Enlightenment is its own reward, its own punishment. You begin to see so much more. And so much more sees you.

The human condition can be summed up in a drop of blood. Show me a teaspoon of blood and I will reveal to thee the ineffable nature of the cosmos, naked and squirming. Squirming. Funny how the truth always seems to do that when you shine a light on it.

Skullcrack City messes with your mind the way William Burroughs or a bellyful of hallucinogens will do. I'm a longtime fan of Johnson. A master of derangement, he's been bringing it for years. This time, though, it's different. He's burst into the clear and is taking seven-league strides across the literary landscape.

Curiosity did not kill the cat all by itself.

He was trapped in the electrochemical web of cognition, wherein curiosity leads into temptation, temptation leads into fear, and fear is considered an impulse to be mastered.

Enlightenment is its own reward, its own punishment. You begin to see so much more. And so much more sees you.

THE TESTAMENT OF TALL EAGLE is myth-making of epic scope.