Alex Kudera's Blog, page 31

kept busy at any price

"My parents were perfectly satisfied. I didn't need money, they kept telling my uncle . . . I'd only put it to bad use . . . It was much more important that I shouldn't live with them anymore . . . That was the unanimous opinion of the whole family, of the neighbors too, and of all our acquaintances . . . that I be given something to do, no matter what! that I be kept busy at any price! no matter where, no matter how! As long as I wasn't left idle! and kept away! From one day to the next, to judge by the way I had started out, I might set the Passage on fire! That was the general sentiment . . ."

~~ from Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

their appreciation for fine work

"Rich people had lost all their refinement . . . all their delicacy . . . their appreciation for fine work, for hand-made articles . . . all they had left was a depraved infatuation with machine-made junk, embroideries that unravel, that melt and peel when you wash them . . . Why insist on making beautiful things? . . . That's what the ladies wanted. Flashy stuff . . . gingerbread . . . horrors . . . rubbish from the bargain counter . . . Fine lace was a thing of the past . . ."

~~ from Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Iain Levison update

Scots-Philadelphian and old friend of L.U.S.K. Iain Levison continues to publish novels in French translation. As you can see, many of his books are also available in English, German, and other languages.

a little more to eat

"To get a little more to eat, I did a little sleight-of-hand in the shops . . . They thought I was so simple they never suspected my tricks . . . I put on the innocent mischief act, I disappeared . . . I played peekaboo with Jongkind behind the posts and counters. I snitched a little sausage, an egg here and there, a few crackers, a banana or two . . . just a few odds and ends . . . Nobody ever bothered me . . ."

~~ from Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

enough to eat

"A school that gave you enough to eat would go bankrupt . . . They've got to watch their step . . . I made up for it on the porridge, there I was ruthless . . . I took advantage of my strength, and I was even worse with the marmalade . . . There was a little saucerful for four of us, I gobbled it up all by myself, straight out of the dish . . . I did away with it before anybody could see what was happening . . . The others could gripe all they pleased, I never answered . . . why should I have? . . . You could have all the tea you wanted, it warms you, it bloats you, it's perfumed water, not bad, but it makes you even hungrier. When the tempest went on for a long time, when the whole hilltop roared for days on end, I dug into the sugar bowl . . . with a tablespoon or even my bare hands. It was yellow and sticky, it gave me strength . . ."

~~ from Death on the Installment Plan by Louis-Ferdinand Celine

Childhood in the Seventies

Michael Weingrad's poem "Childhood in the Seventies" covers Sesame Street to Quincy.

from "A Tormenting Day"

"[W]hen they kill thousands, we say it is painful, inhuman, beastly; and when seven are killed we say almost the same thing. Where is the proportion? [. . .]

Not only have we lost everything else, now we have also lost our sense of proportion. We cry for 1,000 just as for 10,000. Did we then mourn less for the 30,000 annihilated Vilna Jews than for the hundreds of thousands of Warsaw Jews? . . .

As Heine says:

Jewry is not a people--it is a misfortune. We are drowning in that misfortune and forgetting what is white and what is black. Is it any wonder?"

~~ from The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps, 1939—1944 by Herman Kruk

Consider the bucket kicked

 once again.

"Wilson" by Steve Hussy

"He touched my arm and something switched inside. He was suddenly inside my skin, my fingernails in my brain. He was no worse than other bosses, nothing special, no... he was just HERE. I felt hugely disgusted by everything about him.

"The way his grey eyes didn't blink enough. His plastic hair and the tiny suits he wore. The way he squinted when he fake smiled at me. His satisfied laugh, the noise it made in his throat. The smell of coffee and shit on his breath. His look of untroubled indifference."

~~ from "Wilson" by Steve Hussy" in The Savage Kick Literary Magazine: The Early Years, Issues #1, #2, #3, #4

Americans are completely full . . .

"Because he lost money there, I agree with Mr. Kim. Egyptians are full of shit.

"So are Australians, Malaysians, and Indians. For that matter, Africans are full of shit. Especially South Africans. And Americans. Americans are completely full of shit. So full of shit it flows over their borders, filling Canadians and Mexicans with shit. It dribbles all the way down the continent: Nicaraguans and Panamanians are full of shit. It bleeds over the canal: Argentina, Brazilians are full of shit. Even in Antarctica, the penguins. The fucking penguins, I tell Mr. Kim, are totally full of shit."

~~ from "Toothpick Whore" by Peter Wollman in The Savage Kick Literary Magazine: The Early Years, Issues #1, #2, #3, #4