[Image: “Cuando las calles á solas (When the streets are alone),” by Oiluj Samall Zeid. (Found it on Flickr, and used here under a Creative Commons license — thank you!)]
From whiskey river:
Nobody speaks to me. People fall in love with me, and annoy me and distress me and flatter me and excite me and — and all that sort of thing. But no one speaks to me. I sometimes think that no one can.
(Edna St. Vincent Millay [source])
…and:
Mum Is The Word
The League of Quiet Persons meets
monthly. Its quarters are a cavernous
warehouse away from traffic. Its
business is not to discuss business.
Minutes are read silently and tacitly approved.
Members listen to rain argue with corrugated
iron, a furnace with itself. Glances
are learnéd. It is not so much refuge
from noise the members seek in such company
as implicit permission not to speak,
not to answer or to answer for,
not to pose, chat, persuade, or expound.Podium and gavel have been banned,
indeed are viewed as weaponry.
A microphone? The horror.
Several Quiet Persons interviewed
had no comment. A recorded voice
at the main office murmured only, “You
have reached the League of Quiet
Persons. After the tone, listen.”
(Hans Ostrom [source])
