A nice trick to seduce the reader is to give him that sense of superiority that comes from knowing more about the characters he sees acting in front of him. Like when a man steps forward on the screen and we see the hitman waiting for him around the corner. Proud to dominate its fate from our dark armchair, but unaware that the director is cunningly manipulating us in turn. (p. 118)
Gesualdo Bufalino, The ill-thinker October
When he has cured the patient, it is the shaman who must give something in exchange. Having made good the body, he must make good the debt. Or the Japanese story of the woman who lets the girl drown because, she says, if she saves her life, the child will owe her such an obligation it will be unbearable.
Our entire psychology fails before these ancestral rules.
For the Japanese, the most commonplace individual and the most
mundane object are both singular, even in their repetition. The problem is not to be different. For us, by contrast, that is an obligation. But there isn't difference for everyone, just as there isn't a meaning for every word (the characteristic of meaning is that not everything has it). This is how everyone ends up alone, dispossessed of both their singularity and their difference.
p.49
Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories V: 2000-2004
First of all: I am an Aesthetic and a Non-Ethical Reviewer. I am not interested in the moral judgment that can be made about pornography. With my action I don't want to scandalize, I don't want to advertise pornography. Indeed, I'd rather never break the aura of intimacy, secrecy, secrecy that surrounds viewing and enjoying X-rated materials. Unraveling the mystery contained in cellophane protection to everyone would mean destroying 90 percent of the aesthetic potential of a porn product.
Tommaso Labranca, (Part Three: Unauthorized hagiographies. The celestial Eros is not dead !, p. 51)
