T H I N G S I
H A V E L E A R N E D.
BY SARAH MANGUSO
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History.
My teacher can barely tell the story of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's six dead brothers and his (Coleridge's) getting thrown out of the army for insanity - that is, for not being able to ride a horse or shoot straight.
Artists.
Asked in the early 1940s why he didn't work from nature, Jackson Pollock replied, "I am nature."
Working.
After a friend has been out of school for a year, he says to me: "Eventually I stopped keeping track of how stupid I was getting."
Leaves.
The sight of leaves blowing in the street makes you think you hear leaves blowing in the street, but only if you have heard them before.
Love.
I think I know what it is that makes me love him, but someday he will die. This makes me love him less, but only for a moment.
Plagiarism.
Planet TMR-1C thus seems destined to be a "rogue planet," detached from any star and drifting forever outward. It may be that this planet's lonely fate is shared by many similar bodies drifting aimlessly through space, astronomers speculated Thursday. God help me, but I copied this from the newspaper.
Mortality.
William Blake taught his wife, Catherine, how to read and how to operate a printing press. He dreamed of a man who taught him how to paint. When he awoke, he began to paint pictures of him.
Misfortune.
After something bad happens, it's funny to say "That's show business."
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