Kablammo!

From Salman Rushdie’s The Ground Beneath Her Feet, a rather good book:

These things are bad for you: sex, high-rise buildings, chocolate, lack of exercise, dictatorship, racism! No, au contraire! Celibacy damages the brain, high-rise buildings bring us closer to God, tests show that a bar of chocolate a day significantly improves children’s academic performance, exercise kills, tyranny is just a part of our culture so I’ll thank you to keep your cultural-imperialist ideas off my fucking fiefdom, and as for racism, let’s not get all preachy about this, it’s better out in the open than under some grubby carpet. That extremist is a moderate! That universal right is culturally specific! This circumcised woman is culturally happy! That Aboriginal whistlecockery is culturally barbaric! Pictures don’t lie! This image has been faked! Free the press! Ban nosy journalists! The novel is dead! Honor is dead! God is dead! Aargh, they’re all alive, and they’re coming after us! That star is rising! No, she’s falling! We dined at nine! We dined at eight! You were on time! No, you were late! East is West! Up is down! Yes is No! In is Out! Lies are Truth! Hate is Love! Two and two makes five! And everything is for the best, in this best of all possible worlds. (p. 352)

And, also:

…He finds that the waiting—another ten years, as she has specified—is preferable to her daily vagaries, her whims. The waiting is at least solid, it has a beginning, a middle and an end, he can lean his weight against it knowing it will not step away at the last instant and let him fall. (p. 370)

Yeah. I need to write a song by last Saturday, but maybe this Saturday will suffice.

Song of the Moment: «State of the Nation» — Shamra

1 Comment

• Revolutsioonivõitleja says:

  August 15, 2005 at 18:13

  “Asjatundjad väidavad, et pärast seda, kui ameeriklased 1945. aastal esimestena valmistasid tuumarelva, on neil sellega olnud ligi paarsada pahaendelist viperust. Ja need pole ähvardanud üksnes ameeriklaste elu. Tuumaplahvatuse oht on rippunud Inglismaa, Itaalia, Hispaania ja isegi jäise Gröönimaa kohal – kogu läänemaailm on täis USA sõjaväebaase. Need rajati pärast teist maailmasõda selleks, et ülekaalukate jõududega Nõukogude Liitu ja Ida-Euroopa noori sotsialismimaid ähvardada.”

  Bought a new Pioneer for educational purposes.

  You capitalist pigs.

  Reply