The Hammock Papers: Unusual.

29 October 2022

Unusual.

OCTOBER 1891

We have had no good fortune since there arrived here the autumn carnival. It seems strange to speak of such things in these enlightened days. A poor, lame servant girl went to the fortuneteller to inquire how she might run. Her leg mended ... and then she ran mad.

It seems they destroy people by granting their dearest wishes, as has been the way of the devil since God created the world. Old folks of this town say they remember such a carnival of evil visiting many autumns past in the days of their youth.

The traveling people swore they would return, some other autumn. Each time their visit ended with a most unusual storm ..."

The 1983 film-adaptation of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes ...

With great appreciation to my friend, Kurt, who introduced me to Bradbury many, many years ago.

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MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL