LINES OF THE DAY

". . . But the past does not exist independently from the present. Indeed, the past is only past because there is a present, just as I can point to something over there only because I am here. But nothing is inherently over there or here. In that sense, the past has no content. The past -- or more accurately, pastness -- is a position. Thus, in no way can we identify the past as past." p. 15

". . . But we may want to keep in mind that deeds and words are not as distinguishable as often we presume. History does not belong only to its narrators, professional or amateur. While some of us debate what history is or was, others take it into their own hands." p. 153

Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (1995) by Michel-Rolph Trouillot

Sunday, August 22, 2010

"There are in this world only two earthly Paradises ...

" ... . . . Provence . . . and the Reading Room of the British Museum."

The world according to Ford Maddox Ford:

Provence was not only itself, but also the absence of the north, where most human vices accumulated. The north meant aggression, the gothic, the "sadically mad cruelties of the Northern Middle Ages" and the "Northern tortures of ennui and indigestion".

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