A Confederacy of Dunces: extracts (43)

john kennedy toole

“We shall storm the office very shortly, thereby surprising the foe when his senses are still subject to the psychic mists of early morning.”

“Hey, Mr. R., pardon me,” a man called out from the crowd. “Somebody tell me you in trouble with a po-lice. Is that right?”

A wave of anxiety and uneasiness broke over the workers.

“What?” Ignatius screamed. “Where did you hear such slander. That is totally false. Some white supremacist, some update red-neck, perhaps even Gonzalez himself no doubt began that vile rumor. How dare you, sir. All of you must realize that our cause has many enemies”.

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Memphis Mayhem: A Story of the Music That Shook Up the World

music

I’m looking forward to reading this recently published book.

Roger Scruton’s Wagner

roger scruton

To mark the birth of Roger here is an article on his aesthetics, to my mind the most abiding dimension to Roger’s philosophical legacy, something many commentators (perhaps willfully) pass over: Inscrutable Wagner: Roger Scruton’s appreciation of Richard Wagner will remain an important and inexhaustible part of his legacy

Roger assessed Tristan as fundamentally religious in its focus not on God or Christian dogma, but on the universal transcendence of ideal love, a sacred space that our transactional culture has largely banished.

It confirmed, at any rate, a lasting impression of Wagner’s spiritual sensibilities, which did not rise to belief in God yet had great faith in an abstract sense of “godliness” that could allow art to take the place of religion in articulating truth.

Zionism and the Black Church: Second Edition

Zionism

The Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel founder, Dumisani Washington, has just published a second edition of his book. His son, Joshua Washington, has now taken over the reins of IBSI and also hosts an interesting podcast.

Walker Percy Wednesday – 3

walker percy

My mother’s family think I have lost my faith and they pray for me to recover it. I don’t know what they’re talking about. Other people, so I have read, are pious as children and later become skeptical (or, as they say on This I Believe: “in time I outgrew the creeds and dogmas of organized religion”). Not I. My unbelief was invincible from the beginning. I could never make head or tail of God. The proofs of God’s existence may have been true for all I know, but it didn’t make the slightest difference. If God himself had appeared to me, it would have changed nothing. In fact, I have only to hear the word God and a curtain comes down in my head.

Walker Percy, Philosopher

A Confederacy of Dunces: quotes (42)

john kennedy toole

“Ain that fine. Whoa! I never go to school more than two year in my life. My momma out washing other people clothin, ain nobody talking about school. I spen all my time rollin tire aroun the street. I’m rollin, momma washing, nobody learning nothin. Shit! Who looking for a tire roller to give them a job? I end up gainfully employ working with a bird, got a boss probly selling Spanish fly to orphan. Ooo-wee”.

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Walker Percy Wednesday – 2

walker percy

She refers to a phenomenon of moviegoing which I have called certification. Nowadays when a person lives somewhere, in a neighborhood, the place is not certified for him. More than likely he will live there sadly and the emptiness which is inside him will expand until it evacuates the entire neighborhood. But if he sees a movie which shows his very neighborhood, it becomes possible for him to live, for a time at least, as a person who is Somewhere and not Anywhere.

Walker Percy, Philosopher