Americana Quotes

It is so much simpler to bury reality than it is to dispose of dreams. ― Don DeLillo, Americana (ACTES SUD; 0 edition, August 10, 1993)

Somewhere along the way America became a giant mall with a country attached.

The irony of American history is the tendency of good white Americanas to presume racial innocence. Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.

Sail Forth- Steer for the deep waters only. Reckless O soul, exploring. I with thee and thou with me. For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared go. And we will risk the ship, ourselves, and all.

...After all, acknowledging unfairness then calls decent people forth to correct those injustices. And since most persons are at their core, decent folks, the need to ignore evidence of injustice is powerful: To do otherwise would force whites to either push for change (which they would perceive as against their interests) or live consciously as hypocrites who speak of freedom and opportunity but perpetuate a system of inequality. The irony of American history is the tendency of good white Americanas to presume racial innocence. Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.

It was only after two years' work that it occurred to me that I was a writer. I had no particular expectation that the novel would ever be published, because it was sort of a mess. It was only when I found myself writing things I didn't realise I knew that I said, 'I'm a writer now.' The novel had become an incentive to deeper thinking. That's really what writing is—an intense form of thought.

De verdad, no conozco a ninguna chica americana que se pueda resistir al acento inglés.

There’s a land—oh, it beckons and beckons, And I want to go back—and I will.

The debate over the inherent benefits of Pax Americana should have been settled long ago. But history only settles great debates for as long as people can remember the history.

How many more, I must ask myself, such perfect ends of Augusts will I witness?

Be like the elephant my friend - with a strong character and a gentle soul.

And it is awful here, there is no other way to say it. But I believe that Detroit is America’s city. It was the vanguard of our way up, just as it is the vanguard of our way down. And one hopes the vanguard of our way up again. Detroit is Pax Americana...America’s way of life was built here.

America is a great country, built by great people - you know what made them great - the spirit of freedom and a disregard for binding tradition.

There is an old Russian saying. 'A serpent changes his skin, not his fangs.

Where else but America could football flourish, America with its millions of fertile acres of corn, soy, and wheat, its lakes of dairy, its year-round gushers of fruits and vegetables, and such meats, that extraordinary pipline of beef, poultry, seafood, and pork, feedlot gorged, vitamin enriched, and hypodermically immunized, humming factories of high-velocity protein production, all of which culminate after several generations of epic nutrition in this strain of industrial-sized humans? Only America could produce such giants.

... Pero ellos eran la ciencia americana. ¿Comprendes Bruno?. El guardapolvos los protejia de los agujeros; no veían nada, aceptaban lo ya visto por otros, imaginaban que estaban viendo. Y naturalmente no podían ver los agujeros;....

Oh, don't mind Humpty. He's inhaled a hell of a lot of super-glue.

A thinking human must practice thinking.

American—a child not of old borders and ancient alliances, but of ideals and liberty.

Most people think of Stephen King as a horror author, but his best work usually comes with a side order of nostalgic Americana.

It looked like the kind of place tailor-made for fourth of July parades and speeches by local politicians and ceremonies crowning the Pig Queen or whatever they had here. The sun should have been shining and making everything look even more corny, like Pure Americana Extract....

The Joker's henchmen break into the museum and empty the display cases; this occurs repeatedly, again and again: finally it can be reckoned upon beforehand and becomes a part of the exhibition.

It may be underfunded and at times mismanaged, but the [Endangered Species] Act is an unprecedented attempt to delegate human-caused extinction to the chapters of history we would rather not revisit: the Slave Trade, the Indian Removal Policy, the subjection of women, child labor, segregation. The Endangered Species Act is a zero-tolerance law: no new extinctions. It keeps eyes on the ground with legal backing-the gun may be in the holster most of the time, but its available if necessary to keep species from disappearing. I discovered in my travels that a law protecting all animals and plants, all of nature, might be as revolutionary-and as American-as the Declaration of Independence.

Soon the tumbleweed had become one of the Wild West’s most iconic characters. A grand joke, no? This paragon of Americana—secretly an immigrant, after all. The Russian thistle disguised itself well.

The optimist sees the glass as half full, the pessimist as half empty. What I see is water that can save someone's life.

Sólo lo difícil es estimulante; sólo la resistencia que nos reta, es capaz de enarcar, suscitar y mantener nuestra potencia de conocimiento

The character of a nation comes not from the character of its leader, but from that of the citizens.

The Pig Chef was - if you thought about it - one of the more sinister icons of American roadside art. Danny's personal totem. What kind of pig is a butcher? What kind of pig cooks barbeque? A traitor pig, a killer pig, a doomed preterite pig destined for eternal damnation. Danny's Pig Chefs showed the full weight of this knowledge in their mocking eyes and snaggled snouts.

