You can walk down 11th if you want but its still gonna be on 10th. Hahaha.
Its hot as hell in that jawn, little baby stickin fingers in that socket - I was like Lorrrd.
Yeah, like I said, I'm just gonna check this jawn out...
...People that was ign'ant
That was what?
People that was ign'ant!
Oh, yeah.
Yeah me and everett-todd sposed to be goin down the library he sposed to show me how to post stuff on facebook.
But because I wanna smoke crack, you know, I winds up goin back to jail!
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Hemingway and Chekhov
Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt, use it-don't cheat with it. Ernest Hemingway
All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened. Ernest Hemingway
A man's got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book. Ernest Hemingway
All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened. Ernest Hemingway
A man's got to take a lot of punishment to write a really funny book. Ernest Hemingway
http://mockingbird.creighton.edu/ncw/chekwrit.htm
Cross out the beginning and the end - that's where we do most of our lying.
This also adds mystery and treats the reader as intelligent. The story is short. Its just a glimpse at something. Get it and get out Carver says.
Restrain enthusiasm. He tells Max Gorky to do this. Whatever is being expressed gets lost in the enthusiasm for the reader. It becomes just enthusiasm, what is being expressed, and its boring. It goes on too long.
Write what is in your nature to write: is it lyrical or curse-ridden? Cold or soft? Am I cold person who writes drily. Not flowery stuff of the soft. To the point, precise, clean. Lean.
Know what your work is (about). Like for Carver it is about people who used to want to do what mattered but they have been broken and now they just try to do the best they can. They want to do what's right but they can't sometimes. They are human.
Fiction is what is like to be a fucking human being, David Foster Wallace says.
"Best of all, shun all descriptions of the characters' spiritual state. You must try to have that state emerge clearly from their actions. Don't try for too many characters. The center of gravity should reside in two: he and she."
You can tell when you read Carver that he practices this principle. There is often a man and woman, and he will let the mans actions describe his spiritual condition.
"but you are confusing two concepts: the solution of a problem and the correct formulation of a problem. Only the second is required of the artist."
It can be tempting to people who don't understand art to ask about a solution, and to feel that every problem needs a solution. These non-artists cannot bear to appreciate the beauty of problems correctly formulated. Stories sometimes have a sense of resolution, but often it is just a hint, and there remains the mystery of the problem.
Looking for the answer kills the beauty of the problem well presented. Like the story of Carver's where the deaf man kills himself and his wife. Its a story about fish. The father tries to present a resolution to the son but the son knows the father doesn't believe this. He is only trying to comfort him. So this tendency towards resolution is about comfort. Art is more about tension. Carver likes a story with tension, it gives rythm.
"It is time for writers to admit that nothing in this world makes sense. Only fools and charlatans think they know and understand everything. The stupider they are, the wider they conceive their horizons to be. And if an artist decides to declare that he understands nothing of what he sees — this in itself constitutes a considerable clarity in the realm of thought, and a great step forward."
This quote connects well to the previous quote. To make sense of everything kills the mystery. Detail kills the picture. David Lynch says these things. The writer has a duty to truth.
Reading Carver and following his recommendation to read Chekhov is just a small humble step to becoming a writer...
Cross out the beginning and the end - that's where we do most of our lying.
This also adds mystery and treats the reader as intelligent. The story is short. Its just a glimpse at something. Get it and get out Carver says.
Restrain enthusiasm. He tells Max Gorky to do this. Whatever is being expressed gets lost in the enthusiasm for the reader. It becomes just enthusiasm, what is being expressed, and its boring. It goes on too long.
Write what is in your nature to write: is it lyrical or curse-ridden? Cold or soft? Am I cold person who writes drily. Not flowery stuff of the soft. To the point, precise, clean. Lean.
Know what your work is (about). Like for Carver it is about people who used to want to do what mattered but they have been broken and now they just try to do the best they can. They want to do what's right but they can't sometimes. They are human.
Fiction is what is like to be a fucking human being, David Foster Wallace says.
"Best of all, shun all descriptions of the characters' spiritual state. You must try to have that state emerge clearly from their actions. Don't try for too many characters. The center of gravity should reside in two: he and she."
You can tell when you read Carver that he practices this principle. There is often a man and woman, and he will let the mans actions describe his spiritual condition.
"but you are confusing two concepts: the solution of a problem and the correct formulation of a problem. Only the second is required of the artist."
It can be tempting to people who don't understand art to ask about a solution, and to feel that every problem needs a solution. These non-artists cannot bear to appreciate the beauty of problems correctly formulated. Stories sometimes have a sense of resolution, but often it is just a hint, and there remains the mystery of the problem.
Looking for the answer kills the beauty of the problem well presented. Like the story of Carver's where the deaf man kills himself and his wife. Its a story about fish. The father tries to present a resolution to the son but the son knows the father doesn't believe this. He is only trying to comfort him. So this tendency towards resolution is about comfort. Art is more about tension. Carver likes a story with tension, it gives rythm.
