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7154e0a
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Pia was chopping up an enormous cabbage, a cabbage big as a basketball. The cabbage was of an extraordinary size. It was a big cabbage. "That's a big cabbage," Edward said. "Big," Pia said." --
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Donald Barthelme |
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219c754
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He gives her his Art History lecture.
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humor
art-history
visitors
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Donald Barthelme |
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bfa89b6
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Of course we did everything right, insofar as we were able to imagine what "right" was."
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Donald Barthelme |
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0d8b0d8
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Yes, the saint was underrated quite a bit, then, mostly by people who didn't like things that were ineffable... ...a lot of people don't like things that are unearthly, the things of this earth are good enough for them, and they don't mind telling you so. "If he'd just go out and get a job, like everybody else, then he could be saintly all day long..." --from "The Temptations of St. Anthony," by Donald Barthelme"
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humor
sainthood
short-story
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Donald Barthelme |
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29efa62
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He is mad about being small when you were big, but no, that's not it, he is mad about being helpless when you were powerful, but no, not that either, he is mad about being contingent when you were necessary, not quite it, he is insane because when he loved you, you didn't notice.
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Donald Barthelme |
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ffe2afd
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I spoke to Sylvia. "Do you think this is a good life?"
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Donald Barthelme |
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e35469a
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This is one of the most crucial things that the newcomer needs to know about Barthelme. Though his stuff is sometimes difficult to puncture, and sometimes difficult to follow, while you're finding your way, he's always grinning at you in a warm and very compassionate way. The reader gets the feeling that the author is a nice man. That he knows when he's being difficult and when he's full of shit. Knows how much of this and how much of that ..
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Donald Barthelme |
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6c8239f
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Have you noticed the weather? asked Thomas. All turned to look for the weather.
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Donald Barthelme |
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9007206
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mead for my men!
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happy-playgrounds
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Donald Barthelme |
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3f61ba2
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And Harold came into Perpetua's apartment. He said, 'I just want to know one thing. Are you happy?' 'Sure,' Perpetua said. (Donald Barthelme, "Perpetua")"
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Donald Barthelme |
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bfee842
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I sit down on the curb, outside the Opera. People passing look at me. I will wait here for a hundred years. Or until the hot meat of romance is cooled by the dull gravy of common sense once more
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Donald Barthelme |
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b4b1c9e
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Dun-colored fathers tend to shy at obstacles, and therefore you do not want a father of this color, because life, in one sense, is nothing but obstacles, and his continual shying will reduce your nerves to grease.
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Donald Barthelme |
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8203f21
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My mother was a royal virgin," Peterson said, "and my father a shower of gold. My childhood was pastoral and energetic and rich in experiences which developed my character. As a young man I was noble in reason, infinite in faculty, in form express and admirable, and in apprehension..." Peterson went on and on and although he was, in a sense, lying, in a sense he was not."
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Donald Barthelme |
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12fced8
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Well, what shall I do next? What is the next thing demanded of me by history?
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Donald Barthelme |
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21183e1
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Of course we had hoped that he would take up his sword as part of the President's war on poetry. The time is ripe for that. The root causes of poetry have been studied and studied. And now that we know that pockets of poetry still exist in our great country, especially in the large urban centers, we ought to be able to wash it out totally in one generation, if we put our backs into it.
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Donald Barthelme |
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288156c
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your father and I were in the trenches together, in the Great War. That was a war all right. Oh I know there have been other wars since, better-publisized ones, more expensive ones perhaps, but our war is the one I'll always remember. Our war is the one that means war to me.
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Donald Barthelme |
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b271854
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Our becoming is done.
