Quote of the day

[iambiguous]

They Shoot Horses Don't They?

Rocky: No, it isn’t a contest. It’s a show.

Sheer entertainment some called it.

James: I just hope it was worth it to ya.
Ruby: We need the money.

Not many behaviors that can't explain.

Rocky: I may not know a winner when I see one, but I sure as hell can spot a loser.

Not unlike here?

Robert: [standing outside looking at the ocean] I used to love to look at he ocean, walk by it, just sit and listen to it. Now I don’t care if I ever see it again.
Gloria: That, or anything else.
Robert: What are you gonna do know? Try in the movies again?
Gloria: No. I’d never make it. And maybe it wouldn’t make no difference, even if I did. Maybe it’s just the whole damn world is like central casting: They got it all rigged before you ever show up.
Robert: I know what you mean. I know just what you mean.
Gloria: Do you?
Robert: What are you gonna do?
Gloria: I’m gonna get off this merry-go-round. I’m so sick of all sticky things.
Robert: What thing?
Gloria: Life. And don’t give me no sunshine lectures!
Robert: I wasn’t going to.
Gloria: Then what were you looking at me that way for?
Robert: I wasn’t. I was just tryin to see your face.
Gloria: Well keep looking. And stick around for the end.
[She takes out a gun and tries to shoot herself but is not able to do it]
Gloria: Help me! Oh please, please!
Robert: [He takes the gun] Tell me when.
Gloria: I’m ready.
Robert: [He holds the gun to her temple] Now?
Gloria: Now.
[He shoots her]

Now that takes me back.

Policeman: Why’d you do it, kid?
Robert: Because she asked me to.
Policeman: Obliging bastard. Is that the only reason you got, kid?
Robert: They shoot horses, don’t they?

Let's explore the difference.
If there is one?

Rocky: Yowsa! Yowsa! Yowsa! Here they are again, folks! These wonderful, wonderful kids! Still struggling! Still hoping! As the clock of fate ticks away, the dance of destiny continues! The marathon goes on, and on, and on! HOW LONG CAN THEY LAST?!

Place your bets?

[iambiguous]

IMDb

"The title of the film refers to a breed of roses that while pretty and appealing in appearance, is often prone to rot underneath at the roots and branches of the plant. Thus, the tagline “…look closer” tells the viewer that when they look beyond the “perfect suburban life” they will find something rancid at the root." IMDb

American Beauty

Lester [narrating]: Look at me, jerking off in the shower…This will be the high point of my day; it’s all downhill from here.

He means uphill of course.

Lester [narrating]: That’s my wife, Carolyn. See the way the handle on her pruning shears matches her gardening clogs? That’s not an accident.

In fact, from her frame of mind, it's a moral obligation.

Brad: Jesus. Calm down. Nobody’s getting fired yet. That’s why we’re having everyone write out a job description, mapping out in detail how they contribute. That way, management can assess who’s valuable and...
Lester: Who’s expendable?
Brad: It’s just business.

Next up: just business here?

Lester: Well what makes you so sure she wants us to be there? Did she ask us to come?
Carolyn: Of course not. She doesn’t want us to know how important this is to her. But she’s been practicing her steps for weeks.
Lester: Well, I’ll bet money she’s going to resent it, and I’m missing the James Bond marathon on TNT.
Carolyn: Lester, this is important. I’m sensing a real distance growing between you and Jane.
Lester: “Growing?” She hates me.
Carolyn: She’s just willful.
Lester: She hates you too.

All in the family.

Angela: I’m used to guys drooling over me. It started when I was about twelve. I’d go out to dinner with my parents. Every Thursday night, Red Lobster. And every guy there would stare at me when I walked in. And I knew what they were thinking. Just like I knew guys at school thought about me when they jerked off.
Jane: Vomit.
Angela: No, I liked it. And I still like it. If people I don’t even know look at me and want to fuck me, it means I really have a shot at being a model. Which is great, because there’s nothing worse in life than being ordinary.

Just out of curiosity, how logical is that?

