Fifteen Minutes
Andy Warhol is quoted as saying that “in the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” This has become a popular saying. If a celebrity is getting tiresome, people will wonder when their fifteen minutes will be up. After hearing about fifteen minutes his entire life, PG began to wonder if Drella really said that. If you can’t be cynical about Andy Warhol … This is a repost.
Wikipedia is a good place to start. “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes” … appeared in the program for a 1968 exhibition of his work at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden. Photographer Nat Finkelstein claimed credit for the expression, stating that he was photographing Warhol in 1966 for a proposed book. A crowd gathered trying to get into the pictures and Warhol supposedly remarked that everyone wants to be famous, to which Finkelstein replied, “Yeah, for about fifteen minutes, Andy.” Nat Finkelstein was a sketchy character, in the Warhol tradition. His version is suspect. The Swedish museum part is real.
“Andy Warhol’s first European museum solo show took place at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm from February through March 1968. Pontus Hultén curated the exhibition together with Olle Granath. The exhibition came with a catalogue that was, like the show, named ‘Andy Warhol’. Kasper König, who worked for the Moderna Museet as an intern of sorts in New York, developed a basic concept for the book. … After Warhol had given his approval to this first proposal, König proceeded to create a dummy. … When König returned his dummy to the Factory, Warhol scrutinized it carefully but made only a small number of changes. Contrary to what Warhol wanted to be popular belief, those who produced input at the Factory were carefully monitored. … The final edits on the dummy were made in Stockholm by Olle Granath. He compiled a small selection of Warhol quotes and aphorisms from a stack of books and clippings collected by Hultén and placed them in the book as an introduction before the image sections.”
“Sometime in the autumn of 1967, Pontus Hultén called and asked me if I (Olle Granath) could help him and the Moderna Museet to organize an Andy Warhol exhibition that was due to open in February…. An important part of the exhibition was the production of a book. It was not supposed to be an analytical catalog of Warhol’s work, but a book that conveyed his aesthetics without heavy texts. … One day, Pontus brought me a box, almost the size of a Brillo box, and told me that it contained everything written by and about Andy Warhol (today the equivalent would probably be two truck loads). My job was to read it all and present a proposal for a manuscript with Swedish translations. After a couple of nights of reading and taking notes I delivered a script to Pontus and awaited his reaction with great anticipation. ‘Excellent,’ Pontus said when he called me, ‘but there is a quotation missing.’ ‘Which one?’ I said. ‘In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes,’ Pontus replied. ‘If it is in the material I would have spotted it,’ I told him. The line went quiet for a moment, and then I heard Pontus say, ‘If he didn’t say it, he could very well have said it. Let’s put it in.’ So we did, and thus Warhol’s perhaps most famous quotation became a fact.”
“The exhibition in Stockholm attracted a relatively small number of visitors, due to the extremely cold winter, but also to the fact that leftist radicalization increasingly drove the Museets public to mistrust anything American or consumerist. There was no space yet for a more complex reading of Warhol’s relation to consumption. The book, however, became very popular: its enormous edition allowed it to be distributed in nightclubs and record stores, not only museums. A timeless update on the latest from New York, it first became a cult object, then a collectors item.”
Did Andy say that? Probably, but not definitely. Andy was shot by Valerie Jean Solanas on June 3, 1968, a few months after the show in Sweden. Andy survived, and had fifteen more minutes. Pictures today are from Pictures are from The Library of Congress. The 1927 pictures were taken at “California Beauty Week, Mark Hopkins Hotel, July 28 to Aug. 2, auspices of San Francisco Chronicle.”
Didion & Babitz Part Two
At 1838, February 19th 2025, I shut the cover on Didion & Babitz. Say what you will about author Lilliane O’Lick, she is one helluva storyteller. D&B was easy and fun to read. The book ends with a description of Joan Didion’s memorial, a star-studded celebrity event. Page 339 had one final bit of tackiness: “On the day Joan’s obituary appeared in the New York Times, journalist and podcaster Maris Kreizman took to Twitter. “I want to believe that Joan Didion lived an extra week out of spite so that she could officially outlive Eve Babitz.” p.339
The dedication page to Eve’s Hollywood mentions Steve Martin (the car.) The car is a 1965 VW, which Mr. Martin gave to EB. She later said “Linda Ronstadt was his girlfriend and I was his girlfriend and we were both doing him wrong.” EH was released in March 1974, about the same time I saw Mr. Martin open for Nitty Gritty Dirt Band at the Great Southeast Music Hall. Nobody in the Nitty Gritty crowd had any clue who this white suit wearing banjo player was. John McEuen kept stumbling into the microphone, saying “this guy cracks me up.” p. 215
“Huntington’s disease (HD) is named after George Huntington, who described it among residents of East Hampton, Long Island in 1872. It is a hereditary neurodegenerative disease.” HD claimed both EB, and her father, Sol Babitz. EB was aware of her fate for many years. The most famous victim of HD was Woody Guthrie. Many speculated that son Arlo would get HD, but he never did. “Woody’s most productive time artistically was in the 5 years immediately preceding the onset of overt symptoms of HD. I hypothesize that subclinical HD may have been an important driving force behind Woody Guthrie’s creativity.” p. 244
We know little about LOL. She was 32 in 2010, and went to Princeton, after doing high school somewhere else. LOL has the same last name as her Manhattan Doctor husband, but leaves no clues about her maiden name. We do have “A note my older boy, Ike, left on my pillow Valentine’s Day 2020” “DEAR MOM YOU AR WORM AND COTULY AND YOU HAD SEX WITH BREAT ESTIN ELIS BUT DONT TRY TO HIDE IT FROM ME NAW LETS GET DOWN TO BUSINESS I WANT TO GO TO THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM THIS WEEKEND AND I WANT NO ARGUING ABOUT IT”
Page 290 marks the return of Bret Easton Ellis. EB tuned in to “Less Than Zero,” which made BEE a star before he was old enough to (legally) drink. EB compared BEE to Jim Morrison, … another way that People Are Strange. BEE met EB for dinner about this time. There is no word on whether BEE was EB’s dessert. This was about the time AIDS was becoming obnoxious, and EB decided to tone down the whore-of-babylon act. The bi-leaning-gay Paul Ruscha had been a long playing EB boyfriend, which probably has nothing to do with any of this.