"It is time for writers to admit that nothing in this world makes sense. Only fools and charlatans think they know and understand everything. The stupider they are, the wider they conceive their horizons to be. And if an artist decides to declare that he understands nothing of what he sees — this in itself constitutes a considerable clarity in the realm of thought, and a great step forward."
This quote connects well to the previous quote. To make sense of everything kills the mystery. Detail kills the picture. David Lynch says these things. The writer has a duty to truth.
Reading Carver and following his recommendation to read Chekhov is just a small humble step to becoming a writer...
Chopping Wood
In the driveway against the wall that failed to keep our toys out of the nasty old neighbor lady's yard Stephane stacked wood. He bought the logs and they were stacked along the wall, maybe ten logs high and twenty long, for the fireplace, and covered with a sheet of plastic tied down to protect from rain. He took Ben out to cut wood and with a wheel barrel they'd take the axed up pieces to the bike shed next to Mom's studio, where they could be accessed from the raised wooden walkway leading up to the patio and the house.
He had these collections. He collected cars, he had a model car of everything he drove. He had a pink cadillac with a white roof. He built miniature planes and hung them on the wall. He taught Ben to make model planes for himself and bought puzzles and board games for the family. He collected foreign currencies and stamps. He gave Ben his stamp collection. They played dice games and card games. They watched soccer and tennis games together and went to the movies. Stephane went harpooning. He spoke languages, at least 4, maybe 6. He read National Geographic and political satirist cartoons by Sempe. He owned original editions of films, classic westerns, first edition Tintin books from his own childhood, handed down to his son. He owned rare art. He was a most interesting man. He was interested in seemingly everything. He spoke english with a french accent but he spoke it very well. He was an excellent skier. Hed been married to a famous actress. A movie star! He was a fly fisherman from Montana! He was larger than life. He helped his brother build a boat. A boat that traveled the Atlantic, the world! A home made boat! He wore shirts with buttons and sweaters. He wore suspenders and jeans and loafers. He smoked cigarettes that he rolled himself. Ajja 17. He was friendly to neighbors, and he worked with his own hands on his house, he knew the workers and they knew him. His secretary was a loyal friend. His mother called him all the time. He visited his mother. He took his new family to meet his friends and family. They ate here and there, and often had guests. He belonged to a group of friends who played cards every friday night. They had fun. Sometimes Ben would come downstairs for milk and honey and linger at the card game. They drank wine. He drank Badoit sparkling water. He had simple tastes, but he lived well. He loved the Beatles! He loved Nina Simone, and action movies! He took Ben to see Face Off and told Ben of the Japenese director. A master!
Stephane introduced me to his friend's kids and gave me places to go on the weekends. I learned to play tennis and ping pong with Jean Marmande's kids. We watched X-Files late at night. Ben was popular and he had a crush on his friend's older sisters. Louis' mom wanted Ben to tutor him in French but he would have been too embarrassed and so would Louis. She'd take them to rent a movie and order pizza if she went out or they'd eat together and then they'd watch a movie. Joao's Mom would make them sandwiches for a snack after school. Stephane kept patisseries like croissants, chausson aux pommes for snack. Guillaume's mom picked them up in her new Mercedes and bought them patisseries and served them snack while they worked on their History project. Ben's Mom helped them make a cover for an ancient looking book! Ben made a lot of friends. He showed them his american things. He had birthday parties. Charlotte wanted to come to the party and my friends would say hello to her. They all loved my Mom. Marie asked my Mom to teach her to dance the tango! Stephane sure knew how to dance. That was how he had met my Mom. She loved to dance and he was a great dancer. He taught us how to speak french. We drove around listening to french tapes and laughing at each other's adventures with the new language. Stephane bought translators for the kids. His mother got them magazine subscriptions. Stephane got us comic books and took us to the librairies and papetteries. We had big Christmases. Mom put on treasure hunts for us! We would make arts and crafts and send them to America. Stephane drew a family portrait to use as a Christmas Card. He would draw, and doodle, and sketch. He and Mom played chess. They stayed up smoking cigarettes and playing chess. Sometimes they watched a movie and tried to name the actors and what movies they were in! Ben thought they were so smart. They did most things as a family. A happy family. With a new baby, a puppy, a new house, a new beginning. They were happy.