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Donald Barthelme |
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46e859a
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The snow is coming," she said. "Soon it will be snow time. Together then as in other snow times. Drinking busthead 'round the fire. Truth is a locked room that we knock the lock off from time to time, and then board up again. Tomorrow you will hurt me, and I will inform you that you have done so, and so on and so on. To hell with it. Come, viridian friend, come and sup with me." --
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Donald Barthelme |
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89b6cef
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Some fathers have made themselves over into convincing replicas of beautiful sea animals, and some into convincing replicas of people they hated as children. Some fathers are goats, some are milk, some teach Spanish in cloisters, some are exceptions, some are capable of attacking world economic problems and killing them, but have not yet done so, they are waiting for one last vital piece of data. Some fathers strut but most do not, except i..
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Donald Barthelme |
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92d92c1
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I have to admit we are mired in the most exquisite mysterious muck. This muck heaves and palpitates. It is multi-directional and has a mayor.
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Donald Barthelme |
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3da38b9
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On the other hand I myself have impulses toward violence uneasily concealed. Especially when I look out of the window at the men and women, walking along in the course of a day because I spend so much time, as we all do, looking out of windows to determine what is out there, and what should be done about it.
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Donald Barthelme |
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fa02ac2
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never figured out what sort of animal I was
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Donald Barthelme |
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8e0f312
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Driving Horace and Margot smoothly to the Armory, the new cabdriver thought about basketball. Why do they always applaud the man who makes the shot? Why don't they applaud the ball? It is the ball that actually goes into the net. The man doesn't go into the net. Never have I seen a man going into the net.
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Donald Barthelme |
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bac8af2
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He's indifferent.' 'I don't think he's indifferent. He fucks well enough. Not the best I've ever seen.' 'He can't tell us apart.' 'Oh I don't think that's true. He asked me when my birthday was.' 'What'd you tell him?' 'I told him. July third.' 'Well what does that prove?' 'He's thoughtful. He can tell one from another. He's interested in us as individuals.' 'Maybe it's just a facade. Maybe he just knows what to do to make us think he cares..
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Donald Barthelme |
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1114714
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A hundred canes shattered in the sun, like a load of antihistamines falling out of an airplane.
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Donald Barthelme |
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83cd231
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It is true that I am part of the laughing-aristocrat structure, Charles said. I don't mean I am one of them. I mean I am their creature. They hold me in thrall. Laughing aristocrats who invented the cost-plus contract . . . Laughing aristocrats who invented the real estate broker . . . Laughing aristocrats who invented Formica . . . Laughing aristocrats wiping their surfaces clean with a damp cloth . . . Charles poured himself another brill..
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the-struggle
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Donald Barthelme |
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f898017
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I noticed that he was an Irish setter, rust-colored. He noticed that I was a Welsh sculptor, buff-colored (no, really, what did he notice? how does he think?) I reflected that he was probably a nice dog from a good home (bourgeois dog) but with certain unfortunate habits like jumping on people from high windows (rationalization: he is a member of the television generation and thus -)
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perspective
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Donald Barthelme |
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fdd5a75
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There were reactions. Some people found the balloon 'interesting'. As a response this seemed inadequate to the immensity of the balloon, the suddenness of its appearance over the city; on the other hand, in the absence of hysteria or other societally-induced anxiety, it must be judged a calm, 'mature' one. There was a certain amount of initial argumentation about the 'meaning' of the balloon; this subsided, because we have learned not to in..
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Donald Barthelme |
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7572903
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What you don't understand is, it's like somebody walks up to you and says, I have a battleship I can't use, would you like to have a battleship. And you say, yes yes, I've never had a battleship, I've always wanted one. And he says, it has four sixteen-inch guns forward, and a catapult for launching scout planes. And you say, I've always wanted to launch scout planes. And he says, it's yours, and then you have this battleship. And then you ..
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Donald Barthelme |
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f19672e
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97. I approached the symbol, with its layers of meaning, but when I touched it, it changed into only a beautiful princess. 98. I threw the beautiful princess headfirst down the mountain to my acquaintances. 99. Who could be relied upon to deal with her.
