A Momentary Lapse of Reason

Rai spent the past six months thinking over prospects for instruments beyond LIGO, brainstorming with young MIT scientists - Lisa Barsotti, Matthew Evans, Nergis Mavalvala- who also have their sights on the far future. […] He conjectures about a far future of high fidelity, his one ambition fulfilled - not the hissy crackle or this generation’s anticipated detections, but instead an unbelievable soube coming from the speakers of an incomparable recording device. He says, “It won’t be in my lifetime, but that’s not important.”

In “Black Hole Blues and Other Songs From Outer Space” by Janna Levin

Le camp comptait onze tentes luxueuses, transportées par quatre-vingt-quinze animaux de bât et servies par soixante domestiques - tous cornaqués par le roi des agents de voyage, Thomas Cook, révérend baptiste du nord-est de l'Angleterre qui, en 1869, avait lancé une compagnie de voyage convoyant des activistes de la Ligue antialcoolique de Leicester à Loughborough.

“Jérusalem” - Simon Sebag Montefiore, Ed Calmann-lévy, 2011

Shortly after the Third World Congress of the Communist Internacional in 1921, the Dutch “ultra-leftist” Hermann Gorter wrote that the congress “has decided the fate of the world revolution for the present. The trend of opinion that seriously desired world revolution…has bern expelled from the Russian Internacional. The Communist Parties in western Europe and throughout the world that retain their membership of the Russian Internacional will become nothing more than a means to preserve the Russian Revolution and the Soviet Republic.” This forecast has proved quite accurate. Jackson conception that the Soviet Union was a revolucionary power in the late 1930s, or even that the Soviet leaders truly regarded themselves as identified with world revolution, is without factual support.“

"On Anarchism”, Noam Chomsky, Penguin Publications, 2014

If capital is privately controlled, then people are going to have to rent themselves in order to survive. Now, you can say, “they rent themselves freely, it’s a free contract” - but that’ a joke. If your choice is, “ do what I tell you or starve,” that’s not a choice - it’s in fact what was commonly referred to as wage slavery in more civilized times, like the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for example.“

"On Anarchism”, by Noam Chomsky, Penguin Publications, 2014

Still, developments are under way that contribute to anarchism’s legacy. Anarchists in this country now insist on grappling with challenges of sexual identity and ingrained oppression that mainstream society gingerly prefers not to recognize. They are at the forefront of movements to protect animals rights and the environment that future genetations will be grateful for. As industrial agriculture becomes more and more poisoned by profit motives, anarchists are growing their own food. Anarchist hackers understand better than most of us the power of information and the lengths that those in power will go to control it; proof is in the years-and decades-long prison sentences now being doled out for online civil disobedience.

“On Anarchism”, Noam Chomsky, Penguin Books, 2014

“Proverbs of Hell

Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.

[…]

The bird a nest. the spider a web, man friendship.

[…]

The thankful reciever bears a plentiful harvest.

[…]

Damn . braces: Bless relaxes.

[…]

Prayers plow not! Praises reap not!

[…]

Exuberance is Beauty.

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Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ’d.”

“The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”, William Blake, The Bodleian Library, 2011

Promise, princess, you’ll not forget what you feel in your heart at this moment. For what good’s a memory’s returning from the mist if it’s only to push away another?

In “The Buried Giant” by Kazuo Ishiguro, Ed. Faber & Faber, 2016

When you look at someone long enough, you discover their humanity.

In “As Good As it Gets” directed by James L. Brooks (1997)

“You just want to live your life
The best way you know how
But they keep on telling you
That you are not allowed

They say you are sick
That you should hang your head in shame
They are pointing fingers
And want you to take the blame

There are days when people are
So nasty and convincing
They say things beyond belief
That sting and leave you wincing

And to boot they say their words
Come straight down from above
And they really seem to think
That what they’re doing counts as love

This pain
It is a glacier moving through you
And carving out deep valleys
And creating spectacular landscapes
And nourishing the ground
With precious minerals and other stuff
So, don’t you become paralyzed with fear
When things seem particularly rough

Don’t you pay them fuckers as they say no never mind
They don’t give two shits about you. It’s the blind leading the blind
What they want is commonly referred to as theocracy
And what that boils down to is referred as hypocrisy

Don’t listen to anyone; get answers on your own
Even if it means that sometimes you feel quite alone
No one on this planet can tell you what to believe
People like to talk a lot, and they like to deceive

This pain
It is a glacier moving through you
And carving out deep valleys
And creating spectacular landscapes
And nourishing the ground
With precious minerals and other stuff
So, don’t you become paralyzed with fear
When things seem particularly rough”