Botched & Ecstatic

St. Justin Martyr. Millenarian, waiting for the Apocalypse ca. 165 AD. Flogged, beheaded. Patron of apologists.

Photo 31 May 246 notes

laphamsquarterly:

From the always cereberal, sometimes hay-feverish LQ contributor Colin Dickey, George Beard’s chart of American Nervousness from 1881.
How are you feeling today?

From the always cereberal, sometimes hay-feverish LQ contributor Colin Dickey, George Beard’s chart of American Nervousness from 1881.

How are you feeling today?

via Lapham's Quarterly.

Quote 29 May

During that period of three months when I wrote reviews, reading ten or more books a week, I made a discovery: that the interest with which I read these books had nothing to do with what I feel when I read—let’s say—Thomas Mann, the last of the writers in the old sense, who used the novel for philosophical statements about life. The point is, that the function of the novel seems to be changing; it has become an outpost of journalism; we read novels for information about areas of life we don’t know—Nigeria, South Africa, the American army, a coal mining village, coteries in Chelsea, etc. We read to find out what is going on. One novel in five hundred or a thousand has the quality a novel should have to make it a novel—the quality of philosophy. I find that I read with the same kind of curiosity most novels, and a book of reportage. Most novels, if they are successful at all, are original in the sense that they report the existence of an area of society, a type of person, not yet admitted to the general literate consciousness. The novel has become a function of the fragmented society, the fragmented consciousness. Human beings are so divided, are becoming more and more divided, and more subdivided in themselves, reflecting the world, that they reach out desperately, not knowing they do it, for information about other groups inside their own country, let alone about groups about other countries. It is a blind grasping out for their own wholeness, and the novel-report is a means towards it.

— Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook

Quote 22 May

Baudelaire wrote no detective story because, given the structure of his instincts, it was impossible for him to identify with the detective. In him, the calculating, constructive element was on the side of the asocial and had become an integral part of cruelty.

— Walter Benjamin

Quote 28 Apr

She holds forth in a kind of underground lecture room in Astor Place. The assemblage, its subterraneous nature, the dim lights, the hard-working, thoughtful physiognomies of everyone present quite realised my idea of the meetings of the early Christians in the Catacombs, although the only proscription under which the Hatch disciples labour is the necessity of paying 10 cents at the door. Three individuals from the audience form themselves into a committee to select a subject for Cora to discuss… They chose: ‘the Evidence of the continued existence of the Spirit after death.’ For some moments Cora remained motionless… Then she began to speak. Well, the long and short of it is, that the whole thing was a string of such arrant platitudes, that after about an hour of it, when there seemed to be no signs of a let-up we turned and fled. So much for Cora.

— Henry James to Thomas Sergeant Perry, November 1, 1863

Text 25 Apr Margaret Risley Solves the Great Problem

July 13, 1885, San Jose Daily News
STRYCHNINE
*
Margaret Risley Solves the Great Problem
*
She is Found Dead Among the Ruins of her Property in East San Jose

Margaret Ann Risley has resided alone in East San Jose on Monroe street and about two hundred yards south of Santa Clara avenue, during the past year and a half.

She was a native of Ireland and about fifty years of age.

She was found dead in her bed about 8 o’clock yesterday morning under circumstances which left no room to doubt that it was a case of suicide by strychnine poisoning.
Some time ago, Mrs. Risley said to Mrs. Shelbourne, her nearest neighbor: “When I get up every morning, I will open the backdoor immediately. If you do not see it opened there will be something the matter, and I hope you will come over at once.”

Mrs. Shelbourne attached no special response to the remark, for the reason that it seemed quite natural that Mrs. Risley might be ill at any time, and require assistance. About 11 o’clock last Saturday night, some of the neighbors heard noises at Mrs. Risley’s house as if someone was chopping wood, but nothing was thought of it, because it was known that Mrs. Risley was in the habit of cutting wood at night.

About 8 o’clock yesterday morning, a young lady residing in the vicinity was going to Mrs. Shelbourne’s for milk, and in passing the Risley house she noticed that all of the fruit trees surrounding the house were sawed off within a few inches of the ground; the chickens and ducks were locked in the chicken house, and there was no signs of life in the house.

The young lady gave alarm, and in a few moments a crowd has gathered at the house.
The Risley residence is a small unpainted redwood house containing two rooms; the front one being used as a kitchen and general living room, and the other as the bedroom. The doors were locked and the windows were securely fastened. One of the neighbors, however, looking through the kitchen window and saw the chairs, tables and other articles of furniture piled in the middle of the floor, broken and sawed to pieces.
One of the windows was immediately pried off and Eddie Ewing a compositor on the News who resides in the vicinity, climbed through the window and stepped to the door of the bedroom. He glanced quickly towards the bed and saw the stiffened corpse of Mrs. Risley lying upon it.

The hands were clenched and raised above the body, and the eyes were staring towards the ceiling. Eddie opened the front door and admitted the crowd. A messenger was sent immediately to the Coroner and the Sheriff, and Deputy Sheriff Stone was soon as the place accompanied by Coroner Harris. Officers Allen and Stewart came next and a thorough search of the premises was made. Two empty strychnine vials were found; one in the stove and the other in the kitchen. The photographs of a middle aged man and two young men were also found and identified as the husband and two sons of the deceased.

The body was at once removed to the morgue and an inquest held this morning.
Dr. Hammond who held a post mortem examination yesterday, stated that the lungs and brain were badly congested and in his opinion, death was caused by an overdose of strychnine. The jury found a verdict to that effect. The deceased resided for several years with her husband and children in a very comfortable home on McLaughlin Avenue about three miles southeast of the city. As the result of domestic trouble she was divorced several years ago and the two children were given to the husband who is now residing with the sons in San Luis Obispo County. It is said that a brother of deceased is a resident of San Francisco, and connected in some way with St. Mary’s College. The testimony at the inquest show that Mrs. Risley was a native of Ireland, and about 52 years of age.

It is believed that her object in destroying the trees and other property was to prevent her former husband from deriving any benefit from it.

Quote 28 Mar

The book held me; I leaned against it. I was waiting to be absorbed. I wanted to feel its mouth on me, its teeth break the surface of my skin—to witness myself grow smaller, dividing, falling through the tunnel of the book, fully inside it, until I vanished from here and existed there only—

— Renee Gladman, Event Factory

Quote 23 Mar

If only traveling were about showing off your language skills, if only it did not also demand a certain amount of body communication, of outright singing and dancing—I think I would be absolutely global by now.

— Renee Gladman, Event Factory

Quote 4 Mar 3 notes

If any of us were as well taken care of as the sentences of Henry James, we’d never long for another, never wander away: where else would we receive such constant attention, our thoughts anticipated, our feelings understood? Who else would robe us so richly, take us to the best places, or guard our virtue as his own and defend our character in every situation? If we were his sentences, we’d sing ourselves though we were dying and about to be extinguished, since the silence which would follow our passing would not be like the pause left behind by a noisy train. it would be a memorial, well-remarked grave, just as the Master has assured us death itself is: the distinguished thing.

— William Gass, On Being Blue

Quote 18 Feb

As soon as the witch finder arrived, the magistrates sent their crier through the town, ringing the bell, & shouting that anyone wishing to lodge a complaint against a woman for being a witch should bring the complaint to the person appointed. Thirty women were brought into the Town Hall & stripped, & pins were then publicly thrust into their bodies. Most of them were found guilty.

— C. L’Estrange Ewen, 17th century

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