after the quake

“Liza! What was it yesterday, then?” “It was what it was.” “That’s impossible! That’s cruel!”

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, Demons

radio:… garrison already decimated by the Vietcong, who lost 115 of their men…

woman: It’s awful, isn’t it, it’s so anonymous.

man: What is?

woman: They say 115 guerillas, yet it doesn’t mean anything, because we don’t know anything about these men, who they are, whether they love a woman, or have children, if they prefer the cinema to the theatre. We know nothing. They just say… 115 dead.

—Jean-Luc Godard, Pierrot le Fou