Sunday, March 21, 2021

the bean lacks dignity and succotash is vulgar

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Above
Roy R. Behrens, Cross Purposes (© 2021). Digital montage.

•••

Charles Dudley Warner, “Ninth Week” in My Summer in a Garden. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1885—

There is no dignity in the bean. Corn, with no affectation of superiority, is, however, the child of song. It waves in all literature. But mix it with beans, and its high tone is gone. Succotash is vulgar.

•••

John Cage, Silence: Lectures and Writings. Wesleyan University Press, 1961—

The artist conscientiously moves in a direction which for some good reason he takes, putting one work in front of the other with the hope that he’ll arrive before death overtakes him.

•••

Don Marquis, Archy’s Life of Mehitabel. New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1938—

man eats the big fish
the big fish eat the
little fish
the little fish
eat insects
in the water
the water insects
eat the water plants
the water plants
eat mud
mud eats man.