IMAGINATION QUOTES
JUNE 25, 2011. Propaganda is the art of shaping a picture of reality for someone who needs one.
Imagination is an interdimensional non-material non-apparatus that doesn’t care about local opinion.
A family is a repertory theater company if it has any sense.
Gold is a theory. It’s a short story that keeps being republished.
The art of politics is faking politics.
In real theater, a character walks out on his character.
A painter wants to bang two or three oceans together.
Language didn’t start out as a practical medium. It moved into that domain after a deep and concealed sense of boredom set in.
Anyone who’s written a novel knows how foolish ordinary reality is.
If scientists found a rebel ant in a colony, they would step on him and then publish what they intended to publish.
Working scientists invent personalities that are proud to have no creative urge. In other words, scientists believe in their own bullshit, but not how it got to be that way.
If a human being is entirely made up of the same particles that compose the universe, how is he making jokes?
There are different ways to use imagination. For example, I knew a guy who told me that a New York painter was a covert spy. Evidence? The painter’s father-in-law was a friend of Nelson Rockefeller. The painter won a fellowship to go to Rome and paint. “All these foundations are linked together in an elite structure.” The painter had a studio near the Vatican, so he was probably brainwashed by the Jesuits and returned to the US. I was told this was “connecting the dots.” Yeah, sure, if the dots are Donald Duck, the planet Venus, a tube of old glue in a cellar in Detroit, and a waitress at a McDonald’s in China. Still, it is imaginative.
TWO DIALOGUES
“Are you John Jones, the painter?”
“Take a look around my studio. What do you think?”
“Well, sir, we came to you because it appears you’re the only person left on the planet who isn’t bored.”
“And?”
“We want to know why. We want to know your secret.”
“Every morning I have three eggs burned badly.”
How badly?”
“Black edges, otherwise crispy. I soak each forkful in my coffee before I eat it.”
“How do you take your coffee?”
“Boiled for six hours. And the orange juice must be drunk out of a long thin test tube. Slowly. I rub my toast with sandpaper, until the browned layer is completely gone.”
“Anything else, sir?”
“Yes. Every night at midnight, I do laundry. But I never put any clothes in the machine. Only rocks.”
The men left, feeling excited.
“I asked you all here today to discuss a new project for the community. It’s about filling a much needed gap. It’s come to my attention that in our schools and local clubs, we lack a sense of creativity.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Well, as we all know, it’s fun to be creative, so I believe we should start with a few new signs on the highway leading into town. Our town name would be done in a color we’ll choose, instead of the simple black block lettering. And then Grace, at the nail salon, has volunteered to introduce three new shades of pink and orange to her customers. Thank you, Grace. And Bob, our esteemed dentist, is going to change that giant tooth that’s been attached to his waiting-room wall for twenty years. He’s going to put up a huge toothbrush instead.”
“Didn’t you hear? Right after his last patient yesterday, Bob jumped out of his fourth-story window. Fortunately, he landed in a bush.”
“What happened?”
“He left a note on his desk. Said he was bored out of his mind.”
“Well, you see, that’s what I mean. With the new signs and shades of nail polish, and the big toothbrush, we can inspire Bob. We can turn this whole thing around.”
JON RAPPOPORT