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– Istanbul Boy: A Memoir (an excerpt) by Aziz Nesin (1915-1995); included in Tablet & Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East edited by Reza AslanThey often ask me, “How can you write so much?”
They say that some artists have peris [a fairy or supernatural being; derived from Persian mythology] which blow art on their souls. When peris are mentioned, I see an airmaid - something like a mermaid, whose upper part is girl and the bottom fish - she is bird below, and above a ravishing beauty with golden hair. This half-bird, half-girl peri whispers inspirations into the ear of the artist on whose shoulder she perches. She gives him the copy.
I have no peri, but I have inspirational demons, witches, and fiends. Mine are not half-bird, half-girl; they are, at best, one-tenth human and the balance, monster. They don’t perch on my shoulder, they climb on my back; I double up under them in blood and tears, tired and exhausted. I don’t have just one demon or witch, I have herds and herds. If two of them get off, three more climb on my back.
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Whoever keeps you and me
– from “Blue, Grey, Black” by Hamid Mosadiq (1969) translated from the Persian by Sholeh Wolpé and Tony Barnstone
from being *we*
let his house cave in.
If *I* don’t become *we*,
you are just you. -
A 1949 administrative report on the condition of women recorded that of 503,000 women officially imprisoned in the Gulag, 93,000 were pregnant, and another 23,790 had small children living with them.
– GULAG VOICES: AN ANTHILOGY by Anne Applebaum, page 96. -
I mean to say, one does not court praise. The adulation of the multitude means very little to one. But, all the same, when one has taken the trouble to whack out a highly juicy scheme to benefit an in-the-soup friend in his hour of travail, it’s pretty foul to find him giving the credit to one’s personal attendant, particularly of that personal attendant is a man who goes about the place not packing mess jackets.
– P. 71; RIGHT HO, JEEVES by P.G. Wodehouse -
He had been looking like a dead fish. He now looked like a deader fish, one of last year’s, cast up on some lonely beach and left there at the mercy of the wind and tides.
– P. 42; RIGHT HO, JEEVES by P.G. Wodehouse -
[standing in a convent] He wonders whether they all believe. Faith has always struck him as either a tremendous deception, depending on whether there’s a God or not. His grandfather was scathing about “speculative faith,” which is the kind you get from worrying about the possibility that God exists and may be cross with you. Daniel Spork observed that God, if there is one, is well aware of the interior dialogue, and most likely unimpressed by it. Much better, he said, to get on with being the man you are, and hope like buggery that God thinks you did as well as could be expected.
– P 320; ANGELMAKER by Nick @Harkaway -
Just so we’re clear, @NathanFillion fans really are just about the best.
Submission from katburdick.
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L.O.L. in the greatest “Laugh Out Loud” literal translation sort of way.
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To protest a bill that would require women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion, Virginia State Sen. Janet Howell (D-Fairfax) on Monday attached an amendment that would require men to have a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before obtaining a prescription for erectile dysfunction medication.
–She might be my hero…
Huff Po (via rachelfershleiser)
This is the most beautiful thing. Can we send her flowers?
(via jaimealyse)
(via nerdonthesurf)
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Freaking brilliant!!
(via nerdonthesurf)
