a thread for mundane ironists

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7441

[b]Cate Blanchett

I love strange choices. I’m always interested in people who depart from what is expected of them and go into new territory. [/b]

On the other hand, there are the strange consequences that come with them.

If you know you are going to fail, then fail gloriously.

She means you, Kids.

I’m of the opinion that it’s okay to be silent, to not speak if you don’t have anything to say.

She means you, Kids.

And perhaps, those of us in the industry who are still foolishly clinging to the idea that female films, with women at the center are niche experience, they are not. Audiences want to see them and, in fact, they earn money. The world is round, people.

Not counting Summer blockbusters of course.

Mind the gap - it’s the distance between life as you dream it and life as it is.

Or, sure, like most of us, fall into it.

I don’t tell the truth, I tell what ought to be the truth.

And what might that be?

7442

[b]Werner Twertzog

Either super-hero cinema goes, or I do.[/b]

He’s gone then.

Teach a man to fish, and you condemn him to labor in a brutal and declining industry.

I already stopped doing that myself.

Read, if you want to be a filmmaker. Study literature, skip film school. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read. Read.

In Hollywood, that means comic books.

I used to make great cinema, but now I mostly tweet.

This might actually be true.

All of us will find happiness, posthumously.

We’ll need confirmation of course.

Do not trust anyone who is not dead.

And even then only problematically.

7443

[b]Noel Coward

Thousands of people have talent. I might as well congratulate you for having eyes in your head. The one and only thing that counts is: Do you have staying power? [/b]

Could that possibly include ILP?

But why, oh why, do the wrong people travel, when the right people stay at home?

Anyone here know why, oh, why?

Trust your instincts. If you have no instincts, trust your impulses.

If you have neither, trust your memes.

Christmas is at our throats again.

If only after enduring Thanksgiving.

Many years ago I remember a famous actress explaining to me with perfect seriousness that before making an entrance she always stood aside to allow God to go on first. I can also remember that on that particular occasion He gave a singularly uninspired performance.

I suspect for some that’s applicable here too.

I have a memory like an elephant. In fact, elephants often consult me.

Now that’s clever.
Right?

7444

[b]Edith Piaf

When you reach the top, you should remember to send the elevator back down for the others.[/b]

And, no, not just in France.

As far as I’m concerned, love means fighting, big fat lies, and a couple of slaps across the face.

She means coming and going.

Every damn fool thing you do in this life you pay for.

You know, if that were actually true.

Singing is a way of escaping. It’s another world. I’m no longer on earth.

Wow, not unlike what we do here.

All I’ve done all my life is disobey.

She was obviously never drafted into the military.

Americans want beauties, not me. I’m not the Parisian bombshell they expected. Can you see me as a chorus girl? Where’s my feather up the ass? They think I’m sad, they’re dumb. I don’t connect to them.

That makes [at least] two of us.

7445

[b]Werner Twertzog

Yes, young ones, you can be anything you can dream, provided it makes someone else a lot of money.[/b]

Student loans for example.

Teachers, as we all know, are people hired to tell lies to children. And to believe in those lies.

Making them all that more effective, right?

I shot the sous chef, but I did not shoot the maître d’.

Tell that to the Sheriff.

I dreamed I was the mightiest whale in the ocean, but entangled in ropes and netting, unable to feed, and full of rage.

Let’s pin down a lesson to be learned here.

It is not true that nothing changes. Things can always get worse.

And that will never change of course.

Here’s pessimism: Your occupation, already, is obsolete, but your student loans will outlive your grandchildren. Your great-grandchildren, as they gather scraps of food, will curse your name, until they die of skin-cancer.

Either that or Trump gets reelected.

7446

[b]Edgar Degas

Your pictures would have been finished a long time ago if I were not forced every day to do something to earn money.[/b]

Same for philosophers, right?

Art is really a battle.

Or, for some, a spat.

Nothing in art should seem accidental, not even movement.

Like this is something able to be pinned down.

If I were in the government I would have a brigade of policemen assigned to keeping an eye on people who paint landscapes outdoors. Oh, I wouldn’t want anyone killed. I’d be satisfied with just a little buckshot to begin with.

What’s with this?

Boredom soon overcomes me when I am contemplating nature.

Or for others: Boredom soon overcomes me when I am contemplating art.

I really have a lot of stuff in my head; if only there were insurance companies for that as there are for so many things.

Nope, nothing like that yet.

