Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Whiling Away a No-Show



Perhaps the art of life comes down to steering between cynicism and sentimentality. You have to get the tone right. So here's one of each extreme.


"Irony might be defined as disgust recalled in tranquillity."


Theodore Dalrymple (with apologies I suppose to Wordsworth).


Me, disgusted?


Also, an acquaintance of mine will become a decade old later this month. A weighty achievement. Here is Billy Collins's "On Turning Ten."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think irony is an attempt at inverting the ugliness of life to make it more palatable.

Or conversely, inverting the beautiful into ugly to make it more retchworthy in the name of fun--because life is sometimes too goddamn beautiful and bland.

vanderleun said...

"I used to be disgusted, but now I'm just amused."