Thinking about how much I dislike hearing texts recited badly. Smarmy, overzealous pathos. Artless, artificial cadences in which the words find no residence. Thinking how reading is nice, because we bypass the danger of having a bad actor perform the words for us. Then I begin to wonder, are there some people who, when they read a text, hear it recited badly in their head?

Tweety thoughts

1. If it isn't already, ironic mourning should surely be considered a sin.

2. You can fault 20th century misanthropes and pessimists for a number of things—lack of faith, lack of ambition, crankiness, or meanness—but one thing you can't fault them for is being accurate in their predictions.

3. The sadness felt at the death of an artist consists primarily of an emotionally overwhelming sense of admiration and gratitude.

[2012 has been a dangerous year for artists I admire: first Leonhardt, then Kelley, now Spinetta. I can only beg all my admired artists still living (Straub, Handke, Pinhas, Hayward, etc.): please be careful!]

Those garish, sickly smiles

"Man sieht einen Menschen und denkt, was für ein sympathischer Mensch, und bald sieht man (als würde einem auf den Kopf geschlagen!), was für ein gemeiner Mensch, was für ein lächerlicher Mensch, was für ein niedriger Menschentypus."

You see a person and you think, what a nice person, and soon you see (as if it smacked you on the head!), what a cruel person, what a ridiculous person, what a lowly kind of person.

Thomas Bernhard, Watten