If power were horses...

   Stupid things they say: “If it were in my power, I would never permit this or that.”
   It's possible, if the power was given to you now, miraculously. But if you'd grown up enclosed in your power, slave of your power, you'd be on the side of the ones who do the beating.

— Diary of Andrés Fava, by Julio Cortázar, pg. 46

An alternative to raking leaves...

“We have sometimes wondered where the idea came from to powder the leaves with snake essence, but after some fruitless speculation we have eventually concluded that the origin of customs, especially when they are useful and successful, is lost in the mists of time. One fine day the city must have realized that its population was inadequate for the collection of each year's leaf fall and that only the intelligent utilization of the mongooses, which abound in the country, could overcome this deficiency. Some functionary from the town bordering the forests must have noticed that the mongooses, completely indifferent to dead leaves, would become ravenous for them if they smelled of snake. It must have taken a long time to reach this conclusion, to study the reaction of the mongooses to the dead leaves, to powder the leaves so that the mongooses would go after them with a vengeance.”


—“Around the Day in Eighty Worlds” by Julio Cortázar,  pg. 77

Cortázar does Fluxus...

   “THE SIMPLEST WAY TO DESTROY A CITY
   Hidden in the grass, wait for a large cumulus cloud to drift over the hated city. Then shoot a petrifying arrow; the cloud will turn to stone and the consequences go without saying.”

— “Around the Day in Eighty Worlds” by Julio Cortázar, pg. 7