Jim: Hello! We’re your neighbors from two doors down and we just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood!
[hands the Colonel a gift basket]
JB: Everything’s from our garden, except for the pasta.
Jim: Yes, it’s from Fizzoli’s, it’s amazingly fresh, you just pop it in water and it’s done! I’m Jim Olmeyer.
[shakes the Colonel’s hand]
Jim: And this is my partner Jim.
JB: Jim Berkely, but people call me J.B.
[extends his hand to shake]
Colonel Fitts: Ah, let’s just cut to it, what are you selling?
Jim: Nothing, we just wanted to welcome you to the neighborhood.
Colonel Fitts: You said you’re partners, so, uh what’s your business?
Jim: Well, he’s a tax attorney.
JB: And he’s an anesthesiologist.

Spoiler alert, Frank?

[iambiguous]

The Durutti Column
When the world is no longer watching
Stay faithful to your drug

Uh, fuck the world? You know, if that's an option.

Folk Devils
I sleep in a hole under the sky
I get mistaken for your average guy
Stalk him to his comfortable home
I see it all I see the fire and chrome
Such an evil eye, it’s such an evil eye!
Cold is the hunter, warm is the blade
The ground is hard, so is the spade
We live like garbage, stinking high
Don’t you put no pennies on my evil eye

Cash is fine though.

Leonard Cohen
And who by fire?
Who by water?
Who in the sunshine?
Who in the night time?
Who by high ordeal?
Who by common trial?
Who in your merry merry month of May?
Who by very slow decay?
And who shall I say is calling?
(Who shall I say is calling?)

And who in her lonely slip?
Who by barbiturate?
Who in these realms of love?
Who by something blunt?
Who by avalanche?
Who by powder?
Who for his greed?
Who for his hunger?
And who shall I say is calling?
(Who shall I say is calling?)

And who by brave assent?
Who by accident?
Who in solitude?
Who in this mirror?
Who by his lady’s command?
Who by his own hand?
Who in mortal chains?
Who in power?
And who shall I say is calling?
(Who shall I say is calling?)

If it's not Him in other words.

Judy Collins
Now that our mountain is growing with people hungry for wealth
How come it’s you that’s a-going
and I’m left all alone by myself?
We used to hunt the cool caverns deep in our forest of green
Then came the road and the tavern and you found a new love it seems

Once I had you and the wildwood, now it’s just dusty roads
And I can’t help but blamin’ your going
On the coming, the coming of the roads

Look how they’ve cut all to pieces our ancient redwood and oak
And the hillsides are stained with the greases
That burned up the heavens with smoke

You used to curse the bold crewmen
who stripped our earth of its ore
Now you’ve changed and you’ve gone over to them
And you’ve learned to love what you hated before

Once I thanked God for my treasure, now like rust it corrodes
And I can’t help but blamin’ your goin’
On the coming, the coming of the roads.

Once I thanked God for my treasure, now like rust it corrodes
And I can’t help but blamin’ your goin’
On the coming, the coming of the roads.

And I can’t help but blamin’ your goin’
On the coming, the coming of the roads.

This is a song of loss. And the loss is both personal and political. But, again, if it is something you cannot relate to in your own life it won’t seem haunting at all.

XTC
Dear God, hope you got the letter, and…
I pray you can make it better down here.
I don’t mean a big reduction in the price of beer
but all the people that you made in your image, see
them starving on their feet 'cause they don’t get
enough to eat from God, I can’t believe in you

Dear God, sorry to disturb you, but… I feel that I should be heard
loud and clear. We all need a big reduction in amount of tears
and all the people that you made in your image, see them fighting
in the street 'cause they can’t make opinions meet about God,
I can’t believe in you

Did you make disease, and the diamond blue? Did you make
mankind after we made you? And the devil too!

Dear God, don’t know if you noticed, but… your name is on
a lot of quotes in this book, and us crazy humans wrote it, you
should take a look, and all the people that you made in your
image still believing that junk is true. Well I know it ain’t, and
so do you, dear God, I can’t believe in I don’t believe in

I won’t believe in heaven and hell. No saints, no sinners, no
devil as well. No pearly gates, no thorny crown. You’re always
letting us humans down. The wars you bring, the babes you
drown. Those lost at sea and never found, and it’s the same the
whole world 'round. The hurt I see helps to compound that
Father, Son and Holy Ghost is just somebody’s unholy hoax,
and if you’re up there you’d perceive that my heart’s here upon
my sleeve. If there’s one thing I don’t believe in it’s you…

See you in Hell?

Jim Carroll
Teddy sniffing glue, he was 12 years old
Fell from the roof on East Two-nine
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old
He looked like 65 when he died
He was a friend of mine

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

G-berg and Georgie let their gimmicks go rotten
So they died of hepatitis in upper Manhattan
Sly in Vietnam took a bullet in the head
Bobby OD’d on Drano on the night that he was wed
They were two more friends of mine
Two more friends that died

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room
Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs
Judy jumped in front of a subway train
Eddie got slit in the jugular vein
And Eddie, I miss you more than all the others
And I salute you brother

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

Herbie pushed Tony from the Boys’ Club roof
Tony thought that his rage was just some goof
But Herbie sure gave Tony some bitchen proof
“Hey,” Herbie said, “Tony, can you fly?”
But Tony couldn’t fly, Tony died

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

Brian got busted on a narco rap
He beat the rap by rattin’ on some bikers
He said, “Hey, I know it’s dangerous, but it sure beats Riker’s”
But the next day he got offed by the very same bikers

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

And now he's dead too.

[iambiguous]

American Beauty

Frank: How come these faggots always have to rub it in your face? How can they be so shameless?
Ricky: That’s the whole thing, Dad. They don’t feel like it’s anything to be ashamed of.

Wrong answer?

Ricky: Forgive me, sir, for speaking so bluntly but those fags make me want to puke my fucking guts out.
Frank [cautiously, after a long pause]: Well, me too son. Me too.

That's better?

Ricky: Hi. My name’s Ricky. I just moved next door to you.
Jane: I know. I kinda remember this really creepy incident when you were filming me last night?
Ricky: I didn’t mean to scare you. I just think you’re interesting.
Jane: Thanks, but I really don’t need to have some psycho obsessing about me right now.
Ricky: I’m not obsessing. I’m just curious.

Smooth...

Angela: What a freak! And why does he dress like a bible salesman?
Jane: He’s just so confident, it can’t be real.
Angela: I don’t believe him. I mean, he didn’t even like, look at me once!

You gotta like Ricky.

Catering boss: Look. I’m not paying you to do whatever it is you’re doing out here.
Ricky: Fine. So don’t pay me.
Catering boss: Excuse me?
Ricky: I quit. So you don’t have to pay me. Now, leave me alone.

You gotta like Ricky.

Carolyn: What are you doing?
Lester: Nothing.
Carolyn: You were masturbating!
Lester: I was not.
Carolyn: Yes you were!
Lester: Oh, all right! So shoot me, I was whacking off! That’s right, I was choking the bishop, chafing the carrot, you know, saying “hi” to my monster!
Carolyn: That’s disgusting.
Lester: Well, excuse me, but I still have blood pumping through my veins!
Carolyn: So do I!
Lester: Really? I’m the only one who seems to be doing anything about it.

Actually, she's getting "nailed" by "the King".

[iambiguous]

Muriel Barbery from The Elegance of the Hedgehog

I thought: pity the poor in spirit who know neither the enchantment nor the beauty of language.

Do they know that?

People aim for the stars, and they end up like goldfish in a bowl. I wonder if it wouldn't be simpler just to teach children right from the start that life is absurd.

Well, after we define it here first, of course.

I have finally concluded, maybe that's what life is about: there's a lot of despair, but also the odd moment of beauty, where time is no longer the same. It's as if those strains of music created a sort of interlude in time, something suspended, an elsewhere that had come to us, an always within never. Yes, that's it, an always within never.

More likely to be a maybe though.

I find this a fascinating phenomenon: the ability we have to manipulate ourselves so that the foundation of our beliefs is never shaken.

Of course: the Immanuel Can Syndrome!

Madame Michel has the elegance of the hedgehog: on the outside she is covered in quills, a real fortress, but my gut feeling is that on the inside, she has the same simple refinement as the hedgehog: a deceptively indolent little creature, fiercely solitary--and terrible elegant.

Then this part?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hedgehog_and_the_Fox

There's so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so much power in just feeling our own insignificance when we are surrounded by nature…yes, that's it: just thinking about trees and their indifferent majesty and our love for them teaches us how ridiculous we are - vile parasites squirming on the surface of the earth - and at the same time how deserving of life we can be, when we can honor this beauty that owes us nothing.

