a perennial social imperative

"Kitsch-making (the urge to generalize and sentimentalize) is not the personal defect of some American professor or any one person, it is a seduction that comes out of the collective unconscious; a command from the metaphysical prompter; a perennial social imperative, a force. That force is aimed not at art alone but primarily at reality itself... it throws a veil of commonplaces over the present moment in or that the face of the real will disappear."

"The Unbearable Lightness of Being," Milan Kundera

[Damen Avenue below Chicago Avenue]

well advised

“We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4am of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget.”

~ Joan Didion

[Damen Avenue below Division Street]

by the bay and bay

BlackBerry photo of a Michael Bay perspective on a skyline shortly to be under attack at the theater behind me.

[Illinois Street east of Michigan Avenue.]

constant jeopardy of decay

"Against the constant jeopardy of decay there is the necessity of constant renewal."

"The Unforeseen Wilderness," Wendell Berry

[Chicago Avenue and California Avenue after June 30 hailstorm]

beauty makes sex sex

Not ashamed to say I loved him for his beauty.
As I would again
if he came near. Beauty convinces. You know beauty makes sex possible.
Beauty makes sex sex.

"Beauty of the Husband," Anne Carson

[Damen Avenue above Rice Street]