New Orts #61

March 16 MMXXV

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Many books exist, but many more don’t. Why does a book come about? There’s ego, politics, the human condition, man’s yearning for understanding. Books fail to exist for the same reasons. Authors destroy books because of ego. Emperors destroy them because of politics. ... Unwritten books also result from the human condition, specifically from its tendency toward inertia: no one ever got around to writing them.
— Zach Helfand, The Best Fake Books—Made Real, in The New Yorker, February 3, 2025

The mercy of the West has been social revolution; the mercy of the East has been individual insight into the basic self/void. We need both.
— Gary Snyder (1930- ) Earth House Hold (1969)

It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all.
— James Thurber