A incapacidade de contactar com a realidade é a característica de toda a «arte» americana. Qualquer semelhança entre a arte americana e a natureza americana é pura coincidência, mas isso acontece apenas porque a nação, no seu conjunto, não tem contacto com a realidade.

You Americans are a very singular people," he later recalled to one of his friends. "I went with my automaton all over my own country—the Germans wondered and said nothing. In France they exclaimed, Magnifique! Merveilleux! Superbe! The English set themselves to prove—one that it could be, and another that it could not be, a mere mechanism acting without a man inside. But I had not been long in your country, before a Yankee came to see me and said, 'Mr Maelzel, would you like another thing like that? I can make you one for five hundred dollars.' I laughed at his proposition. A few months afterwards, the same Yankee came to see me again, and this time he said, 'Mr Maelzel, would you like to buy another thing like that? I have one already made for you.

But then it came time for me to make my journey—into America. [... N]o coincidence that my first novel is called Americana. That became my subject, the subject that shaped my work. When I get a French translation of one of my books that says 'translated from the American', I think, 'Yes, that's exactly right.

La gente ya está meneando la cabeza a mi alrededor, y si vuelvo a utilizar profesionalmente la palabra "Dios" en un futuro inmediato, no siendo como una sana y común exclamación americana, ello será considerado -o más bien, confirmado- como la peor clase de presunción y un signo inequívoco de que voy derecho a mi perdición.

You have always adored driving great distances across your country; it is the only time you ever feel any kind of patriotism.

All that is loathsome, drooping, or decayed is here.

todos sabem que o caminho para a verdadeira audácia passa sempre, primeiro, pelo fingimento.

Por mais que ame as palavras, por vezes elas são completamente insuficientes.

We'd still be living in caves if a few crazy individuals didn't push things forward - change is scary but it's necessary for the progress of a species.

Individual progress must contribute to the collective progress of a people, otherwise, it's of no consequence in the vast ocean of space and motion.

Taking care of your own family is good, taking care of your neighbor's family is better and taking care of all the families in your neighborhood is the best.

Humanity begins with the individual human.

There is no such thing as “my country”, “your country”, it's all ours.

Use the internet wisely for not just the petty enjoyment of your senses, but for the development of your mind as well.

É que a visão americana assentava não na adoção do sistema europeu de equilíbrio de poder, mas na expansão dos princípios democráticos, de que resultaria o triunfo da paz.

No American is UnAmerican.

After the end of the Cold War, a belief was proclaimed in a ‘New World Order’, an ‘end of history’, world peace characterised by democracy and trade (Pax Americana). Now the Twenty-first century is preparing for us perhaps the most bellicose situation in the entire history of humanity. The enormous wars of the Twentieth century will be smaller than those that we and our descendants are going to experience.

It doesn't matter how many scriptures you have memorized - it doesn't matter how many academic publications you have studied - it doesn't matter how many pilgrimages you have visited - what matters is are you wise and conscientious enough to bring your understanding in the service of the people around you.

Most people think of the Bretton Woods system as a sort of Pax Americana. The American Century, if you will. But that’s simply not the case. The entire concept of the Order is that the United States disadvantages itself economically in order to purchase the loyalty of a global alliance. That is what globalization is. The past several decades haven’t been an American Century. They’ve been an American sacrifice.

[...] experimentaram o que era estar num purgatório, uma longa espera inerme, uma espera cuja coluna vertebral era o desamparo, coisa muito latino-americana, aliás, uma sensação familiar, uma coisa que se você pensasse bem experimentava todos os dias, mas sem angústia, sem a sombra da morte sobrevoando o bairro como um bando de urubus e espessando tudo, subvertendo a rotina de tudo, pondo todas as coisas de pernas para o ar.

The American Century is over. Pax Americana has come to a close. Gone now is all the hubristic chatter of an American Empire. Gone is the “unipolar world” where the United States was the undisputed hegemonic power.

Un miembro de la raza humana completamente incapaz de comprender la mayor productividad de la división del trabajo y la propiedad privada no es, propiamente hablando, una persona, sino que moralmente es como un animal —

It was like hundreds of roads he'd driven over - no different - a stretch of tar, lusterless, scaley, humping toward the center. On both sides were telephone poles, tilted this way and that, up a little, down... Billboards - down farther an increasing clutter of them. Some road signs. A tottering barn in a waste field, the Mail Pouch ad half weathered away. Other fields. A large wood - almost leafless now - the bare branches netting darkly against the sky. Then down, where the road curved away, a big white farmhouse, trees on the lawn, neat fences - and above it all, way up, a television aerial, struck by the sun, shooting out bars of glare like neon. ("Thompson")

En toda América, las enfermedades introducidas con los europeos se propagaron de una tribu a otra mucho antes que los propios europeos, causando la muerte de aproximadamente el 95 por ciento de la población indígena americana precolombina.

