“If they didn’t know how it would end, with night, with more terrible noise from the top of Olympus, with bombs, with disease, with blood, with happiness, with deer or something else watching them from the darkened woods—well, wasn’t that true of every day?”
Los Angeles County Museum on Fire, Ed Ruscha, 1968. 53.5 x 133.5 in.
“In the Hirschhorn, she sped along with the same gallop as at the National Gallery, racing by masterpieces with her head swiveling. One picture, however, stuck her feet in cement. Painted in 1967, Ed Ruscha’s large canvas depicted the Los Angeles County Museum on fire. Devoid of people on the grounds, the museum was shown in cool tones and sharp outline, while flames blew out from behind the building. The picture was so unlike the slash-and-burn canvases of the abstract pictures she had just seen. Those pictures asked for an emotional response. This one asked for an intellectual response. Was this a tragic image or a surreal one? The horror going on inside was unrevealed and only imagined. And where were the people? Then, as she waited in front of the picture for a thought to congeal, Lacey’s mental gears cranked down, the questions stopped, and for a moment, her brain stopped churning and she just stared at it.”
“One artist with the pseudonym (it was natural to assume) of Pilot Mouse had taken over a gallery and installed . . . another gallery. We viewers went in one at a time, and inside was a simulation of an uptown gallery, complete with gallery goers—really guerrilla actors—who walked around and looked at the antique store paintings on the wall.”
“A large part of her simplicity consisted in determining not to want what she could not have with ease.”
“Vanity...is definitely my favorite sin.”
“We are most of us like Don Quixote, to whom a windmill was a giant, and Dulcinea a magnificent princess: all more or less the dupes of our own imagination, though we do not all go so far as to see ghosts, or to fancy ourselves pipkins and teapots.”
“Look in the mirror
Familiar figure
Staring right back at me
Split decision
Now my reflection’s talking
But I didn’t speak
He said, oh my god, you’re piecing it together
You are just a shadow of me
Oh my lord, you’ve never left the mirror
You were never ever free
But tonight, you will play that tambourine, yeah
You will be that chosen master
You will leave with the girl this time
You will be the leading actor
Movie of your own design
And when you hit disaster
The answer will be yours to find
You’re the mirror’s master
Now forever, I’m resigned
Take in the vision
My imperfections
Shatter in the mirror of me
Another shadow
Slips into the chateau
Hoping that I cannot see
I said, oh my god, I’m piecing it together
You were just a memory
Oh my lord, you’ve never left the mirror
You were never ever free
But tonight you will play that tambourine, yeah
You will be that chosen master
You will leave with the girl this time
You will be the leading actor
Movie of your own design
And when you hit disaster
The answer will be yours to find
You’re the mirror’s master
Now forever I’m, resigned”
“MAN IN BLACK: All right: where is the poison? The battle of wits has begun. It ends when you decide and we both drink, and find out who is right and who is dead.
VIZZINI: But it’s so simple. All I have to do is divine from what I know of you. Are you the sort of man who would put the poison into his own goblet, or his enemy’s? [pauses to study the MAN IN BLACK] Now, a clever man would put the poison into his own goblet, because he would know that only a great fool would reach for what he was given. I’m not a great fool, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But you must have known I was not a great fool; you would have counted on it, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
MAN IN BLACK: You’ve made your decision then?
VIZZINI: Not remotely. Because iocaine comes from Australia, as everyone knows. And Australia is entirely peopled with criminals. And criminals are used to having people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me. So I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you.
MAN IN BLACK: Truly, you have a dizzying intellect.
VIZZINI: Wait till I get going! Where was I?
MAN IN BLACK: Australia.
VIZZINI: Yes — Australia, and you must have suspected I would have known the powder’s origin, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
MAN IN BLACK: [beginning nervousness] You’re just stalling now.
VIZZINI: You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you? You’ve beaten my giant, which means you’re exceptionally strong. So, you could have put the poison in your own goblet, trusting on your strength to save you. So I can clearly not choose the wine in front of you. But, you’ve also bested my Spaniard which means you must have studied. And in studying, you must have learned that man is mortal so you would have put the poison as far from yourself as possible, so I can clearly not choose the wine in front of me.
MAN IN BLACK: [nervously] You’re trying to trick me into giving away something — it won’t work —
VIZZINI: [triumphant] It has worked — you’ve given everything away — I know where the poison is.
MAN IN BLACK: [fool’s courage] Then make your choice.
VIZZINI: I will. And I choose [stops suddenly and points at something behind the Man in Black] what in the world can that be?
MAN IN BLACK: [Turns, looks] What? Where? I don’t see anything.
VIZZINI quickly switches the goblets while the MAN IN BLACK has his head turned.
VIZZINI: Oh, well, I-I could have sworn I saw something. No matter.
The MAN IN BLACK turns to face him again. VIZZINI starts to laugh.
MAN IN BLACK: What’s so funny?
VIZZINI: I’ll tell you in a minute. First, let’s drink — me from my glass, and you from yours.
And he picks up his goblet. The MAN IN BLACK picks up the one in front of him. As they both start to drink, VIZZINI hesitates a moment. Allowing the MAN IN BLACK to drink first, he swallows his wine.
MAN IN BLACK: You guessed wrong.
VIZZINI: [roaring with laughter] You only think I guessed wrong... [louder now] ...that’s what’s so funny! I switched glasses when your back was turned. Ha-ha, you fool.
The MAN IN BLACK sits silently.
VIZZINI: You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.” But only slightly less well known is this: “Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!Ahahahaha, ahahahaha, ahahaha—
thud *
VIZZINI laughs and roars and cackles and whoops and is in all ways quite cheery until he falls over dead. The MAN IN BLACK steps past his corpse, taking the blindfold and bindings off BUTTERCUP, who notices VIZZINI lying dead. The MAN IN BLACK pulls her to her feet.
BUTTERCUP: Who are you?
MAN IN BLACK: I am no one to be trifled with, that is all you ever need know.”
“And as for fortune and as for fame
I never invited them in
Though it seemed to the world they were all I desired
They are illusions
They’re not the solutions they promised to be
The answer was here all the time
I love you and hope you love me
Don’t cry for me Argentina”
“Keen as her interest in the rugged relics of the Roman past that lay scattered about her and in which the corrosion of centuries had still left so much of individual life, her thoughts, after resting a while on these things, had wandered, by a concatenation of stages it might require some subtlety to trace, to regions and objects charged with a more active appeal. From the Roman past to Isabel Archer’s future was a long stride, but her imagination had taken it in a single flight and now hovered in slow circles over the nearer and richer field.”
“Mandelbrot’s insights imply that when viewed through a coarse-grained lens of varying resolution, a hidden simplicity and regularity is revealed underlying the extraordinary complexity and diversity in much of the world around us. Furthermore, the mathematics that describes self-similarity and its implicit recursive rescaling is identical to the power law scaling discussed in previous chapters. In other words, power law scaling is the mathematical expression of self-similarity and fractality. Consequently, because animals obey power law scaling both within individuals, in terms of the geometry and dynamics of their internal network structures, as well as across species, they, and therefore all of us, are living manifestations of self-similar fractals.”
“So, naturalists observe, a flea,
Hath smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite ‘em;
And so proceed ad infinitum.”
Cutely, this quatrain is quoted by Geoffrey West in SCALE.
“I came from the people, they need to adore me
So Christian Dior me from my head to my toes
I need to be dazzling, I want to be rainbow high
They must have excitement, and so must I
Eyes, hair, mouth, figure
Dress, voice, style, image
I’m their product, it’s vital you sell me
So machiavell me, make an Argentine rose
I need to be thrilling, I want to be rainbow high
They need their escape, and so do I
Eyes, hair, mouth, figure
Dress, voice, style, movement
Hands, magic, rings, glamour
Face, diamonds, excitement, image
All my descamisados expect me to outshine the enemy
I won’t disappoint them
I’m their savior, that’s what they call me
So Lauren Bacall me, anything goes
To make me fantastic, I have to be rainbow high
In magical colors
You’re not decorating a girl for a night on the town
And I’m not a second-rate queen getting kicks with a crown”
“Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.”
“‘Well, you’re not in love with her, I hope.’
’How can that be, when I’m in love with Another?’
’You’re in love with yourself, that’s the Other!’”
“Full souls are double mirrors, making still
An endless vista of fair things before,
Repeating things behind.”
“Some boys hate themselves
Spend their lives resenting their fathers
Some girls hate their bodies
Stand in the mirror and wait for the feedback
Saying God, make me famous
If you can’t just make it painless
Just make it painless
Assisted suicide
She dreams about dying all the time
She told me she came so close
Filled up the bathtub and put on our first record
Saying God, make me famous
If you can’t just make it painless
Just make it painless
It goes on and on, I don’t know what I want
On and on, I don’t know if I want it
On and on, I don’t know what I want
On and on, I don’t know if I want it
(On and on I don’t know what I want)
(On and on I don’t know if I want it)
(On and on I don’t know what I want)
(On and on I don’t know if I want it)”
“I think you must at least assent to the following positions: that the many are sacrificed to the few; that ninety-nine in a hundred are occupied in a perpetual struggle for the preservation of a perilous and precarious existence, while the remaining one wallows in all the redundancies of luxury that can be wrung from their labours and privations; that luxury and liberty are incompatible; and that every new want you invent for civilised man is a new instrument of torture for him who cannot indulge it.”
“I thought, I found a way to enter
It’s just a reflektor (It’s just a reflektor)
I thought, I found the connector
It’s just a reflektor (It’s just a reflektor) Just a reflektor
It’s just a reflektor (It’s just a reflektor)
It’s just a reflektor (It’s just a reflektor)
It’s just a reflektor (It’s just a reflektor)
reflektor (Just a reflektor)
(Just a reflektor) just a reflektor
(Just a reflektor) just a reflektor (reflektor)
(Just a reflektor)
(Just a reflektor)
(Just a reflektor, just a reflektor)
(Just a reflektor, just a reflektor)
Just a reflection, of a reflection
Of a reflection, of a reflection, of a reflection
Will I see you on the other side? (Just a reflektor)
We all got things to hide (Just a reflektor)
It’s just a reflection of a reflection
Of a reflection, of a reflection, of a reflection
Will I see you on the other side? (Just a reflektor)
We all got things to hide (Just a reflektor)”
“There’s that great passage in Proust where Marcel talks about imagining the face of the girl you’ve only glimpsed from behind. How beautiful the unseen face always is. I have yet to experience the disappointing reality of César.”