“There is an innocence in admiration.”

—F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, §118 (excerpt).

Chance governs all.

Grant Wood, American gothic

Miami Vice star Don Johnson once asked Hunter S. Thompson to answer old Zen philosophical question: 'What is the sound of one hand clapping?' Hunter S. Thompson answered by reaching up and slapping Johnson upside his head.

When the language of advertising and personal branding enjoins you to “be yourself,” what it really means is “be more yourself,” where “yourself” is a consistent and recognizable pattern of habits, desires, and drives that can be more easily advertised to and appropriated, like units of capital.

De Dodendraad op de Belgisch-Nederlandse Grens (The Deathwire on the Belgian-Dutch Border) by Albert Hahn (1915)

“The will to overcome an affect is ultimately only the will of another, or of several other, affects.”

—F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, §117.

Arlene Tiger (née Arlene Sue Farber) in Female Animal, 1970

Revolver hidden in book, Vancouver, 1922

“As soon as you begin to ask the question, Who loves me? you are completely screwed, because the next question is How Much? and then it is hundreds of hours later, and you are still hunched over your flowcharts and abacus, trying to decide if you have gotten enough. This is the loneliest job in the world: to be an accountant of the heart. It is late at night. You are by yourself, and all around you, you can hear the sounds of people moving in and out of love, pushing the turnstiles, putting their coins in the slots, paying the price which is asked, which constantly changes. No one knows why.”

— Tony Hoagland, The loneliest job in the world