They had lunch outside. Sometimes on the front patio by the mini pond that Theo liked to climb around in and sometimes in the back yard by the Boudigou river where the pool used to be. The whole family and sometimes friends or neighbors would run along the edge of the pool creating a current to float and drift in. Mom carried Theo on her shoulders in the pool. Ben felt like a man when Stephane took him to chop wood. They also hunted for mushrooms, went fishing, and did other manly things together. Stephane took Ben out to a piece of land owned by Jean Marmande and the three of them got to sawing and chopping wood. The family would gather around the fireplace and roast marshmallows and make smores. Stephane would tell stories, and the kids would laugh. Stephane would play with Justin, Ben and Charlotte. Sometimes Theo would play with Nana, his mountain dog. That was another thing they did. They went to the mountains, in Spain. Stephane enjoyed showing his new family the beauties the mountains had to offer. They ate raclette, and spiced meats, they walked around rustic towns, sat at cafes, and frequented bakeries for treats and beaches for a stroll in the sand. Stephane loved the beach, too. Ben would go fishing with Stephane in the Atlantic Ocean at 2 am. They'd come home with fish when everyone else was just waking up on the weekends. They'd wear wetsuits. Jean Saint Jean came by to give us wetsuits and chocolates. Stephane had lots of friends. Ben loved to hear their stories. He remembered Stephane and Luckive had caught a 10 kilogram Salmon on the shores of Luckive's beach house. Stephane built that house. He built lots of them. Hundreds of thousands of people walk on the boardwalk he built. Schools, gymnasiums, he built. He loved to read. He read everything. He liked stopping at flea markets and things like this and he could talk to the shopkeepers. He could talk to the butcher and the cheese salesmen. He respected their craft. He tasted cheeses and bought the best available. He bought the freshest and best priced fish. He was a smart shopper. Ben loved to see him at work. He had such ease as he moved through life, such confidence. He knew what he was doing.
He had these collections. He collected cars, he had a model car of everything he drove. He had a pink cadillac with a white roof. He built miniature planes and hung them on the wall. He taught Ben to make model planes for himself and bought puzzles and board games for the family. He collected foreign currencies and stamps. He gave Ben his stamp collection. They played dice games and card games. They watched soccer and tennis games together and went to the movies. Stephane went harpooning. He spoke languages, at least 4, maybe 6. He read National Geographic and political satirist cartoons by Sempe. He owned original editions of films, classic westerns, first edition Tintin books from his own childhood, handed down to his son. He owned rare art. He was a most interesting man. He was interested in seemingly everything. He spoke english with a french accent but he spoke it very well. He was an excellent skier. Hed been married to a famous actress. A movie star! He was a fly fisherman from Montana! He was larger than life. He helped his brother build a boat. A boat that traveled the Atlantic, the world! A home made boat! He wore shirts with buttons and sweaters. He wore suspenders and jeans and loafers. He smoked cigarettes that he rolled himself. Ajja 17. He was friendly to neighbors, and he worked with his own hands on his house, he knew the workers and they knew him. His secretary was a loyal friend. His mother called him all the time. He visited his mother. He took his new family to meet his friends and family. They ate here and there, and often had guests. He belonged to a group of friends who played cards every friday night. They had fun. Sometimes Ben would come downstairs for milk and honey and linger at the card game. They drank wine. He drank Badoit sparkling water. He had simple tastes, but he lived well. He loved the Beatles! He loved Nina Simone, and action movies! He took Ben to see Face Off and told Ben of the Japenese director. A master!
Ben played soccer and his friends would come get him with their bikes. They wore blue and yellow. Justin sat on the wall in the front of the house with his toy fishing rod. The bike shed contained fishing rods, nets, wood, boogie boards and wet suits. Mom's studio had a glass stained window. There was a wheel sculpture by the entrance and we took our shoes off. We took good care of the wood floor. Mom got a plancha in the back by the kitchen window. She painted birds on the kitchen walls. Stephane loved to cook. Mom would make pancakes and she loved her Caille yogurts. Sometimes Justin and the kids would make her coffee in bed. Ben loved to have spaghetti after basketball practice. Stephane made the best spaghetti. He used to sneak condensed milk. And Mom would hide the After Eights. We had desserts, mostly Carte D'Or ice cream, pistacchio or mint chocolate chip. Stephane would make crepes, too. And seasonal desserts and dishes. Fresh caught flounder and squid from the harpoon. Justin could use the harpoon, too. The boys went to catch shrimp to use as bait. They liked going to the fishing store with Stephane to learn about rods and reels and strings and baits. Stephane fished on the side of the lake. He was very careful about his rods and he showed the boys how to take care of their own.
Stephane introduced me to his friend's kids and gave me places to go on the weekends. I learned to play tennis and ping pong with Jean Marmande's kids. We watched X-Files late at night. Ben was popular and he had a crush on his friend's older sisters. Louis' mom wanted Ben to tutor him in French but he would have been too embarrassed and so would Louis. She'd take them to rent a movie and order pizza if she went out or they'd eat together and then they'd watch a movie. Joao's Mom would make them sandwiches for a snack after school. Stephane kept patisseries like croissants, chausson aux pommes for snack. Guillaume's mom picked them up in her new Mercedes and bought them patisseries and served them snack while they worked on their History project. Ben's Mom helped them make a cover for an ancient looking book! Ben made a lot of friends. He showed them his american things. He had birthday parties. Charlotte wanted to come to the party and my friends would say hello to her. They all loved my Mom. Marie asked my Mom to teach her to dance the tango! Stephane sure knew how to dance. That was how he had met my Mom. She loved to dance and he was a great dancer. He taught us how to speak french. We drove around listening to french tapes and laughing at each other's adventures with the new language. Stephane bought translators for the kids. His mother got them magazine subscriptions. Stephane got us comic books and took us to the librairies and papetteries. We had big Christmases. Mom put on treasure hunts for us! We would make arts and crafts and send them to America. Stephane drew a family portrait to use as a Christmas Card. He would draw, and doodle, and sketch. He and Mom played chess. They stayed up smoking cigarettes and playing chess. Sometimes they watched a movie and tried to name the actors and what movies they were in! Ben thought they were so smart. They did most things as a family. A happy family. With a new baby, a puppy, a new house, a new beginning. They were happy.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Raymond Carver 1983 Interview in Paris Review
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3059/the-art-of-fiction-no-76-raymond-carver
I'm reading an interview with Raymond Carver and by golly if he doesn't sound just like me!
