spent the weekend at my father's, seen here proudly displaying the result of an as-seen-on-tv pineapple slicer.
recorded his two and a half hour-long oral history. my biographer will have it easy. now his will too.
think evaporation is a bizarro property of the universe. also that water expands rather than contracts when turned to ice; other elements just don't do that.
watched mongol - kind of like batman begins, but for ghengis khan. constant fighting on the central asian steppes. over what? population pressure, probably. perpetual war between tribes has mostly gone extinct, but when we run out of resources, do we fall back into the spiral of deadly neighborhood feuds?
ate dishes from around the french-speaking world and listened to cape verdean music at the french embassy. oh and bluegrass thursday, a helluvalotta fun.
have nothing if not health.
read my name is red, by nobel laureate orhan pamuk. a master of perspective.
nay, i wouldn't have believed i could take anyone's life, even if i'd been told so moments before i murdered that fool; and thus, my offense at times recedes from me like a foreign galleon disappearing on the horizon
only imbeciles are innocent
to avoid disappointment in art, one mustn't treat it as a career
one morning, i awoke to find that a giant of a man-god protect him, he was as tall as a minaret with hands like a lion's claws-had climbed up onto this branch of mine and hidden beneath my lush leaves together with the aforementioned hoja and, excuse the expression, they were going at it like dogs in heat. while the giant, whom i later realized was the devil, attended to his business with our hero, he was compassionately kissing his lovely ear and whispering into it, 'coffee is a sin, coffee is a vice...' accordingly, those who believe in the harmful effects of coffee, believe not in the commandments of our good religion, but in the devil himself
painting is the silence of thought and the music of sight
envy is the prime emotion in life
if i didn't exist, however, no one would be able to distinguish a good artist from a bad one, and this would lead to chaos among the miniaturists; they'd all be at each other's throats. so i haven't vanished. i've entered the purse of the most talented and intelligent of miniaturists and made my way here
the cold, which was enough to make a fox shit copper, drove into my bones
we were two men in love with the same woman; he was in front of me and completely unaware of my presence as we walked through the turning and twisting streets of istanbul, climbing and descending, we traveled like brethren through deserted streets given over to battling packs of street dogs, passed burnt ruins where jinns loitered, mosque courtyards where angels reclined on domes to sleep, beside cypress trees murmuring to the souls of the dead, beyond the edges of snow-covered cemeteries crowded with ghosts, just out of sight of brigands strangling their victims, passed endless shops, stables, dervish houses, candle works, leather works and stone walls; and as we made ground, i felt i wasn't following him at all, but rather, i was imitating him
like our own eyes which reflect light like a mirror and absorb it like a well
from story to history, from history to legend
if i were to advise them that they could extend this period by drinking coffee, i know quite well that some, because it was satan speaking, would do the exact opposite and refuse coffee entirely, or worse yet, stand on their heads and try pouring it into their asses
satan slyly boarding noah's ark
in the cities of the european franks, women roam about exposing not only their faces, but also their brightly shining hair (after their necks, their most attractive feature), their arms, their beautiful throats, and even, if what i've heard is true, a portion of their gorgeous legs; as a result, the men of those cities walk about with great difficulty, embarrassed and in extreme pain, because, you see, their front sides are always erect and this fact naturally leads to the paralysis of their society. undoubtedly, this is why each day the frank infidel surrenders another fortress to us ottomans