"We have been happily borne or pehaps have unhappily drag our weary ways down the long and crooked streets of our lives, past all kinds of walls and fences, made of rotting wood, rammed earth, brick, iron railings. We have never given a thought to what lies behind them. We have never tried to penetrate them with our vision or our understanding. But this is where the Gulag country begins..."
Solzhenitsyn
I was asked why the 10 + 1 after declaring Siberia for ages. Even Solzenitsyn knew the score and just stuck to autobiography and a few commentaries. In the ice cell of isolation what need have one for mindless graphics? The best I have seen are the "Prison Letters" by Bonhoeffer, that shooked a nation and bought down a whole school of theology . The collected archives added in the "Prison Poetry" with meditations on Psalms as a commercial retcon. It sold. The theory of isolation brings out the literary genius in most exiles. I read the 3 x Journals of Gombrowicz while awaiting the blade to fall. Life was Martin Road and a 9 to 5 warehouse sorter. The heat was a bitch and nearest toilet stank. 3 containers a day. That was what I was told. Nobody said anything about the crushed 20 x 20 cartons inside to be sorted out. The old school that was my co-sorter was Spider. He stank like the toilet and was always in heat. One time he came in with his head shaved bald and singing the saints are a marching in. We all knew he was somewhat out of it but no one even suspect he was suffering from a brain virus related to a sexual encounter he had in Langkawi. So this half dead spider stank and sang while I read Gombrowicz. I wonder why that's not a bad thing.
Darick Robertson came into his own with cover #5 for Transmet. The 10 + 1 was sold on this cover alone. Same for Hickman's Nightly News and Wood's Channel Zero. Don't believe the lie. You can read a book by its cover. Read the cover: This one stank of Chow Kit. This one stank of Jaybee. This one stank of Clementi. This one is Santa Cruz. This one is Stephanus Daedalus Tawau. This one is Puchong. This one is Sengkang. This one is Pasir Ris. This one is Jalan Gasing. This one is S.E.A Park and SS2. This one is Ipoh. This one is Potong Pasir & Hougang. This one is Penggarang and I stood at such a five foot way on a hot December night. This one is Chongqing when everyone has gone to sleep. This one is Joo Chiat. This one is Race Course Road at night. This one is Silibin. This one is Menglembu. This one is Sitiawan. This one is Pulau Tikus. This one is Bendemeer Road. This one is Bencooleen. This one is Beluran just 20k off Sandakan. This one is Teluk Ramunia. This one can be found at Teluk Blangah. This was abandoned at Pasir Panjang. This one was found at Brickfields. This one is old town. This one is Sentul. This one is Chaar. This one is Layang-layang. This is Gulag country.
"And those who, like you and me, go there to die, must get there solely and compulsorily via arrest"
Gulag Archipelago
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