April 2008

  • Context
    • by Bud Parr on 04/16/08 (2 comments)

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“One of the most important things that distinguish man from other animals is that man can get pleasure from drinking without being thirsty.”

- MA GASTRONOMIE

“Part of the tension felt right now, perhaps, is that blogging and the internet have allowed for enthusiasm to encroach upon the terrain of criticism at a time when the arts landscape itself seems to be shrinking. Ebert (and Scott in his praise for him), however, provide a useful reminder that audiences perhaps gravitate most towards unique voices that are able to offer both enthusiasm and criticism rather than attempt to demarcate the boundaries between the two.”

- Max Magee

“Paul Theroux is the kind of guy who travels to Malawi in a train and looks out the window and then writes about how the people outside all look very dumb and bored and unhappy and Malawi is an unhappy country… I think it’s utterly uninspiring, both as language and as perception… Günter Grass wrote a book about India, for example. I actually went through the book and counted how often he described shit. There are 289 mentions of shit in this small book. If you’re so obsessed with shit, there’s no need to go to India, just describe your own latrine—that would be just as representative of your neurosis. But if you are claiming to describe something out in the world, that’s another matter.”

- Ilija Trojanow quoted from Pen America 8 on the Pen America blog



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