I also remember a line from a song by Smog [Bill Callahan], which seems to describe the experience of a town-dweller moving to the country: "I was raised in a pit of snakes/Blink your eyes - I was raised on cake." Quentin S. Crisp More Quotes by Quentin S. Crisp More Quotes From Quentin S. Crisp I have a sense of them being Easter religions, for some reason. Christianity, of course, is a mystery religion, too, and I believe that Arthur Machen was one of those especially interested in the link between the pagan mysteries and the Christian ones. So, my experience was also a Machenesque experience. Quentin S. Crisp easter christian believe It would be hard to say that exactly, but antinatalism is a reality in my life, not just an interesting idea. I can feel it in the chilled and weary marrow of my bones. Quentin S. Crisp reality ideas interesting Western progress (from one damned thing to another) seems to be essentially the MO of nowhere fast. But, on the other hand, the don't-set-foot-outside-your-own-village/cave ideal or injunction that you find in Buddhism and even in the Daoism of which I'm fonder, seems . . . defeatist. And more than that, it is in contradiction to what nature actually does. Somewhere, somehow, I feel as if these two opposing principles have to be reconciled. Quentin S. Crisp buddhism two hands [william] Burroughs, incidentally, took up the slogan that we are "Here to go", which contradicts the tendency in Eastern mysticism to advocate staying where you are because there's nowhere to go anyway. I feel conflicted on this one. Quentin S. Crisp tendencies nowhere-to-go where-you-are I really think [William] Burroughs was onto something here, when he said, "Dreams are a biologic necessity and your lifeline into space." Quentin S. Crisp space dream thinking Anyway, to cut off one's biological dreams seems to me the most fundamental form of psychic castration that you could imagine. Quentin S. Crisp psychics cutting dream This is part of the fundamental character of Buddhism that I find problematic - that it is not interested in anything. Hence the 'Fascination' in the title of the essay, the fascination of art and creativity, stands in opposition to what is called 'Liberation'. Quentin S. Crisp creativity character art The research reading I did for Fascination and Liberation included some Jung, and I noticed that he had a similar impression of Buddhism to myself, that, if it weren't for certain qualifying clauses, the philosophy would be downright suicidal. Quentin S. Crisp suicidal reading philosophy [My muse] likes to inhabit tea leaves, sunlight filtered through bamboo, melancholy clouds over the Devon coastline, a weedy railroad crossing in the Southern States, bubblegum pop from the sixties, torch songs from the forties, undersea caves where B-movie octopi grapple with men in loincloths, sacred groves of pink anime dryads, Victorian fairy paintings executed by gentlemen in lunatic asylums and so on. Quentin S. Crisp anime song men My muse can take the form of a landscape, an era, a style of writing, a piece of music, and, perhaps that which I find strangest of all for a muse, a human female. Of course, she's also adept at taking the form of toothless old Japanese men or young English lads with tattoos. Quentin S. Crisp tattoo writing men She [me muse] feels most at home in autumn, nonetheless, she is glad of the other seasons and loves them all. Without the others she would be unable to feel most at home in autumn, besides which, she almost feels most at home in all of them. Quentin S. Crisp autumn and-love home [My muse] is, in fact, a woman of the world, and precisely because of this, hopes that a diversity of cultures will endure, and that one bland monoculture does not swamp everything. Quentin S. Crisp diversity doe culture [My muse] feels nostalgic for Japan, and, perhaps strangely, for the pioneer days of America. Quentin S. Crisp pioneers japan america I do have a muse. I am not sure how to describe her. She can be very elusive. She was born in England but has Mediterranean ancestry. Quentin S. Crisp ancestry muse england [Antinatalism ] seems to oppose the idea of writing anything at all. To reproduce is to pass on genes. To write is to pass on memes. In that sense, it really is a kind of reproduction, which antinatalism should, theoretically, oppose, or at least which I feel that it opposes emotionally in my own experience. Quentin S. Crisp kind writing ideas I'm constantly struggling with the futility and even sinfulness, from an antinatalist point of view, of creativity. And that struggle itself seems part of the creativity, though I sometimes suspect that it's nothing but a burden and an obstacle. Quentin S. Crisp creativity struggle views People didn't talk about paedophiles in the seventies, I don't think. Quentin S. Crisp seventies people thinking I feel like the seventies was a decade where things ran out, and where other things set in. There was just a lurking graininess and seediness about the decade, a slight grogginess of the hangover from the sixties. Quentin S. Crisp ran hangover feels In the meditation, of course, the question is repeated and repeated until you run out of answers - or so I hear. Quentin S. Crisp meditation answers running My favourite tea is lapsang souchong. Quentin S. Crisp favourite tea
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