Yo, Olivia!

[iambiguous]

Epistemology

“Scientists study only those aspects of the universe that it is within their gift to study: what is observable; what is measurable and amenable to statistical analysis; and, indeed, what they can afford to study within the means and time available. Science thus emerges as a giant tautology, a "closed system". It can present us with robust answers only because its practitioners take very great care to tailor the questions.” Colin Tudge

I know where to take this!

“Without causality in the world, there is no point in educating people, or making any moral or political appeal.” Felix Alba-Juez

In other words, we need free will so it must be true.

“And perhaps I understood it all wrong, but I understood it and that was the novelty.” Samuel Beckett

No, really, think about that.

Knowledge is a social construct, a consensus among the members of a community of knowledgeable peers.” Kenneth A. Bruffee

Pick two:
1] genes
2] memes

“He wondered, as he had many times wondered before, whether he himself was a lunatic. Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one. At one time it had been a sign of madness to believe that the earth goes round the sun; today, to believe that the past is inalterable. He might be alone in holding that belief, and if alone, then a lunatic. But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him: the horror was that he might also be wrong.” George Orwell

Flip a coin?

“An important aspect of an epistemology of ignorance is the realization that ignorance should not be theorized as a simple omission or passive gap but is, in many cases, an active production.” Robert N. Proctor

Your ignorance first, okay?

[iambiguous]

Epistemology

“Scientists study only those aspects of the universe that it is within their gift to study: what is observable; what is measurable and amenable to statistical analysis; and, indeed, what they can afford to study within the means and time available. Science thus emerges as a giant tautology, a "closed system". It can present us with robust answers only because its practitioners take very great care to tailor the questions.” Colin Tudge

I know where to take this!

“Without causality in the world, there is no point in educating people, or making any moral or political appeal.” Felix Alba-Juez

In other words, we need free will so it must be true.

“And perhaps I understood it all wrong, but I understood it and that was the novelty.” Samuel Beckett

No, really, think about that.

Knowledge is a social construct, a consensus among the members of a community of knowledgeable peers.” Kenneth A. Bruffee

Pick two:
1] genes
2] memes

“He wondered, as he had many times wondered before, whether he himself was a lunatic. Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one. At one time it had been a sign of madness to believe that the earth goes round the sun; today, to believe that the past is inalterable. He might be alone in holding that belief, and if alone, then a lunatic. But the thought of being a lunatic did not greatly trouble him: the horror was that he might also be wrong.” George Orwell

Flip a coin?

“An important aspect of an epistemology of ignorance is the realization that ignorance should not be theorized as a simple omission or passive gap but is, in many cases, an active production.” Robert N. Proctor

Your ignorance first, okay?

[iambiguous]

American Beauty

Lester: Oh, yeah, and one more thing, from now on we’re going to have alternate dinner music because frankly - and I don’t think I’m alone here [looks in Jane’s direction] - I’m tired of this Lawrence Welk shit!

Democracy!

Carolyn: You ungrateful little brat! Just look at everything you have. When I was your age I lived in a duplex!

Yeah, what about that, Carolyn?

Carolyn: This is a $4,000 sofa, upholstered in Italian silk. This is not just a couch.
Lester: IT’S! JUST! A! COUCH! This isn’t life, it’s just stuff. And it’s become more important to you than living. Well, honey, that’s just nuts.

No, that's capitalism.

Ricky: Dad, you don’t really think that me and Mr. Burnham…?
Frank (furious): Don’t you laugh at me! I will not sit back and watch my only son become a cocksucker!
Ricky: Jesus, what is it with you–
[Frank backhands him]
Frank: I swear to God, I will throw you out of this house and never look at you again.
Ricky: You mean that?
Frank: Damn straight I do. I’d rather you were dead than be a fucking faggot.
[Ricky suddenly smiles]
Ricky: You’re right. I suck dick for money.
Frank: Boy…
Ricky: Two thousand dollars. I’m that good.
Frank: Get out.
Ricky: And you should see me fuck. I’m the best piece of ass in three states.
Frank (exploding): Get out!! I don’t ever want to see you again!!
Ricky: What a sad old man you are.

Okay, but is he also a "fucking faggot"?

[Ricky [after his dad hit him]: Mom, I’m leaving.
Mother: Okay. Wear a raincoat.

Talk about oblivious!

Ricky: If I had to leave tonight, would you come with me?
Jane: What?
Ricky: If I had to go to New York. To live. Tonight. Would you come with me?
Jane: Yes.

No hesitation.

Angela: Jane! He is a freak!
Jane: Well, then so am I! And we’ll always be freaks and we’ll never be like other people.

Hear! Hear!

Angela: Yeah? Well, at least I’m not ugly!
Ricky: Yes, you are. And you’re boring, and you’re totally ordinary, and you know it.

And a virgin to boot.

Jane: Are you scared?
Ricky: I don’t get scared.
Jane: My parents will try to find me.
Ricky: Mine won’t.

Would yours?

[iambiguous]

I’ll bet there were a lot more kids like this after the movie came out. If you know what I mean. There must be millions of them by now. And, if anything, even more mindless today.

But, for many, it’s not that they are immoral that disturbs them —it’s that they are amoral. Utterly narcissistic…hedonistic to the bone. If they want to then it’s okay to do. Sexual sociopaths.

Kids

Telly: When you’re young, not much matters. When you find something that you care about, then that’s all you got. When you go to sleep at night you dream of pussy. When you wake up it’s the same thing. It’s there in your face. You can’t escape it. Sometimes when you’re young the only place to go is inside. That’s just it - fucking is what I love. Take that away from me and I really got nothing.

Until he got AIDS.

Telly: But like, if you deflower a girl man, man, you’re the man. No one can ever do that again. You’re the only one. No one, no one, has the power to do that again.

Reasonable point? Or is this too just a personal opinion rooted existentially in dasein?

Telly: [looking around in a cornershop] Have you got diss-digg?
Korean store owner: Diss-digg? What is Diss-digg?
Telly: Diss-digg, diss-digg, diss-digg…Have you got it?
Korean store owner: I don’t know…what…
Casper [grabbing his crotch]: He said “this dick” motherfucker!

No, the other Casper.

Nurse: Jennie, you’ve tested positive for the HIV virus.
Jennie: What?
Nurse: The test isn’t one hundred percent accurate. You should…
Jennie: I tested positive?
Nurse: I’m sorry.
Jennie: But I only had sex with Telly.
[the nurse is silent]
Jennie: I just came to keep Ruby company.

Ruby, on the other hand, as I recall, fucked like a bunny and was negative.

Ruby: Shh. Come on, it’s gonna be OK.
Jennie: That’s it. I’m gonna have to tell my little brother, I’m gonna die. I can’t make him his lunches anymore.

Among other things.

Jennie: What if you can’t make yourself happy?
Taxi Driver: Then I don’t know. You know what you do then, you forget, you block it out. My grandmother told me how to be happy. She said if you want to be happy don’t think.

Or go to the grave celibate?

Telly: Shut the fuckin’ door!!

He's deflowering another virgin.

[iambiguous]

As a connoisseur of all things dasein I am drawn to identities that are profoundly shaped [distorted, disfigured] in childhood. By way of trauma, for example. Is this a realistic portrayal of that? Probably not. But it is certainly possible to imagine events like this unfolding. If only approximately. And if not exactly as scripted in Hollywood.

Besides, if Bridget Fonda is in it I will find a way to rationalize watching. And boy oh boy is she ever in this one.

Single White Female

Prospective roommate: I’m an incest survivor, you know. I don’t remember it but I know that I survived something. My therapists think so.

Next up: the prospective roommates in Shallow Grave.

Hedra: I’m sure you’ll be very happy…and I’ll be alone.
Allison: You’ll find someone, Hedy. I mean, if I can …
Hedra: Why don’t you look in the mirror? Look! You’re in a different league. I know that.

Good point?

Hedra: You promised this wouldn’t happen. Exactly this.

Modern love, let's call it.

Hedra: I’m not talking about getting paid, I’m talking about getting even.

Mitch she means.

Hedra [on the phone posing as Allison to Mitch]: Listen, you pathetic shit. Do you want to hold on to your business? No, you listen to me, asshole! If you trash me around town, you’re fucked and your family is, too! It won’t just be you.
Hedra [to Allison]: Let me tell you, he is pissing in his p.j.'s right now.
Allison: Gee, Hedy, I hope you never get mad at me.

Though, of course, she does.

Graham: Either she’s gone by Saturday, or I go to the police, okay?
Allison: That was very impressive.
Graham: I can be butch when I have to, I get it from my mother.

He lives upstairs. Oh, and he's gay.

Allison: I know you weren’t yourself when you did this, Hedy.
Hedra: I know. I was you.

If looks could kill?

Allison: Hedy’s parents said that for years they tried to explain to her that her sister’s death wasn’t her fault. She never forgave herself for surviving. So, every day I try to forgive Hedy for killing Sam. Then, I try to do what she couldn’t: forgive myself. I know what can happen to someone who doesn’t.

You're reactions might be different, of course.

[iambiguous]

Once a great lawyer for The Cause, now a cynical defender of druggie scumbags. You know where this is going. But it still works. It draws you into a world that exposes the yawning gap between the textbook version of our criminal justice system and the reality that is “a harrowing maze of unscrupulous prosecutors, white supremist hate groups and police corruption.” Not to mention the slimy politics coming at you from all directions.

There are gaps between perceptions of reality so wide they are all but unbridgeable. So, we do the best we can. It’s just that the stakes involved are also perceptions of reality. And there are so many different ways for something not to be as it seems.

Look for the greater good.

True Believer

Translator: Mrs. Kim went to all the courthouses. They all speak of you, they all say the same thing.
Eddie [puffing up a little with pride]: Oh, what do they say?
Translator: You do cases cheap.

And they're all scumbags.

Eddie: Atilla the Hun had a mother.

You know, like Hitler.

Eddie: I don’t venerate drug dealers, Roger. To the contrary. We check the government’s attempt to abridge our civil liberties. Through the use of informants, eavesdropping, unreasonable searches and seisures.

Next up: the government and cigarettes and liquor.

Eddie: You want to be a criminal defense attorney? Then know this going in: Everybody’s guilty. Everybody.

Turns out that's not true at all.

Cecil [residing in a psychiatric hospital]: I always t-tell the truth. That’s why I’m here.

If you get his drift.

Reynard: Well, let’s not drag the constitution into this.

Of course, he's just paraphrasing Donald Trump.

[iambiguous]

Slavoj Žižek

“...you are given the freedom of choice on one condition. that you make the right choice.”

For example: you are free to reject Jesus Christ as your personal savior. God is then free to send you to Hell.

Roger Penrose tried to conceive the unconscious as the space of superposition of thoughts, and the passage to consciousness as the collapse of wave oscillations into a single reality: “Could thoughts exist in some sort of quantum superposition on an unconscious level only to become conscious when there is a specific selection".

Where's James S. Saint when you need him?!

What if, however, humans exceed animals in their capacity for violence precisely because they speak? As Hegel was already well aware, there is something violent in the very symbolisation of a thing, which equals its mortification. This violence operates at multiple levels. Language simplifies the designated thing, reducing it to a single feature. It dismembers the thing, destroying its organic unity, treating its parts and properties as autonomous. It inserts the thing into a field of meaning which is ultimately external to it. When we name gold “gold,” we violently extract a metal from its natural texture, investing into it our dreams of wealth, power, spiritual purity, and so on, which have nothing whatsoever to do with the immediate reality of gold.

Uh, we'll need a context?

The function of philosophy is to corrupt the youth, to alienate (or, rather, 'extraneate' in the sense of Brecht's verfremden) them from the predominant ideologico-political order, to sow radical doubts and enable them to think autonomously.

Uh, we'll need a context?

In order to function, ideology shouldn't take itself too seriously.

And, from time to time, come down out of the clouds?

Unfortunately, I must also agree with you.

Don't you just hate that?

[iambiguous]

True Believer

Eddie [to reporter]: I’m not saying there was a conspiracy. Law enforcement is too disorganized for that. No, I suspect sloth was the culprit – lassitude. My client made a convenient patsy…

Sloth, okay. Sloth and conspiracy.