Here is a quote:
I think I've moved around too much, lived in too many places, felt dislocated and displaced, to now have any firmly rooted sense of “place.”
Doesn't it remind you of my dilemma when people ask me where I'm from? Philly? Sort of? Capbreton? Yes I grew up there but is it my home town? Gettysburg? I've lived there as a kid and an adult but can't say I'm really from there... Etc.
Here is another, stronger quote that really connects me with Raymond Carver in a way that takes away my loneliness, affirms the way I used to feel, and makes me feel like I have a true friend and I can always read Raymond Carver's stories and letters when I need a friend (just like J taught me to do):
Art is all the things art is supposed to be. But art is also a superior amusement. Am I wrong in thinking this? I don't know. But I remember in my twenties reading plays by Strindberg, a novel by Max Frisch, Rilke's poetry, listening all night to music by Bartók, watching a tv special on the Sistine Chapel and Michelangelo and feeling in each case that my life had to change after these experiences, it couldn't help but be affected by these experiences and changed. There was simply no way I would not become a different person. But then I found out soon enough my life was not going to change after all. Not in any way that I could see, perceptible or otherwise. I understood then that art was something I could pursue when I had the time for it, when I could afford to do so, and that's all. Art was a luxury and it wasn't going to change me or my life. I guess I came to the hard realization that art doesn't make anything happen. No.
.. But wait, if the conclusion he reaches seems pessimistic or dark, he redeems himself with this beautiful statement and I couldn't agree more:
And I don't think it should have to do any of these things, either. It doesn't have to do anything. It just has to be there for the fierce pleasure we take in doing it, and the different kind of pleasure that's taken in reading something that's durable and made to last, as well as beautiful in and of itself.
And later, much later, when I was sober, using only that one line and other things I imagined, imagined so accurately that they could have happened, I made a story—“A Serious Talk.” But the fiction I'm most interested in, whether it's Tolstoy's fiction, Chekhov, Barry Hannah, Richard Ford, Hemingway, Isaac Babel, Ann Beattie, or Anne Tyler, strikes me as autobiographical to some extent. At the very least it's referential. Stories long or short don't just come out of thin air. I'm reminded of a conversation involving John Cheever. We were sitting around a table in Iowa City with some people and he happened to remark that after a family fracas at his home one night, he got up the next morning and went into the bathroom to find something his daughter had written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror: “D-e-r-e daddy, don't leave us.” Someone at the table spoke up and said, “I recognize that from one of your stories.” Cheever said, “Probably so. Everything I write is autobiographical.” Now of course that's not literally true. But everything we write is, in some way, autobiographical. I'm not in the least bothered by “autobiographical” fiction. To the contrary. On the Road. Céline. Roth. Lawrence Durrell in The Alexandria Quartet. So much of Hemingway in the Nick Adams stories. Updike, too, you bet. Jim McConkey. Clark Blaise is a contemporary writer whose fiction is out-and-out autobiography. Of course, you have to know what you're doing when you turn your life's stories into fiction. You have to be immensely daring, very skilled and imaginative and willing to tell everything on yourself. You're told time and again when you're young to write about what you know, and what do you know better than your own secrets? But unless you're a special kind of writer, and a very talented one, it's dangerous to try and write volume after volume on The Story of My Life. A great danger, or at least a great temptation, for many writers is to become too autobiographical in their approach to their fiction. A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best.
...
There's not much that I like better than to take a story that I've had around the house for a while and work it over again. It's the same with the poems I write. I'm in no hurry to send something off just after I write it, and I sometimes keep it around the house for months doing this or that to it, taking this out and putting that in. It doesn't take that long to do the first draft of the story, that usually happens in one sitting, but it does take a while to do the various versions of the story. I've done as many as twenty or thirty drafts of a story. Never less than ten or twelve drafts. It's instructive, and heartening both, to look at the early drafts of great writers. I'm thinking of the photographs of galleys belonging to Tolstoy, to name one writer who loved to revise. I mean, I don't know if he loved it or not, but he did a great deal of it. He was always revising, right down to the time of page proofs. He went through and rewrote War and Peace eight times and was still making corrections in the galleys. Things like this should hearten every writer whose first drafts are dreadful, like mine are.
...
So you write as well as you can and hope for good readers. But I think you're also writing for other writers to an extent—the dead writers whose work you admire, as well as the living writers you like to read.
I'm reading an interview with Raymond Carver and by golly if he doesn't sound just like me!
Here is a quote:
I think I've moved around too much, lived in too many places, felt dislocated and displaced, to now have any firmly rooted sense of “place.”
Doesn't it remind you of my dilemma when people ask me where I'm from? Philly? Sort of? Capbreton? Yes I grew up there but is it my home town? Gettysburg? I've lived there as a kid and an adult but can't say I'm really from there... Etc.
Here is another, stronger quote that really connects me with Raymond Carver in a way that takes away my loneliness, affirms the way I used to feel, and makes me feel like I have a true friend and I can always read Raymond Carver's stories and letters when I need a friend (just like J taught me to do):
Art is all the things art is supposed to be. But art is also a superior amusement. Am I wrong in thinking this? I don't know. But I remember in my twenties reading plays by Strindberg, a novel by Max Frisch, Rilke's poetry, listening all night to music by Bartók, watching a tv special on the Sistine Chapel and Michelangelo and feeling in each case that my life had to change after these experiences, it couldn't help but be affected by these experiences and changed. There was simply no way I would not become a different person. But then I found out soon enough my life was not going to change after all. Not in any way that I could see, perceptible or otherwise. I understood then that art was something I could pursue when I had the time for it, when I could afford to do so, and that's all. Art was a luxury and it wasn't going to change me or my life. I guess I came to the hard realization that art doesn't make anything happen. No.
.. But wait, if the conclusion he reaches seems pessimistic or dark, he redeems himself with this beautiful statement and I couldn't agree more:
And I don't think it should have to do any of these things, either. It doesn't have to do anything. It just has to be there for the fierce pleasure we take in doing it, and the different kind of pleasure that's taken in reading something that's durable and made to last, as well as beautiful in and of itself.
And later, much later, when I was sober, using only that one line and other things I imagined, imagined so accurately that they could have happened, I made a story—“A Serious Talk.” But the fiction I'm most interested in, whether it's Tolstoy's fiction, Chekhov, Barry Hannah, Richard Ford, Hemingway, Isaac Babel, Ann Beattie, or Anne Tyler, strikes me as autobiographical to some extent. At the very least it's referential. Stories long or short don't just come out of thin air. I'm reminded of a conversation involving John Cheever. We were sitting around a table in Iowa City with some people and he happened to remark that after a family fracas at his home one night, he got up the next morning and went into the bathroom to find something his daughter had written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror: “D-e-r-e daddy, don't leave us.” Someone at the table spoke up and said, “I recognize that from one of your stories.” Cheever said, “Probably so. Everything I write is autobiographical.” Now of course that's not literally true. But everything we write is, in some way, autobiographical. I'm not in the least bothered by “autobiographical” fiction. To the contrary. On the Road. Céline. Roth. Lawrence Durrell in The Alexandria Quartet. So much of Hemingway in the Nick Adams stories. Updike, too, you bet. Jim McConkey. Clark Blaise is a contemporary writer whose fiction is out-and-out autobiography. Of course, you have to know what you're doing when you turn your life's stories into fiction. You have to be immensely daring, very skilled and imaginative and willing to tell everything on yourself. You're told time and again when you're young to write about what you know, and what do you know better than your own secrets? But unless you're a special kind of writer, and a very talented one, it's dangerous to try and write volume after volume on The Story of My Life. A great danger, or at least a great temptation, for many writers is to become too autobiographical in their approach to their fiction. A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best.
...
There's not much that I like better than to take a story that I've had around the house for a while and work it over again. It's the same with the poems I write. I'm in no hurry to send something off just after I write it, and I sometimes keep it around the house for months doing this or that to it, taking this out and putting that in. It doesn't take that long to do the first draft of the story, that usually happens in one sitting, but it does take a while to do the various versions of the story. I've done as many as twenty or thirty drafts of a story. Never less than ten or twelve drafts. It's instructive, and heartening both, to look at the early drafts of great writers. I'm thinking of the photographs of galleys belonging to Tolstoy, to name one writer who loved to revise. I mean, I don't know if he loved it or not, but he did a great deal of it. He was always revising, right down to the time of page proofs. He went through and rewrote War and Peace eight times and was still making corrections in the galleys. Things like this should hearten every writer whose first drafts are dreadful, like mine are.
...
