The dog

Not only has she had the pain of an operation but she has also the ignominy of a funnel round her head to put up with:

Quote of the day

That's the face that goats make when they drink their own pee.

– Rose Miller

State of it

Quote of the day

This is the preface to the 1952 edition of Journey to the end of the night:

Hey, they're putting Journey on the rails again.

What a feeling it gives me.

A lot of things have happened in 14 years...

If I weren't under so much pressure, forced to earn my living, I can tell you right now, I'd suppress the whole thing, I wouldn't let a single line through.

Everything gets taken the wrong way. I've been the cause of too much evil.

Just think of all the deaths, the hatreds around me ... the treachery ... the sewer it adds up to ... the monsters ...

Oh, you've got to be blind and death!

You'll say: but it's not Journey! It's your crimes that are killing you, Journey has nothing to do with it. You yourself have been your ruin! your Bagatelles! your abominable lingo! your imaging, clowning villainy! The law's clutching you, strangling you? Hell, what are you complaining about? You jerk!

Oh, many thanks! Many thanks! I'm raging! Fuming! Panting! With hatred! Hypocrites! Fuckheads! You can't fool me! It's for Journey that they're after me! Under the axe I'll bellow it! between 'them' and me it's to the finish! to the guts! too foul to talk about ... pissed with Mystique! What a business!

If I weren't under pressure, forced to earn my living, I'm telling you right now, I'd suppress the whole lot. A homage I paid to jackals! ... That's right! ... A free gift ... A tip ... I threw my luck away ... in '36 ... gave it to the executioners' wives! the prosecutors! the undertakers! One two three admirable books to cut my throat with! And listen to my groans! I made them a present! I was charitable, that's all!

The world of intentions amuses me ... used to amuse me ... not any more.

If I weren't under such pressure, such duress, I'd suppress the whole lot ... especially Journey ... Of all my books it's the only really vicious one ... That's right ... The heart of my sensibility ...

It'll all start over again. The Sarabbath! You'll hear a whistling from up above, from far away, from places without names: words, orders ...

You'll get an eyeful of their machinations! ... You'll come and tell me about it ...

Oh, don't imagine that I'm playing! I've stopped playing ... I've even stopped being amiable.

If I weren't under duress, as though standing with my back to something ... I'd suppress the whole lot.

Problem

1. Nothing is true.
2. If nothing is true, the statement 'nothing is true' is not true.
3. Things that are not true are false.
4. Therefore, the statement 'nothing is true' is false.

Although this looks good, it is not a valid argument.

'Nothing is true' has to be true in the first half of premise 2 in order to be false in the second half. That is, for the argument to work, 'nothing is true' has to be both true and false.

It's a bit paradoxical.

Unfortunately, it seems that the only way to resolve the paradox is for 'nothing is true' to be always false.

PS If there are any philosophers out there, feel free to point out how I'm talking shit.

Oh yeah

You have had a good laugh at this, eh?

The comments discussion is priceless. I can't improve on how Pieter Breughal the Elder put it:

Hopeless

You may have noticed that I've not been posting about school much. This is not because of a lack of anything to say.

I could go on about the strange fixation the staff seem to have with this blog. So far, they've not missed a single opportunity to bring it up, even in lectures. It's a bit pathetic.

I could go on about why I think they should revamp their tired course with new blood and new ideas. However, this would require crow-barring people out of their sinecures.

I could go on about the bizarre, bingo-winning* discussion I had with my supervisor last week.

I could go on about why I've been seriously considering withdrawing from the course. I'm not going to – I've started it now, so I'll see it through – but I think it was a mistake to enrol in the first place.

I could go on about many things, but I'm afraid that, if you come here to be entertained by stories from the art school trenches, you're shit out of luck.

*I don't need to explain this, do I?

Loser

I lost my key the other day.

I tracked it down to the Adam Art Gallery. When I rang, Andy, the extremely helpful technician there, went and checked that it was there and then offered to drop it off to me.

I suggested he meet me at McLeavey's, which was having an opening that evening. At said opening, he presented me with:

Not to be outdone, I casually put it in my coat pocket:

The anti-system

I am not very smart, and it has taken me until now to realise the deep stupidity of referring to common-sense nihilism as a philosophical system.

