josh blog
Ordinary language is all right.
One could divide humanity into two classes:
those who master a metaphor, and those who hold by a formula.
Those with a bent for both are too few, they do not comprise a class.
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The first speech Flaubert actually quotes in the narration of Sentimental Education, after Moreau and Arnoux have already had quite a conversation, its contents reported in the narrator's summary, is still not even quite quoted:
But he broke off to observe the ship's funnel and muttered a lengthy, rapid calculation, to work out 'how often each piston, at so many strokes per minute, would have to etc.'—and, once he had arrived at an answer, he talked about the beauties of the landscape.
Funny.
'Things do not care about us: they do not try to influence us, penetrate within us, or trouble us. Besides, "they know nothing about themselves and affirm nothing about themselves." It is rather we who are concerned about things, who try to get to know them, and who are worried about them. It is human beings who, thanks to their freedom, introduce trouble and worry into the world. Taken by themselves, things are neither good nor evil, and should not trouble us. The course of things unfolds in a necessary way, without choice, without hesitation, and without passion.'
Walking.
A bug hit me in the face.
Then another one, and another one.
They were in a caravan.
'Habermas left students with the impression that he "is not a charismatic figure."'
Along Summit, a brick wall, two or three feet, separating sidewalk from yard, with an eminently sittable concrete top surface, on which are placed two lavender signs written in chalk and kept in place with stone paperweights: 'DO NOT SIT ON THIS WALL'.