Der Kreisel: Archive

3 tags

Jul 18th

2 notes

Jul 18th

1 note

7 tags

Ego booster

Charles Foster Kane forcing an applause in “Citizen Kane” (1941), by Orson Welles

Jul 18th

2 notes

Jul 15th

3 notes

5 tags

Jul 14th

25 notes

“let’s start a publishing house to hell with small literature we want...”

– squeeze your nuts and open your face [e.e. cummings, no thanks, 1935, adaptado por Diogo Madre Deus] obrigado, Cavalo de Ferro Editores

Jul 14th

5 notes

9 tags

LXXIII - Black Death

John: "Weren't you raised at your father's hospital?" 
Philip Castle: "That's right. Mona and I both grew up there." 
John: "Well, aren't you at all tempted to do with your life what your father's done with his?" 
 Young Castle smiled wanly, avoiding a direct answer.
Philip Castle: "He's a funny person, Father is," he said. "I think you'll like him." 
John: "I expect to. There aren't many people who've been as unselfish as he has." 
Philip Castle: "One time," said Castle, "when I was about fifteen, there was a mutiny near here on a Greek ship bound from Hong Kong to Havana with a load of wicker furniture. The mutineers got control of the ship, didn't know how to run her, and smashed her up on the rocks near 'Papa' Monzano's castle. Everybody drowned but the rats. The rats and the wicker furniture came ashore." 
John: That seemed to be the end of the story, but I couldn't be sure. "So?" 
Philip Castle: "So some people got free furniture, and some people got bubonic plague. At Father's hospital, we had fourteen-hundred deaths inside of ten days. Have you ever seen anyone die of bubonic plague?" 
John: "That unhappiness has not been mine." 
Philip Castle: "The lymph glands in the groin and the armpits swell to the size of grapefruit." 
John: "I can well believe it."  
Philip Castle: "After death, the body turns black--coals to Newcastle in the case of San Lorenzo. When the plague was having everything its own way, the House of Hope and Mercy in the Jungle looked like Auschwitz or Buchenwald. We had stacks of dead so deep and wide that a bulldozer actually stalled trying to shove them toward a common grave. Father worked without sleep for days, worked not only without sleep but without saving many lives, either." 
 Castle's grisly tale was interrupted by the ringing of my telephone.  
Philip Castle: "My God," said Castle, "I didn't even know the telephones were connected yet." 
John: I picked up the phone. "Hello?" 
 (...)
Philip Castle: "What was that all about?" asked Castle. 
John: "I haven't got the slightest idea. Frank Hoenikker wants to see me right away." 
Philip Castle: "Take your time. Relax. He's a moron." 
John: "He said it was important." 
Philip Castle: "How does he know what's important? I could carve a better man out of a banana." 
John: "Well, finish your story anyway." 
Philip Castle: "Where was I?" 
John: "The bubonic plague. The bulldozer was stalled by corpses." 
Philip Castle: "Oh, yes. Anyway, one sleepless night I stayed up with Father while he worked. It was all we could do to find a live patient to treat. In bed after bed after bed we found dead people. 
Philip Castle: "And Father started giggling," Castle continued.
Philip Castle: "He couldn't stop. He walked out into the night with his flashlight. He was still giggling. He was making the flashlight beam dance over all the dead people stacked outside. He put his hand on my head, and do you know what that marvelous man said to me?" asked Castle. 
John: "Nope."  
Philip Castle: "'Son,' my father said to me, 'someday this will all be yours.'"
 in Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut