#sum

Thus I die. Thus, thus, thus. Now I am dead, Now I am fled, My soul is in the sky. Tongue, lose thy light. Moon take thy flight. Now die, die, die, die. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#dreams

Captain of our fairy band, Helena is here at hand, And the youth, mistook by me, Pleading for a lover's fee. Shall we their fond pageant see? Lord, what fools these mortals be! ↗

— William Shakespeare

#puck #dreams

The assumption that you everyone else is like you. That you are the world. The disease of consumer capitalism. The complacent solipsism. ↗

— David Foster Wallace

#capitalism #consumerism #dfw #solipsism #dreams

Traditional hedonism...was based on the direct experience of pleasure: wine, women and song; sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll; or whatever the local variant. The problem, from a capitalist perspective, is that there are inherent limits to all this. People become sated, bored...Modern self-illusory hedonism solves this dilemma because here, what one is really consuming are fantasies and day-dreams about what having a certain product would be like. ↗

— David Graeber

#capitalism #redefining-consumption #dreams

The marriage of reason and nightmare that dominated the 20th century has given birth to an ever more ambiguous world. Across the communications landscape move the spectres of sinister technologies and the dreams that money can buy. Thermo-nuclear weapons systems and soft-drink commercials coexist in an overlit realm ruled by advertising and pseudo-events, science and pornography. Over our lives preside the great twin leitmotifs of the 20th century – sex and paranoia…In a sense, pornography is the most political form of fiction, dealing with how we use and exploit each other, in the most urgent and ruthless way. ↗

— J.G. Ballard

#conformity #consumerism #materialism #media #semiotic-glut

Four days will quickly steep themselves in nights; Four nights will quickly dream away the time; And then the moon, like to a silver bow new bent in heaven, shall behold the night of our solemnities. ↗

— William Shakespeare

#dreams

Summer is only the unfulfilled promise of spring, a charlatan in place of the warm balmy nights I dream of in April. It’s a sad season of life without growth…It has no day. ↗

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

#promise #seasons #spring #summer #dreams

It was a generation growing in its disillusionment about the deepening recession and the backroom handshakes and greedy deals for private little pots of gold that created the largest financial meltdown since the Great Depression. As heirs to the throne, we all knew, of course, how bad the economy was, and our dreams, the ones we were told were all right to dream, were teetering gradually toward disintegration. However, on that night, everyone seemed physically at ease and exempt from life’s worries with final exams over and bar class a distant dream with a week before the first lecture, and as I looked around at the jubilant faces and loud voices, if you listened carefully enough you could almost hear the culmination of three years in the breath of the night gasp in an exultant sigh as if to say, “Law school was over at last! ↗

— Daniel Amory

#city #contemporary-fiction #contemporary-literature #downtown #lake

Don’t you think most of those kids think too much about who got an A or a B when they were in law school and what that means to an inflated G.P.A. and not enough about the world?” asked Connor irrelevantly. ↗

— Daniel Amory

#city #downtown #dream #law-school #philosophy

This is so funny,” said Ellen, noticing the seating arrangement. “Isn’t this funny? Tom, come sit next to Robin. Griffin, sit next to Laura.” I stood up and sat next to Robin while Griffin brought his chair over to Laura. “That’s better,” said Ellen. “Isn’t that better? ↗

— Daniel Amory

#chicago #city #downtown #dream #lake