Ho bevuto fino a impazzire, mi sono stordita con le droghe a sedici anni, sono sgattaiolata fuori con uomini adulti per andare all’ultimo spettacolo del Fillmore East, ho vissuto nuda nelle comuni e ho rubato. Ho scritto la mia tesi sul suicidio nella poesia contemporanea americana lavorando come barista mentre mi facevo scopare sul tavolo da biliardo nel retro. Sono stata un’assistente in una clinica per schizofrenici a Chelsea e capogruppo in un centro d’accoglienza per senzatetto sulla Trentesima. Ho seguito le tracce di Giovanna d’Arco in Francia, preso un treno per Roma a mezzanotte e indossato tacchi a spillo per una lesbica italiana feticista della pelle. Ho preso acidi per tre giorni sul treno da Montréal a Vancouver, dove ho passato una notte con un famoso musicista jazz musulmano che mi ha sedotto con il suo sassofono e le sue invocazioni predicatorie. Ho trovato il modo di entrare in campi di accoglienza per vittime di stupro in Bosnia, ho indossato il burqa nell’Afghanistan dei talebani, ho guidato caricata a caffè attraverso le strade minate del Kosovo. Dovevo vedere, sapere, toccare, trovare l’orecchio. Forse stavo inscenando la mia cattiveria, o cercando la mia bontà, o avvicinandomi alla disumanità più profonda per provare a capire come sopravvivere al peggio di cui siamo capaci. Poi sono andata in Congo, ed è là che tutto è andato in frantumi. Là, dove, in un solo colpo, i peggiori atti di crudeltà incontravano la più pura gentilezza. Ero arrivata fin là.

E há poucas coisas mais dolorosas do que perder a intimidade com alguém que se ama. É uma neblina que se põe lentamente e vai esborratando tudo. É uma série de portas que se fecham, de tempos e sítios que já não voltam, e a outra pessoa perde-se de nós.

You better get it while you can You better get it while you can If you wait too long, it'll all be gone And you'll be sorry then It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor And it's the same for a woman or a man From the cradle to the crypt Is a mighty short trip So you better get it while you can

It is not for nothing that that vivacious lady is standing up there with the torch of liberty in her hand, as a beacon to the whole world - take a look at the world through her eyes, if you really want to see something – and you won’t just see scenery – you’ll see the whole parade of what humans have carved out for themselves after centuries of fighting – fighting so they could stand on their own two feet, free and decent, no matter their race, religion and creed.

Ovviamente non si ha il diritto di dar da mangiare a Pop Corn, visto che si trova qui per dimagrire. Novantotto chili a nove anni, un metro e dieci di altezza per un metro e dieci di larghezza! Il solo indumento in cui entri completamente è una tuta sportiva americana, le cui righe sembrano avere il mal di mare.

Credomancy may seek to exploit the human desire for a tidy narrative where an unblemished romantic hero vanquishes all obstacles, but such ideals have very little to with reality. Reality requites pragmatism and compromise. Men fail. Women fail. There are no heroes, only human beings who somehow find the strength to behave heroically, no matter how many times they have been unable to do so in the past. If you understand that, Miss Edwards - if you truly and deeply understand that, then you will understand the most powerful thing anyone with a heart can understand.” “And what’s that?” Emily said softly. “That love is not enough. But it’s a start.

She knew that Mr. Gryce was of the small chary type most inaccessible to impulses and emotions. He had the kind of character in which prudence is a vice, and good advice the most dangerous nourishment. But Lily had known the species before: she was aware that such a guarded nature must find one huge outlet of egoism, and she determined to be to him what his Americana had hitherto been: the one possession in which he took sufficient pride to spend money on it. She knew that this generosity to self is one of the forms of meanness, and she resolved so to identify herself with her husband's vanity that to gratify her wishes would be to him the most exquisite form of self-indulgence.

cambio, es como un loro que salta de rama en rama y parlotea a la vista de todos.» Gustave se imaginaba que era una fiera salvaje: le encantaba pensar que era un oso polar, remoto, silvestre y solitario. Yo acepté esta idea suya, y hasta le dije que era un búfalo salvaje de las praderas americanas; pero es posible que no fuera más que un loro.

Y porque se comenzaba a aburrir de comprobar que esas elegancias no eran más que subterfugios, Jerónimo regresó a su tierra americana, burda y primitiva, en busca de obligaciones que dieran nobleza a su libertad. ¿Pero cómo tomar la resolución de incorporarse a un mundo cuyas verdades más altas son decretadas por un guiso de congrio en escabeche?

A economia americana precisa de criar algo na ordem de um milhão de empregos por ano apenas para fazer face ao crescimento da população. (…) Uma das ideias fundamentais mais infiltrada na ética americana – a convicção de que qualquer um pode triunfar pelo trabalho árduo e pela perseverança – tem realmente pouca expressão na realidade estatística.

como «plática motivacional con crisis de identidad»

La cafeína le llega al torrente sanguíneo como un sueño de otra vida.

La vida es un breve periodo de tiempo durante el que estamos vivos.

perímetro. Lydia move o corpo na direção dessa

Burn so bright that the world comes to life.

Corruption begins at home and can end at home.

When a civil servant or politician acts out of self-interest, it's called corruption, but when a citizen does it, it's called public interest.

There is no such thing as a foreigner, for all humans are our family.

Birth of a question is the beginning of education.

The sign of wisdom is to have more questions than answers.

Most humans think - "we are living our life, the world is not our business." And that's precisely where not only everything gets messed up, but more importantly, that's where humanity loses the right to be called human, for being human requires possessing a sense of responsibility towards the society we live in, without which we might as well be living in the jungle with our fellow animals.

few hours after I finished The Multiversity: Pax Americana #1 by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely, something happened: I got it. Now, I can’t shake the sense that I read the best superhero single issue of the year. Morrison’s Multiversity project (available digitally on comiXology and Kindle , and in our third party marketplace ) is a grand one for DC Comics: eight single issues--each a #1, and

Dovevi comportati bene con il prossimo, anche con i leccapiedi. E se: a) Credevi che Gesù fosse il Figlio di Dio b) Credevi che fosse venuto a salvarti dal peccato c) Riconoscevi la presenza dello Spirito Santo dentro di te (tornavi bambino, diceva lui) d) Non bestemmiavi contro il suddetto Spirito (vedi c) Allora: e) Avresti vissuto in eterno f) In un posto fichissimo g) Probabilmente in paradiso Se invece h) Peccavi (e/o) i) Ti comportavi da ipocrita (e/o) j) Davi più importanza alle cose che alle persone (e/o) k) Non facevi quanto elencato ai punti a, b, c, d Eri semplicemente l) fottuto

All women is brothers,' Burley Coulter used to say, and then look at you with a dead sober look as if he didn't know why you thought that was funny. But, as usual, he was telling the truth. Or part of it.

I come home from work this evening there was a note in the frying pan said Fix Your Own Supper Babe I Run Off With The Fuller Brush Man Well I sat down at the table screamed & hollered & cried I commenced to carring on 'till I almost lost my mind and I miss the way she used to Yell At Me the way she used to Cuss & Moan and if I ever go out and get married again I'll never leave my wife at home The Frying Pan Diamonds In The Rough John Prine

“In the Victorian age, he would have been an opium addict. A portrait of Byronic tragedy and Gothic ruin. In the Medieval period, he would have glutted himself on the blood lust and the religious fervor of the Crusades, falling on the twin pyres of courtly love and the denial of self-abstention. In the 1950s, it was quaint Americana, chain-smoking, and drinking. Fast cars, rock music, and fucking,” he spat the word. “He was dying when I turned him. I think he knew.

I am . . . a mortal enemy to arbitrary government and unlimited power. I am naturally very jealous for the rights and liberties of my country; and the least appearance of an encroachment on those invaluable privileges is apt to make my blood boil exceedingly. I have likewise a natural inclination to observe and reprove the faults of others, at which I have an excellent faculty.” It was as good a description of the real Benjamin Franklin—and, indeed, of a typical American—as is likely to be found anywhere.37

La condición americana, en lo esencial, es la de tener poca sensibilidad para el pasado. No nos sentimos prisioneros del pasado. Estamos como más libres, sueltos y ágiles para afrontar los requerimientos del presente y del mañana. En el fondo de toda verdadera conciencia europea hay la noción de que el ayer es más importante que el hoy. En el fondo de toda conciencia verdaderamente americana está activa la noción de que el hoy y el mañana son más importantes que el ayer. No tenemos cómo vivir de herencia, sino de faena propia.

