Tribal Mask Quotes

I love that I am but one of millions of single girls hitting the road by themselves these days. A hateful little ex-boyfriend once said that a houseful of cats used to be the sign of a terminally single woman, but not it's a house full of souvenirs acquired on foreign adventures. He said it derogatorily: Look at all of this tragic overcompensating in the form of tribal masks and rain sticks. But I say that plane tickets replacing cats might be the best evidence of women's progress as a gender. I'm damn proud of us. Also, since I have both a cat and a lot of foreign souvenirs, I broke up with that dude and went on a really great trip.

We live in a similarly shattered Weltanschauung where cultural distractions urgently seek to mask the demise of tribal mythologies, where sex, power, money are offered up as “connections” to replace the linking to the transcendent mythic images once granted.

Though they cherished a belief that they were the only really honest church when it came to the seriousness of human sin, a supposed high-theology of individual sin masked the systemic sins of judgment, racism, misogyny, tribalism, passive-aggressive intimidation, arbitrary threats of discipline, and emotional and relational avoidance.

Aggressivität und Ablehnung kommen wie die anderen harten, rauen und bitteren Stammespraktiken in der Maske des Schutzgewährens und Abschirmens der "Gemeinschaft" daher.

Desire is… " Desire is the glow of bathing lunatics. Starlight is the liquid used to power a whispering machine. Humming is the music of a forest moving in unison with your eyes. * A slip of the tongue and the hummingbird’s empty throne make the acquaintance of the word frenzy, which in turn adopts the phrase: “I am closest to you when we are furthest apart,” and together they follow the anxious doorway that leads far out of the city, where travelers always meet, alone and abandoned with only their mysteries to guide them… and when the sun bleeds out of the dampness of the earth, like pale limbs entwined and exhausted, they all pause in their own fashion to reflect not upon themselves but on the white wolves in the garden shivering like mist, in the mirror hiding your face. * The nature of movement is an image lost between the objects of an eclipse fervently scratched into the face of a sleeping woman when she approaches the liquid state of a circle, wandering aimlessly in search of lucidity and those moments of inarticulate suspicion… when the riddle is only half solved and the alphabet is still adding letters according to the human motors that have not yet arrived, as a species, scintillating in the grass, burning time. Not far from your name there is always a question mark, followed by silent paws… * It is not without the mask of the Enchanter’s dance of unreason, that joy follows the torment of seductive shapes, and sudden appearances in the whisper of long corridors. Tribal veils rising out of fingerprints on invisible entrances in the middle of the landscape, assume the form of her shoulders and the intimacy of her bones making dust, taking flight. * The axis of revolt and the nobility of a springtime stripped of its flowers, expertly balanced with a murmur of the heart on the anvil of chance. Your voice arcing between the two points of day and night, where the oracle of water spinning rapidly above, that is your city of numerology, mixes with the flux of a long voyage more stone-like and absurdly graceful then either milkweed or deadly nightshade, when it acclimatizes the elements of transparency in the host of purity. * The dream birds of a lost language are growing underground in the bed of sorcery. It is all revealed in the arms of your obsession, Arachne, (crawling to kiss) pale Ariadne, (kneeling to feed) in a pool of light that exceeds the dimensions of the loveliest crime. She turns into your evidence, gaining speed and recognition, becoming a brightness never solved, and a clarity that makes crystals. * The early morning hours share their nakedness with those who bare fruit and corset fireflies in long slender bath-like caresses. “Your serum, Sir Moor’s Head, follows the grand figures of the sea, ignites them, throws them like vessels out of fire, raising the sand upwards into oddly repetitive enchantments. Drown me in flight, daughter of wonder…

hatch our survival plan in the coolest place we could find. We made our way into the cluttered room at the windowed front of the deckhouse—what our boat builders back in Hong Kong called the “lavish grand salon” in their sales brochures. With us, it was more like the messy rumpus room. True, the room had, as advertised, “a curved couch, sleek teak paneling, and hardwood cabinetry with a built-in sink.” But the sink had dirty dishes and empty soda bottles in it, the paneled walls were cluttered with a collection of my parents’ favorite treasures (including a conquistador helmet, a rare African tribal mask, a grog jug shaped like a frog, a rusty cannonball from a Confederate gunboat, a bronze clock covered with cherubs that probably belonged to King Louis XIV, and, in a glass shadow box, a rusty steak knife from the Titanic). There were assorted trinkets, necklaces, and coconut heads suspended from the ceiling. Add a heap of scuba and snorkel gear and assorted socks, shoes, and T-shirts on the floor (the floor is our laundry basket), and our grand salon looked more like a live-in recycling bin. “Have we even seen a map for this treasure hunt?” asked Beck. “Nope. Dad just said we needed to be in the Caymans.” “Then we need to find his map.

