The Enemy
Lee Child
“What is the twentieth century’s signature sound? You could have a debate about it. Some might say the slow drone of an aero engine. Maybe from a lone fighter crawling across an azure 1940s sky. Or the scream of a fast jet passing low overhead, shaking the ground. Or the whup whup whup of a helicopter. Or the roar of a laden 747 lifting off. Or the crump of bombs falling on a city. All of those would qualify. They’re all uniquely twentieth-century noises. They were never heard before. Never, in all of history. Some crazy optimists might lobby for a Beatles song. A yeah, yeah, yeah chorus fading under the screams of their audience. I would have sympathy for that choice. But a song and screaming would never qualify. Music and desire have been around since the dawn of time. They weren’t invented after 1900.
No, the twentieth century’s signature sound is the squeal and clatter of tank tracks on a paved street. That sound was heard in Warsaw, Rotterdam, and Stalingrad, and Berlin. Then it was heard again in Budapest and Prague, and Seoul and Saigon. It’s a brutal sound. It’s the sound of fear. It speaks of overwhelming advantage in power. And it speaks of remote, impersonal indifference. Tank treads squeal and clatter and the very noise they make tells you they can’t be stopped. It tells you you’re weak and powerless against the machine. Then one track stops and the other keeps on going and the tank wheels around and lurches straight toward you, roaring and squealing. That’s the real twentieth-century sound.…”
Opening the Window to Life
D. H. Landolfi
“Sometimes I like to consider life as a big window from which to look out and observe what opens up to the eye, as if I were a simple spectator and not a protagonist.
This helps you to better see what destiny offers you, watching with the eyes of a stranger the incessant unfolding of events, and to grasp the myriad of sensations and impressions that, like atoms, crowd time and space without you noticing them.
Watching and waiting for the events to overwhelm you rather than incessantly chasing them often creates possibilities that did not exist before.
Life and the world have breath regardless of you and only if you realize this you will be able to create what you never expected.
I didn’t chase the writing but it chased me.
I merely observed and put on paper what the spectacle in front of me of reality and imagination offered.
Every opportunity is a destiny and every fate is marked by different opportunities that in the cosmic infinity decide when to happen, regardless of you.
You only have to try to be the protagonist of what unfolds in front of your eyes..”
A few words about red velvet ropes To get through to some people, you need to get past three red velvet ropes. One lies outside their building Another, stands in front of their inner VIP Room. The third, blocks the entrance to their mind.
Have any of these writings penetrated all three of your red velvet ropes? Which writers have left an imprint on you?