7447

lol biggs! you’ll never guess who i found. remember the war of 02 at the philosophy cafe against friedrich the mexican kantian objectivst defense attorney and his entourage of philosophy graduates? of course you do… how could you ever forget. now do you remember everyone who fought on your side? maybe not everyone, but surely you remember ‘malbus’, yeah? well i found him. apparently he’s now an amateur poetry publisher and/or runs a press or something. i remember reading some of his stuff on the boards when he was trying to get it off the ground… and i guess it worked out for him. he’s got several poetry reading videos now. here’s a random sample…

(don’t know if you ever joined the yahoo group he started- ‘the thin edge of staring’, but the folks there were pretty fuckin cool. ubermark, dustin ash, raven, she, abgrund… any of these names ring a bell?)

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtdfRw0l2cs[/youtube]

7448

[b]Oswald Spengler

The press today is an army with carefully organized weapons, the journalists its officers, the readers its soldiers. The reader neither knows nor is supposed to know the purposes for which he is used and the role he is to play.[/b]

Jeffery Epstein, for example. But only if you include the Deep State.

What is truth? For the multitude, that which it continually reads and hears.

For the objectivists too.

Optimism is cowardice.

If not downright stupidity.

Today we live so cowed under the bombardment of this intellectual artillery (the media) that hardly anyone can attain to the inward detachment that is required for a clear view of the monstrous drama. The will-to-power operating under a pure democratic disguise has finished off its masterpiece so well that the object’s sense of freedom is actually flattered by the most thorough-going enslavement that has ever existed.

Of course there’s the left wing and the right wing version of this.

Socialism is nothing but the capitalism of the lower classes.

Whatever that means, for example.

Through money, democracy becomes its own destroyer, after money has destroyed intellect.

Whatever that means, for example.

7449

Actually, the only members I am still able to recall at all are the autodidact Ralph Dumain, Joe Firestone, Jack K[something] and, in particular, Eric [wine something].

PS

Just for the record, these folks are still around: groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/caf … logue/info

I just clicked on the group myself.

It has been over ten years since I last participated but for those here who do enjoy serious discussions of philosophy, go ahead, check them out.

Become a member and you can have access to their “message history”

Then go back to around Jan 2006 and you can read some of the exchanges I had there as George Walton.

Tell them I said hello.

7450

[b]Bob Dylan

The Rolling Stones are truly the greatest rock and roll band in the world and always will be. The last too. Everything that came after them, metal, rap, punk, new wave, pop-rock, you name it… you can trace it all back to the Rolling Stones. They were the first and the last and no one’s ever done it better.[/b]

Maybe, sure.

All this talk about equality. The only thing people really have in common is that they are all going to die.

Let’s decide:
1] trite
2] not trite

Sometimes I’m thinkin’
I’m Too high to fall
Other times I’m thinkin’
I’m So low I don’t know If I can come up at all

Like all the the rest of us. Only on another level altogether.

Rod’s a great singer. He’s got a great voice, but there’s no point to put a 30-piece orchestra behind him. I’m not going to knock anybody’s right to make a living but you can always tell if somebody’s heart and soul is into something, and I didn’t think Rod was into it in that way.

I know: What else is new?

Here’s the thing with me and the religious thing. This is the flat-out truth: I find the religiosity and philosophy in the music. I don’t find it anywhere else.

He’s lying of course but what do I know?

When I first heard Elvis’s voice, I knew that I wasn’t going to work for anybody … hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail.

And the first time Elvis heard Dylan’s voice?

7451

[b]Blake Crouch

Because memory…is everything. Physically speaking, a memory is nothing but a specific combination of neurons firing together—a symphony of neural activity. But in actuality, it’s the filter between us and reality. You think you’re tasting this wine, hearing the words I’m saying, in the present, but there’s no such thing. The neural impulses from your taste buds and your ears get transmitted to your brain, which processes them and dumps them into working memory—so by the time you know you’re experiencing something, it’s already in the past. Already a memory.[/b]

Not unlike this is.

That’s what it is to be human—the beauty and the pain, each meaningless without the other.

Meaning what exactly?

In the world we came from, our existence was so easy. And so full of discontent because it was so easy. How do you find meaning when you’re one of seven billion? When food, clothing, everything you need is just one Walmart away? When we numb our minds to sleep on all manner of screens and HD entertainment, the meaning of life, of our existence and purpose, becomes lost.

That’s what we’re here for, right?

They say all art—whether books, music, or visual—is a reaction to other art.

Of course they’re always saying stuff like that.

I think balance is for people who don’t know why they’re here.

You know, whatever balance is.

It occurs to me that if I do survive, I’ll carry a new revelation with me for the rest of my days: we leave this life the way we enter it–totally alone, bereft.

Not unlike if he doesn’t survive.

7452

[b]Ani DiFranco

I was blessed with a birth and a death, and I guess I just want some say in between.[/b]

Works the same when you’re cursed with them too. At least in [so far] the best of possible worlds.

