“Egrek said, ‘Ters Uzamish, is cutting off heads and spilling blood a clever thing to do?’ ‘Of course it is,’ he replied.

We are entering what will be remembered (if anybody still remembers how to remember) as the Post-literate Age.

Three or four years ago, a black college official at Wayne State U. in Detroit, a mostly black town, startled me by saying, “I know one thing: The world has always been divided into black people and white people, and it always will be.” … (2001.4.7)