[Image: “Choose wisely you must,” by photographer Pasi Välkkynen. Found on Flickr, and used here under a Creative Commons license. (Thank you!)]

From whiskey river:

—awright so we’re all
gonna die but now is the
time to sing & see, to be
humble, sacrificed, late,
crazy, talkative, foolish,
proud, indispensable, early
sane, silent, serious

(Jack Kerouac, Book of Sketches [source])

…and:

“I can see,” Miss Emily said, “that it might look as though you were simply pawns in a game. It can certainly be looked at like that. But think of it. You were lucky pawns. There was a certain climate and now it’s gone. You have to accept that sometimes that’s how things happen in this world. People’s opinions, their feelings, they go one way, then the other. It just so happens you grew up at a certain point in this process.”

“It might be just some trend that came and went,” I said. “But for us, it’s our life.”

“Yes, that’s true. But think of it. You were better off than many who came before you. And who knows what those who come after you will have to face.”

(Kazuo Ishiguro [source])

Not from whiskey river:

At the End of the Endless Decade

For years had anyone needed me
to spell the word commiserate

I’d have disappointed them. I envy
people who are more excited

by etymology than I am, but not
the ones who can explain how

music works—I wonder whether
the critic who wrote

that the Cocteau Twins were the voice
of god still believes it. Why not,

what else would god sound like.
Even though I know better, when I see

the word misericordia I still think
suffering, not forgiveness;

when we commiserate we are united
not in mercy but in misery,

so let’s go ahead and call this abscess
of history the Great Commiseration.

The difference
between affliction and affection

is a flick, a lick—but check
again, what lurks in the letters

is “lie,” and what kind of luck
is that. As the years pile up

our friends become more vocal
about their various damages:

Won’t you let me monetize
your affliction, says my friend

the corporation. When I try to enter
the name of any city

it autocorrects to Forever:
I’m spending a week in Forever,

Forever was hotter than ever
this year, Forever’s expensive

but oh the museums,
and all of its misery’s ours.

(Mark Bibbins [source])

…and:

Vote Your Way to Hell

It’s a long and arduous journey.
Starving with numbness.
Tired of mixing kindness and sabotage.
You can’t trust instinct.
After the election, you can’t believe the weather is wrong again.
The sky cheats on your speech.
The process is complicated and precarious.
Disappointed, there’s no word of a sad sneer.
Nothing has changed.

What else do you expect?
This is already a hell, paved by your blood and passion.
You’d rather go back to the womb, it’s warmer.
May other reckless souls be consumed.

Even so, I want everyone to vote.
Vote your way to an alternative hell.
Congratulations!
You’re part of the construction of our living inferno.

Here, keep cracking and burning bones as fuel.
The walls scream for mercy, sounding like your singing voice.
Many innocent young souls are recognized.
Vote! You deserve limbo, not war.
We need to keep walking in the dark, searching for hellfire and passing offspring an improbable spring and a maybe sunrise.

(Chia-Lun Chang [source])

The Rules

1. Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
2. Never go outside the expertise of your people.
3. Whenever possible go outside the expertise of the enemy.
4. Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.
5. Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. There is no defense. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.
6. A good tactic is one your people enjoy.
7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
8. Keep the pressure on.
9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
10. The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
11. If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside; this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative.
12. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

(Saul Alinsky [source])