The hells move in cycles, no man can see his own end. The Gods have not returned. “They have never left us.” They have not returned.

— Ezra Pound, from The Cantos, 1970

It's not life, it's stagnation death-in-life.

Comet ZTF

C/2022 E3 (ZTF) on 27 January 2023.

“Everybody has experienced the defeat of their lives. Nobody has a life that worked out the way they wanted it to work out. We all begin as the hero of our own dramas, in centre stage, and inevitably life moves us out of centre stage, defeats the hero, overturns the plot and the strategy and we’re left on the sidelines, wondering why we no longer have a part, or want a part, in the whole damn thing. So everybody’s experienced this. When it’s presented to us sweetly, the feeling goes from heart to heart and we feel less isolated and we feel part of the great human chain, which is really involved with the recognition of defeat.”

— Leonard Cohen on why people enjoy listening to melancholy songs (from a BBC radio interview in 2007)

Mark Steinmetz, Lightning, Mississippi, 1994

When I was young, I believed in three things: Marxism, the redemptive power of cinema, and dynamite. Now I just believe in dynamite.

— Sergio Leone

From the book “How to Look Natural In Photos”

Beata Bartecka and Łukasz Rusznica
A curated collection of photos from the archive of the Polish secret police.