We laugh at him who steps out of his room at the very moment when the sun steps out, and says: "I will the sun to rise"; and at hi...m who cannot stop the wheel, and says: "I will it to roll"; and at him who is taken down in a wrestling match, and says: "I lie here, but I will that I lie here!" And yet, all laughter aside, do we ever do anything other than one of these three things when we use the expression, "I will"?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The spectacle of human beings fighting each other for whatever reason, including, at certain well-publicized times, staggering sum...s of money, is enormously disturbing because it violates a taboo of our civilization. Many men and women, however they steel themselves, cannot watch a boxing match because they cannot allow themselves to see what it is they are seeing. One thinks helplessly, This can't be happening, even as, and usually quite routinely, it is happening. In this way boxing as a public spectacle is akin to pornography: in each case the spectator is made a voyeur, distanced, yet presumably intimately involved, in an event that is not supposed to happening as it is happening. The pornographic "drama," though as fraudulent as professional wrestling, makes a claim for being about something absolutely serious, if not humanly profound: it is not so much about itself as about the violation of a taboo. That the taboo is spiritual rather than physical, or sexual--that our most valuable human experience, love, is being is being desecrated, parodied, mocked--is surely at the core of our culture's fascination with pornography.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There are people who think that wrestling is an ignoble sport. Wrestling is not sport, it is a spectacle, and it is no more ignobl...e to attend a wrestled performance of suffering than a performance of the sorrows of Arnolphe or Andromaque.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Lady Sondes' match surprises, but does not offend me; had her first marriage been of affection, or had their been a grown-up<...br />daughter, I should not have forgiven her; but I consider everybody as having a right to marry once in their lives for love, if they can.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In its artless cruelty, Dallas is superior to any "intelligent" critique that can be made of it. That is why intellectual snobbery... meets its match here.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Oh, but it is dirty! Mthis little filling station,... oil-soaked, oil-permeated to a disturbing, over-all black translucency. Be careful with that match!LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »