Jackrabbit quotes
By Marge Piercy - by and about Jackrabbit of Mattpoisett.
Edited to include more, 12/10
On going on Defense:
"Risk, danger....we don't find them evil. I don't twitter to go. I fasure don't want to give back, but I don't want to be ignorant. The creature inside a shell is a sof slug, a worm. Who should protect me? Bolivar? Luciente? Bee? Hawk? Who'll stand between me and death, me and sickness, me and drowning? I must serve the talent that uses me, the energy that flows through me, but I musn't make others serve me. Don't you see the difference?"
On Duties and Art:
"Connie, we think art is production. We think making a painting is as real as growing a peach or making diving gear. No more real, no less real. Its useful and good on a different level, but its production. If thats the work I want to do, I don't have to pass a test or find a patron. but I still have family duties, political duties, social duties, like every other lug. How not?"
Bolivar, on relationships:
"Person was so curious, began far more friendships than could be maintained."
On Ambition and Talent:
"I am jealous of everybodies gifts. I want to be everybody and feel everything and do everything. Wherever I am, where I'm not plagues me. As long as I don't have to get up to early to do it all."
On going mad:
"People of your time confuse me, for they seem neither strongly inknowing nor strongly outgoing. Except in couples. Unstable dyads, fierce and greedy, trying to body the original mother-child bonding. Its tragic and blind."
On names:
The tall intense young person was staring at Connie. Jackrabbit, Luciente had said - therefore male. He had a lot of curly light brown-gold hair, and he wore the sleeves of his pale blue workshirt rolled up to expose several bracelets of handworked silver and turquoise on each wiry arm.
"When I was born, I was named Peony by my mothers - "
"Peony sounds like a girls name."
"I don't understand. It was the name chosen for me. When I came to naming, I took my own name. Never mind what that was. But when Luciente brought me down to earth from my highflying, I became Jackrabbit. You See. Named for my long legs and big hunger and big penis and my jumps through the grass of our common life. When Luciente and Bee have quite reformed me, I will change my name again, to Cat in the Sun."
He produced on his thin face a perfect imitation of Luciente's orange cat squeezing its eyes shut. "But why have two names at one time? In our village we only have one Jackrabbit. If I visit someplace else, I'm Jackrabbit of Mattapoisett."
Edited to include more, 12/10
On going on Defense:
"Risk, danger....we don't find them evil. I don't twitter to go. I fasure don't want to give back, but I don't want to be ignorant. The creature inside a shell is a sof slug, a worm. Who should protect me? Bolivar? Luciente? Bee? Hawk? Who'll stand between me and death, me and sickness, me and drowning? I must serve the talent that uses me, the energy that flows through me, but I musn't make others serve me. Don't you see the difference?"
On Duties and Art:
"Connie, we think art is production. We think making a painting is as real as growing a peach or making diving gear. No more real, no less real. Its useful and good on a different level, but its production. If thats the work I want to do, I don't have to pass a test or find a patron. but I still have family duties, political duties, social duties, like every other lug. How not?"
Bolivar, on relationships:
"Person was so curious, began far more friendships than could be maintained."
On Ambition and Talent:
"I am jealous of everybodies gifts. I want to be everybody and feel everything and do everything. Wherever I am, where I'm not plagues me. As long as I don't have to get up to early to do it all."
On going mad:
"People of your time confuse me, for they seem neither strongly inknowing nor strongly outgoing. Except in couples. Unstable dyads, fierce and greedy, trying to body the original mother-child bonding. Its tragic and blind."
On names:
The tall intense young person was staring at Connie. Jackrabbit, Luciente had said - therefore male. He had a lot of curly light brown-gold hair, and he wore the sleeves of his pale blue workshirt rolled up to expose several bracelets of handworked silver and turquoise on each wiry arm.
"When I was born, I was named Peony by my mothers - "
"Peony sounds like a girls name."
"I don't understand. It was the name chosen for me. When I came to naming, I took my own name. Never mind what that was. But when Luciente brought me down to earth from my highflying, I became Jackrabbit. You See. Named for my long legs and big hunger and big penis and my jumps through the grass of our common life. When Luciente and Bee have quite reformed me, I will change my name again, to Cat in the Sun."
He produced on his thin face a perfect imitation of Luciente's orange cat squeezing its eyes shut. "But why have two names at one time? In our village we only have one Jackrabbit. If I visit someplace else, I'm Jackrabbit of Mattapoisett."