RKS Literature: United States Congress as a Pigsty

“On this minor his dream faded-work to do: he tried to imagine himself in Congress rooting around that litter of that incredible pigsty with narrow and porcine brows he saw pictured sometimes in the rotogravure sections of the Sunday newspapers, those glorified proletarians babbling to the nation the ideas of high school seniors! Little menContinue reading “RKS Literature: United States Congress as a Pigsty”

RKS Literature: Dreadful Engines That Make the Children Old (Dickens)

“Even the sunburnt faces of gipsy children, half naked though they be, suggest a drop of comfort. It is a pleasant thing to see that the sun has been there; to know that the air and light are on them every day; to feel that they are children, and lead children’s lives; that if theirContinue reading “RKS Literature: Dreadful Engines That Make the Children Old (Dickens)”

RKS Literature: The Savage Intoxication of the Moment (Dickens)

“The excitement of play, hot rooms, and glaring lights, was not calculated to allay the fever of the time. In that giddy whirl of noise and confusion, the men were delirious. Who thought of money, ruin, or the morrow, in the savage intoxication of the moment? More wine was called for, glass after glass wasContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Savage Intoxication of the Moment (Dickens)”

RKS Literature: Crafty Scoundrels and Heaven (Dickens)

“Some of the craftiest scoundrels that ever walked this earth, or rather – for walking implies, at least, an erect position and the bearing of a man – that ever crawled and crept through life by its dirtiest and narrow ways, will gravely jot down in diaries the events of the day, and keep aContinue reading “RKS Literature: Crafty Scoundrels and Heaven (Dickens)”

RKS Literature: Love and The Imagination: Charles Dickens

“Love, however, is very materially assisted by a warm and active imagination, which has a long memory, and will survive for a considerable amount of time on very slight and sparing food. Thus, it is, that it often attains its most luxuriant growth in separation and under circumstances of the utmost difficulty; and thus itContinue reading “RKS Literature: Love and The Imagination: Charles Dickens”

RKS Literature: The Three Stages of Intoxication (Dickens)

“Most public characters have their failing; and the truth is that Mr. Snevellicci was a little bit addicted to drinking; or, if the whole truth must be told, that he was scarcely ever sober. He knew in his cups three distinct stages of intoxication-the dignified-the quarrelsome-the amorous. When professionally engaged he never got beyond theContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Three Stages of Intoxication (Dickens)”

RKS Literature: Dreams (Dickens)

“Dreams are the bright creatures of poem and legend, who sport earth in the night season and melt away at the first beam of sun, which lights grim care and stern reality to their pilgrimage through the world.” Charles Dickens, “Nicholas Nickleby”, 1839

RKS Literature: The Great Muffin Scam (Charles Dickens)

“He had visited the houses of the poor in the various districts of London and had found them destitute of the slightest vestige of a muffin, which there appeared to much reason to believe some of these indigent persons did not taste from year’s end to year’s end. He had found that among muffin sellersContinue reading “RKS Literature: The Great Muffin Scam (Charles Dickens)”

RKS Literature: Being Shamed for Being Different (Ken Kesey)

“I discovered at an early age that I was-shall we be kind and say different? It’s a better more general word than the other one. I indulged in certain practices that our society regards as shameful. And I got sick. It wasn’t the practices, I don’t think, it was the feeling that the great, deadlyContinue reading “RKS Literature: Being Shamed for Being Different (Ken Kesey)”

RKS Literature: Wandering Around in a Daze: Electric Shock Therapy (Ken Kesey)

“ There had been times when I wandered around in a daze for as long as two weeks after a shock treatment, living in that foggy jumbled blur which is a whole lot like the ragged edge of sleep, that grey zone between light and dark, or between sleeping and waking or living and dying,Continue reading “RKS Literature: Wandering Around in a Daze: Electric Shock Therapy (Ken Kesey)”