On May 7, 2000, JD appeared on In Depth, a PBS talk show. After a polite discussion, and a chance to promote here most recent book, the show was opened up to callers. One of the callers was EB, who introduced herself as “a friend of Joan’s from Hollywood.” JD dropped her stone face once, when EB said that JD’s house “was the first time I ever saw Spode china.” JD did not show much pizazz in that brief clip. I don’t know about the rest of the show, because I am not bored enough to watch it. JD was never known as a vibrant personality. p.306
There may be one defining difference between author and subject. EB wrote a piece about her near-fatal fire titled “I used to be charming.” Recently, LOL did an interview promoting D&B. “I always think of the last line of a Salinger short story, “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut.” … “I was a nice girl once, wasn’t I? Wasn’t I?” I think about that all the time, because I used to be so polite. And now I’m just used to getting yelled at and told I’m a jerk or to go away. I just don’t mind at this point.”
Page 332 has EB in her final years. In 1997 EB was badly burned, and never fully recovered. That story is available elsewhere. By the time Donald J. Trump was President, EB had become a talk radio consuming conservative, to go with HD. LOL went to California frequently to have lunch with EB, and talked to her on the phone. In one of these conversations, EB asked “Where can I find a blouse the same shade of blue as Melania Trump’s eyes?” When I asked AI that. I found a description of the Ralph Lauren dress FLOTUS wore to her first inauguration. “She looked simply flawless.” … This is the final installment of D&B. Part one is available. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Arthur Rothstein took the featured photograph in June 1940. “Brooklyn NY. Red Hook housing development. Jimmy Caputo, seven years old, and Annette, three years old, at their nightly prayers.”
The Cynic’s Word Book J – L
What follows are selections from The Devil’s Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce. TDD began as a newspaper column, and was later published as The Cynic’s Word Book. TDD is in the public domain. TDD is a dictionary, going from A to Z. Today’s selection covers J to L. More selections are available. (A – D E – G H – I) Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the featured photograph in July 1941. “Cold drinks on Fourth of July. Vale, OregonVale, Oregon.” This is a repost.
JEALOUS Unduly concerned about preservation of what can be lost only if not worth keeping.
JUSTICE A commodity which is a more or less adulterated condition the State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal service.
KEEP He willed away his whole estate, And then in death he fell asleep,
Murmuring:”Well, at any rate, My name unblemished I shall keep.”
But when upon the tomb ’twas wrought Whose was it?—for the dead keep naught.
KILL To create a vacancy without nominating a successor.
KILT A costume sometimes worn by Scotchmen in America and Americans in Scotland.
KING A male person commonly known in America as a “crowned head,”
although he never wears a crown and has usually no head to speak of.
KLEPTOMANIAC A rich thief.
KORAN A book Mohammedans foolishly believe to have been written by divine inspiration,
but which Christians know to be a wicked imposture, contradictory to the Holy Scriptures.
LABOR One of the processes by which A acquires property for B.
LANGUAGE The music with which we charm the serpents guarding another’s treasure.
LAP One of the most important organs of the female system—an admirable provision of nature for the repose of infancy, but chiefly useful in rural festivities to support plates of cold chicken and heads of adult males. The male of our species has a rudimentary lap, imperfectly developed and in no way contributing to the animal’s substantial welfare.
LAW Once Law was sitting on the bench, And Mercy knelt a-weeping.
“Clear out!” he cried, “disordered wench! Nor come before me creeping.
Upon your knees if you appear, ‘Tis plain your have no standing here.”
Then Justice came.His Honor cried: “Your status?—devil seize you!”
“Amica curiae,” she replied— “Friend of the court, so please you.”
“Begone!” he shouted—”there’s the door— I never saw your face before!”
LAWFUL Compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction.
LAWYER One skilled in circumvention of the law.
LAZINESS Unwarranted repose of manner in a person of low degree.
LEAD A heavy blue-gray metal much used in giving stability to light lovers—particularly to those who love not wisely but other men’s wives. Lead is also of great service as a counterpoise to an argument of such weight that it turns the scale of debate the wrong way. An fact in the chemistry of international controversy is that at the point of contact of two patriotisms lead is precipitated in great quantities.
LECTURER One with hand in your pocket, tongue in your ear and faith in your patience.
LIAR A lawyer with a roving commission.
LIBERTY One of Imagination’s most precious possessions.
The rising People, hot and out of breath,
Roared around the palace:”Liberty or death!”
“If death will do,” the King said, “let me reign;
You’ll have, I’m sure, no reason to complain.”
LIFE “Life’s not worth living, and that’s the truth,” Carelessly caroled the golden youth.
In manhood still he maintained that view And held it more strongly the older he grew.
When kicked by a jackass at eighty-three, “Go fetch me a surgeon at once!” cried he.
LITIGANT A person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bones.
LITIGATION A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.
LOGIC The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion—thus:
Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.
Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds; therefore—
Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.
This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.
LOGOMACHY ‘Tis said by divers of scholar-men, Poor Salmasius died of Milton’s pen.
Alas! we cannot know if this is true, For reading Milton’s wit we perish too.
LOQUACITY Disorder which renders sufferer unable to curb his tongue when you wish to talk.
