” You rarely hear writers talk about the editing process,’ he says. ‘But editing is everything. The writing itself is no big deal. The editing, and even more than that, the self-doubt, is excruciating. It’s like the difference between having a crush and a marriage. Crushes come easily, they’re intense, and you want to have them as much as you can. But then, with a marriage, it’s like, OK, what does this person’s farts smell like? “

Jonathan Safran Foer, in: The Observer

” Sometimes PRs unwittingly give you a clue as to the story - ‘Whatever you do, don’t ask about her sister.’ ‘Of course,’ you say gravely, while mentally shrieking, ‘Her sister? What about her sister?’ You go haring back to the cuttings to find whether her sister is an axe murderess - what it usually means is that the sister has made some disobliging comments about the star. But sometimes it’s odder than that. Tina Brown recently claimed that a PR rang her at Talk magazine demanding a letter ‘with assurances that nowhere in our story about a particular star will we include the detail that the celebrity “bleaches her asshole”‘. Of course, being Tina Brown, she didn’t reveal who the star was - so now I can’t look at a picture of a celeb without wondering, ‘Does she bleach her asshole? “

Lynn Barber, Caution: big name ahead

” De psychiater hat ris tsjin my sein: al dy boeken dy ‘t jo skreaun hawwe, dêr binne jo ek neat mei opsketten, wol? Ik tink dat er my út ‘e tint lokje woe, of faaks wie er wol nidich op my om ‘t ik gjin belangstelling hie foar syn fak. Mar as ik de auto nei de garaazje bring, dan hingje ik ek net oer de moter mei allerhande suggestjes en fermoedens en ferklearringen. De monteur moat him der mar mei rêde en ik drink in kop kofje. Sa ek as ik myn psyche nei de psychiater bring, dan moat dy man him dêr mei rêde, dêr hat er foar trochleard en dêr wurdt er foar betelle.

Bin ik wat opsketten mei al dy boeken. No nee, eigentlik net. Wat ha je deroan dat je tsien titels op je namme ha? Ik haw in skoftlang dochs wol tige teloarsteld west yn ‘e literatuer, of leaver sein: myn bydrage ta de Fryske literatuer en de mjitte fan ‘e befrediging dy’t it dêr yn fûn. [...] “

Trinus Riemersma, Wat sjit men der mei op?

” Op de bouwplaats zijn voorschriften over het maximaal te tillen gewicht. TNO wil onderzoeken of er ook maxima kunnen worden gesteld aan de hoeveelheid informatie die een brein mag verwerken.”

Bwoewahahahaha.

Tien doe-het- zelf-tips om de stress te lijf te gaan.

” I take this time to inform the House tongue in cheek that I have just been informed by an intelligence agency that the Netherlands are preparing for an invasion by the United States in response to the bill now before us. I have a note from Harry DeWit, counselor of cultural affairs, Netherlands Embassy saying, “We are quite alarmed to hear about the impending invasion of the Netherlands. Our military is on high alert. We would really value you forwarding any news and relevant information as soon as it comes to your attention and, in particular, as it regards the timing. I would like to be able to notify my superiors at the ministry prior to any invasion, and by doing so, I hope to improve my chances for promotion. I would appreciate your contacting me at your earliest convenience.”
He further illustrated his point with a visual (see below), “I have a chart here which I showed my colleagues yesterday labeled ‘Tom DeLay’s Proposed Invasion of the Netherlands.’ It shows that perhaps we might do it by sea, we might do it by air, we might involve paratroopers. To make sure that this time, the gentleman from Texas knows where the Hague is, we have listed it on the map. I do not know what military force the Netherlands would use to repel our invasion, but I assume they will use something.”"

the American Servicemembers’ Protection Act

” Fifty years ago, it took a Nobel Prize to get the press and public to pay attention to a crank theory like Linus Pauling’s notion that vitamin C could prevent the common cold. But, increasingly, all it seems to require is a degree in some field related to science and an idea off-the-wall enough to make a good headline–and get the attention of well-heeled backers who find your ideas attractive. “

Gunslinger science

Trop de vanité, trop d’impatience.

