Nothing is more miserable than a truth expressed as it was thought. Committed to writing in such a case, it is not even a bad photograph. And the truth refuses (like a child or a woman who does not love us), facing the lens of writing while we crouch under the black cloth, to keep still and look amiable.
-Walter Benjamin, “One-Way Street”, SW I, 480
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Many albums that are an essential part of my past (of my present) can be found in shops in London at really affordable prices. Some of these albums I had taped or copied but never owned in the original. Now I am committed to recuperating these lost pieces of my life, as some kind of retribution, perhaps an act of justice (in the most exact sense of the word). I am now listening to Loveless, by My Bloody Valentine (1991). I am also reading Loveless, by Mike McGonigal (33 1/3, 2007).
March 24, 2007 at 10:16 pm
That’s a truly great Benjamin line. I’m adding it to my catalog of quotes for signatures to email.
March 25, 2007 at 3:43 am
your last post is truly inspirational and this one prompts me to remind you that Subway reeks to high heaven. what a horrid place. (unless you love it in which case, “ahem, excuse me but I need some fresh air”)
March 25, 2007 at 11:03 am
I don’t love Subway, I just had to take a pic of the homeless man sleeping next to/under it, as a typical example of the excesses of capitalism…. (and, as far as I have seen, some branches “reek” more than others, but it’s all the same thing I guess).
March 25, 2007 at 11:03 am
And thank you both for your comments! :)