1.) By 1886, Nietzsche himself had reservations about the work, referring to The Birth of Tragedy as "an impossible book . . . badly written, ponderous, embarrassing, image-mad and image-confused, sentimental, saccharine to the point of effeminacy, uneven in tempo, [and] without the will to logical cleanliness." Its reception was such a personal disappointment that he referred to it, once, as "falling stillborn from the press." Still, he defended the "arrogant and rhapsodic book" for inspiring "fellow-rhapsodizers" and for luring them on to "new secret paths and dancing places."

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_Tragedy#Reception

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2.) The two decisive innovations of the book are, first, its understanding of the Dionysian phenomenon among the Greeks: for the first time, a psychological analysis of this phenomenon is offered, and it is considered as one root of the whole of Greek art. The other is the understanding of Socratism: Socrates is recognized for the first time as an instrument of Greek disintegration, as a typical décadent. "Rationality" against instinct. "Rationality" at any price as a dangerous force that undermines life!— Profound, hostile silence about Christianity throughout the book. That is neither Apollinian nor Dionysian; it negates all aesthetic values—the only values that the "Birth of Tragedy" recognizes: it is nihilistic in the most profound sense, while in the Dionysian symbol the ultimate limit of affirmation is attained.

Nietzsche, in Ecce Homo, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_Tragedy#Reception

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3.) Mark Rothko's interest was "only in expressing basic human emotions — tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on. And the fact that a lot of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I can communicate those basic human emotions . . . The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them. And if you, as you say, are moved only by their color relationship, then you miss the point."

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Rothko#European_travels

There is a Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas, opened in 1971, a year after Mark committed suicide.

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4.) "This is the beginning of a new day. You have been given this day to use as you will. You can waste it or use it for good. What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever; in its place is something that you have left behind . . . let it be something good."

-Anonymous

This was put up in the staff lunch room. Scary.

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5.) Even less than a box schema (see #7 from November 8), it would be cool (read: much more expressive, much more 'accurate' perhaps) to somehow have a swirl of these various words, pictures, images, ideas...not even a dance but just a swirl, somehow around and within.

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