In 2004, the inhabitants of Fallujah and the local insurgents who represented them were among the first to resist al-Qaeda, which controlled much of the city. Among their list of complaints were al-Qaeda’s religious requirements that were at odds with local Islamic customs, such as full-body veiling.19 Beatings and broken bones brought reluctant citizens into line but bred resentment. The same happened a year later in 2005 in the city of Qaim on the border of Syria. Islamic State fighters burned down a beauty parlor and torched stores selling music; men who drank alcohol were lashed.20 By September 2006, Iraqi prime minister Nuri al-Maliki had received pledges of support from over a dozen Sunni tribal leaders, prompting al-Qaeda to issue a statement threatening their lives.21 In October 2006, just days before the establishment of the Islamic State, a masked jihadist going by the name Abu Usama al-Iraqi released a video addressed to Bin Laden.

And on Hijacking of Contemporary Islam, And the last of Brethren Kings. Is King Fahd of the Saudi Arabs, Who pretends to be fighting terrorism. With abundant petro-dollars. Allied with vicious imperialism. Oppressing freedoms and scholars. A most subtle mask indeed. As the mighty rich Saudis, Plagued with tribal family greed, Are hijackers of Islam, In fact audacious King Fahd, Recently declared a real sham, As he went on attacking Islam, Using terms of monarchial deceit, Calling it a government by the elite, Devoid of Western-style Democracy, What ignorance, what hypocrisy! A self-serving declaration, For a dictatorial theocracy, So now the Saudis are carving out. Their "Hypocritical Protocol," Bringing down their entire nation. Under Saudis' solid control, With their polygamist breeding wives. Delivering thousands of Saudi lives, As a one-famliy-government body. Of corrupt men with dozens of wives, No longer armed with daggers and knives, Thanks to their loyal imperial powers, Their arms are missiles and radar towers, Whence their grip on political power, While thoughts of democracy and freedom leave them ill- tempered and even sour.

crouched a bit until I couldn’t see Cob and his agents, and then at the top of my lungs, I shouted, “Oh sick! There’s a rat in the room! It’s as big as a potato!” Everyone in the art class, including Cob and the Glitch agents, freaked. Desks were turned over as students panicked, running wild in every direction. The muffled screams and shouts coming from behind the tribal art masks made things even crazier. It was like a mosh pit at a rock concert. I stood tall in the middle of the chaos because I knew there wasn’t really a rat in the room. It felt a bit like I was wearing some kind of invincibility shield from a video game. It was the only time in my life that I was completely calm in a roomful of crazies, which was the total opposite of how it normally would’ve been. As I made my way to the exit, I let the tribal mask drop to the floor. Checking to see if Cob was following me wasn’t even necessary. His voice was the loudest in the room, screaming something about “potato rats” being the grossest things ever.

Trump is a man who polarizes opinion: you suspect that if he said ice cream was a pleasant treat on a sunny day, it would lead some Americans to refuse to eat anything but ice cream while others protested loudly outside ice cream parlors. So it was with COVID. The perverse and reckless refusal ever to wear a mask became a badge of pride for many of Trump’s supporters, while his opponents went to the opposite extreme—I noted one prominent tweet by a liberal American journalist explaining that the UK pandemic was “out of control” because people were not wearing masks as they walked in the park. To British eyes, the tweet just seemed bewildering: the evidence suggests that, mask or no mask, the risk of transmitting the virus while out for a stroll is very low. At the time of the tweet, late in January 2021, UK case numbers weren’t out of control either; they were rapidly falling. The tweet could be understood only as a salvo in a politically polarized battle about responsible mask use in which neither tribe was interested in figuring out the truth. Paradoxically, it can be much easier to spot tribalism at a distance. If you belong to the tribe of Republicans or Democrats, you’re too involved in the battle to think clearly. It is easier when—like your bemused British author—you belong to the tribe of puzzled outsiders.