Roger [after Eddie was beaten up by ex-Aryan Army member]: I can’t believe we’re going to see a bunch of Nazis…at night!
Eddie: There’s no one else to talk to! The tattoos are phony!
Roger: So?
Eddie: So, no upstanding member of the Aryan Army would paint them on. They take those teardrops very seriously. They’re badges of honor, of courage! Only their most vicious, sadistic, cruel killer elite get to wear them!
Roger: Oh, I feel much better now.

Who wouldn't?

Eddie: Who’s Chuckie Roeder?
Teardrop: Chuck? Rhymes with suck? Chuckie Roeder is no longer a comrade in the resurrection of our nation. We expelled that faggot junkie last year.
Eddie: Do you know where he can be found?
Teardrop: Hanging with his tongue out and a sign around his neck says “I Betrayed My Race” along with the rest of society’s scum, on the Great Day of the Rope.
Roger: Um…prior to the Great Day of the Rope, where can Chuckie be found?
Teardrop: Mixing with mongrel races.
Eddie: Anything along the lines of a job? An address?

Just out of curiosity, do the mongrel races mix here as well? Let's run that by...

Roger: Come off it, Eddie! We’re all committed to the case, we all believe it’s a good fight.
Eddie: Good fight? You think I’m going into court to make a fucking statement? You think Shu is a shit, we go down, but go down nobly? This is a man looking at 40 years of HARD TIME! He could’ve had a deal and been out in five, but he bet it all on ME! Don’t give me that liberal yuppie bullshit about a good fight, this isn’t fucking Yale! A good fight is one you WIN!

You know, if you're one of the good guys.

Eddie: I went up against the goddam D.A. himself but I didn’t care because I trusted you, because I believed in you, because I thought there was a bond between us! Didn’t you feel that?
Shu [looking at Eddie as though he were an alien life form]: You’re out there and I’m in here. My bond – my trust – is with the dudes in here that watch my ass. I took an oath of loyalty to them. You’re out there. Who are you to me? When you leave this place you’re going out to dinner or a movie or get laid. I’m going back to my cell and wait to die. So tell me: Where’s our bond?

A prison thing let's call it.

Roger: Art Esparza killed Jimmy Chin. The killer wasn’t Chinese! Cecil Skell was right!
Eddie: [ecstatic] Everybody else was wrong, the one fucking lunatic was RIGHT!
Roger: Does this mean the phone company killed Kennedy?

Both of them?

Vincent: You know, for eight years I’ve been waiting for some genius to notice it took me an hour to drive seven blocks?

A key point as it turned out.

[iambiguous]

Time

“In magic - and in life - there is only the present moment, the now. You can't measure time the way you measure the distance between two points. 'Time' doesn't pass. We human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; we're always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better, about the consequences of our actions, and about why we didn't act as we should have. Or else we think about the future, about what we're going to do tomorrow, what precautions we should take, what dangers await us around the next corner, how to avoid what we don't want and how to get what we have always dreamed of.” Paulo Coelho

Another "now" bites the dust.

“It's paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone.” Andy Rooney

Tell me about it.

“‎No people whose word for 'yesterday' is the same as their word for 'tomorrow' can be said to have a firm grip on the time.” Salman Rushdie

Any of those people here?

“There is no present or future-only the past, happening over and over again-now.” Eugene O'Neill

That might explain some things, sure. Either that or it's nonsense.

“The frailty of everything revealed at last. Old and troubling issues resolved into nothingness and night. The last instance of a thing takes the class with it. Turns out the light and is gone. Look around you. Ever is a long time. But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all.” Cormac McCarthy

Dystopian time?

“I am now 33 years old, and it feels like much time has passed and is passing faster and faster every day. Day to day I have to make all sorts of choices about what is good and important and fun, and then I have to live with the forfeiture of all the other options those choices foreclose. And I'm starting to see how as time gains momentum my choices will narrow and their foreclosures multiply exponentially until I arrive at some point on some branch of all life's sumptuous branching complexity at which I am finally locked in and stuck on one path and time speeds me through stages of stasis and atrophy and decay until I go down for the third time, all struggle for naught, drowned by time. It is dreadful. But since it's my own choices that'll lock me in, it seems unavoidable--if I want to be any kind of grownup, I have to make choices and regret foreclosures and try to live with them.” David Foster Wallace

Of course, we know how that turned out.

[iambiguous]

When you do fall in love with someone [much younger] who is cultured, intellectual and ravishingly beautiful, jealousy will sooner or later rear its ugly head.

Is this in fact about Philip Roth facing the ineluctable truth of growing older and older in a culture that grows younger and younger? It’s the narrative he has. Period. There is no getting around it. Rilke’s panther again.

Of course there is one plot device that ages the young more immediately: cancer.

Elegy

David [interviewed on the Charlie Rose show]: We’re not all descended from the Puritans.
Charlie Rose: No?
David: There was another colony 30 miles from Plymouth, it’s not on the maps today. Marymount it was called.
Charlie Rose: Yeah, alright, you mention in your book…
David: The colony where anything goes, went.
Charlie Rose: There was booze…
David: There was booze. There was fornication. There was music. There was… they even ah, ah, ah, you name it, you name it. They even danced around the maypole once a month, wearing masks, worshiping god knows what, Whites and Indians together, all going for broke…
Charlie Rose: Who was responsible for all of this?
David: A character by the name of Thomas Morton.
Charlie Rose: Aah, the “Hugh Hefner” of the Puritans.
David: You could say that. I’m going to read you a quote of what the Puritans thought of Morton’s followers. Debauched Bakunin aliens and atheists, falling into great licentiousness, and leading degenerate lives. When I heard that, I packed my bags, I left Oxford, and I came straight to America, America the licentiousness.
Charlie Rose: So what happened to all of those people?
David: Well, the Puritans shot them down. They sent in Miles Standish leading the militia. He chopped down the maypole, cut down those colored ribbons, banners, everything; party was over.
Charlie Rose: And we became a nation of straight-laced Puritans.
David: Well…
Charlie Rose: Isn’t that your point though? The Puritans won, they stamped out all things sexual… how would you say it?
David: Sexual happiness.
Charlie Rose: Exactly. Until the 1960s.
David: Until the 1960s when it all exploded again all over the place.
Charlie Rose: Right, everyone was dancing around the maypole, then, make love not war.
David: If you remember, only a decade earlier, if you wanted to have sex, if you wanted to make love in the 1950s, you had to beg for it, you had to cop a feel.
Charlie Rose: Or… get married.
David: As I did in the 1960s.
Charlie Rose: Any regrets?
David: Plenty. Um, but that’s our secret. Don’t tell anybody.
[laughter]
David: That’s just between you and me.

Charlie Rose...remember him? Remember what happened to him?

David [narrating]: I think it was Betty Davis who said old age is not for sissies. But it was Tolstoy who said the biggest surprise in a man’s life is old age. Old age sneaks up on you, and the next thing you know you’re asking yourself, I’m asking myself, why can’t an old man act his real age? How is it possible for me to still be involved in the carnal aspects of the human comedy? Because, in my head, nothing has changed.

Back to this:
"Let me tell you something Cardinal de Bricassart about old age and about that God of yours. That vengeful God who ruins our bodies and leaves us with only enough wit for regret. Inside this stupid body, I am still young! I still feel! I still want! I still dream!" Mary Carson.

David [to class]: This course is called “Practical Criticism”. So…Let’s go! Right to the big question, shall we? Does “War and Peace” become a different book because we read it? Yes, of course. But why? Because we bring something to the book? We bring ourselves. What’s more, if you read the book again in 10 years, it will change again, because you’ve changed.

Many still refuse to grasp just how profoundly relevant this is to their own life.

David [narrating]: I’ve always been vulnerable to female beauty, Ms. Castillo was different, her posture was perfect. And she dressed like a young associate of a prestigious law firm. There was a sophistication, that set her apart. She knows she’s beautiful. But she’s not yet sure what to do with her beauty.

He'll show her.

David [narrating]: Since they posted the sexual harassment hotline number down the hall from my office, I never make private contact with any of my students until they’ve received their grades. Afterwards I always throw a cocktail party for the class.

Then it's all okay.

David [narrating]: Why all this talk about Kafka, Goya and her Cuban family? Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that her family’s Cuban and she enjoys my class. But I go on yakking away mainly because I want to fuck her.

Uh, let's not go there?