Before and Aphorisms

Recently discovered, the hidden "Wastrel Books" of a great, underground Russo-German thinker, Fyodor Hindenquarters, are garnering much attention from nervous philosophy departments. They are like to explode, if not literally (for who knows if the man had dynamite) but at the very least, figuratively, with reams of slavish professors wailing in choruses of woe, tearing up over the following pages of raw, un-breaded truth. This new, alas, fragmentary translation of his final fragments, delivered piecemeal because of the vile editorial hands of his second cousin (a noted anti-termite) will have to suffice for the current generation. It will take many hours of scholarship to extract the real meat of Hindenquarter's philosophy from the execrable (and frankly rude) doodlings of his twilight years. A warning - this text is wont to shake mountains and coke-bottles alike.

Have you not heard the tale of the madman seeking God in the marketplace? "Whither is God?" he would cry, lighting his way from face to hapless face with only a flambé quail held aloft in his hand to guide him. "I've lost my God, and I don't know where to find him." The townsfolk stared. "About yea big?" the madman measured his arms about the size of an imaginary chicken. Increasing mumbles. "How shall we comfort ourselves!" The townsfolk were just beside themselves - such a poor little thing - and in their town! They gave the fellow a hot cup of cider and sent out a search party of the heartiest lads and gents in the quarter. The madman felt quite taken care of. "Whither, whither..." he mumbled quieter and quieter. Eventually they found God sniffing about - a stout looking sausage-hound licking himself at the corner of Church and Leibniz. His name was Hugo. That evening at Christmas supper, he, he himself, the mad-man, carved the roast beast.

Self-love is the fattest puppy in a prize litter of piglets.

If men were to be considered as the positive sex, and women, the negative, then all the world would declare basic arithmetic worth looking into.

As Plautus said: man is the wolf of man, homo homini lupus. Wolf-man is also the wolf of man.

Religion is the laudanum of the masses - that is an alcoholic herbal preparation containing approximately 10% powdered opium by weight (the equivalent of 1% morphine). Religion is therefore useful as an analgesic and antidiarrheal. Catholicism enhances the tone in the long segments of the longitudinal muscle and inhibits propulsive contraction of circular and longitudinal muscles. The pharmacological effects of Judaism, however, are due principally to its morphine content. The quantity of the papaverine and codeine alkaloids in Protestantism is too small to have any demonstrable central nervous system effect. Note that oral doses of religion are rapidly absorbed in the gastrointestinal tract and metabolized in the liver. Peak plasma concentrations of the spiritual content are reached in about one hour, and nearly 75% of the content of the Holy Ghost is excreted in the urine within 48 hours after oral administration.

Self-love is the key which starts the ice-cream truck.

I have an unseemly wart, at an unseemly part of my body. Yet I am not afraid to show you the whole of me. See? There it is. Seneca says, "warts, verily, are indeed the grossest of the pustulae." Ah, life!

What if a goblin should creep up to you in your sleep, at the dead of night, and slowly whisper into your ear, "all that you have have experienced up until now, all your aches, pains, sufferings, shall occur again, and again, and again, for all eternity - unless you get your hands on some Pepto Medi-Drink, for upset stomach and all that ails you, now in extra strength formula?" Would you have the courage to venture to the pharmacy? Or would it be an affirmative da capo on the toilet all evening!

What are all the strivings and gyratings of the twelve virtues and the ten faculties in the hearts of men, if not the soggy cereal in a bowl of self-love?

To philosophers of the future! ­- Please shut the fridge door in the faculty lounge ALL THE WAY!!! Thanks :)

Plants are like men. They have deep roots, and high aspirations. They murder each other, and come in all shapes and sizes. The mighty pine is never known to the dandelion, except as a puny rival, or a towering god. Once I even saw a tree stump that looked like two...Well, anyway. Plants are the men of the plant kingdom, as Pliny saith, aristis homo aristorum. Rue the salad-bowl then, for you cover in dressing and serve out in fine bowls, your very mirror selves!

The aim of all art is the neutralizing of the will and the entrance into a state of pure observation, wherein subject becomes "pure knower" of an object without direct interest in the object outside of the purely intellectual realm. A single example will suffice to prove the eternal verity of my proposition: imagine a painting, perhaps by Renoir, of a gentleman in a dashing new outfit, cocked hat, hands be-felted in the smoothest glovewear, breathing a fine Parisian breath, spiced like that of Europa's Bull, onto the lens of a brand new pocket-watch. Meanwhile, to the left, we see merely out of the corner of the canvas, the foot of a local tramp raised and impressionistically daubed with such subtleties of movement that it must be aimed squarely, and surely, at the gentleman's ball-sack. Ah, l'art, c'est pour toujours!

This maxim is brought to you buy the cool, refreshing taste of self-love. Get some now at your local chemist - and COOL your ARDOUR!

Postscript - A Hymn to the Sunny Countenance of the Will to Shower

Let us search out the secrets of knowledge

From the depths of our innermost college

For as once Aristotle

Declared of his wattle:

"What ain't big must thus suffer from smallage."