The Early Days of a Better Nation

Monday, August 17, 2009



Cheerful thought


"Despair is a black leather jacket that everyone looks good in. Hope is a frilly pink dress that exposes your knees."

- Rebecca Solnit, (left) quoted in an article in today's Guardian asking whether the left has missed the open goal offered by the current crisis. An earlier (1932) reflection on the same point has become something of a classic (pdf).

Labels: , ,


5 Comments:

Exceptions That Prove a Rule

"this division - between those who find the unfathomable inevitable and beautiful,
and those who find it irrational and thus needing to be changed -
has been a usual split, or perhaps cycle, among everyone forever." - Norman Macrae

except for those that don't

will you have my actions silenced until the end of time?
your brain-teased judgments scalded clean with remorse.
of folly and countless escapades that sought only your delight.
turned to crime and missing chances at every turn.
to bring together all futility and simmer in cold dawns such as this.

with a rising sun, warmth tickles pink your infinite desires, of waking
from so long a sleep, it never tires of dying from each pitiful rebuke
that sends me once again into horrors caught with nightshades,
labeled, framed, shamed and forever straying, until now when I'd only
still whisper in your ear, I love you and you return the favor.

now i would appreciate, if you could explain, as clearly as your won't.
the exception that proves a rule and how its definition breaks cool,
upon your face so bleak, your heart in tatters, still smelling sweet,
your words of wisdom foretelling a likely retreat that will not borrow
or weep, yet harness a respite from due diligence to reap a whirlwind.

Morality always comes down to fashion in the end.

Isn't the point somewhat undermined by the picture of her in a black leather jacket?

It isn't enough for people to be unhappy--they've got to see a path to somewhere else. Right now, it's only a few crazies who do. At least, someone has to see a path and some few have to follow it. Then others can follow.

This isn't the same as 1930. The environmental problems are new, and of course there's China. It also still isn't 1932 yet--that comes when the banking fix comes unstuck, probably in 2011. It is, however, 1931 in California.

Technical change, in the end, is probably going to make more difference than political theory, just as it did at the emergence of industrial capitalism.

Oh, how wonderful-a leftist who believes in looking good. So much more seems possible in heels and make-up. For too long, leftist women have looked like frumps: dirty, lank hair, unpressed sweaters, and jeans. How many more women we could recruit if we had parties and dances where women could wear amazing dresses.

Remember, Ninotchka and the Master and Margarita? Be suspicious of people who look miserable. They are bullies.

Post a Comment


Home