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I've been reading Simone Weil and I'm glad I found this book when I did. I really needed it. I've been feeling weighed down by the state of the world and family tragedies and dramas. But this book has helped to put some things back into perspective.
Here are some choice excerpts:
- "The tendency to spread evil beyond oneself: I still have it! Beings and things are not sacred enough to me. May I never sully anything even though I be utterly transformed into mud. To sully nothing, even in thought. Even in my worst moments I would not destroy a Greek statue or a fresco by Giotto. Why anything else then? Why, for example, a moment in the life of a human being who could have been happy for that moment?"
- "A king can pay out only imaginary rewards most of the time, or he would be insolvent. It is the same with religion at a certain level. Instead of receiving the smile of Louis XIV, we invent a god who smiles on us."
- "The future is a filler of void places. Sometimes the past also plays this part ('I used to be,' 'I once did this or that...'). But there are other cases when affliction makes the thought of happiness intolerable; then in robs the sufferer of his past.... The past and the future hinder the wholesome effect of affliction by providing an unlimited field for imaginary elevation. That is why the renunciation of the past and future is the first of all renunciations."
-"A person who is passionately fond of music may quite well be a perverted person–but I should find it hard to believe this of anyone who thirsted for Gregorian chanting."
- "It is a fault to wish to be understood before we have made ourselves clear to ourselves. It is to seek pleasures in friendships, and pleasures which are not deserved. It is something which corrupts even more than love. You would sell your soul for friendship. // Learn to thrust friendship aside, or rather the dream of friendship. To desire friendship is a great fault. Friendship should be a gratuitous joy like those afforded by art or life. We must refuse it so that we may be worthy to receive it."
-"Suffering is nothing, apart from the relationship between the past and the future, but what is more real for man than this relationship? It is reality itself. // The future. We go on thinking it will come until the moment when we think it will never come."
-"Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer."
-"To love our neighbor as ourselves does not mean that we should love all people equally, for I do not have an equal love for all modes of existence of myself. Nor does it mean that we should never make them suffer, for I do not refuse to make myself suffer. But we should have with each person the relationship of one conception of the universe to another conception of the universe, and not to a part of the universe."
-"Power (and money, power's master key) is a means at its purest. For that very reason it is the supreme end for all those who have not understood."
Related Recs
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If you’re from brooklyn or new york city or just moved here, i know, this is cliche. But i! Don’t! Care! The truffle popcorn is addicting, even if I'm farting for the rest of the movie, it’s worth it. Plus they have cute little trailers to gab about with your date or friend, but i also go alone because nobody tried to have small talk with you at the movies and you can just disassociate peacefully in blissful high-power air conditioning on a hot nyc summer day. They have guest curators on a monthly basis and do fun screenings of old flicks. Highly recommend it. Nitehawk > Alamo.
Aug 7, 2023
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let me break it down…
Anthology 10 dollars a lot of lesser known avant garde films mixed in with art/foreign films. most things are also projected on film. really good place if your looking for something different.
Moma is like 10 dollars too but if you’re a student you can get a free entry ticket which allows for a free movie ticket you just have to ask the desk. Moma has alot of stuff on film also and is always putting up classics And retrospectives on filmmakers
Momi is also 10 and has a ton of cool 35mm more mainstream films always playing such as kubrick or Micheal mann.museum’s section is also cute especially if you like the muppets.
Lincon center is a good place to go see indies/foreign movies that have come out recently also around 10 dollars also do some retrospectives remasters and 35mm screenings
Spectacle is a community run Brooklyn theater that is one room and plays obscure cinema very fun place to go out to with friends and see something different.
Roxy has some good 35mm screenings good date place to take someone.very comfy inside this fancy hotel downside is little more expensive but overall one of the better theater experiences in New York. Warning hipster central however 😭
Feb 13, 2024
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Going to the movies rocks. this was honestly such a hard question. This isn’t exactly the ~best~ movie but it is a great movie to see in a theater
From like 19-20 going to the Landmark in Westwood to see the Room with my friends rocked. The Room is such a funny bad movie and it’s even better at this theater because of all the canned responses the audience has to the shit happening on screen. its similar to how campy people get with Rocky Horror Picture Show. People throw plastic spoons and loudly jeer at the movie. occasionally Tommy Wiseau and maybe Greg Sestero will show up and you can take a pic. Highly recommend pregaming and then going with your friends at least once
sometimes a specific audience for it will suck but overall it was always pretty fun.
May 1, 2024
Top Recs from @florinegrassenhopper
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No screen Sundays. If I want to listen to music its CDs or radio. If I want to watch a movie, no I don’t. If I want to see a friend, I will make plans with them on Friday or Saturday to meet up. As a result, I read more, write more, and sit with questions like “did Citizen Kane‘s 50 year winning streak in the Sight and Sound critics choice survey end in 2012 or 2022? When did Stephen Merritt come out? Whats the etymology of Whitsun?“
This is something that I have practiced off and on for many years but I’ve been doing it every week since December and I love the way that it just allows me one day of true freedom and rest.
Jan 22, 2025
Mar 3, 2025
My calendar this year has 52 of these week at a glance pages but I don’t think that way. So, I've been inspired by Ross Gay’s Book of Delighs to start recording the little moments and sensations that bring me joy throughout the day. An analog pi.fyi, if you will.
heres some of what I have so far:
- Waking up to the sound of my upstairs neighbor‘s footstep. It sounded nostalgic. Felt like company.
- Strawberry jam
- feeling tender for strangers: their lips, nail colors, their small wrists. Thinking of all the lives we hold gently.
- A young girl bought an LP at the bookstore just before I left. She stroked its cover with love
- Green tiles —the mint shade always makes me think of Jancie
- Charlie’s little bop and punch dancing to some German language punk
- lunch with Katherine, curry Brussels sprouts
- small talk at the photo studio. The photographer's brother was named after their dad, stole his identity, bought jet skis.
Jan 13, 2025