So you write as well as you can and hope for good readers. But I think you're also writing for other writers to an extent—the dead writers whose work you admire, as well as the living writers you like to read.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Three Seeds For Stories
Heather's parents meeting with me but super rich. Having a sit down. But it's like they need my advice. Well the dad feels I can help them to understand something but the mother is more like blaze and cynical so she pretty much thinks this little get together is a waste of time plus she hates me. The mom really hates me. The baby steps in my huge oatmeal or protein drink but the dad cleans it up. This black lady says that's a fact, Jack! and I'm in it. She was telling a story, well it was more like a prolonged interjection, imposing on everyone's attention span and sense of obligation versus judgment and un comfortability at a long dining table. I give a pound to the black guy from ghostbusters. Then I'm trying to see if I can get the hot pink hair gel that Heather wouldn't sell me when her parents and I are talking about the dad of Heathers boyfriends friend who was beat up and kicked out to make room for the new guy. He brought a towel over with like a pie on it that says I found God. The sceptical receiver says That's Nice. They both laugh. The host reluctantly let's the giver in his home. The house is deceptively middle class and modest outside. The dad is weak but the mom won't tolerate it.
The son sprays himself with something that gives him power. His breath is cold and unsmelling. He is viciously racist.
Listen, he tells the recruit, all you gotta do is like it to love it. Its like an all of the above thing.
He was waiting for her around the corner from her parents' house.
What are you going to tell them? He had asked before she went in. Just wait right here, she said.
Sometimes she didn't tell James what she had to do to be with him. Of course, he thought, she would do what she had to do. And that had been that.
So he's smoking a cigarette while he waits. He has been realizing lately that he had started smoking when he was alone. He didn't know what to do with such a realization, but he did something with it anyways. He wondered if that's what adults did. If adults did things alone sometimes, he had wondered. Things had to mean other things for James.
Sarah comes out of the house with an unbuttoned sweater. It was a sweater the texture fit and color of which announced that its bearer was still beholden to a mother and father who not only cared for her but wanted others to know they had the means and the moral cunning to do so. The wearing of this sweater was also saying something about the daughter qua willing sporter of symbolic garment. It said that she was learning to negotiate. She was growin into a world where everyone wants something and even a parent-child relationship is corrupt with compromise and that ugly feeling one gets of having vanquished ones opponent and walked away from a transaction with the spoils of negotiation. A world where parents smile for having duped their progeny and ungrateful brats brag of what they purpotedly took from their parents even as they neglect to show any gratitude for the bigger things she had been given by same. A world where the one who was there for you when you were weak and vitally dependent on them kick you with two feet as they learn to stand on their own as if they were jumping out of a kung fu movie into adulthood.
But James was not concerned for that at the moment and if he played his cards right when the time for the terms to come into effect the terms might could be damned he thought, with wild abandon. The important thing he knew was not the bond on which an agreement might have been struck nor the sanctity of the family but the desires of a young lover who was his lucky date tonight.
"Once you're exposed to fearful things you begin to worry that the peaceful, happy life could vanish or be threatened."
- David Lynch
I was living in a bad area but it was all I could afford before I found my own apartment and saved for a security deposit. I'd been living with my dad and could no longer accept those terms. I was between a rock and a hard place. Another scary place was for me to be bleeding with blood running down my mouth onto the sidewalk as I walk 20 blocks towards a taxi area/bus stop before I can get a hold of someone to come get me and take me to the hospital. I had been told I needed to get to an emergency room immediately if this happened. It was following an operation I had, tonsils removed, fairly routine so it was 99 percent sure for nothing like that to happen. I cried when I got out of the emergency and waited outside the hospital for my friend to take me home. I was so alone and helpless. I wanted my mom.
The son sprays himself with something that gives him power. His breath is cold and unsmelling. He is viciously racist.
Listen, he tells the recruit, all you gotta do is like it to love it. Its like an all of the above thing.
He was waiting for her around the corner from her parents' house.
What are you going to tell them? He had asked before she went in. Just wait right here, she said.
Sometimes she didn't tell James what she had to do to be with him. Of course, he thought, she would do what she had to do. And that had been that.
So he's smoking a cigarette while he waits. He has been realizing lately that he had started smoking when he was alone. He didn't know what to do with such a realization, but he did something with it anyways. He wondered if that's what adults did. If adults did things alone sometimes, he had wondered. Things had to mean other things for James.
Sarah comes out of the house with an unbuttoned sweater. It was a sweater the texture fit and color of which announced that its bearer was still beholden to a mother and father who not only cared for her but wanted others to know they had the means and the moral cunning to do so. The wearing of this sweater was also saying something about the daughter qua willing sporter of symbolic garment. It said that she was learning to negotiate. She was growin into a world where everyone wants something and even a parent-child relationship is corrupt with compromise and that ugly feeling one gets of having vanquished ones opponent and walked away from a transaction with the spoils of negotiation. A world where parents smile for having duped their progeny and ungrateful brats brag of what they purpotedly took from their parents even as they neglect to show any gratitude for the bigger things she had been given by same. A world where the one who was there for you when you were weak and vitally dependent on them kick you with two feet as they learn to stand on their own as if they were jumping out of a kung fu movie into adulthood.
But James was not concerned for that at the moment and if he played his cards right when the time for the terms to come into effect the terms might could be damned he thought, with wild abandon. The important thing he knew was not the bond on which an agreement might have been struck nor the sanctity of the family but the desires of a young lover who was his lucky date tonight.
