i just finished my latest jonathan kozol book and yesterday took henry miller with me to work since it's almost necessary that i read on the train...my commute is too long not to. i can only read and re-read those stupid jameson or reebok ads so many times before i want to grab a bottle of jameson and drink the whole thing in one gulp. ew. not really.
anyhow, every time i decide to read henry miller i wonder the same thing: how come i am not reading henry miller all the time. he's brilliant. and always timely. one of those people who was writing in such a seemingly different timeframe, yet everything he says is completely relatable . i believe they call that genius. trancendence. brilliance. said that one already...
for example:
"They buy and sell, buy and sell. For that they have to have the best rooms in the best hotels, the fastest, smoothest planes, the thickest, warmest overcoats, the biggest, fattest purses. We need their paper boxes, their buttons, their synthetic furs, their rubber goods, their hosiery, their plastic this and that. We need the banker, his genius for taking our money and making himself rich. The insurance man, his policies, his talk of security and dividends- we need him too. Do we? I don't see that we need any of these vultures. I don't see that we need any of these cities, these hell-holes I've been in. I don't think we need a two-ocean fleet either. I saw the Mannerheim Line in the movies. I saw how the Russians pulverized it. I learned the lesson. Did you? Tell me what it is man can build, to protect himself, which other men cannot destroy? What are we trying to defend? Only what is old, useless, dead, indefensible. Every defense is a provocation to assault. Why not surrender? Why not give- give all? It's so damned practical, so throughly effective and disarming. Here we are, we the people of the United States: the greatest people on Earth, so we think. We have everything- everything it takes to make people happy. We have land, water, sky, and all that goes with it. We could become the great shining example of the world; we could radiate peace, joy, power, benevolence. But there are ghosts all about, ghosts whom we can't seem to lay hands on. We are not happy, not contented, not radiant, not fearless. We bring miracles about and we sit in the sky taking asprin and talking paper boxes..."
he's great.
also great, in a different fashion, is LeBron James. You may know him as King James, The Second Coming, Bron-Bron, etc. etc.
regardless, game one opens tonight against san antonio, and i hope the fighting lebrons, also known as lebron and the mutts, take it down. we are all witnesses...
