"All Right Then, We Are Two Nations"

Morning weigh-in (Wednesday): 178#, 14.5% body fat
Morning weigh-in (Thursday):179#, 14.5% body fat

I saw a reference to John Dos Passos the other day, a quote from The Big Money in this article about the DeCSS Haiku (the author un-anonymized himself), and have been thinking about him ever since. Funny, I recognized the quote; I have that page bookmarked with photos I took from a power plant, of coal barges on the Monongahela River. Couple of my friends got long diatribes about the structure of the USA trilogy, characters, themes, literary techniques, won't repeat it here -- you're welcome!

But here's some quotes from the stream of consciousness chapter "The Camera Eye (51)." It starts like this:

at the head of the valley in the dark of the hills on the broken floor of a lurchedover cabin a man halfsits halflies propped up by an old woman two wrinkled girls that might be young chunks of coal flare in the hearth flicker in his face white and sagging as dough blacken the cavedin mouth the taut throat the belly swelled enormous with the wound he got working on the minetipple

and ends thus:

the law stares across the desk out of angry eyes his face reddens in splotches like a gobbler's neck with the strut of the power of submachineguns sawedoffshotguns teargas and vomitgas the power that can feed you or leave you to starve
sits easy at his desk his back is covered he feels strong behind him he feels the proscecutingattorney the judge an owner himself the political boss the minesuperintendent the board of directors the president of the utility the manipulator of the holdingcompany
he lifts his hand towards the telephone
the deputies crowd in the door
we have only words against

...the next chapter is called "Power Superpower;" it's a satirical biography of Edison's assistant Samuel Insull.