I can’t wait to get back to New York City where at least when I walk down the street, no one ever hesitates to tell me exactly what they think of me.

When they’re not acting like you don’t even exist.

Virtue is relative at best, there’s nothing worse than a sunset when your driving due West.

What could be clearer than that?

We negotiate with chaos for some sense of satisfaction.

That and for paying the bills.

…you’ve left me with nothing but I have worked with less.

Then there’s what you left them.

A good brain ain’t diddley, if you don’t have the facts.

She means diddly squat of course. Or would if she were here.

It seems that different people have an idea of what I am, and what I should be. And then there’s me.

Okay, but then there’s “me”.

7453

[b]Neal Stephenson

I have been clinically depressed for most of my life. I once used drugs to fix it. Then I stopped. I stopped because I decided they were making me stupid, and I’d rather be miserable than stupid. [/b]

Clearly the exception to the rule.

Every true heart needed a pragmatic counterweight, and every cynic an idealist to lift his spirits.

Fortunately [or unfortunately] I’m a true cynic.

I use emacs, which might be thought of as a thermonuclear word processor.

A little help here, please.

Really, he has only two emotions: sleeping and adrenaline overdrive.

Me? It’s the other way around.

But what you learn, as you get older, is that there are a few billion other people in the world all trying to be clever at the same time, and whatever you do with your life will certainly be lost—swallowed up in the ocean—unless you are doing it along with like-minded people who will remember your contributions and carry them forward.

So, can I count on all of you here?

Constable Moore had reached the age when men can subject their bodies to the worst irritations - whiskey, cigars, woolen clothes, bagpipes - without feeling a thing or, at least, without letting on.

Over a hundred at least. Or I will be.

7454

[b]God

I send natural disasters to punish mankind for being stupid enough to believe in a God who would send natural disasters to punish it.[/b]

Religion in a nutshell? Or just a start?

What doesn’t kill you needs to try harder.

Sometimes it can, sometimes it can’t. Same for what you don’t kill.

Fuck half of you.

The conservatives of course.

Suicide is never the solution, unless it’s the suicide of someone who helped you rape children.

Suicide…or murder?

Standing up for what you believe in isn’t a virtue if what you believe in is awful.

And, let’s face it, He’ll be the judge of that.

If you want to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of the mentally ill, don’t elect them President.

Again, especially.

7455

[b]Luis Bunuel

If someone were to tell me I had twenty years left, and ask me how I’d like to spend them, I’d reply ‘Give me two hours a day of activity, and I’ll take the other twenty-two in dreams.’[/b]

You’ll either come to appreciate this or you won’t.

Salvador Dalí seduced many ladies, particularly American ladies, but these seductions usually consisted of stripping them naked in his apartment, frying a couple of eggs, putting them on the woman’s shoulders and, without a word, showing them the door.

Rather surreal though don’t you think?

Thank God, I am still an atheist.

I have never been able to go that far myself.

Fortunately, somewhere between chance and mystery lies imagination, the only thing that protects our freedom, despite the fact that people keep trying to reduce it or kill it off altogether.

For all practical purposes though what the hell is our imagination?

Like the majority of deaf people, I don’t like blind people much.

Any truth to this?

The bar… is an exercise in solitude. Above all else, it must be quiet, dark, very comfortable-and, contrary to modern mores, no music of any kind, no matter how faint. In sum, there should be no more than a dozen tables, and a client that doesn’t like to talk.

Especially the one in your abode.

7456

[b]Marianne Faithfull

I’ve made a contribution to my time and my generation through being myself, not through what I shared with the Rolling Stones. It’s very bad for me and very dangerous to see myself as someone who had an influence on this song or that song. It immediately puts me in the position where my worth is dependent on how much of my soul I shared with Mick Jagger, and it’s just not valid. You can use the gossip you’ve heard. You’re not getting it from me.[/b]

On the other hand, why’d ya do it, Mick?

I was anorexic in the 60s and 70s, although it wasn’t called anorexia then. I thought people would be nicer to me if I looked very small and delicate, so food wasn’t high on my agenda. But it is now.

And then some you might say.

Penitentiary songs have been a love of mine for years. They are so wonderful.

Take your pick: ranker.com/list/songs-about … nker-music

My story is really an affirmation of my strength and my luck. To live with a great artist like Ted Hughes or Mick Jagger is a very, very destructive role for a woman trying to be herself. In fact, it can’t be done.

Any exceptions here, perhaps?

My father belonged to a commune, and the food was ghastly. My idea of food hell is the salad cream they’d pour all over bits of lettuce, cucumber and tomato. It was just disgusting.

Of course we don’t have their side, do we?

If you analyze the bad times you find that it’s because you wanted to have a bad time.

