Cahokia Jazz Quotes

“What is being attempted here is a repetition of the strategy that worked in Texas and in California, last century, and in Hawaii only twenty or so years ago. Make trouble; demand outside intervention to restore order; when you get it, make sure that the order that is restored conveniently wipes away native power and native property rights. All in line with the great unspoken principle of American history, detective.”
― Francis Spufford, Cahokia Jazz

“threaded with the unmappable capillaries of a thousand alleyways.”
― Francis Spufford, Cahokia Jazz

“The world turns, but it is not a clockwork mechanism, Detective. It is a circular dance, from birth to death to resurrection, through arches of flowers, and arches of bread, and arches of skulls. We dance the turning world, and it dances us.”
― Francis Spufford, Cahokia Jazz

“On the way he passed under a crucifix. Just for a flash, a takouma Christ looked down at him. Eyes ancient, huge, impassive: used to the ways of the world and its blows. Used to there being soldiers at work at the cross's foot. Used to the logic by which a man was crucified so there should be no unrest in the city.”
― Francis Spufford, Cahokia Jazz

“...I also know that spring is caused by God's grace, in the form of the sun's rays, to touching this dark earth with new life: a sacred birth, a sacred return, which deserves all the singing, all the dancing, all the ceremony we can give to it. The world turns...a circular dance, from birth to death to resurrection, through arches of flowers, and arches of bread, and arches of skills. We dance the turning world, and it dances us.”
― Francis Spufford, Cahokia Jazz

“He heaved himself up, belly in his uniform shirt squeaking against the desk edge like a rubbed balloon, and led the way out.”
― Francis Spufford, Cahokia Jazz

“It wasn’t like you decided to talk and that opened all the privacies at once. There was container below container, and they had different locks.”
― Francis Spufford, Cahokia Jazz

“near the light fitting, and”
― Francis Spufford, Cahokia Jazz