surrealism

In our modern world, this elemental quality of storytelling is denied. We live today in a world in which everything has its place and function and nothing is left out of place. Storytelling is thus at a discount and like everything else in a world ruled by the laws of exchange value, literature is required to submit itself to the requirements of the market and must learn, like any other commodity, to adapt and serve needs that lie outside of itself and its concrete value. It is forced to stand not for itself but for an ideological cause of one sort or another, whether it be political, social or literary. It cannot exist for itself: like everything else it has to be justified. And for this very reason the power of storytelling is automatically devalued. Literature is reduced to the status of complimentary utilitarian functions: as a pastime to provide distraction and entertainment, or as a heightened activity that would claim to explore 'great truths' about the human condition.

I did exhibitions with the Surrealists (in Paris, in 1929) because their attitude revolted against 'art' and their attitude toward life itself was wise, as was Dada__._ Hans Arp

I spoke fire, laughed smoke, and madness spilled forth from my inspiration.

Dive again and again into the river of uncertainty. Create in the dark, only then can you recognize the light.

There are easier ways of making sense,the connoisseurship of gesture, for example.You hold a girl's face in your hands like a vase.You lift a gun from the glove compartmentand toss it out the window into the desert heat.

Plût au ciel que le lecteur, enhardi et devenu momentanément féroce comme ce qu__l lit, trouve, sans se désorienter, son chemin abrupt et sauvage, _ travers les marécages désolés de ces pages sombres et pleines de poison ; car, _ moins qu'il n__pporte dans sa lecture une logique rigoureuse et une tension d__sprit égale au moins _ sa défiance, les émanations mortelles de ce livre imbiberont son âme comme l__au le sucre. Il n__st pas bon que tout le monde lise les pages qui vont suivre ; quelques-uns seuls savoureront ce fruit amer sans danger. Par conséquent, âme timide, avant de pénétrer plus loin dans de pareilles landes inexplorées, dirige tes talons en arrière et non en avant. _coute bien ce que je te dis : dirige tes talons en arrière et non en avant.

That's what dreams are really like, you know? They're not full of melting clocks or floating roses or people made out of rocks. Most of the time, dreams look just like the normal world. It's your feelings that tell you something's off. Not your mind, not your intellect, not something as obvious as that. The only part of you that really knows what's going on is the part of you that's most a mystery. If that's not Surrealism, I don't know what is.

By giving words the latitude she does, (Marianne) Van Hirtum emphasizes their contagious qualities: they become almost like viruses, with which it is necessary to put oneself in harmony by sympathetic magic if one is not to be overwhelmed. ... What is essential is to become one with the sickness, that is, in the context of language as a whole, to enter into contact with words.

I gazed upon the earth and saw that a body, in its tender faithlessness, had located it in the sky. A splendid scarf of blood, looming above the abyss.

Equally, the surrealists consider words as witnesses of life acting in a direct way in human affairs. To use words properly it was necessary to treat them with respect, for they were the intermediaries between oneself and the rest of creation. To abuse them was immediately to set oneself adrift from true being. Words need to be coaxed to reveal a little of their true nature, so as to close the breach that exists between the writer and the universe. The world is not something alien against which man is in conflict. Rather man and cosmos exist in reciprocal motion. We are not cast adrift in an alien or meaningless environment. The universe is intimate with us and, as Breton insisted, it is a cryptogram to be deciphered.

But in those first hours after you take it, your brain is tuned in like nothing you can imagine. Eyes like the Hubble telescope, sensing light that's not even on the spectrum. You might be able to read minds, make time stop, cook pasta that's exactly right every time.

Sure, people can make you happy, but no one can stop you from being happy.

...just because someone is a loner, it doesn't mean they__e alone. And just because someone is alone, it doesn't mean they__e lonely.

You__e better looking than me. You__e more intelligent than me. Your personality is more likable than mine. You make more money than me. Your family is nicer than mine. Your religion is better than mine. You__e seen more beaches than me. You__e been to more cities than me. Your automobile is nicer than mine. Your significant other is better looking than mine. Your candidate won. Your home team won. You__e number one. But life is a tie. We all die.

Fighting for freedom_ is a myth. There__ only freedom in uniting. You__e not really free with an, __s vs Them_ mentality; because you are constantly defending yourself. And in fighting, there__ no time for freedom.

Happiness is not found in serenity, tranquility or surrealism. It is found in harmony of thoughts, actions, and reality.

I still love the sound of breaking,the tearing of the page

Back in our apartment, lights out, The Professor emerged from beneath the bed." - from "The Professor Spends the Night," in issue 4 of Literary Orphans