An economically weakened and isolationist America will call into question the Pax Americana, whereby the United States oversees international peace and security, and thus expose the world to the unpredictable whims and values of nondemocratic powers. These are not the solutions the world needs. Creating sustainable economic growth in the twenty-first century requires no less than aggressively retooling history’s greatest engine of growth, democratic capitalism itself. This requires a clear-eyed assessment of how ineffective the system is in its current state, politically as well as economically—and then implementing the repairs that will yield better outcomes. Too much is at stake for us to remain wedded to the status quo. The ominous rise of protectionism and nationalism throughout the world portend that the global economy and community are eroding already. The only way forward is to preserve the best of liberal democratic capitalism and to repair the worst. We cannot cling to past practices and old ideologies simply for their own sake. Doing nothing is no choice at all.

Había aprendido lo peor de las lecciones que puede dar la vida: la de que carece de sentido. Y cuando sucede tal cosa, la felicidad nunca vuelve a ser espontánea, sino que es artificial e, incluso entonces, se compra el precio de un obstinado distanciamiento de uno mismo y de su historia.

Even in the face of the stormy conditions of June 1801, Lieutenant Decatur counted himself the luckiest of men to have a place on this mission. Every creak of the frigate as she rocked on the waves whispered of glory ahead. The salty air filling his lungs gave him an invigorating sense of the honor of simply being an American—a child not of old borders and ancient alliances, but of ideals and liberty. And he took pride in his ship; although the Essex was smaller than the President, Decatur felt a swelling of pride as he considered the line of cannons, more than thirty in all.

Una ragazza in effetti c'era. Non era ancora in ballo, però ci avevo già messo gli sopra. Era una studentessa del secondo anno che come me si era appena trasferita a Winesburg, pallida e snella, con capelli castani scuri e un modo di fare che m'intimidiva per come mi pareva distaccato e risoluto. Seguiva le mie stesse lezioni di storia americana e a volte sedeva proprio accanto a me, ma non volendo correre il rischio di sentirmi dire di lasciarla in pace, non avevo trovato il coraggio di farle neppure un cenno di saluto, e tanto meno di parlarle. Una sera la vidi in biblioteca.

Voi tutti sapete cos'hanno fatto. Hanno dichiarato illegale l'uso di impulsi subsonici nella pubblicità audio. Ma noi abbiamo ribattuto con un elenco di parole chiave, semanticamente collegate con ogni trauma o nevrosi presenti nella moderna vita americana. Hanno dato retta ai fissati della sicurezza stradale e ci impediscono di proiettare i nostri messaggi sul parabrezza delle macchine, ma noi ci difendiamo. Il laboratorio mi informa — e indicò il direttore del nostro Reparto Scientifico — che presto sperimenteremo un sistema capace di proiettare la pubblicità direttamente sulla retina.

Las razas fuertes exterminan a las débiles, los pueblos civilizados suplantan en la posesión de la tierra a los salvajes. No debieran nuestros escritores insistir sobre la crueldad de los españoles para con los salvajes de América, ahora como entonces, nuestros enemigos de raza, de color, de tendencias, de civilización. Quisiéramos apartar de toda cuestión social americana a los salvajes, por quienes sentimos, sin poderlo remediar, una invencible repugnancia… no son más que unos indios asquerosos, a quienes habríamos hecho colgar y mandaríamos colgar ahora, si reapareciesen en una guerra.

O SUICÍDIO É UMA FORMA DE ASSASSINATO – assassinato premeditado. Não é algo que se faz da primeira vez que se pensa em fazer. A gente precisa se acostumar com a ideia. E precisa dos meios, da oportunidade, do motivo. Um suicídio bem-sucedido exige boa organização e cabeça fria, coisas geralmente incompatíveis com o estado de espírito de quem quer se suicidar. É importante cultivar um distanciamento. Uma forma de fazer isso é imaginar-se morta ou morrendo. Havendo uma janela, deve-se imaginar o próprio corpo caindo da janela. Havendo uma faca, deve-se imaginar essa faca penetrando na própria pele. Havendo um trem que já vai chegar, deve-se imaginar o próprio corpo esmagado sob as rodas. Esses exercícios são essenciais para atingir o distanciamento necessário. O motivo é de suma importância. Sem um motivo forte, vai tudo por água abaixo. Meus motivos eram fracos: um trabalho de História Americana que eu não queria fazer e a pergunta que eu me propusera meses antes: “Por que não me matar?”. Morta, eu não precisaria fazer o trabalho. Nem precisaria ficar ponderando aquela pergunta. Essa ponderação me desgastava. Depois que a gente se faz uma pergunta dessas, ela não nos larga mais. Acho que muita gente se mata só para pôr fim ao dilema de se matar ou não. Tudo o que eu pensava ou fazia era imediatamente incorporado ao dilema. Fiz um comentário idiota – por que não me mato? Perdi o ônibus – melhor acabar com tudo. Até o que era bom entrava no jogo. Gostei desse filme – talvez eu não devesse me matar. Na verdade, eu só queria matar uma parte de mim: a parte que queria se matar, que me arrastava para o dilema do suicídio e transformava cada janela, cada utensílio de cozinha e cada estação de metrô no ensaio de uma tragédia. Só fui descobrir tudo isso, porém, depois de engolir cinquenta aspirinas.