Je ne veux pas me mettre moi-même en avant, mais ça m’ennuie qu’on ne vienne pas me chercher par la main de disant : « Voilà l’homme qu’il nous faut. » D’ailleurs, je refuserais de suivre.

J’aime les belles idées. Je souffre, à les voir servir d’étiquettes à des hommes qui ne sont pas beaux.

Je raisonne ainsi : puisque je n’arrive pas à être un brave homme, il n’y a point de brave homme.

Je feins d’écouter, mais ce n’est pas pour entendre, car je n’écoute pas et je souffre de ne point parler.

Je veux être franc et je dis faux.

Il y a des choses que je m’efforce de ne pas dire, mais je souhaite qu’on les devine.

En somme, je souffre surtout de n’être pas compris et de ne pas pouvoir être ce qu’à mes moments de noblesse clairvoyante je voudrais être.

Trop, trop de vanité.

Jules Renard, 16 avril 1906

” Mencken continues. Government “invades his liberty and collars his money in order to protect him, but in actuality, it always makes a stiff profit on the exchange. This profit represents the income of the professional politicians, nine-tenths of whom are professional rogues.” That was then. The rogues are smoother now and often endearing on television. They are also no longer paid for by such chicken feed as kickbacks on city contracts. Rather, they are the proud employees of the bankers and the military industrial procurers who have bought them their offices, both square and oval. But though we are worse off than in Mencken’s day, he was at least able to give one cheer for the Constitution, or at least for the idea of such a document, as a kind of stoplight: “So far you may go, but no further. No matter what excuse or provocation, you may not invade certain rights, or pass certain kinds of laws.”

” Inevitably, Mencken’s journalism is filled with stories of how our enumerated rights are constantly being evaded or struck down because it is the reflexive tactic of the politicians “to invade the Constitution stealthily, and then wait to see what happens. If nothing happens they go on more boldly; if there is a protest they reply hotly that the Constitution is worn out and absurd, and that progress is impossible under the dead hand. This is the time to watch them especially.” “

Foreword to The Impossible H.L. Mencken

” Snoep verstandig, eet een appel? Vergeet het maar. De combinatie van zuur en natuurlijke suikers, die tijdens het kauwen nog eens lekker door je mond worden verspreid, is veel schadelijker voor het glazuur dan een keer per dag een stuk chocola te eten, zo vinden veel tandartsen. De Nederlandse Maatschappij tot bevordering der Tandheelkunde adviseert zelfs om na het eten van een appel de mond met water te spoelen. “

Intermediair, Zoet is goed

A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot’s activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but “pervades and regulates the whole.” He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.

Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s dictionary[1911].

School initiates, too, the Myth of Unending Consumption. This modern myth is grounded in the belief that process inevitably produces something of value and, therefore, production necessarily produces demand. School teaches us that instruction produces learning. The existence of schools produces the demand for schooling. Once we have learned to need school, all our activities tend to take the shape of client relationships to other specialized institutions. Once the self-taught man or woman has been discredited, all nonprofessional activity is rendered suspect. In school we are taught that valuable learning is the result of attendance; that the value of learning increases with the amount of input; and, finally, that this value can be measured and documented by grades and certificates.

In fact, learning is the human activity which least needs manipulation by others. Most learning is not the result of instruction. It is rather the result of unhampered participation in a meaningful setting. Most people learn best by being “with it,” yet school makes them identify their personal, cognitive growth with elaborate planning and manipulation.

Once a man or woman has accepted the need for school, he or she is easy prey for other institutions. Once young people have allowed their imaginations to be formed by curricular instruction, they are conditioned to institutional planning of every sort. “Instruction” smothers the horizon of their imaginations. They cannot be betrayed, but only short-changed, because they have been taught to substitute expectations for hope. They will no longer be surprised, for good or ill, by other people, because they have been taught what to expect from every other person who has been taught as they were. This is true in the case of another person or in the case of a machine.

Ivan Illich, Ritualization of Progress

Botulinum toxin is ”the most poisonous substance known,” according to The Journal of the American Medical Association. A single gram, evenly dispersed, could kill more than one million people, causing ‘’symmetric, descending, flaccid paralysis” and eventually cutting off its victims’ power to breathe, swallow, communicate or see, while leaving their cognition all too intact.