LORD In American society, an English tourist above the state of a costermonger, as, lord ‘Aberdasher, Lord Hartisan and so forth. The traveling Briton of lesser degree is addressed as “Sir,” as, Sir ‘Arry Donkiboi, or ‘Amstead ‘Eath. The word “Lord” is sometimes used, also, as a title of the Supreme Being; but this is thought to be rather flattery than true reverence.
LOSS Here Huntington’s ashes long have lain, Whose loss is our eternal gain,
For while he exercised all his powers, Whatever he gained, the loss was ours.
The Public Wants Entertainment
Lunatic WITCH HUNT · inside Woke Military · ROT IN HELL AGAIN
Imagined conversation between WR Hearst and Ambrose Bierce: “Your photographers take pictures of bodies in the morgue. Your artists paint eyes on them as if the dead could see.” “Mr. Bierce, the dead can’t see but people can see the dead. … We give the readers the images they crave. They’re titillated by them over and over. People don’t think. They react. Someday, that’s all the news will be, images. … The vast majority of Americans may be ignorant, little more than dullards, … The public wants entertainment and emotion, not information and enlightenment. I give them what they want.”
dark! executive · prohibit security · rat conversations
We are still not through the first month of Donnie’s reign of terror. For every move that is arguably good … like cutting back on political correctness, or trimming the federal government … he comes up with a total clinker like the occupation of Gaza, and having American soldiers finish the annihilation of the Palestinian people that Israel cannot do by itself. Of course, facebook is going into an I-told-you-so frenzy, which is not productive but makes Kamala groupies feel better about their pointless priorities. The Biden-is-fine crowd is feeling no remorse about selling a forty four percent Jamaican …
immortality · put away civility · We passed We passed We
@eyeslasho Use one of these stock passive-aggressive clichés in a reply to me, and you’ll get blocked (two casualties so far this morning): Fixed it for you! Any questions? I’ll wait, Try harder, Do better, But you do you, Period, Do your homework, Full stop, Hope that helps, Got it, The more you know, But you knew that, Figure it out, You’re so close, Learn history, Please try to follow along, Next, Cope, Get educated, Check your privilege, Let that sink in, Read a book, This isn’t hard, Educate yourself, Do your own research, The science is settled, My guy
eat other countries · lease violent criminals · ethical silence
A recent feature was about the famous George Santayana “Those who cannot remember” quote. TWCR was part of a dense philosophical discussion about the evolution of human thinking. This tract was written in 1905. The modern custom of printing snappy quotes on tee shirts would have been seen as bizarre science fiction. In another layer of irony, Santayana’s other famous quote, “Only the dead have seen the end of war” was written in 1922, after the holocaust of World War I. The 1905 quote is taken out of context to build support for going to war. Willie Hearst was that cynical.
super not okay · phobia Safe Mode options · visual-only
#Hoboken is trending on twitter. They have a water main break, and are running dry. Were hobos named for Hoboken? Has Barbie ever been to Hoboken, and if she did, what did she wear? We know for sure that Barbie did not go to Frank Sinatra Boulevard, because it does not exist. “There is no Frank Sinatra Boulevard, but there is a bronze plaque on a sidewalk in Hoboken, New Jersey that marks the birthplace of Frank Sinatra.” Do be do be do. That existential exhortation was not in the original lyrics, but was a studio improvisation.
06 LA danger trance? · independent rapist mood · spray manipulation
LA is in danger, and is not an AI trance. The rapists and the therapists are teaming up to create business for each other. @naomirwolf “Are your friends in LA not reacting to danger in an expected way? Are they almost in a trance? Multiple confirmations independently that suggest that this is the case, including from a therapist who says her patients are not reacting normally. Could a mood stabilizer of some kind be in what was sprayed, or do weather manipulation waves entrain human thought patterns in some way? We are there in history and must ask the questions.”
07 delicious despair · memoir mother chaotic · hungry ho ally
@MollyJongFast is the daughter of Erica Jong, the zesty zipless fucker of a byegone era. It should not be surprising that MJF has mommy issues, or that Erica Mann Jong had no middle name at birth. Her original initials were EM, which is not as bad as two other Jews with no middle name, Bernard Sanders and Bette Midler. Yes, BM uses her real name as a stage name, despite the aromatic initials. Getting back to MJF, she is a prolific tweeter that so far refuses to skeet. MJF has a lot of opinions, which she generously shares with …
Just So Sad
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Maximes et pensées de Napoléon recueillies par J.-L. Gaudy jeune
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Peter Beinart, Ta Nehisi Coates – Reckoning with Jewish Supremacy, White Supremacy
Super Bowl 59 winners and losers: Eagles come together as Chiefs fall apart
Kendrick Lamar’s Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show
6 hidden messages in Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl performance
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In Defense of Sportsball (+Q&A Answers, pt. 1) Darryl Cooper
Thomas Jefferson Disagrees with John Roberts About Presidential Immunity
Quote Origin: Those Who Cannot Remember the Past Are Condemned To Repeat It
nonzero · the life of reason · the life of reason · tetragrammaton · be one collective
led zeppelin · blade runner · dan gasaway · 9:16 aspect ratio · facebook pictures
sue thompson · cop city · live with animals · save act · opie
tom robbins · sue thompson · legal notices · bsky · joaquin miller
joaquin miller · o henry · bierce_hearst · don swaim · tom robbins · sue thompson