A system is based on a set of assumptions, unquestioned premises. Another term for these is beliefs.

Nihilism, by definition, doesn't have beliefs. A nihilistic philosophical system is an oxymoron.

One time, someone thought they were being very clever by asserting that I do have beliefs, because believing in nothing is itself a belief. This is, of course, a silly semantic argument: 'I believe in X' is a statement of belief; therefore, 'I believe in nothing' is a statement of belief.

However, if we rephrase 'I believe in nothing' to the equivalent 'I don't believe in anything', the argument disappears.

Heh

Verily Nietzsche says unto you, 'A university scholar can never become a philosopher; for even Kant could not do it and remained to the end, in spite of the innate striving of his genius, in a quasi-cocoon stage.'

Bah

I've had a good run on drawings in the last few weeks. I've been having a steady stream of ideas, they've resolved themselves into visual form reasonably easily, and the execution has gone reasonably smoothly.

That was before bloody school got in the way. (Losing my glasses didn't help either.)

Tomorrow, I'm to hand in an 'individual project outline', and then later in the week I've got to give not one but two presentations on my 'research'.

We don't call it 'art work', you see. I suppose calling it research makes it academic.

Humour

Last week, I got drunk, fell over, and banged up my face. Last night, I got drunk and ended up getting bottled in a stripclub.

What was I doing in a stripclub? Who bottled me? Why?

That would be telling.

Time for a (bloody long) Céline quote

Note that the ellipses are in the original.

That's all very well ... But in the meantime Brottin [his publisher, also referred by his first name 'Achille'] gives me the lowdown: no soap! ... 'You sell less and less ... your Normance? ... a disaster ... nothing in it to put you back in the clink ... no pornography ... no fascism ... poor bastard! ... the critics, though ... poison fangs! the whole works! all ready! ... it's impossible ... they're disgusted with you! ... what about their hamburger? ... heartless! ... their pay envelopes? ... their families? ...'

'Stop writing,' you'll say ... you're perfectly right ... but what about Lili [his wife], the dogs and cats, the birds, and the snowdrops ... we had some this winter ... maybe you've got some idea?

In fact, I can assure you: even living at rock bottom ... cutting down on everything ... it's a hard fight with the elements, winds, drafts, humidity, coal bills! ... cauliflower, smoked herring! the fight to go on living! ... carrots! ... or even crusts of bread!

But what about my style and my masterpieces? ... cabala, boycott ... naturally! I say string up all the plagiarists! and not only the plagiarists, the incompetents too! God knows! ... at Achille's alone, thousands of them ... for my money Dumel, Mauriac, Tartre, same noose! ... the dozen Goncourt prize winners on the next tree! ... oh, and I forgot the Archbishop of Paris! before the 'due process' crowd ... we wouldn't want that ... start asking for his head at the Porte Brancion.

Talking about gas and such trifles, the bill's due tomorrow ... I owe for two 'readings' ... I owe the tax collector, too ... I owe for coal ... I repeat myself? ... hell ... in the same situation ... in the same mess ... you'd be yelling so hard they could hear you in Enghien ... they'd have to come and get you ... with sedatives and straitjackets! Lili and I've been going on like this for fifteen years ... with the pack at our heels ... Fifteen years is a long time ... the ferocious Teutonic occupation was only three years at most ... think it over!

I see I'm boring you ... change the record! ... string up the bourgeoisie? ... the bourgeoisie of all parties ... I'm all for it, posolutely! A bourgeois is a one hundred percent stinker ... I'm thinking of one in particular, Tartre! the cream of the sewer! the way he slandered me, moved heaven and earth to have me drawn and quartered, I vote him five ... or six malignant tumours between the oesophagus and the pancreas ... top priority!

Tartre robbed me and slandered me ... don't try to tell me different ... but no worse than my relations ... and he's not amusing like my aunt! ... far from it ... my aunt's shock ... practically a stroke ... at seeing me again! ... that I wasn't dead! ... that they hadn't executed me! ... 'You? You?' ... she couldn't believe it ... 'You here?'