January - April, 2020
Lexus today is in complete agreement with Greta Garbo: "I never said, 'I want to be alone.' I only said, 'I want to be left alone.' There is all the difference."
Lexus today is quite opposed to Eleanor Roosevelt's advice to “Do one thing every day that scares you.”
Lexus, perched atop my Dad's Os Lusíadas by Luís de Camões, ruminates on the great poet: "Quem vê, Senhora...que, quanto mais vos pago, mais vos devo." (Whoever, Lady...as the more I pay you, the more I owe.)
Lexus today channels the cat in Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita : “Not fooling around, not bothering nobody..." said the cat with a hostile frown, "and, moreover, I consider it my duty to warn you that the cat is an ancient, inviolable animal.”
Lexus today wonders whether Gorgias the Sophist was an ontological skeptic, a crazy nihilist, or just an annoying pessimist, for saying:
"i. Nothing exists
ii. Even if something exists, it cannot be known
iii. Even if it could be known, it cannot be communicated."
Lexus today contemplates Albert Camus in The Plague : "But there are always flies and itches. That’s why life is difficult to live.”
Lexus today agrees with Nikolai Gogol: “You can't imagine how stupid the whole world has grown nowadays.” «Вы не представляете, до чего глупым стал нынче весь мир.»
Lexus today reflects on Italo Calvino: "I suffer from everyday life."
Lexus today contemplates Dietrich Boenhoffer: "If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the opposite direction."
Lexus today remembers Alexandre Dumas in the Count of Monte Cristo : "How did I escape? With difficulty. How did I plan this moment? With pleasure."
Lexus fell asleep pondering Hannah Arendt and the banality of evil: "The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil."
Lexus is glad I am awake and can feed him, reflecting on Hannah Gadsby's observation: "The sheer number of paintings of unconscious women is distressing." Like Henry Fuseli's "The Nightmare" (why is this painting in Detroit?)