Russell Lee took the featured photograph in May 1938. “Southeast Missouri Farms. Dinner in new home of resettled sharecropper. La Forge project, Missouri” · imagined conversation between WR Hearst and Ambrose Bierce. · “Your photographers take pictures of bodies in the morgue. Your artists paint eyes on them as if the dead could see.” “Mr. Bierce, the dead can’t see but people can see the dead. … We give the readers the images they crave. They’re titillated by them over and over. People don’t think. They react. Someday, that’s all the news will be, images. … The vast majority of Americans may be ignorant, little more than dullards, … The public wants entertainment and emotion, not information and enlightenment. I give them what they want. · this is what I did last week. The featured picture is “Southeast Missouri Farms. Dinner in new home of resettled sharecropper. La Forge project, Missouri. May 1938.” · I just muted my first person on bluesky. I don’t kn0w how that cartoon got in my feed. It shows two stick figures, one red and one blue. One of them is a NAZI, and one of them is not. We are supposed to hate the non-NAZI, because she is still friends with the NAZI, so she is a NAZI sympathizer. If you follow this logic very far, then you won’t be able to associate with anyone, because everybody is either a POOPYHEAD, or a POOPYHEAD sympathizer. The lady I blocked works with animals, and might not have human friends. · THINKING CULT HUMAN · WHAT-HAVE-YOU … HELPLESS VICTIM · INTERESTING HUH?? … Robert Dennis Crumb had a reputation for being really smart, when in truth he just needed a good editor · It’s Time To Retire Joan Didion’s Most Famous Line You see it on T-shirts, hoodies, … · It’s Time To Retire Joan Didion’s Most Famous Line “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” · Didion & Babitz is the story of two California girls with no middle name, Joan Didion and Eve Babitz. Author Lilianne O’Lick continues her crusade against objectivity with this tawdry tale. The featured photograph is a Confederate soldier, who probably did not think that this is what America would look like in 160 years. · “… those with privilege — white, straight, male, economic, etc. — need to start listening, … so we can start dismantling everything that’s causing people to be marginalized.” · IALB was written by a woman. A white man is getting the credit for writing it. · opie · The facebook crowd-pleaser “I’m a liberal but” was written by Lori Gallagher Witt, a woman. When it is became a meme, credit was given to Ron Howard, a man. At least both of them are white, so we don’t have to worry about cultural appropriation · 9/16=.5625, 666x.5625= 374.265, 666-374.625=291.75, 720x.5625=405, 720×405=315, 315/2=157.5, 158 – 405 – 562, 666 – 447 =219, 110 447 556 · This building on Clairmont Road still stands. Today it is an Auto Zone. This picture was taken in 1955. The spell check for Clairmont is Clairvoyant. · John Vachon took the featured photograph in August 1941. “Farm boy in beer parlor on Sunday afternoon. Bruce Crossing, Michigan” · Farm boy in beer parlor on Sunday afternoon. Bruce Crossing, Michigan · This repost · This is part two of a book report about “Hollywood” by Charles Bukowski, with technical consultant Hank Chinaski. It also discusses the unadvertised benefits of government butter, the c-cedilla (ç), and how voice typing renders “ghetto life” as “get a life.” · Photographs today are from The Library of Congress. The featured photograph: “Two unidentified soldiers in Confederate uniforms” · CHAPTER XII—FLUX AND CONSTANCY IN HUMAN NATURE Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted; it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in whom instinct has learned nothing from experience. In a second stage men are docile to events, plastic to new habits and suggestions, yet able to graft them on original instincts, which they thus bring to fuller satisfaction. This is the plane of manhood and true progress. Last comes a stage when retentiveness is exhausted and all that happens is at once forgotten; a vain, because unpractical, repetition of the past takes the place of plasticity and fertile readaptation. In a moving world readaptation is the price of longevity. The hard shell, far from protecting the vital principle, condemns it to die down slowly and be gradually chilled; immortality in such a case must have been secured earlier, by giving birth to a generation plastic to the contemporary world and able to retain its lessons. Thus old age is as forgetful as youth, and more incorrigible; it displays the same inattentiveness to conditions; its memory becomes self-repeating and degenerates into an instinctive reaction, like a bird’s chirp. · bho · This is a repost from 2022. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the featured photograph in June 1940. Community sing. Pie Town, New Mexico · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress Marion Post Wolcott tool the featured photograph in September 1938. “Bohemian coal miners, now unemployed, since mechanization of mines, Jere, Scotts Run, West Virginia” · selah
News Of The Weird
Today’s news of the weird began last night. This tweet had a picture of a swastika. The symbol came from an article, Swastikas displayed at Canadian ‘Freedom Convoy’ protests against mandates There is a photo credit for the picture. “A Nazi armband with a swastika displayed in the Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin, Germany (photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)”
There is a meme going around. “When an ox enters a palace, it does not become a king. Instead the palace turns into a barn.” (Bir öküz saraya girdiğinde kral olmaz. Bunun yerine saray bir ahıra dönüşür.) A journalist in Turkey was arrested for saying this.
Turkish journalist arrested for insulting President Erdogan “Fahrettin Altun, head of Turkey’s communications department, denounced the statement. “The honour of the presidency’s office is the honour of our country… I condemn the vulgar insults made against our president and his office,” Altun tweeted. Abdulhamit Gul, Turkey’s justice minister, also said on Twitter that Kabas will “get what she deserves” for her “unlawful” words.”
#JoeRogan “no hard feelings toward #JoniMitchell i love her music, “Chuck E’s In Love” is a great song” As you may have heard, Mr. Rogan is taking some heat for his shows about Covid. Most of the chatter is worthless. However, Bob Wright took an article out from behind the paywall.
Is Robert Malone crazy? deals with the Ivermectin issue. There is one passage that stands out. “There’s an interesting recent twist to the ivermectin story … One longstanding puzzle had been why studies of ivermectin’s efficacy in fighting Covid showed such wildly varying results. Well, it turns out that the studies that find ivermectin effective tend to be done in areas infested by parasitic worms. … since America isn’t beset by parasitic worms, embracing this finding would mean letting go … “
This is highly inconvenient for a lot of people. To admit this is to admit that Ivermectin DOES have some benefits, for some people. If you are in the mood for medical data brain damage, this document has details. Do a ctrl+f search for “worms”. Otherwise, you will drown in numbers.
