, if not real) terrorists...

Bread and roses: https://youtu.be/YsvGPj0LH0M?si=TexPs-HgYgntuZzJ

What is “true” thinking? Thinking is not solving problems. The first step in thinking is to ask these sorts of questions: “Is this really a problem?” “Is this the right way to formulate the problem?” “How did we arrive at this?” This is the ability we need in thinking.

Next up: "true" bullshit.

My eternal fear is that if, for a brief moment, I stopped talking... you know, the whole spectacular appearance would disintegrate; people would think there is nobody and nothing there. This is my fear, as if I am nothing who pretends all the time to be somebody and has to be hyperactive all the time... just to fascinate people enough so that they don't notice that there is nothing.

He wondered if that explained him too.

...one cannot look “objectively” at oneself and locate oneself in reality; and the task is to think this impossibility itself as an ontological fact, not only as an epistemological limitation. In other words, the task is to think this impossibility not as a limit, but as a positive fact—and this, perhaps, is what at his most radical Hegel does.

And, no, not just theoretically. Unless, of course, that's all it can ever be. Dialectically, as it were?

Hello, glad to be here, but just don’t expect to get from me what you will never get from me. You will not get from me big, glad news…no, things are going pretty bad, I think.

Don't get me started, okay?

In Kant’s description, ethical duty functions like a foreign traumatic intruder that from the outside disturbs the subject’s homeostatic balance, its unbearable pressure forcing the subject to act “beyond the pleasure principle,” ignoring the pursuit of pleasures. For Lacan, exactly the same description holds for desire, which is why enjoyment is not something that comes naturally to the subject, as a realization of her inner potential, but is the content of a traumatic superego injunction.

What I desire is bringing them both down out of the intellectual clouds. That and a context.