Influence

Couple of snippets from someone else:

Four quotes from "The Water in Between" (great book):

I actually identified with the author quite a lot. The jacket says that he is trying to burn away his failings, but although we might have shared the intent, I don't believe either of us was / is striving for that in the end. I think anyone who goes on a long trip and is somewhat introspective goes back and forth a bit. I know that I have been.

"This was precisely what I had longed for, those winter nights in the little army house. The days were bright and beautiful, the water streamed under the boat, the sails swelled out in a broad reach. I looked at the sea and saw a grey haze on the horizon. It was that haze that I stared at. A thousand miles ahead was the end of the ocean. The grey on the edge of the water was where I was going and what I thought about. I was aware even as I was doing it that it was a mistake to disregard the accessible beauty in favour of the distant and unseen, assuming it to be lovelier than the immediate. But the logic of escape is premised on this error."

That's me.

"It is so hard to abandon the sense of schedule - until it abandons you in the face of large and implacable settings. The ocean just goes on and on and contains its own momentum, a rhythm unimpressed by anything else."

"Languor is underrated. It is not possible to be immobile in modern urban society except by dint of constant effort. Holding on tightly to the riverbank and fighting the current is not languor. Nobody likes that. But bone-lazy idleness. hours and hours spent staring at the sky and remembering books and birthdays and great kisses: this is a pure pleasure that eludes the productive in all their confident superiority. Languor is sunny and hot. It is at home near the sea and is best appreciated in environments of beauty and limited promise. It contains within it the idea of boredom, but is also coloured by idle fancy, and the understanding that some things proceed best with limited attention. Fishing, for instance. If you're always reeling in and checking your bait, you'll worsen your chances. Relax."

"But an aspiration begins with the conceit that things could be better, and the first step in realizing that aspiration is pretending that they are."

There was also a great quote about him tying the anchor with rope instead of chain. He didn't realize the importance of such things. Good lesson, literally and figuratively.

Ani DiFranco has been on heavy rotation. She doesn't disappoint. "Decree" From the album Reprive:

"and Cancer, the great teacher
has been opening schools
downstream from every factory, still
everywhere fools are squinting into microscopes
researching cells
trying to figure out a way we can all live in hell.

Well step back, look up, you'll see I'm dimming the sun, but you wont really know - thats a good little one.

Cuz Daddy knows best here
This is the news
In 90 second segments, officially produced
and aired again and again and again
by little black and white pawns of the network yesmen.

While the stars are going out
and the stripes are getting bent."


And the brilliance of Negativeland. (Whose samples don't really translate to written form, but apparently I have nothing but time.). "The Gun and the Bible" from the album Free:

"Out of the Wilderness.
He said.
carved this nation.
out of the wilderness.

The bible and the sub machine gun.

The sub machine gun. brass knuckles. knives. bayonets. pistols. axe handles. shotguns. carbines.

America was built on a gun

Its good to see you all of you there toting guns he said. America was built on a gun. The gun. The gun and a bible carved this nation out of the wilderness.

Mayor Dukes, if you want our guns come and get them.

Your bullet can't see red. You are the eyes, the mind and the will of every bullet that you fire. Reason enough to take great care. And reason enough to remember again that liquor always comes later... after the guns are cleaned and racked. Thats the time to relax with a drink. The only time.

This is the wild side of life isn't it Wilkus?
"