IVM deep dive has another festive quote. “… people even have a specific theory for why elites are covering up ivermectin, like that pharma companies want you to use more expensive patented drugs instead. This theory is extremely plausible.”
This is a repost from 2022. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the featured photograph in June 1940. Community sing. Pie Town, New Mexico
Those Who Cannot Remember …
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Unless you live under a rock, you have heard that quote. Credit/blame for this item goes to George Santayana. (b. Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952.) This quote is the only reason anyone has heard of GS. As it turns out, GS also can be credited with the phrase “Only the dead are safe; only the dead have seen the end of war.” Details on these two crowd pleasers to follow.
“Those who cannot remember …” (TWCR) appears in The Life Of Reason. “During the years of 1905 and 1906, he published a five-volume work titled The Life of Reason; or, The Phases of Human Progress … Santayana investigates the birth and development of human reason, which he views as an evolutionary system within the scope of physical reality. He traces the growth of the human mind towards a state of rationality, exploring the details of existence and evaluating human life in general.” TLOR was written while GS was teaching philosophy at Harvard.
TWCR is in CHAPTER XII—FLUX AND CONSTANCY IN HUMAN NATURE of volume one. Here is the abbreviated paragraph: “Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted; it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians … Thus old age is as forgetful as youth, and more incorrigible; it displays the same inattentiveness to conditions; its memory becomes self-repeating and degenerates into an instinctive reaction, like a bird’s chirp.”
TLOR is a heavy duty piece of work, not a glib collection of uplifting quotes. Chapter XII is about mankind’s progress in becoming a thinking being. TWCR appears to be an incidental line, not the main thrust of his thesis. The last sentence … “memory becomes self-repeating and degenerates into an instinctive reaction, like a bird’s chirp” … would seem to contradict the more famous TWCR.
How did TWCR go from being an incidental line, to being the coffee mug classic that we know today? We don’t know. Quote Investigator® traces known citations through the years. There does not seem to be any one moment when the quote became famous.
“Santayana sometimes repudiated his earlier work, in part for its having the taint of academic life. He especially spoke down at times about the Life of Reason series for its association with the progressivism of the day, and it was later edited by Santayana and his late-life personal assistant and secretary, Daniel Cory, with the intent of removing some of its more humanistic overtones.” I do not know whether TWCR is one of the “humanistic overtones.”
In contrast to TWCR, few people know about the GS connection to “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” OTDH appeared in Soliloquies in England (1922) “remarkably written amidst the uncertain, violent times of World War I.” OTDH appears in soliloquy 25, _TIPPERARY_ … “Only the dead are safe; only the dead have seen the end of war. Not that non-existence deserves to be called peace; it is only by an illusion of contrast and a pathetic fallacy that we are tempted to call it so. The church has a poetical and melancholy prayer, that the souls of the faithful departed may rest in peace.”
“Some scholars conclude that Santayana was an active homosexual based on allusions in Santayana’s early poetry (McCormick, 49–52) and Santayana’s association with known homosexual and bisexual friends. Santayana provides no clear indication of his sexual preferences, and he never married. Attraction to both women and men seems apparent in his undergraduate and graduate correspondence. The one documented comment about his homosexuality occurs when he was sixty-five. After a discussion of A. E. Housman’s poetry and homosexuality, Santayana remarked, “I think I must have been that way in my Harvard days — although I was unconscious of it at the time” (Cory, Santayana: The Later Years, 40). Because of Santayana’s well-known frankness, many scholars consider Santayana a latent homosexual based on this evidence.”
This text does not discuss the misuse of history, or of quotes. We seek to discuss the context of TWCR, and speculate about why this item is so popular. One of the lessons of history is that people will interpret history to suit their purposes, often to the detriment of mankind. It is ironic that TWCR (written in 1905) is often cited as a justification for war … and only the dead have seen the end of war. (OTDH was written in 1922, after another great war.)
Photographs today are from The Library of Congress. The featured photograph: “Two unidentified soldiers in Confederate uniforms”
Hollywood Part Two
This repost is part two of a book report on “Hollywood,” by Charles Bukowski/Hank Chinaski.
13 – Jon Pinchot needs to move out of his house, and lands with Hank and Sarah. They get to drinking and hanging out, and Jon tells a movie financing war story. This wealthy lady in Russia wanted to work with him, but only after Jon goes to church with her, and fucks her. “please understand I have nothing against the old the aged but it was like kissing a sewer hole.”
This afternoon, I took the book with me to the Kroger parking lot. The idea was to read, while waiting for my brother to finish shopping. When I went in for my groceries, i got in the checkout line behind a lady with WIC coupons. By the time I got through, and returned by shopping cart, the checkout line was cleared up, and Mac was almost ready to go. I did not get to read, and peruse the cosmic comic insights of alkies in movieland.
I did get to drive home. The Kroger parking lot is a nightmare on the best day, but I got out, and on to Clairmont going north. I am going to be turning left in a couple of blocks, and there is no point in being in the right lane. This is a problem for some drivers. People on Clairmont road drive as though they were still on I85, and are very annoyed when someone does the speed limit in front of them.
14 – Hank and Sarah see a movie about skid row degenerates. It turns out to have clean cut, well dressed actors playing broken down drunks. Inevitably one of them gets Jesus, which may have been the point of the movie all along.
These facebook fuddy-duddies were talking about Joe Rogan. I had enough of the negativity, and decided to find some of the content that makes Mr. Rogan the most entertaining man on the internet. I found this: “black people didn’t know what plastic surgery was, so the deal was you take that government butter and you rub it on your titties on your ass and they said it’ll make it grow yeah … that’s what we used to do back in the day.”