Sully's, on South Prospect, was the quintessential biker-bar, complete with hefty, leather-clad Harley worshippers, and stringy-haired heroin-addicted women who made the rounds among the bikers. Its décor was decidedly Medieval Garage Sale, with a dose of Americana thrown in. An old motorcycle carcass dangled from the vaulted section of the beamed ceiling, and the wood plank floors were littered with butts, scarred by bottle caps and splattered with homogenized bodily fluids. The only light to be had was from neon, dying sconces, and lit cigarettes. Various medieval swords perched on each wall, reminiscent of the times of Beowulf and Fire Dragons on the Barrow.

Na Nova Inglaterra, o verão de 1998 foi marcado por muito sol e calor; no beisebol, por uma batalha entre um deus branco e outro deus negro; e, nos Estados Unidos, por uma imensa febre de religiosidade, de puritanismo, quando o terrorismo — que se seguiu ao comunismo como a principal ameaça à segurança do país — foi sucedido pela felação, quando um presidente viril, de meia-idade mas de aparência jovem, e uma estagiária ousada e apaixonada, com vinte e um anos de idade, aprontaram no Salão Oval como se fossem dois adolescentes num estacionamento, resgatando a mais antiga paixão americana, historicamente talvez o seu prazer mais traiçoeiro e subversivo: o êxtase da santimônia.

Increasingly economic historians can draw analogies between the development of the present crisis and the period between the two world wars, as well as the crisis of a century ago, which was associated with the so-called great depression of 1873-1895. The latter crisis resulted in the rise of monopoly capitalism and imperialism, but also the end of Pax Britannica, as Britain began its decline from world leadership in the face of challenges from Germany and the United States. The present world crisis seems to be spelling the beginning of the end of Pax Americana and may hold untold other major readjustments in the international division of labor and world power in store for the future.

É questão de certo interesse perceber que as artes populares dos EUA da virada do milênio tratam a anedonia e o vazio interno como coisas descoladas e cool. De repente são vestígios da glorificação romântica do mundo e sofisticada e aí consumida por pessoas mais jovens que não apenas consomem arte mas a examinam em busca de pistas de como ser chique, cool - e não esqueça que, para os jovens em geral, ser chique e cool é o mesmo que ser admirado, aceito e incluído e portanto assolitário. Esqueça a dita pressão-dos-pares. É mais tipo uma fome-de-pares. Não? Nós entramos numa puberdade espiritual em que nos ligamos ao fato de que o grande horror transcendente é a solidão, fora o enjaulamento em si próprio. Depois que chegamos a essa idade, nós agora daremos ou aceitaremos qualquer coisa, usaremos qualquer máscara para nos encaixar, ser parte-de, não estar Sós, nós os jovens. As artes dos EU são o nosso guia para a inclusão. Um modo-de-usar. Elas nos mostram como construir máscaras de tédio e de ironia cínica ainda jovens, quando o rosto é maleável o suficiente para assumir a forma daquilo que vier a usar. E aí ele se prende ao rosto, o cinismo cansado que nos salva do sentimentalismo brega e do simplismo não sofisticado. Sentimento é igual a simplismo neste continente (ao menos desde a Reconfiguração). [...] Hal, que é vazio mas não é besta, teoriza privadamente que o que passa pela transcendência descolada do sentimentalismo é na verdade algum tipo de medo de ser realmente humano, já que ser realmente humano (ao menos como ele conceitualiza essa ideia) é provavelmente ser inevitavelmente sentimental, simplista, pró-brega e patético de modo geral, é ser de alguma maneira básica e interior para sempre infantil, um tipo de bebê de aparência meio estranha que se arrasta anacliticamente pelo mapa, com grandes olhos úmidos e uma pele macia de sapo, crânio enorme, baba gosmenta. Uma das coisas realmente americanas no Hal, provavelmente, é como ele despreza o que na verdade gera a sua solidão: esse horrendo eu interno, incontinente de sentimentos e necessidades, que lamenta e se contorce logo abaixo da máscara vazia e descolada, a anedonia.

