60 in 60: 23 Books in 3 Lines in 1 Post
As the above photo shows, I've been preoccupied with shooting down deadlines. The 60 in 60 on the Penguin Great Ideas series should resume next week--who knew I meant 60 books in 60 years--but in the meantime, I've been prepping by reading the back covers and first page of each one (cheating? who knows). To give you a preview based on my gleanings, here are my three-line non-trad haikus on each. Prepare to be horrified.#37 - Henry David Thoreau's Where I Lived and What I Lived ForHippy wordsTalks to treesDirty yellow toenails#38 - Thorstein Veblen’s Conspicuous ConsumptionBuy useless thingsBe damnedBut I breathe the same air#39 - Albert Camus’ The Myth of SysyphusRoll that rockRevolt against godsSuicide is vexing, dude#40 - Hannah Arendt’s Eichmann and the HolocaustPulls triggerPats grandson's headSame hand#41 - Plutarch’s In Consolation to His WifeMy loveMy love for the livingOutweighs that for the dead#42 - Robert Burton’s Some Anatomies of MelancholyDrunken sadnessLove and beauty, but pray tell:What is the quality of your meat?#43 - Blaise Pascal’s Human HappinessLive in balanceBoredom is one with anxietyMan, flies really suck#44 - Adam Smith’s The Invisible HandIt pusheth one nobly toward the rightOne cherry tree becomes an orchardLook how well that's worked this year, idiot#45 - Edmund Burke’s The Evils of RevolutionFreedom doused in bloodIs too red to recognize itselfA smile across the neck never lasts#46 - Ralph Waldo Emerson’s NatureHippy wordsTalks to treesDirty yellow fingernails#47 - Soren Kierkegaard’s The Sickness Unto DeathDespair is sinExcept when it isn'tWinter comes to all eventually#48 - John Ruskin’s The Lamp of MemorySee the artistry of that mansardOr the filigree of that balconyGod lives there#49 - Friedrich Nietzsche’s Man Alone with HimselfFacebook status deep and broodingI am angsty devil can bullshit good...Wanna come back to my place and look at my cock?#50 - Leo Tolstoy’s A ConfessionThe Master can be found thereSit with Him beneathThe shade of many trees#51 - William Morris’ Useful Work vs Useless ToilBeggars and burghers alikeHave eyes in their headsAn unexpected rose in the gutter#52 - Frederick Jackson Turner’s The Significance of the Frontier in American HistoryToo large an expanseSelf-sufficient down-to-earthA thousand strip malls#53 - Marcel Proust’s Days of ReadingThe flicker of lightFrom the third floor windowPages opening onto a conflagration#54 - Leon Trotsky’s An Appeal to the Toiling, Oppressed and Exhausted Peoples of EuropeNo one can be happyWhen blood turns to gold in your veinsLook up, sheep, to your fleecing#55 - Sigmund Freud’s The Future of an IllusionI use wordsLike others use French hornsThrough the din: clarity#56 - Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical ReproductionReplicate me pleaseReplicate me pleaseWhy all these eyes?#57 - George Orwell’s Books v. CigarettesFive pence for a packAsh stains on the armchairA curl of smoke from the page#58 - Albert Camus’ The Fastidious AssassinsLook up, sheep, to your fleecingGold turns to blood in your veinsBut a smile across the neck never lasts#59 - Frantz Fanon’s Concerning ViolenceThings fall apartHeart of darknessIsn't it enough?#60 - Michel Foucault’s The Spectacle of the ScaffoldHorrifying endDrawn and quarteredNothing left, but took too long