“Even McMurphy doesn’t seem to know he has been fogged in. If he does, he makes sure not to let on that he’s bothered by it. He’s making sure none of the staff see him bothered by anything: he knows that there’s no better way in the world to aggravate somebody who’s trying to makeContinue reading “RKS Literature: Aggravate Your Adversaries (Ken Kesey)”
Category Archives: literature
RKS 2023 Literature: The Tight-Smiled Fury of Big Nurse (Ken Kesey)
“The Big Nurse tends to get real put out if something keeps her outfit from running like a smooth, accurate, precision-made machine. The slightest thing messy or out of kilter or in the way ties her into a little white knot of tight-smiled fury. She walks around with that same doll smile crimped between herContinue reading “RKS 2023 Literature: The Tight-Smiled Fury of Big Nurse (Ken Kesey)”
RKS Literature: The State and Legal Terror (James Baldwin)
“The State, at bottom, and when the chips are down, rules by means of a terror made legal-that is how Franco ruled so long and is the undeniable truth concerning South Africa. No one called the late J. Edgar Hoover a terrorist, though that is precisely what he was: and if anyone wishes, now, inContinue reading “RKS Literature: The State and Legal Terror (James Baldwin)”
RKS Literature: When You Are Gone Will Anyone Know? (James Baldwin)
“I think that everyone imagines that, when they go away, the scene they have left behind them alters, that their departure leaves a hole in their previous surroundings. The departure may leave a hole in some people’s lives, a wound which is invisible; but one’s surroundings take as little notice of one’s departure as theContinue reading “RKS Literature: When You Are Gone Will Anyone Know? (James Baldwin)”
RKS Literature: Wondering About Love (James Baldwin)
“So then, for the first time, I wondered about love and wondered if I would find strength to give love, and to take it: to accept my nakedness as sacred, and to hold sacred the nakedness of another. For without love, pleasure’s inventions are soon exhausted. There must be a soul within the body youContinue reading “RKS Literature: Wondering About Love (James Baldwin)”
RKS Literature: New York is No Mistake (James Baldwin)
“Whoever is born in New York is ill-equipped to deal with any other city: all other cities seem at best, a mistake, and, at worst, a fraud. No other city is so spitefully incoherent. Whereas other cities flaunt their history-their presumed glory-in vividly placed monuments, squares, parks, plaques, and boulevards, such history as New YorkContinue reading “RKS Literature: New York is No Mistake (James Baldwin)”
RKS Literature: Drafting a Black Man to Fight in Korea: White People Have no Shame
“I didn’t want nine toes, I wanted all ten, and I had fucking well had no eyes for Korea. I didn’t see what right I would have to be there, what right anybody had to send my black ass there. I don’t think anybody can really hate his country, I don’t think that is possible;Continue reading “RKS Literature: Drafting a Black Man to Fight in Korea: White People Have no Shame”
RKS Literature: Working in a Harlem Hospital (James Baldwin)
“ I didn’t spend as many hours as she did, for example in the corridors of Harlem Hospital; wasn’t surrounded, as she was, by the stink of blood, the rattle of expiring life; the cold, brutal high-pitched siren of our indifference: On Saturday nights, they pick up a torso here, some legs there, over yonder,Continue reading “RKS Literature: Working in a Harlem Hospital (James Baldwin)”
RKS Literature: “Surrounded By Junkies and Sleepwalkers” (James Baldwin)
“It’s like we used to say in church, and its still true-the sinner can’t be saved unless he knows he is a sinner. And you surrounded by junkies child. This is a nation of sleepwalkers, and they can’t wake up” She reaches out, and touches Tony’s face, lightly. “And death comes baby, that’s all. It’sContinue reading “RKS Literature: “Surrounded By Junkies and Sleepwalkers” (James Baldwin)”
RKS Literature: The Particularly Nasty British Press (Balzac)
“Whenever you see the press out for the blood of some powerful figure, you will not be far wrong in concluding that behind the attacks there is the story of a refusal to pay or to render some service or other. Blackmail arising out of their private lives is the special terror of rich EnglishmenContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Particularly Nasty British Press (Balzac)”
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