"Once you're exposed to fearful things you begin to worry that the peaceful, happy life could vanish or be threatened."
- David Lynch
I was living in a bad area but it was all I could afford before I found my own apartment and saved for a security deposit. I'd been living with my dad and could no longer accept those terms. I was between a rock and a hard place. Another scary place was for me to be bleeding with blood running down my mouth onto the sidewalk as I walk 20 blocks towards a taxi area/bus stop before I can get a hold of someone to come get me and take me to the hospital. I had been told I needed to get to an emergency room immediately if this happened. It was following an operation I had, tonsils removed, fairly routine so it was 99 percent sure for nothing like that to happen. I cried when I got out of the emergency and waited outside the hospital for my friend to take me home. I was so alone and helpless. I wanted my mom.
Do I Really Want To Be A Writer?
Am I having delusions of grandeur when I am thinking about being a writer?
What am I basing my potential on? I have an intellectual curiosity that makes me want to understand how things work. I have a passion for good writing. I read a lot. I have above average intelligence. I can see from within and outside certain social entities. I have a tough childhood and a sense of humor. I am on the depressive side. I can work for hours and hours and day after day on a writing topic. I have been told I could be a writer.
What do I need to do next? What's this about writers retreats? I should talk to G about her process of writing. What about a MFA in creative writing or fiction writing? I could still finish my bachelor's in political science, maybe even in global studies if I can study in a safe place. Then I should take the FSOT and take an internship, pass the test, etc, with a backup at entry level, etc. And then I have either grad school in IA or MFA...
Meanwhile I just continue to read a lot. I should also work to improve my fundamentals. I feel like I keep saying I'm gonna do something but I don't do it. And is it bad for me to have this dichotomy between reality and aspiration? Should I abandon all pursuits other than those pertaining to the present and near future? I probably should.
Now what about this Kundera business? Living in the moment is meaningless, the author is saying. Wasn't Nietzsche saying the opposite? What do I know about earthling philosophy? Well I know a little bit don't I. Actually I know normal person philosophy, stereotype philosophy such as the surfer mentality, the kumbaya, the business man's special, etc. I know a little of everything.
What did I like most in doing research last year? Was it the material or the sense that it was relevant or the practice itself (the work) or was it my ambition of becoming successful? I could have turned the Hungarian paper into a book but who would have read it? And what do I really care about academic papers? Aren't they just bull shit at the end of the day? Like J says, intellectuals are given professorial jobs so that they can enjoy a feeling of being important and prestigious. This way they are put to the side and don't bother us. Also they will not start a revolution. And what does G say? That more and more intellectuals go into areas of expertise so specific that one can't communicate to another. Divide and conquer.
And what about these rock star intellectuals like Benjamin Barber and Thomas Friedman? What's their deal? What do I want to do? Well I can help people. And I can do grassroots service like feeding the homeless. But don't I want a quality of life? Am I being brought to not need it? to let go of unrealistic expectations? Will I ever recapture The Lifestyle? Will I ever live like my role models? C warns against expecting that it would come easily. And what do I learn from A? Here is a wonderful person with wonderful friends and great tastes, smart, fun, pretty, puritan in the good way of improving self and having standards, and yet she struggles financially. Look at M. She can't afford vacations. But she is very talented. What does that mean to me?
I should be grateful just to not go to mental hospitals. To manage without losing control. That will be my greatest accomplishment. Look at J. He lives in a 3rd floor apartment. He has a crap car and a garden. He's smart but what the hell? Who is gonna tell me what to do?
Then there is what J was saying he would not do. Too much at risk. But not for me. Nothing to lose.
I'm good at soaking things up. I might begin to write better and better the more I read good writing. I learned French with lightning speed. So wait do I definitely not want to go into business? Anthropolgy? Computers? Engineering? Journalism? Politics? I want to be upper class. In the liberal professions. I don't really want to be in a bureaucracy but who's kidding? Can't escape politics. What have I ever been told I would be good at? I've been told I could be a writer, an accountant. KW said something about S having a graduate writing program. What are my options? Would I get financial aid for grad school? I mean would be eligible to take loans on my own? When do I get to be independant? Am I being a hypocrite here?
They say we shouldn't think about college for now. We should become independant. I'm not doing either. I'm already going back and I'm already forsaking my independance.
So this is writing. I like it. I can access thoughts that can be important. But how long can I write about myself before I become self-absorbed? Who knows. I have a lot of work to do on myself. But none of this would be publishable. And it could hardly serve as practice for writing something intended for consumption. But is that what I'd want to write? Wouldn't I want to write something inherently valuable instead? A unique perspective. Son of privilege. Son of abuse. Victim. Hero. Underdog. Front runner. I have been all of these. What a life.
But what do I have to offer as a writer? I don't really do the politically correct thing. That's fine with me. I can catch on to paradoxes and develop them into a frustrating dilemma with an unfinished ending.
So wait what was the answer? Is it better to keep it simple or to give concept depth? I can deal with the big issues. I can capture social awkwardness.