This is the person Nikole-Hannah Jones was talking about when she said, in response to a tweet from: @AllMattNYT “Joe Rogan is what he is. We in the media might want to spend more time thinking about why so many people trust him instead of us.” @nhannajones ” With respect, I don’t get this. We need to understand why millions of Americans don’t mind the open racism? It’s not a mystery. Been reporting on it for years. So what do we do with that?” IOW, giving a comedian the opportunity to tell us about using government butter, to make your titties bigger, is open racism. TBH, to say that government butter will make your titties bigger probably does qualify as misinformation.
15 – “Something went wrong. Try again in a little while.” I am trying to find the motivation to write about a boring chapter. Hank is trying to force a screenplay out of his typer, and it is not happening. There is a letter about how to play the horses. There is a trip downstairs to plead for mercy from Jon Pinchot, who responds by saying that François is coming back from France, and they are going to move out to somewhere.
The fifth letter of François is c-cedilla. Ç “is a Latin script letter, used in the Albanian, Azerbaijani, Manx, Tatar, Turkish, Turkmen, Kurdish, Zazaki, and Romance alphabets. Romance languages that use this letter include Catalan, French, Friulian, Ligurian, Occitan, and Portuguese as a variant of the letter C.” To make Ç, you hold down the alt key and type the numbers 0199. Or you just find someone else who typed it, and copy that. If you want a ç, the code is alt+0231.
16 – Jon and François have moved into a ghetto, and they think it is the coolest thing ever. Hank is not so sure, but he gets his knife, puts his money in his shoe, and drives down there. I have known lots of people who lived in “those” neighborhoods. They are usually happy to get out, even if they don’t say so out loud. You have to wonder how long it will take the romance to wear off with these two Frenchman-living-among-the-natives.
17 – Let’s see if the electronic section robo secretary is working hey it’s working too bad I’m not. So I boot the computer now the robo secretary is working. Chapter 17 is kind of boring. Hank and Sarah go to a party at John and François’s place in the ghetto. They’re having a cookout in the backyard and cooking chicken. François doesn’t know how to cook chicken. It turns out hard as a rock. Hank can’t eat it. Someone steals the wheels off of François’s vehicle, and sells them to him for $38. The robo-secretary hears “ghetto life” and gives me “get a life.”
18 – There are these two characters. Wikipedia tells me that it’s Sean Penn and Dennis Hopper. The story is that Sean Penn wants to be in Barfly, but insists that Dennis Hopper direct. Barbet Schroeder ( robo secretary: Barbie show drunk Schroeder) hates Dennis Hopper. He hates him so much, he calls Paris and talks to his lawyer. A clause is written in his will. If Mr. Schroeder dies in the production of Barfly, Dennis Hopper cannot direct this movie.
The story took place when Sean Penn was married to Madonna. The fake name in Hollywood is Ramona. “All’s fair in hate and Hollywood.”
19 – Hank and Sarah go to meet an actor who wants to play the part. Mickey Rourke eventually played the role, so it is probably him. He lives in this broken down bachelor pad. “there were springs sticking out of the sofa, and there were pillows on the floor, used magazines, paper bags. “This is a real male hangout” Sarah laughed.
They mentioned that Francine Bowers was the female they were trying to get to play some role in this drama. Francine Bowers is a great name for Faye Dunaway. There was a person at Cross Keys named Mr Bowers, aka officer dibble. He was this guy that went around in the halls, before school, making trouble for everybody. Later, I had a friend that thought he was a musician. One of his stage names was Harry Bowers. Francine Bowers is a good name for the ultimate diva actress.
20 – Hank is going to a party for some sleazy Hollywood type and he goes by the Chateau Marmont to pick up Norman Mailer. Hank asks Norman if he has anything to drink. Mormon … calling Norman Mailer Mormon…. Norman has the bottle of wine, but no Corkscrew. Hank says that he was an amateur drunk. Hank is not a purist, and drinks the wine.
21 – Hank goes to this party for a producer who may or may not be Harvey Weinstein. IMDb doesn’t say that Weinstein produced BF, but the character at this party was certainly acting like you would expect Harvey Weinstein to act. At the end of the night, Hank has decided that he likes Mr. Weinstein. John Pinchot says that he’s the nicest person he’s ever met, including Idi Amin.
Other parts of this series are available. one three four five Pictures are from The Library of Congress. John Vachon took the featured photograph in August 1941. “Farm boy in beer parlor on Sunday afternoon. Bruce Crossing, Michigan”
I’m A Liberal Butt
“Ron Howard has summed up what many of us believe. Including me. “I’m a liberal, but …” Just when you thought it was safe, more facebook wisdom emerges from the digital cellar. It is not the first time, nor will it be the last. Chamblee54 wrote about it in 2020, and that parts of that post will be recycled today. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Jack Delano took the featured photograph in August 1941.“In the square, facing the main street in Saint Albans, Vermont”
My first reaction was to ask, did Ronald William Howard really write this? Of course, IALB had been published before, and a bit of googling revealed the obvious answer. The credit/blame for IALB is usually assigned to Lori Gallagher Witt, who posted these thoughts January 7, 2018, on facebook. Yes, IALB was written by a woman, but when it comes time to share her musings, the credit is given to a man. At least both LGW and RWH are white, so we will have to wait until later to fuss about THAT. Complaining about privilege is an obnoxious privilege.
RWH is a success. He acted in two hit TV shows, and directed many movies. A major motion picture involves the investment of millions of dollars, with all the strings attached. This is the infrastructure that IALB mentions in item 12. “Which means those with privilege — white, straight, male, economic, etc — need to start listening, even if you don’t like what you’re hearing, so we can start dismantling everything that’s causing people to be marginalized.” “The system” does cause some people to be marginalized, but it also allowed RWH to craft movies that millions enjoy.
