“ “The city makes men free,” medieval Germans told one another, but a combination of people, rats, flies, waste, and garbage concentrated inside a few square miles of town wall also made the medieval city a human cesspool. By the early fourteenth century so much filth had collected inside urban Europe that French and Italian cities were naming streets after human waste. In medieval Paris, several street names were inspired by merde, he French word for “shit”. There were rue Merdeux, rue Merdelet, rue Merdusson, rue des Merdons, and rue Merdiere– as well as a rue du Pipi. Other Parisian streets took their names from the animals slaughtered on them. There was a Champs-Dolet– roughly translated as “field of suffering and cries– and l'Echorcheire: "place of flailing”. ”
— The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, John Kelly.
“ Marat’s style was a little confrontational. At one point, he demanded that the new constitution contain the phrase, “Man has the right to deal with their oppressors by devouring their palpating hearts. ”
— Vive La Revolution, Mark Steel.
“ The reality of knighthood – like reality for all people living medieval lives – was in a constant state of flux throughout the Middle Ages. Concepts of knighthood changed and the perception of what knights were, and what they should be doing, also changed. The only thing that remained constant was the idea that chivalry was never what we meant by the word today. Behind the fantasy is a story of violence: of the desire of young mean to experience, and get rich and famous through, its practice; and the attempts of a society to construct a context in which that violence could be channeled or contained. ”
— Medieval Lives, Terry Jones.
“ To better understand the medieval attitudes toward sex, we have to understand the theological expectations that medieval women navigated. Yet most medieval Christians were happy to gamble with their souls, here and there, for a good time and put it upon women to trespass against the Holy Church’s prohibitions on sex. Unlike in our day, women were conceptualized as both sex-addled and as insatiable in their demands, to the point that there was constant worry that women would be adulterous. They were thought to turn to magic if their sexual demands wrre stymied. Overall, the medieval concept of women’s sexuality looks almost nothing like ours, except that it was considered wrong. ”
— The Once and Future Sex, Eleanor Janega.
“ Although every country thought itself superior in its own way, was there ever a country that coined so many “super” terms from the federal bank of its narcissism, was not only superconfident but also truly superpowerful, that would not be satisfied until it locked every nation of the world into a full nelson and made it cry Uncle Sam? ”
— The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen.
“ The stomach is more important than the chin. Hit the chin and you may break your hand. Kill the belly and the head will die. Do you read me? ”
— The Contender, Robert Lipsyte.
“ The pretender Warbeck was taken and locked securely in the fortress portion of the Tower, and we came out almost as he went in. A simple matter of which side of the walls one was on determined everything. ”
— The Autobiography of Henry VIII, Margaret George.
“ As Karl Marx says, History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce, which is to say: all these episode of violence eventually become cartoons. ”
— Don't Fear the Reaper, Stephen Graham Jones.
“ Perhaps it is most miraculous when God exacts justice even when no human lifts a finger. Or perhaps it is simply fate. Everything seems reasonable in hindsight. Right or wrong, you will think what you need to think so that you can get by. ”
— Lapvona, Ottessa Moshfegh.
“ She hates shivering like this, showing weakness like this, having a body like this. But it’ll pass, she knows. You only shiver for a bit, when your body still has hope it can get back to warm. ”
— My Heart is a Chainsaw, Stephen Graham Jones.
“ Every evil is easily crushed at birth; allow it to become established and it always gathers strength. ”
— Dictator, Robert Harris.
“ His quarry stands to the hunter as our clients to us; those who buy to the tradesman; the enemies of the Commonwealth to the soldier; the governed to the governors; men to women. All love that which they destroy. ”
— Shadow of the Torturer, Gene Wolfe.
“ I love you, you can’t understand what it means because you’ve never understood anyone yourself. It’s what I’ve been trying to make you see this last week. All I want to say is that one day, when you do fall in love, remember today. Remember I kissed you and walked out of the room. Remember I walked all the way down the street and never once looked back. I knew you were watching. Remember I did all this because I love you. If you forget everything else about me, please remember that. I walked down that street and I never looked back and I love you. I love you. I love you so much that I shall hate you for ever for today. ”
— The Magnus, John Fowles.
“ At the time I had a sense of romance I now see was inappropriate. ”
— Galveston, Nic Pizzolatto.
“ What will they make of us, the people of those unimaginably distant times? One thing I do know: they won’t want the brutal reality of conquest and slavery. They won’t want to be told about the massacres of men and boys, the enslavement of women and girls. They won’t want to know we were living in a rape camp. No, they’ll go for something altogether softer. A love story, perhaps? I just hope they manage to work out who the lovers were. ”
— The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker.
“ Grief kills time. All that I retain of that night, and the days which followed, are fragments of scenes, like some luridly brilliant hallucination left behind after a fever. ”
— Imperium, Robert Harris.
“ To be needed, I suspect, is fundamental to being human. ”
— Leech, Hiron Ennes.
“ Sometimes, at the end of everything, the only option you have is to make it worse. ”
— Tell Me I'm Worthless, Alison Rumfitt.
