Quotes
List here any quote, from George Trow's essay, Within the Context of No Context. Quotes that inspire you, or give you a strong visual image, or maybe you just admire the author's use of words ..... poetic, lyrical, straightforward, cultural, etc ...
... no one likes a con man who doesn't know what we think we want.
ReplyDeleteThey talk about the problem just as if it were a menu! Or a date on the calendar, or a treat!
ReplyDeleteMelodrama from the beginning of time has shown the orphaned, and the blind, and the lame. Melodramas have shown the pathos in the condition of these people, and in their loneliness. The important moment has been this: the orphan peeking through the window at the happy family together around the fire. The problem of the melodrama has been this: to bring the child into the circle sround the fire.
ReplyDeleteAll transactions involving authority involve an attempt to alleviate the sense of loneliness which is a condition of life. But when all partners in a transaction are passive, when the active principle consists only in describing the characterisitics of the passive principle and playing on them, then no transaction has taken place, and the sense of isolation implict in no transaction is increased, and everyone knows, deeply knows, that the attempted connection (which was coded in the snytax of success) has failed and left a dangerous residue, like an obstruction in the throat, which will make the next attempt more difficult to complete, or even to fake.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of choice is easily debased if one forgets that the aim is to have chosen successfully not to be endlessly choosing.
ReplyDeleteIn our time, nearly all art has been made from glumness and has had very little power, because it feeds on this tiny bit of truth: that there is a lie in the smile.
ReplyDelete