Really, how idiotic is that? Well, not counting if [for you] it’s true.

7457

[b]Jan Mieszkowski

Brecht: What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank? [/b]

Any bank founders here for the rebuttal?

Quote Nietzsche to
16: impress a love interest
20: impress a new roommate
24: impress yourself
28: annoy your parole officer

Let’s put them in the right order.

Age 18: I’ve never read Hegel!
Age 20: I’ve never read Heidegger!
Age 22: I’ve never read Žižek!
Age 24: Why did I ever read Hegel?!?
Age 26: Why did I ever read Heidegger?!?
Age 28: Why did I ever read Žižek?!?

Let’s put them in the right order.

I’m interested in reading some philosophy. Where should I start?
Kant: With Hume.
Hegel: With Spinoza.
Schopenhauer: Why bother?
Nietzsche: If you can read, it’s already too late to become a philosopher.

Let’s put them in the right order.

Logician: I wanted to be a mathematician
Epistemologist: I wanted to be a logician
Aesthetician: I was having trouble spelling “epistemologist”
Ethicist: I wasn’t very popular in high school

Obviously: All of the above.

[b]Are your kids texting about ancient philosophy?

LMAO = Let’s make Aristotle obsolete
FTW = Follow Thales wisely
LOL = Lots of Lucretius
BRB = Basilides routs Boethus
IMHO = I must Heraclitus obey
WTF = Will Thrasymachus fail?[/b]

So, sure, ask your kids and get back to us.

7458

[b]Billie Holiday

The difficult I’ll do right now. The impossible will take a little while.[/b]

Must be a different impossible then.

Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what’s more than enough.

I’ll settle for way more than enough.

You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.

Most of us can only take her word for it, I suppose.

The whole basis of my singing is feeling. Unless I feel something, I can’t sing.

The whole basis – or practically the whole basis – of listening to music as well.

Don’t threaten me with love, baby. Let’s just go walking in the rain.

No one’s ever threatened me with that yet.

Dope never helped anybody sing better or play music better or do anything better. All dope can do for you is kill you - and kill you the long, slow, hard way.

Sounds good to me, he thought, I’ll just speed it up.

7459

[b]Existential Comics

We must imagine Sisyphus as starting a podcast.[/b]

Either that or imagine him here.

Greek philosophy: how to live the good life.
German philosophy: how to know the world.
French philosophy: how to understand society.
American philosophy: how to justify neo-imperialist exploitation of the third world.

Or, sure, the other way around.

Remember when the Panama Papers revealed that the ultra rich all had a secret tax-evasion island where they hid their assets, and nothing happened?
Well, you’d think the ultra rich having a secret rape island would be taken a little more seriously, but it’s not looking good.

Let’s connect the dots here.

Why do they always make supervillains have utilitarian justifications for their schemes? Where is the supervillian who is a devoted Kantian and obsessively follows his moral duties no matter the consequences?

Actually, only Hollywood knows.

What is a “thought leader”? It’s someone who is too stupid to be an intellectual, but has figured out how to sound smart to people who don’t know the difference.

That makes me one, right? :wink:

Existentialism is funny because it’s the only philosophy people read and become convinced of the opposite conclusion that it was trying to show. People read existentialists and fall into despair that life is meaningless, even though it’s trying to show why that’s not the case.

Someone explain to him the difference between existential and essential. And not just in regard to meaning.

7460

[b]Brad Thor

Muslim students would go through a bunch of feel-good exercises and leave with the impression that without Islamic contributions to science, there would be no U.S. space program.[/b]

The nerve of them!

While the words are yet unspoken, you are master of them; when once they are spoken, they are master of you.

We’ll need to hear the words first, of course.

It had to be tonight and it had to be moonless, because that was the only way a dangerous, borderline-psychotic insertion like this could ever possibly work.

Hell, I’ve snuck a few them in here.

Al Qaeda didn’t translate to “the base”, as most Western media outlets had so ignorantly reported, but rather, “the database.” It referred to the original computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with the help of the CIA to defeat the Russians in Afghanistan.

Cue, among other things, the deep state and the military industrial complex.

Malthus believed that a Utopian society could never be achieved as long as the world’s population was allowed to continue to grow unchecked. The only way to protect the earth and improve the existence of mankind was to have less of mankind—something he believed Mother Nature would eventually deliver in the form of widespread famine and disease.

Nope, not yet. But Trump and Putin will think of something.

For instance, said Alan, we’re now learning that the smallpox pandemics of the Middle Ages, not the plague, mind you, but smallpox, left generations of people with a rare genetic defect that protects them against infection by HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. We estimate that approximately one percent of people descended from northern Europeans are virtually immune to HIV infection.

Thank God?