That last sentence gets left out at the end. The reader has to assume, has to have room to imagine. Yeah I have a lot to learn but as a writer I can choose any topic. I don't have to commit to a career path. I can even do a collection of pseudo academic papers on foreign affairs, etc. I can contribute op-eds to NYT etc. How should I practice? Is this really what I want?
What am I basing my potential on? I have an intellectual curiosity that makes me want to understand how things work. I have a passion for good writing. I read a lot. I have above average intelligence. I can see from within and outside certain social entities. I have a tough childhood and a sense of humor. I am on the depressive side. I can work for hours and hours and day after day on a writing topic. I have been told I could be a writer.
What do I need to do next? What's this about writers retreats? I should talk to G about her process of writing. What about a MFA in creative writing or fiction writing? I could still finish my bachelor's in political science, maybe even in global studies if I can study in a safe place. Then I should take the FSOT and take an internship, pass the test, etc, with a backup at entry level, etc. And then I have either grad school in IA or MFA...
Meanwhile I just continue to read a lot. I should also work to improve my fundamentals. I feel like I keep saying I'm gonna do something but I don't do it. And is it bad for me to have this dichotomy between reality and aspiration? Should I abandon all pursuits other than those pertaining to the present and near future? I probably should.
Now what about this Kundera business? Living in the moment is meaningless, the author is saying. Wasn't Nietzsche saying the opposite? What do I know about earthling philosophy? Well I know a little bit don't I. Actually I know normal person philosophy, stereotype philosophy such as the surfer mentality, the kumbaya, the business man's special, etc. I know a little of everything.
What did I like most in doing research last year? Was it the material or the sense that it was relevant or the practice itself (the work) or was it my ambition of becoming successful? I could have turned the Hungarian paper into a book but who would have read it? And what do I really care about academic papers? Aren't they just bull shit at the end of the day? Like J says, intellectuals are given professorial jobs so that they can enjoy a feeling of being important and prestigious. This way they are put to the side and don't bother us. Also they will not start a revolution. And what does G say? That more and more intellectuals go into areas of expertise so specific that one can't communicate to another. Divide and conquer.
And what about these rock star intellectuals like Benjamin Barber and Thomas Friedman? What's their deal? What do I want to do? Well I can help people. And I can do grassroots service like feeding the homeless. But don't I want a quality of life? Am I being brought to not need it? to let go of unrealistic expectations? Will I ever recapture The Lifestyle? Will I ever live like my role models? C warns against expecting that it would come easily. And what do I learn from A? Here is a wonderful person with wonderful friends and great tastes, smart, fun, pretty, puritan in the good way of improving self and having standards, and yet she struggles financially. Look at M. She can't afford vacations. But she is very talented. What does that mean to me?
I should be grateful just to not go to mental hospitals. To manage without losing control. That will be my greatest accomplishment. Look at J. He lives in a 3rd floor apartment. He has a crap car and a garden. He's smart but what the hell? Who is gonna tell me what to do?
Then there is what J was saying he would not do. Too much at risk. But not for me. Nothing to lose.
I'm good at soaking things up. I might begin to write better and better the more I read good writing. I learned French with lightning speed. So wait do I definitely not want to go into business? Anthropolgy? Computers? Engineering? Journalism? Politics? I want to be upper class. In the liberal professions. I don't really want to be in a bureaucracy but who's kidding? Can't escape politics. What have I ever been told I would be good at? I've been told I could be a writer, an accountant. KW said something about S having a graduate writing program. What are my options? Would I get financial aid for grad school? I mean would be eligible to take loans on my own? When do I get to be independant? Am I being a hypocrite here?
They say we shouldn't think about college for now. We should become independant. I'm not doing either. I'm already going back and I'm already forsaking my independance.
So this is writing. I like it. I can access thoughts that can be important. But how long can I write about myself before I become self-absorbed? Who knows. I have a lot of work to do on myself. But none of this would be publishable. And it could hardly serve as practice for writing something intended for consumption. But is that what I'd want to write? Wouldn't I want to write something inherently valuable instead? A unique perspective. Son of privilege. Son of abuse. Victim. Hero. Underdog. Front runner. I have been all of these. What a life.
But what do I have to offer as a writer? I don't really do the politically correct thing. That's fine with me. I can catch on to paradoxes and develop them into a frustrating dilemma with an unfinished ending.
So wait what was the answer? Is it better to keep it simple or to give concept depth? I can deal with the big issues. I can capture social awkwardness.
"She said, while looking at Johnny to make sure he didn't think she was serious. Was she doing this or did he tend towards the cynical? He made the leap of faith. Or the naïve and desperate act of hope. The fucking human way. They were never a moment alone again."
That last sentence gets left out at the end. The reader has to assume, has to have room to imagine. Yeah I have a lot to learn but as a writer I can choose any topic. I don't have to commit to a career path. I can even do a collection of pseudo academic papers on foreign affairs, etc. I can contribute op-eds to NYT etc. How should I practice? Is this really what I want?
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