Well shit...

Been awhile. Found this quote from Vonnegut incredibly relatable in regard to folks who accuse me of "hating America."

To a book collector, you see, the true freedom of all books is somewhere on [their] shelves.

Damn right.

The inflated ego of the tyrant is a curse to himself and his world - no matter how his affairs may seem to prosper.

At page 7, I thought to myself, "I am really going to subject myself to this abuse." #hardbooks #preparingforbloomsday

"Don't you play the giddy ox with me!"

"I want to tell you my war..."

This book in a nutshell.

Here she is: Hypatia Belicia Cabral, the Third and Final Daughter. Suspicious, angry, scowling, uncommunicative, a wounded hunkering campesina, but with an expression and posture that shouted in bold, gothic letters: DEFIANT.

"The terrible thing the Party had done was to persuade you that mere impulses, mere feelings, were of no account, while at the same time robbing you of all power over the material world"

"Art is the Godhead as revealed in the works of man."

"The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. To think otherwise is to demean the Buddha - which is top demean oneself."

Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"

"Yossarian-the very sight of the name made him shudder. There were so many esses in it. It just had to be subversive. It was like the word subversive itself. It was like seditious and insidious too, and like socialist, suspicious, fascist and Communist."

"A book, at its most mundane, can be a loaded gun."

It seemed to me then - and to be honest, sir, seems to me still - that America was engaged only in posturing. As a society, you were unwilling to reflect upon the shared pain that united you with those who attacked you. You retreated into myths of your own difference, assumptions of your own superiority. And you acted out these beliefs on the stage of the world, so that the entire planet was rocked by the repercussions of your tantrums."

Reading the chapter on sanitation. Just read that there were only 1 billion people alive in 1850. We hit 7 billion in 2011. It's astounding how much we've grown as a species in 161 years. #insane

First American Edition!! #theologynerd

Kicking the new year off with a bang! Founder's Devil Dancer Triple IPA and An Insurrectionist Manifesto.

Got in one more poetry collection before year's end. Great stuff! Very heartwarming and reflective.

I've read this book six times since I first bought it in 2010,, once a year since then. It's funny how much I've grown since that first time, and how much I've changed, though the book hasn't. There's so much about Alex/Chris' story that I still love, though.

Excellent book about coming of age in an Era long before my own, but still completely relevant.

"What the hell kind of revolution have you got just tossing out big words that working class people can't understand"?

"Hell could easily be a chain hotel."

It's fascinating how Wallace makes the mundane seem so important, especially in an essay about the events of 9/11 in a small town in Iowa.