The devil

Imitatio diaboli: To reject your station in life and aspire for more in the face of omnipotent opposition.

 

Ulysses

The wedding didn’t start until late afternoon. It was morning – somewhere on the south coast; I don’t remember where. She bought a glossy magazine from W.H.Smith. I bought Ulysses (and a diet coke).

She won. Back at the hotel room, I managed only three pages of Joyce before admitting defeat. I leafed through her magazine whilst she took a shower.

Years later, when she’d left me for someone else, I returned to Ulysses.

As another held her in his arms, I held Ulysses, persevering through its 933 pages. I didn’t get it. The words flew from the book and over my head; they disappeared over the horizon like migrating birds. Still, Ulysses now sits on a book shelf a read book. Its cover is creased and stained. It has pages with folded over corners which lead you to asterisk marks.

And what of she and her glossy magazine? She became a dead breath that I living breathe.

Shopping

The feeling of emptiness is felt most strongly in crowded shopping centres.

Academics

Academics are for the most part pyramid salesmen.

Theology

“Most theology is made on the run”.

A paraphrase of a lecturer, who thus concluded his module on patristic theologians.

Academia

Academia is the parasite of genius.

The Amateur Artist

The amateur artist will occasionally imagine a posthumous vindication of his work.

There is no greater sorrow for the amateur artist, than to glimpse the mediocrity of his own art.

It is a curse to lack the ability to express one’s art; the idea is strong but the ability to make real the idea is weak.

The amateur artist will convince himself that it was a lack of ambition and not talent which thwarted his artistic dreams.

Theodicy

Theodicies are superfluous to the faith of the religious and offend the morality of the atheist; they are in essence pointless.

Love

The promises of lovers should be written on fast-flowing water.

A thought I appropriated (ripped off) from Catullus:

“sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti, in vento et rapida scribere oportet aqua” (But what a woman says to her eager lover, one should write in the wind and on fast-flowing water).

Chariot