“11. I believe our current administration is fascist. … because I’ve spent too many years reading and learning about the Third Reich to miss the similarities. … because things are actually mirroring authoritarian and fascist regimes of the past.” Fascism is one of those slurs that gets casually tossed around, until it means very little. Yes, there are similarities between the US Government, and Nazi Germany. There are also significant differences. The glib Hitler comparisons only serve to distract from a consideration of boring issues and tough choices.
“15. I believe in funding sustainable energy … There are too many sustainable options available for us to continue with coal and oil. Sorry, billionaires. Maybe try investing in something else.” Here again, God/the Devil is in the details. Take electric cars. How are we going to generate all that electricity, when our power grids are struggling? How are we going to get the cobalt needed to make batteries? There are horror stories about cobalt mining in Africa. It is a lot easier to take a cheap shot at “billionaires” than it is to take create clean energy.
“Sorry, billionaires. Maybe try investing in something else.” I don’t know much about LGW, and her finances. If she has a 401k, then that money is invested somewhere. This a big chunk of the “billionaires” that progressives like to bash. Yes, there is corruption and stupidity in our capitalism investment infrastructure, but the simple truth is that this is how we pay for what we do. When you call for “dismantling” the system, you forget that there needs to be something to replace it. The rhetoric of the liberal butt crowd is better at pointing out problems than solving them.
Didion & Babitz Part One
Didion & Babitz has hit the streets, as anyone who reads instagram knows. Lilianne O’Lick knows how to sell the soap, as well as a dirty story that leaves many readers wanting a bath. This is not my first time with either Eve Babitz or LOL. D&B is the story of Eve Babitz and Joan Didion. … Neither lady had a middle name. Chamblee 54 has written about EB on several occasions. 123021 032622 010523 This is not the case with JD. There was once a paperback copy of The White Album … I never got past the abandoned gas station being the authentic west.
“Finishing Didion and Babitz has become a Herculean effort on my part. Lili Anolik clearly hates Joan Didion and continually criticizes and condemns her. This book should be called Loving Eve Babitz, Wench, Whore and Failed “Artist”. Anolik seems to fashion herself as a therapist, making some drastic, others ridiculous, excuses for Babit’s tawdry behavior. … This seemed to be an exercise in “look at my big word vocabulary. I’m going to repeat what I just said using big words that no one ever uses just to impress you. “ From an Amazon one-star review, “Loving Eve Loathing Joan,” by NFox.
(“The seventies in LA weren’t a decade under themselves but an extension of the previous decade: the Sixties the flower child, the seventies the juvenile delinquent that the flower child—a Bad Seed all along—grew into.” p. 124) The sixties were special, too beautiful to live, to profitable to die. Being a kid in Georgia was just one way to see it all. I had little notion of what was going on then in California, and by the time I started to get hip, California had Mansoned its way into a permanent Altamont. EB was playing the game, and the players.
Carrie White was a celebrity hairburner, who wrote a book Upper Cut: Highlights of My Hollywood Life. She is probably not the same Carrie White as the telekinetic teenager at the center of “Carrie” but one cannot be too certain. The CW in D&B went to Hollywood High with EB, and was in the glamor sorority that EB missed out on. CW remained close to Rosalind Frank, who was the fairest of them all in High School. Alas, life after graduation did not work out, and Miss Frank died an early, drug related death. This untimely demise got EB busy writing.
Page 168 sees the first appearance of Bret Easton Ellis, who simply had to be in this book. The first time I heard of EB was on the BEE podcast, which later had an appearance by LOL promoting her first book about EB. BEE idolized JD, and was a close friend of JD’s daughter Quintana Roo Dunne. It is rather poignant that BEE enters this narrative as part of a discussion about JG Dunn’s apparent taste for male company. John Gregory Dunne is the husband of JD, and the younger brother of Dominick John Dunne, … another bicoastal fudge packer.
I was trolling google, looking for dirt on JD … there is a small mountain of dirt on EB … and I stumbled onto a bit of clickbait, “It’s Time To Retire Joan Didion’s Most Famous Line”. The line is “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” I had probably heard it before. I process a lot of commodity wisdom these days. It goes in one eye and out the other … assuming that useless knowledge leaves the head the same way it gets in. Which brings us to page 211, where LOL ends a chapter with JDMFL.
There is a line about EB, whose inclusion in this feature is required by law: “In every young man’s life there is an Eve Babitz. It’s usually Eve Babitz.” Credit/blame for this tidbit is usually given to Earl McGrath. When “Eve’s Hollywood” came out, the line was on the blurb page, written by “anonymous.” The book “came out” in March 1974, with a glamor girl cover photo by Eve’s number one lady lover, Annie Leibovitz. D&B does not have any hint that EB and JD were cleaning carpets together. … Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The featured photo: “Unidentified soldier in Confederate nine-button frock coat.” · Part two of D&B is available.
Do Your Duty
Hum Invading zing · king fool Dismiss your doubt Blam · sing sarcasm troll
Wake up, do the chores you need to do, and look at the weather. While learning that it was raining this week … a lot … I see a news report on the side of the page. Thomas Eugene Robbins died. He made it to 92, which is rather remarkable for someone as chemically adventurous as TER. The best tribute I can give him is to write. This piece will go in the slot of a haiku reduction that has little to do with it. TER gave me hours of reading fun, which is the best gift a writer …
MOTHER… FUCKIN’ QUEER! · BUT Y’KNOW I UNDERSTAND · SIGH … UNIVERSE? MAN?
I have done my duty. I sat through a youtube rerun of the super bowl halftime show. It is time to talk about Robert Dennis Crumb, who is still alive, despite the ordeal of being a counterculture icon. Do you want to know what a hippie is? Someone who dresses like Tarzan, wears his hair like Jane, and smells like Cheetah. I thought I was not going to say anything more about the halftime show, but you know about good intentions. Kendrick Lamar Duckworth is 37, which is the rap equivalent of RD Crumb’s 81. Zap comics caused hip-hop …
RAT LIFE THERAPY · SING PHILOSOPY! LIKE IT? · IDIOCY! NERDS?
