Bowerbirds - Northern Lights
beg
Yet if one looks closely one sees that there is no essential difference between a beggar’s livelihood and that of numberless respected people. Beggars do not work, it is said, but, then, what is work? A navvy works by swinging a pick. An accountant works by adding up figures. A beggar works by standing out of doors in all weathers and getting varicose veins, chronic bronchitis, etc. It is a trade like any other; quite useless, of course - but, then, many reputable trades are quite useless. And as a social type a beggar compares well with scores of others. He is honest compared with the sellers of most patent medicines, high-minded compared with a Sunday newspaper proprietor, amiable compared with a hire-purchase tout - in short, a parasite, but a fairly harmless parasite. He seldom extracts more than a bare living from the community, and, what should justify him according to our ethical ideas, he pays for it over and over in suffering. I do not think there is anything about a beggar that sets him in a different class from other people, or gives most modern men the right to despise him.
Then the question arises, Why are beggars despised? - for they are despised, universally. I believe it is for the simple reason that they fail to earn a decent living. In practice nobody cares whether works is useful or useless, productive or parasitic; the sole thing demanded is that it shall be profitable. In all the modern talk about energy, efficiency, social service and the rest of it, what meaning is there except ” Get money, get it legally, and get a lot of it”? Money has become the grand test of virtue. By this test the beggars fail, and for this they are despised. If one could earn even ten pounds a week at begging, it would become a respectable profession immediately. A beggar, looked at realistically, is simply a business man, getting his living, like other business men, in the way that comes to hand. He has not, more than most modern people, sold his honour; he has merely made the mistake of choosing a trade at which it is impossible to grow rich.
George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London
edu#1311
Costochondritis is a condition that causes chest pain due to inflammation of the cartilage and bones in the chest wall. Also called Tietze’s Syndrome, costochondritis occurs when there is inflammation at the junction of the rib bone and breastbone (sternum). At this junction, there is cartilage joining these bones. This cartilage can become irritated and inflamed. Depending on the extent of the inflammation, costochondritis can be quite painful.
Bon Iver & St. Vincent - roslyn
debts and dreams
debts and dreams are just pigeons on the roof
across my window, with their waste all over the place.
i am taking your picture, pigeons. i am drawing your death.
i am going to whirl you down with my broken sling. i am going to pluck you,
bit by bit, with the 3 exhausting jobs you forced me to take every
fucking day. i am going to cut you into pieces, with my shaky hand
and my tired leg from all the heavy lifting at the store. i am going to bury
you deep, with all the lies and deceits of an ‘ online marketing executive’.
i am going to stand up against you with my hoe and catfish stings. and
when i am done, i will wake myself up from this bleak sleep
and see the world go wild again.
