Friday, October 17, 2008

Tom Robbins

ViceVoices recommends reading books. ViceVoices prefers fiction over non-fiction. Non-fiction provides facts. Fiction provides insights. Fiction demands an imagination. It will grow one in the one without one, if one is persistent in one's reading.

Tonight, ViceVoices had a re-acquaintance with an old favorite author: Tom Robbins. We first read "Still Life With Woodpecker." It hooked us. Enjoy, and be enticed into allowing life to provide some delight in this plane of existence, by reading a full tale, with these few passages from Tom Robbins:

“When we're incomplete, we're always searching for somebody to complete us. When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we're still unfulfilled, we blame our
partners and take up with somebody more promising. This can go on and on--series polygamy--until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimensions to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment. Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe
otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously and to program for eventual failure every relationship we enter.”

“Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won't adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words "make" and "stay" become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.”

“Our Similarities bring us to a common ground; Our Differences allow us to be fascinated by each other”

“There is no such thing as a weird human being, It's just that some people require more understanding than others”

“Religion is not merely the opium of the masses, it's the cyanide.”

There are many things worth living for, a few things worth dying for, and nothing worth killing for.”

“Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.”

“Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.”

“The highest function of love is that it makes the loved one a unique and irreplaceable being.”

“Politics is for people who have a passion for changing life but lack a passion for living it”

“When life demands more of people than they demand of life - as is ordinarily the case - what results is a resentment of life almost as deep-seated as the fear of death”

“Who knows how to make love stay?
Tell love you want a memento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair
and use them to paint a mustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.

“There are two kinds of people in this world: those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better.”

I can't find an other favorite passage, but it went something like this:
"Hawaii had a rat problem; they brought in snakes to rid them of the rats. The snakes ate the rats, but then Hawaii had a snake problem. They brought in mongooses to rid them of the snakes. Then they had a mongoose problem. LA had a crime problem, they brought in cops."

-We'll be doing some art for some of these, which you will find available for t-shirt strutting at our online jubilee of wonderment.

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