Write On

"The human being is a most curious creature.  He thinks he has got one soul, and he has got dozens."

-D.H. Lawrence

One Way, a Possibility




Cuirassier Armor, Italian, ca. 1610-1630
Metropolitan Museum of Art

"The construction and build of this armor are typical of a cuirassier's harness, a type developed toward the end of the sixteenth century in response to the growing use and efficiency of firearms. The advent of firearms caused armorers to increase the thickness and weight of plates and to supplement them with separate reinforcing plates. Before an armor of this type was finished, it was fired at with a pistol or musket to test its effectiveness against bullets, and the bullet dents were left as a guarantee of the strength and quality of its steel.  . . . The armor’s weight, its reinforcing plates, and the deep “proof marks” provide a vivid reminder of the constant struggle to adapt armor to changes in tactics and weaponry as well as fashion."

Oh Mon Dieu!

"I have just related the story of a missed vocation:  I needed God, He was given to me, I received Him without realizing that I was seeking Him.  Failing to take root in my heart, He vegetated in me for a while, then He died.  Whenever anyone speaks to me about Him today, I say, with the easy amusement of an old beau who meets a former belle:  'Fifty years ago, had it not been for that misunderstanding, that mistake, the accident that separated us, there might have been something between us.'"

-Jean-Paul Sartre, The Words: The Autobiography of Jean-Paul Sartre

Narrative

Voyager

I have become an orchid
washed in on the salt beach.
Memory,
what can I make of it now
that might please you --
this life, already wasted
and still strewn with miracles?

-Mary Ruefle


I Want More Life, F**ker

"The bioengineered replicant Roy Batty to his creator, Tyrell, in Blade Runner, a moment before Roy crushes Tyrell's skull, drives his thumbs into Tyrell's eyes:  I want more life, fucker."

-Lance Olsen, Lessness