"In the nineteen-sixties, Elisabeth Mann Borgese, a daughter of Thomas Mann, trained her English setter, Arlecchino, to type with his nose on a specially constructed electric typewriter.After about a year, and many dispensations of raw hamburger, Arli could type twenty simple words. He made a lot of typos, though, and when Borgese tried to induce him to record his own thoughts, without dictation, he got discouraged and started smacking the machine with his paw. Borgese sent some sheets of Arli’s typing to a poetry critic, who wrote back that the dog had “a definite affinity with the ‘concretist’ groups in Brazil, Scotland, and Germany.”

[Joan Acocella: The Typing Life, in: The New Yorker, 2007; RTWT]

"Everywhere, from the crushed rocks beneath our feet to the soul of man, we see power, intelligence, life and glory, which astound us and seem to call for our worship. And everywhere we see them perishing, devouring one another and destroying themselves, often with dreadful pain, as though they came into being for no other end."
[A.C.Bradley. Shakespearean Tragedy. Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth.. Penguin Classics: 1991, p. 38]

Wir befinden uns im Siebten Höllenkreis, bei den Sodomiten - Dante, Inferno, Canto XV, V. 109:
Dante hat sich soeben nach den Leuten erkundigt, die neben Brunetto Latini, seinem Lehrer und väterlichen Freund(?), mit dem er sich unterhält, in jener Horde der Sodomiten leiden. Dieser erwähnt als ersten Namen "Priscian". ["Priscian sen va con quella turba grama"]

Eine Fußnote klärt uns auf:

"Prisciano da Cesarea, del VI secolo, celebre maestro di grammatica e autore della più diffusa grammatica latina del Medioevo ["berühmter Meister der Grammatik und Autor der am weitesten verbreiteten lateinischen Grammatik des Mittelalters"], le Institutiones gramaticae. Non risultando da altre fonti che egli fosse colpevole di sodomia ["Da andere Quellen nicht ergeben, daß er der Sodomie schuldig gewesen wäre"], si è pensato che al tempo di Dante egli fosse confuso col vescovo eretico Priscillano, ["hat man angenommen, daß er zu Dantes Zeit mit dem Bischof und Häretiker Priscillano verwechselt wurde (4. Jhdt)"], del sec. IV, capo di una setta a cui era attribuito tale peccato. ["Kopf einer Sekte, der man solche Sünden nachsagte."] Sembra tuttavia più probabile che egli rappresenti, come il più famoso, la classe dei pedagogi, considerati abitualmente come sodomiti. ["Es scheint allerdings wahrscheinlicher, daß er, als der berühmteste, die Klasse der Pädagogen repräsentiert, die man gewöhnlich für Sodomiten hielt."] "

[Dante. Commedia. Vol.1: Inferno. con il commento di Anna Maria Chiavacci Leonardi. Arnoldo Mondadori: 1991, p. 472f.]

Thomas Cushman stellt sich Studenten-Feedback zu Sokrates vor. Immens lustig.

"He always keeps talking about these figures in a cave, like they really have anything to do with the real world. Give me a break! I spend serious money for my education and I need something I can use in the real world, not some b.s. about shadows and imaginary trolls who live in caves."

"I need someone well-versed in the art of torture... Do you know PowerPoint?"

[Cartoon von "Gregory", Standbild aus einem ca. 5-sekündigen Cartoon-Film von der New Yorker Website]

Ce qui est bon, demeure toujours bon, et la clarté n'est pas ôtée à un Astre pour avoir été appellé tenebreux.

Charles Sorel: La bibliotheque françoise. Seconde edition. Revue et augmentée. Compagnie des Libraires du Palais, Paris: 1667 p.215 -- von mir modernisiert

[Das was gut ist, bleibt es auch, und der Stern verliert seine Helligkeit nicht dadurch, daß man ihn dunkel nennt.]

Ein wenig pathetisch, aber so waren halt die 1660er.

And your eyes, they were blue-green & gray
Like an April day
But lit into amethyst
When I stooped and kissed

I remember I could never catch you
For no one could match you
You had wonderful luminous fleet
Little wings on your feet.

[Ein Auszug aus einem Gedicht, das Tommy Lee über Pam Anderson schrieb, als er gerade wegen ihr im Gefängnis saß, abgedruckt als Teil von Kapitel 10 (11. Teil) der Mötley Crüe- Autobiographie The Dirt
Wenn ich was anderes daraus zititeren würde, müßte ich den Blog vor Scham rot einfärben]

PS.: ROCK N ROLL!!!

Rapper Malice (Clipse) in einem Interview mit Palms Out Sounds

The relationship I have with my son and daughter is we talk about everything. Especially with my daughter - when we watch the videos on TV and the girls are shaking their ass and all that I tell 'em everyone loves a hoe but you don't love 'em for long, you know what I'm saying? That's just real. I try to teach my daughter you see all them hanging on the rapper? That is not who the rapper really wants.

I'd leave the girl alone, but the bitch keeps calling me
All day and all night long, she just keeps calling me
She says she'd kill herself if I tried to let her go
Somebody pray for me cause I'm stuck with a crazy ho

Xzibit, "Crazy Ho", auf Weapons Of Mass Destruction, 2004

- Вы, я думаю, привыкли к этим великолепным картинам? - сказал я ему.
- Да-с, и к свисту пули можно привыкнуть, то есть привыкнуть скрывать
невольное биение сердца.
- Я слышал напротив, что для иных старых воинов эта музыка даже
приятна.
- Разумеется, если хотите, оно и приятно; только все же потому, что
сердце бьется сильнее. Посмотрите, - прибавил он, указывая на восток, - что
за край!

Obenstehendes Zitat nur wegen meiner Aufassung, man sollte möglichst alles im Original lesen... Selber habe ich die Stelle in Nabokovs Übersetzung des Romans gefunden [Mikhail Lermontov. A Hero of Our Time. Translated from the Russian by Vladimir Nabokov in collaboration with Dmitri Nabokov. Foreword and Notes by Vladimir Nabokov. Introduction by T.J.Binyon. Alfred J. Knopf/Everyman's Library: New York 1992, p. 39]:

"You are accustomed, I suppose, to these magnificent views?" I said to him.
"Yes, sir, one can become accustomed even to the whistle of bullets, that is to say become accustomed to concealing an involuntary throbbing of the heart."
"I have heard that, on the contrary, some old warriors find that music even pleasant?"
"Of course, it is pleasant, if you like; but again, only because one's heart beats faster. Look" he added, pointing eastward, "what country!"