She loved the smell of old truck; thick cotton and vinyl seat covers, old gasoline and oil, the smell of country, decades of farmers, workers and families taking trips back and forth to town, up backroads to swimming holes, over fields, through all the weather. She imagined what this truck would have seen if it had eyes and a memory. She was about to become one more episode in its existence.

An attack on the rich is not a disruption of peace but a step towards it. The rich oppress the poor daily by exploiting their misery and poverty. The poor are kept poor and beaten down continually by the greed of the rich and the systems of capitalist exploitation. Poverty is violence against the poor. Tax cuts for the rich, leading to budget cuts in social spending, are an act of class warfare. It is a mistake to call for “peace” when there is no peace for the poor, homeless, or disadvantaged under capitalism. One might argue that even Christ was crucified in the name of “peace” by the Roman Empire.20 But Pax Romana—or today’s Pax Americana—is never true peace. It is peace by oppression. The rich must be brought low, the powerful must be humbled, the lowly must be exalted, and good news must be proclaimed to the poor.

Shaskepeare e Dionisos "As furiosas falas de Cleópatra parecem mais chocantes para um ouvido anglo-saxónico do que para um mediterrâneo. O discurso veemente e desabrido é comum entre os povos do Sul, devido à persistência da agricultura e de uma intensidade pagã. Quem vive da terra, ou na proximidade da terra, reconhece a terrível amoralidade da natureza. As sádicas imagens de Cleópatra são normais para um italiano. Os meus parentes italianos imigrados diziam coisas como " Que te matem" ou "Hás-de ser comido por um gato". Segundo o meu pai ,expressões ítalo-americanas comuns foram adoptadas a partir da forma che te possono (que te façam isto ou aquilo). Por exemplo " Que te arranquem os olhos", " Que arrastes a língua pelo chão", "Que te apertem os tomates", " Que te cosam o cu". A similaridade com o estilo retórico de Cleópatra é evidente. A tortura e o homicídio estão sempre próximas da imaginação mediterrânica.

I come here sometimes just to be in the presence of such ancient beings. The sides of the boulder are festooned with Umbilicaria americana in raggedy ruffles of brown and green, the most magnificent of northeastern lichens. Unlike those of its tiny crustose forebearers, the Umbilicaria’s thallus—its body—can span an outstretched hand. The largest one recorded was measured at just over two feet. Light streams through holes over the heads of young trees while their grandmothers loom in shadows, great buttressed trunks eight feet in diameter. You want to be quiet in instinctive deference to the cathedral hush and because nothing you could possibly say would add a thing. Here is where the fog drips. Here is where the moisture laden air from the Pacific rises against the mountains to produce upward of one hundred inches of rain a year, watering an ecosystem rivaled nowhere else on earth. The biggest trees in the world. Trees that were born before Columbus sailed.

Phytophthora infestans. Era una plaga causada por un hongo, pero ¿de dónde venía? Nadie lo sabía, pero era posible que hubiera llegado a Estados Unidos con alguna importación, porque, como deseaban evitar cualquier degeneración en la raza de la patata, los agricultores americanos habían adquirido la costumbre de importar de Perú las patatas de siembra. Algunos de los barcos también transportaban guano, el estiércol de gaviota que se utilizaba como fertilizante, por lo que parecía probable que el hongo hubiera pasado del guano a la patata de siembra durante la travesía. Después de establecerse en Nueva York, el hongo comenzó a propagarse con una pasmosa rapidez. Cruzó Nueva Jersey y Pensilvania. Hacia 1845, llegaría al Medio Oeste. El comercio de patata de siembra era triangular. De la costa Este americana, la semilla viajaba a Europa; cuando apareció en el Medio Oeste, la plaga comenzaba a atacar también los patatales de los Países Bajos de Holanda y Bélgica y de la costa meridional de Inglaterra.

Helene Hanff, an aspiring playwright who had been put to work in the Theatre Guild press office, remembered trying to generate some effective publicity for Away We Go! “This was, they told us, the damndest musical ever thought up for a sophisticated Broadway audience,” Hanff wrote. “It was so pure you could put it on at a church social. It opened with a middle-aged farm woman sitting alone on a bare stage churning butter, and from then on it got cleaner.”16 It was the kind of Americana that Larry Hart distrusted. But at the New Haven tryout he tried to keep an open mind. Of the songs in Away We Go!’s first act, five of them—“Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top,” “Many a New Day,” “People Will Say We’re in Love,” and “Out of My Dreams”—were destined to become instant classics, with “All Er Nuthin’” and “Oklahoma!” delighting the audience in the second act. But Larry wasn’t so delighted. He might have regarded “We know we belong to the land” as a professionally crafted line, as resonant to recent immigrants as to Mayflower descendants; but “The land we belong to is grand”?

