Death’s Dream Kingdom

April 7, 2003, Baghdad – A US tank blew a huge statue of President Saddam Hussein off its pedestal in central Baghdad on Monday with a single shell, a US officer said…. “One shot, one kill.”

“When smashing monuments, save the pedestals; they always come in handy.”

— Stanislaw J. Lec 

“In death’s dream kingdom….

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow”

— T. S. Eliot, Harvard 1910, The Hollow Men

“A light check in the shadow
is the same gray as
a dark check outside the shadow.”

— Edward H. Adelson, Yale 1974, Illusions and Demos

“point A / In a perspective that begins again / At B”

— Wallace Stevens, Harvard 1901, “The Rock“

See also

Shine On, Hermann Weyl.