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symbolism
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Donald Barthelme |
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7b10f40
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So, this being the content of your happy hour, you decide to break your iron-clad rule, that rule of rules, and have eleven drinks instead of the modest nine with which you had been wont to stave off the song of twilight, when the lights are low, and the flickering shadows, etc., etc. But, opening the refrigerator, you discover that the slovely bitch has failed to fill up the ice trays so there is no more ice for your tenth and eleventh slo..
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happy-hour
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Donald Barthelme |
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98b6537
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Clean your face," I said to the child. "It's dirty." "It's not," the child said. "By God it is," I said, "filth adheres in ine areas which I shall enumerate." "That is because of the dough," the child said. "We were taking death masks." "Dough!" I exclaimed, shocked at the idea that the child had wasted flour and water and no doubt paper too in this lightsome pastime, taking death masks. "Death!" I exclaimed for added emphasis. "What do you..
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Donald Barthelme |
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38ac09c
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New artists have been obtained. These do not object to, and indeed argue enthusiastically for, the rationalization process. Production is up. Quality-control devices have been installed at those points where the interests of artists and audiences intersect. Shipping and distribution have been improved out of all recognition. (It is in this area, they say in Paraguay, that traditional practices were most blameworthy.) The rationalized art is..
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Donald Barthelme |
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ff3be11
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It seemed to proclaim itself a mystery, but one there was no point in solving - an ongoing low-grade mystery.
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Donald Barthelme |
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aa6fd11
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The first thing I did was make a mistake. I thought I had understood capitalism, but what I had done was assume an attitude -melancholy sadness- toward it.
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Donald Barthelme |
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10441ec
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It is a curiosity of writing about angels that, very often, one turns out to be writing about men.
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writing
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Donald Barthelme |
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3c77d7f
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Queremos que el Padre Muerto este muerto. Nos sentamos con los ojos llenos de lagrimas y deseamos que el Padre Muerto este muerto... y entretanto hacemos cosas asombrosas con las manos.
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Donald Barthelme |
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fee473b
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I visit my assistant mistress. "Well, Azalea," I say, sitting in the best chair, "what has happened to you since my last visit?" Azalea tells me what happened to her. She has covered a sofa, and written a novel. Jack has behaved badly. Roger has lost his job (replaced by an electric eye). Gigi's children are in the hospital being detoxified, all three. Azalea herself is dying of love. I stroke her buttocks, which are perfection, if you can ..
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Donald Barthelme |
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afb9d8d
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Truth, as Bergson knew, is a hard apple, whether one is throwing it or catching it.
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Donald Barthelme |
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c234aa8
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Smoke, rain, abulia. What can the concerned citizen do to fight the rise of capitalism, in his own community? Study of the tides of conflict and power in a system in which there is structural inequality is an important task. A knowledge of European intellectual history since 1789 provides a useful background. Information theory offers interesting new possibilities. Passion is helpful, especially those types of passion which are non licit. D..
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Donald Barthelme |
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2e94f26
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The trouble with capturing one is that that original gesture is almost impossible to equal or improve upon.
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Donald Barthelme |
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47bf231
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I myself," said Gibbon, "am slightly underdone in the personal worthlessness line. It was Papa's fault. He used no irony. The communications mix offered by the parent to the child is as you know twelve percent do this, eighty-two percent don't do that, and six percent huggles and endearments. That is standard. Now, to avoid boring himself or herself to death during this monition the parent enlivens the discourse with wit, usually irony of t..
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parenting
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Donald Barthelme |
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03954b4
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They were heading I judged for the Sixth Precinct. Had I had the black hat with me, and sufficient men and horses and lariats and .30-30s, and popular support from the masses and a workable revolutionary ideology and/or a viable myth pattern, I would have rescued them.
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Donald Barthelme |
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2c75479
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The mind carries you with it, away from what you are supposed to do, toward things that cannot be explained rationally, toward difficulty, lack of clarity, late-afternoon light.
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Donald Barthelme |