Both the European Union and the United States are in some sense the heirs of Rome. Like Rome, the United States is founded on a republican myth of liberation from a tyrannical oppressor. Just as the Rape of Lucretia led to the overthrow of the last Etruscan king, so the Boston Tea Party led to the overthrow of the British crown. The Founding Fathers of the United States sought quite literally to create a New Rome, with, for instance, a clear separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches of government—with the legislative branch called, as in Rome, the Senate. They even debated whether the executive branch would not be better represented, as in Rome, by two consuls rather than the president that they eventually settled for. The extended period of relative peace and prosperity since the end of the Second World War has been dubbed the Pax Americana [‘American Peace’], after the Pax Romana which perdured from the accession of Augustus in 27 BCE to the death of the last of the Five Good Emperors, Marcus Aurelius, in 180 CE. The United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union can be accounted for, in part, by the ghost of the nineteenth century Pax Britannica, when the British Empire was not merely a province of Rome but a Rome unto herself.

Nor would I have you to mistake in the point of your own liberty. There is a liberty of corrupt nature, which is affected both by men and beasts, to do what they list; and this liberty is inconsistent with authority, impatient of all restraint; by this liberty, Sumus Omnes Deteriores;[109] ’tis the grand enemy of truth and peace, and all the ordinances of God are bent against it But there is a civil, a moral, a federal liberty, which is the proper end and object of authority; it is a liberty for that only which is just and good; for this liberty you are to stand with the hazard of your very lives; and whatsoever crosses it is not authority, but a distemper thereof. This liberty is maintained in a way of subjection to authority; and the authority set over you will in all administrations for your good be quietly submitted unto, by all but such as have a disposition to shake off the yoke, and lose their true liberty, by their murmuring at the honour and power of authority.

DOCTEUR JOUVE AND MÍSTER MAC TITULAR Aquí está el extraño caso que conmocionó al país, los crímenes más terribles de Mister Mac en París. NOTICIA El docteur Jouve nació en el corazón de Europa, cosa que se traslucía en sus modos y en su ropa. De niño fue algo precoz, si bien su primera cita no fue una cuestión de amor sino, más bien, erudita. Por la mañana se tomaba un tostón de Thomas Mann, un vaso de Joyce de frutas y un milhojas de Renan. Llamó a su perro Lacan, llamó a su gato Goethe, el benjamín era Walter y su esposa La Feyette. Tenía un chale en la Pleyáde una casa en la Montaigne y un Nietzsche en el cementerio con un busto de Verlaine. Cuando estaba en la Camus su esposa era Simenon porque le cogía un Sófocles si él quería un Fenelón. Como estaba Debussy, ella se sentía sola, por eso empezó un diario y al final se sentió Zola. Los años van Maupassant, se va quedando Calvino, se siente un poco Stravinski, y muy poco cervantino. Pero el docteur Jouve esconde un secreto terrorífico tras las botellas de Evian que inundan su frigorífico. Tiene oculta entre el burdeos, en gruyère y el gorgonzola, una pócima secreta que se llama coca cola. Cada vez que se la bebe se le altera el mecanismo y se transforma en un monstruo de contumaz consumismo. Se arranca entre convulsiones la americana pana, los pantalones a cuadros y la bufanda de lana. Luego se pone sus levis, sus adidas y su custo y sale con ganas de consumir con sumo gasto. De este modo transformando docteur Jouve en míster Mac se va directo de compras sin pasar por el FNAC. De golpe adora a los USA compras nikis de la NASA le pone Pamela Anderson y su cultura de masas. Después de haberse comprado un doble de Britney Spears, va a depilarse la espalda pues no es un lobo en París. Tiene una serie de Friends que invita siempre a su House para mirar la MTV y en los highlights pone pause. Por la mañana volvía a ser el gran europeo que viste ropa de Sartre y es -gracias a Dios- ateo. Era tan grande su Ovidio que desde una estantería <<¡Qué vedo!>>, exclamaba Góngora y <<¡Te Virgilio!>>, Marías. Pero una noche quemó su nutrida biblioteca, y no se salvó del fuego ni el penúltimo planeta. Otra noche mató a un hombre que parecía Balzac y luego entró en un McDonalds y se pidió un big mac. Por estar leyendo un libro de un tal Jünger Habermás dicen que a un colega suyo nadie lo volvió a-ver-más. Con su Northface y sus RayBan y su jerga angloparlante Míster Mac se llevó a muchos al infierno por peDantes. CIERRE No hace falta que escojáis entre Pamela y Balzac que todos somos a ratos docteur Jouve y míster Mac.