“ This is my horror story, I suppose. But I’ve told it often enough that I’m no longer certain where the horror of it actually lies. The whole thing feels increasingly alien to me. It’s a story that someone else has already told, and I sometimes feel as though in telling it, I’m only describing the plot of a film I once saw or recounting a dream that won’t go away come morning. ”
— And Then I Woke Up, Malcolm Devlin.
“ “Chaos.” Shir stands and grips Hu’s letter in her two fists. “When everything is as violent and disordered as the world in its primal state, nothing remains for the master to manipulate. Man may enslave man. But never will he master fire. If you want freedom, be as fire.” ”
— The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson.
“ The echoes, the unfamiliar people, and the sense he’d carried all his life that wherever there was money — and money had outlasted the end of the world, as a state of mind if not in fact — he would always be uncomfortable. ”
— Manhunt, Gretchen Felker-Martin.
“ No! Look at the woman’s face, her face alone. Fix it in your memory: she is a person. ”
— The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson.
“ She’s even been practicing making out with the back of her hand. Which was about as effective as tickling yourself. It’s why you need other fingers, other tongues. Only other people can make you feel real. ”
Here I thought we had some kind of understanding That we're no Dick and Jane out on parade. Not looking for lengthy or demanding. Nothing's lost if nothing's gained.
to the dogs or whoever by josh ritter
I was flat on my back, my feet in the thorns. I was in between the apples and the chloroform. She came to me often, I was sure I was dying. It was always hard to tell if she was laughing or crying. I thought I heard somebody calling. In the dark I thought I heard somebody call.
star witness by neko case
Go on, go on scream and cry! You're miles from where anyone will find you. This is nothing new, no television crew, They don't even put on the sirens. My nightgown sweeps the pavement. Please, don't let him die.
master hunter by laura marling
You let men into your bed. They don't know you well. They can't get into my head. They don't have a hope in hell. See the thing is we are so alone, There's nothing we can share. You can get me on the telephone but you won't keep me there. No, no, no, you won't keep me there.
arms like boulders by the war on drugs
There's a song you hear on the radio. It's a funeral march so you change the channel, But it's all you hear As you're driving up the 101 from Mexico to California. Yeah, there's no snow, yeah when you're looking for your sweethearts. There's no snow when you're looking for your answers.
colossus by idles
They laugh at me when I run. I waste away for fun. I am my father's son. His shadow weighs a tonne.
come on up to the house by tom waits
Well, the moon is broken and the sky is cracked. Come on up to the house. The only things that you can see is all that you lack. Come on up to the house.
i'll fight by wilco
And if I die, I'll die. I'll die alone On some forgotten hill, abandoned by the mill. All my blood will spring and spill. I'll crash the air and be still.
the dark don't hide it by magnolia electric crew
You only said you wanted friends For long enough to get rid of them. You found the kind you knew would only kill you, So you surrounded yourself with them. At least the dark don't hide it. Now the world was empty on the day when they made it, But heaven needed someplace to throw all the shit. Human hearts and pain should never be separate. They wouldn't tear themselves apart both trying to fit.
o! grace by magnolia electric co
But out here, even the prairie doubts the horizon. All I have to do is prove that I'm not pure. Oh, the right words come, but I ain't talking. The devil's mean but he's honest just as sure, Oh, he is honest just as sure.
your little hoodrat friend by the hold steady
Oh, your little hoodrat friend makes me sick, But after I get sick I just get sad. 'Cause it burns being broke, hurts to be heartbroken, And always being both must be a drag.
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VISUALS
SERIOUS VISUALS (warning for blood, bruising & violent imagery.)
SHITPOST VISUALS.
QUOTATIONS.
— Vive La Revolution, Mark Steel.
— Medieval Lives, Terry Jones.
— The Once and Future Sex, Eleanor Janega.
— The Sympathizer, Viet Thanh Nguyen.
— The Contender, Robert Lipsyte.
— The Autobiography of Henry VIII, Margaret George.
— Don't Fear the Reaper, Stephen Graham Jones.
— Lapvona, Ottessa Moshfegh.
— My Heart is a Chainsaw, Stephen Graham Jones.
— Dictator, Robert Harris.
— Shadow of the Torturer, Gene Wolfe.
— The Magnus, John Fowles.
— Galveston, Nic Pizzolatto.
— The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker.
— Imperium, Robert Harris.
— Leech, Hiron Ennes.
— Tell Me I'm Worthless, Alison Rumfitt.
— And Then I Woke Up, Malcolm Devlin.
— The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson.
— Manhunt, Gretchen Felker-Martin.
— The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson.
— The Shining Girls, Lauren Beukes.
MUSIC.
you & i by margaret glaspy
to the dogs or whoever by josh ritter
star witness by neko case
master hunter by laura marling
arms like boulders by the war on drugs
colossus by idles
come on up to the house by tom waits
i'll fight by wilco
the dark don't hide it by magnolia electric crew
o! grace by magnolia electric co
your little hoodrat friend by the hold steady
CARS.
- nissan prairie high roof.