You have every good intention of writing your way out of your sadz on this rainy tuesday morning but first you have to fight off the distractions. There is that comic strip making subtle philosophical points, with the excellent graphics that will be easy to pervert for your purposes. Seeking the “perfection of a kind” that Auden wrote about is deceptively easy. You go through the motions, do what looks good, and is, after all, a 5-7-5 haiku, but you have to make one change. To make that change, you have to change three other things. Soon, you get …
DUPLICATE MASH NOTES!! · LITTLE SLIMY PRINCIPLES! · MY BIG SARCASM?!
It is time to start hitting the snooze button again. On facebook, you have the option of snoozing someone, meaning you will not see anything from this person for 30 days. When the advent of the 47th POTUS, I started to snooze anyone I knew who said anything negative about Donniepooh. Not that I like the orange haired adderal addict, and if this thing degenerates much further may actively despise him, but the woke/anti-trump rhetoric has got to go. It is beginning to have the opposite effect on me. I don’t want to be taken in by their distraction.
VISIBILITY? · NO DANGER YOU? PROBABLY · AT LEAST BUY PIZZA
I just muted my first person on bluesky. I don’t kn0w how that cartoon got in my feed. It shows two stick figures, one red and one blue. One of them is a NAZI, and one of them is not. We are supposed to hate the non-NAZI, because she is still friends with the NAZI, so she is a NAZI sympathizer. If you follow this logic very far, then you won’t be able to associate with anyone, because everybody is either a POOPYHEAD, or a POOPYHEAD sympathizer. The lady I blocked works with animals, and might not have human friends.
twee culture fitful · multifarious language · drive by what they do
John Hamilton McWhorter used to be someone that I enjoyed listening to. I do admire his skill at marketing his word product … not enough to read any of it, or, God forbid, buy one of his books. There are several causes of this impending pundit-listener disengagement. First, John does not seem to realize that racism is BORING. I think deep down he does, but the gravy train keeps demanding fresh meat. The second, and more serious problem, is John’s support of the Israeli effort to rid Gaza of Palestineans. Those beachfront resorts are going to be so fabulous …
THINKING CULT HUMAN · WHAT-HAVE-YOU … HELPLESS VICTIM · INTERESTING HUH??
This is today’s featured picture. Usually, this is a historic photograph, but today is a deconstruction by Dennis Crumb … Dennis fits his personality so much better, and he really is a menace. The modern celebrity is in a position of people taking everything he says seriously, and allowing whatever drug addled bilge seeps out of his head as great thought. We should not be careless with our gendered pronouns here, because this is a problem for lady celebrities as well, although there was never any doubt that Dennis is a cis-male. Which reminds me of that Super Bowl Halftime.
Lawyers, Lepers, Crooks
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Maybe the F.B.I. thought I would be intimidated by the raid, and opt to remain silent…
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estuarine · pipeline · Super Bowl XLVII · gene rayburn · Simon Sebag Montefiore
ron howard · lori gallagher witt · hypergamy · lili anolik · 826 Peachtree St.
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here’s what I did online last week. The featured picture: “Unidentified soldier in Confederate uniform and Craig’s Rifles, or 28th Virginia Infantry Regiment” · I googled little bird poems, and did not see any of the violent LBP I heard tonight. This one is typical: “Once I saw a little bird, Coming hop, hop, hop. So I cried out, “Little bird, Will you stop, stop, stop?” I was going to the window To say, “How are you?” But he shook his little tail, And away he flew.” … “TO THE TEACHER Read the poem aloud. Make the children repeat it along with you.” · @Goy_Mike_ jews suck baby pen*s. it’s true, look it up. white people are dumb for worshiping them. · Russell Lee took the featured photgraph in June 1940. “Group at the literary society. Pie Town, New Mexico” · If you google LBP … “Little bird, Will you stop, stop, stop?” I was going to the window To say, “How are you?” But he shook his little tail, And away he flew.” … “TO THE TEACHER Read the poem aloud. Make the children repeat it along with you.” · I was at a concert where tickets were $26 to get in and people were talking THE WHOLE SHOW near the video and audio equipment which picked up everything. The guy next to me started shushing everyone which I found distracting as well even though I agreed with him. It’s at the core of bullying, believing that your own rights prevail over others paid right to hear. · @chamblee54.bsky.social · is anything more boring than hypocrisy? It is obvious that it exists. The old story about the church, with room for one more hypocrite, is no doubt true. But so what? Just because you have strong opinions, and share them promiscuously … · Russell Lee took the featured picture in June 1940.“Building a new house for Mr. Craig, first citizen. Pie Town, New Mexico.” · Timothy Leary is sometimes given credit/blame for the phrase “question authority.” Dr. Leary was an authority who would require enhanced interrogation. The featured picture: “Building a new house for Mr. Craig, first citizen. Pie Town, New Mexico.” · @JonathanLKrohn Essayist. Film programmer. Filmmaker. Jewish Benjamaniac. Bisexual baseball faggot. The Place Formerly Known as DF. · this is a media story from 2017. Some people should not be allowed to post in English. Eight years later, it serves mainly as text to go between some historic pictures. @krohn.bsky.social · there was a meme on facebook, that credited a tacky quote to Henry Ford. The picture shown here is from the GSU library, showing 826 Peachtree Street. The building in that photograph is still standing. · so, Black Captain America will be in theaters on Friday, the love day. We are about to be so drowned in hate and racism. Watching the trailer all I could think was, “A Black President shook the shyt out of mediocre white men for eight years. They’ve become dumber and this is going to flip their shyt.” · Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Russell Lee took the featured photograph in May 1938. “Southeast Missouri Farms. Dinner in new home of resettled sharecropper. La Forge project, Missouri” · selah
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