One day about 12 years ago, Pat Wexler propped up a hand mirror, filled a syringe with a highly diluted form of the stuff and injected it in her forehead. As she expected, her forehead smoothed out like a sheet pulled taut. The shot paralyzed the muscles that draw the brow into a furrow, leaving the opposing muscles free to lift the skin and brows up toward the hairline.

The Seductress of Vanity
[registration might be necessary]

” I read much less than I used to do; I think much more. Yet what is the use of thought which can no longer serve to direct life? Better perhaps to read and read incessantly, losing one’s futile self in the activity of other minds. “

George Gissing, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft

Though this sort of thing went on every other night or very near it still Stephen’s feelings got the better of him in a sense though he knew that Corley’s brandnew rigmarole on a par with the others was hardly deserving of much credence. However haud ignarus malorum miseris succurrere disco etcetera as the Latin poet remarks especially as luck would have it he got paid his screw after every middle of the month on the sixteenth which was the date of the month as a matter of fact though a good bit of the wherewithal was demolished. But the cream of the joke was nothing would get it out of Corley’s head that he was living in affluence and hadn’t a thing to do but hand out the needful. Whereas. He put his hand in a pocket anyhow not with the idea of finding any food there but thinking he might lend him anything up to a bob or so in lieu so that he might endeavour at all events and get sufficient to eat but the result was in the negative for, to his chagrin, he found his cash missing.

James Joyce, Ulysses

” Naast het bureau van Iburg staat een metershoge stapel spannende manuscripten. Hij plukt er lukraak wat uit: een verhaal over een bendeleider die El Cappuccino heet, titels als Derrick bij nacht en Moord in de Ardennen. Een Big Brother-thriller over een rijke man in een kasteel vol camera’s. Overal vallen de doden bij bosjes. Verder een intrige over mensen die door een wetenschappelijk experiment in kabouters veranderen. Iburg zucht diep. ,,Hier nog eentje over een schurkenbende die het heeft voorzien op bejaarden. Tja, dat leest toch geen hond. Dan denk ik: gewoon afwachten, oude mensen gaan vanzelf een keer dood.” “

Anne Versloot, ‘Verhip, een lijk’, in: De Standaard 13 vi 2002

” But what really incensed the Americans was the moment when a supposedly impartial linesman openly massaged Tiriac’s cramping leg and, unavailingly, urged him on to victory. “

Jon Henderson, The Observer

” Past participants will be happy to hear that we have a brand new javelin this year. “

Nudist World Domination

” When North Korea entered World Cup legend with one of the competition’s unlikeliest upsets at Italy’s expense 36 years ago, news of it was censored in the South. As Seo Soo Min wrote in the Korean Times : ‘As ridiculous as it sounds, we scratched our heads at the time wondering why there were only seven teams through to the last eight.’ “

Guus Mania

I still have to look at the whole Velvet Underground period and balance it off. To see what was achieved since and before, and try to understand what happened with time. One of the things that you regret most is the amount of time that went into experimenting and asking: ‘Did you prove or disprove the theorem in the end?’ The theorem is: ‘Are you really the person you think you are?’ And the answer is ‘Yes.’

John Cale, This much I know

Our systematic capacity for change means that we are constantly in transit. We live in an upgrade culture, in which our satisfaction with our TV, computer or car is overshadowed by the knowledge that the next big thing is only just around the corner. Innovation breeds uncertainty and dissatisfaction in equal measure. When the first aeroplane flew over New York, millions flocked on to the streets to watch it. Twenty years later, crowds would only gather to watch planes when they performed daredevil stunts. The internet was fascinating in 1995 and boring five years later.

Charles Leadbeater, Spreading alarm is good business

Such excitement, though at this moment I am trying to facilitate ingress to a packet of Skittles and by the time I surface Cate Blanchett is on screen, strolling about a woodland glade flaunting a pair of prosthetic ears and playing a beautiful cursed enchantress, forever doomed by the mephitic powers of Gothvalium to walk with the sun behind her so everyone can see through her dress. Cate has much wisdom to impart involving the use of a magic drinking fountain in which can be seen next week’s racing results.

Anyway, the film goes on for months until, before you know it, everyone has stopped on a hilltop and the credits roll.

Phil Hogan