itselv’s Reviews > Ugliness > Status Update

"Finally, I learned to respect ugliness: as an enduring reflection of our humanness. Ugliness alone reflects a truth that transcends images and words in bearing witness to the vulnerability of human life and the organic limits of the many abstract, general ideals imposed on us.
I must respect ugliness as a witness, archive, test, and reflection before I can return to my search for other, negated beauties."

"We're afraid of ugliness, afraid of finding it in old people's wrinkles, in the wounds, lumps, deformities, fluids, and fractures of those we see approaching death. By forever banishing the frail and ailing from our sight, we ourselves hope for refuge from the ever-present threat of death. The frail and ailing are repellent to us, so that by distancing ourselves from them, we may forget that mortality even exists."

"Some made a show of compassion,
Others of revulsion,
But we did not want them
To hate
or pity us.
All we needed was love."

"The desire for science-based criminal recognition is fundamentally corrupt—it robs humans of free will. We all make decisions both in spite of and because of our circumstances. There isn't a statistical probability calculation or database that can ever rob us of our capacity to defy expectations.
The reality outside our bodies is what creates criminality, not our bodies themselves."

"It's more than mere vexation expressing itself in the shame one feels at not being accepted by society, even after giving up one's nose, heritage, and community. […] entrenched fascist ideology is never simply looking to reject the deviant nose as such; it is out to reject the very existence of the human to whom the nose belongs."

"I dig up the photo for this book.
I search in vain
for an ugly horseface.
All I find is the picture of a child
flashing her teeth,
smiling for what will be the last time
in fourteen years."