letter opener made by U.S. silver manufacturer Dominick & Haff, New York, circa 1900.

“The neurotic opts out of life because he is having trouble maintaining his illusions about it, which proves nothing less than that life is possible only with illusions.”

— Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

Life, and Nothing More, Abbas Kiarostami, 1992

US Marines take a last look at a pin-up girl before landing on the Japanese held island of Betio in the Tarawa Atoll on November 20th of 1943.

Scrape the surface of language, and you will behold interstellar space and the skin that encloses it.

- Velimir Khlebnikov

Fiona Apple //  Seattle 1997-03-21,

Fallen Angels, Wong Kar Wai, 1995

He who hates himself is not humble.

Snowflake on a crow’s wing

Hope is the normal form of delirium

“We have no wish to enter into the kingdom of heaven, for we have become men, so we want the earth!”

—F. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: Part Four, “The Ass Festival,” §2 (edited excerpt).

The one that stands alone

And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn’t enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I’ve never been able to kill myself.

- Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Journey to the End of the Night