EXCERPT: from Ellen Kennedy’s Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs (#1)
Florida
i had a dream last night about your parents and you
in your house in florida
your parents were dancing in the garage
and your mom was singing
and then the radio stopped for no reason
and she screamed ‘no’
and then walked away
your dad was pissed
then you went into your room and your computer had this program that you could make animations with
and you made like 5 videos of your dad
changing from a happy dad
to a pissed dad
then i woke up
your parents were dancing so hard
Paragraphs I’d Chew My Way Through a Mold Barn To Have Written (2): Matthew Derby
Super Flat Times, pg. 156, from ‘Instructions’
Before I lost my wife I had only ever hit one other person, and that was in junior high. His face is like a cotton swab in my memory now–he floats there in slow motion, holding a black book bag over his groin outside the locker room. It’s the Sesquicentennial and we’re getting out early to see the tall robots. I remember the scent of a person, the way it changes the air in a room. Louis Burney smelled like hair and lighter fluid–he came from the developments, where kids pissed out their territory and traveled in herds. I hit him in the gut–the reason isn’t so important anymore. The sound, though, is the thing. Like two sounds at once–and one of them is like the whole world just lifting up and folding over.
Similes, Metaphor, a Pushcart Prize Winning Poem and Mary Gaitskill
And she's hot!
It’s raining in Monte Carlo and so my plans to watch taped tennis all afternoon are shattered, shattered like the broken heart I have today to begin with. (It will be mended as soon as my husband comes home this evening and says, “everthing will be fine”.) The discussion on how many adverbs or similes or anything a writer should use made me think of this poem. Now, I do understand that fiction is not poetry (sorry Blake, that’s my opinion) and I understand that the agent who was sharing these rules did so out of a sort of kindness toward writers. That said, I love similes- even awkward ones, maybe especially awkward ones, like in the poem “Love In The Orangery” by Aimee Nezhukumatathil (who you can find out more about linked here). I also love the miracles that happen in The End of the Affair and cancer stories. READ MORE >
Malcolm Lowry’s Letters
Malcolm Lowry’s letters interest me more than his fiction (I don’t have this edition linked here, I have an earlier one). I’m not sure why that is, but hey, it’s just how it is. Here’s one of them:
“How to Build a Universe that Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later” by Philip K. Dick
[With a big hearty hat tip to Ken Baumann, who fwded me a link to this essay, apropos absolutely zilch, just because he thought I might think it was interesting. He was right and a half.]
It was always my hope, in writing novels and stories which asked the question “What is reality?”, to someday get an answer. This was the hope of most of my readers, too. Years passed. I wrote over thirty novels and over a hundred stories, and still I could not figure out what was real. One day a girl college student in Canada asked me to define reality for her, for a paper she was writing for her philosophy class. She wanted a one-sentence answer. I thought about it and finally said, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”That’s all I could come up with. That was back in 1972. Since then I haven’t been able to define reality any more lucidly.
[After the jump, I write Ken a note about what I thought about the essay]
“You” by Frank Stanford
Sometimes in our sleep we touch
The body of another woman
And we wake up
And we know the first nights
With summer visitors
In the three storied house of our childhood.
Whatever we remember,
The darkest hair being brushed
In front of the darkest mirror
In the darkest room.
My name has never sounded sexier.
Dead ringer.
I’m not sure how many people know this already, but “Justin Taylor” is–among other things–also the name of a fictional character from the now-defunct TV show Queer as Folk. What’s NOT defunct is the stream of fan-fiction concerning Justin’s relationship with Brian Kinney. There’s tons of it being produced and published, almost entirely on Livejournal. Often times they move the characters into new environments/situations/worlds, such as a sci-fi-ish future or else, as in today’s offering, a high school that’s also somehow “like Muppet Babies.” In the grand tradition of slashfiction, all of this *ahem* literature is known by the collective title of Brian/Justin fiction, or, simply–and perfectly, am I right?–BJ fic. How do I know all this? Uh, own-name Google alert–anybody? Here’s an extract from chapter two of QAF Babies (click anywhere to get swept away to QAFland):
I smile. “Justin. Justin Taylor.”
He repeats slowly, “Justin Taylor.” My name has never sounded sexier.
In response, he asks playfully, “Why shouldn’t I take home ec? Where else will I learn how to cook my man a hearty meal, balance his checkbook, care for all our adopted babies, and darn his socks?”
I stare at him blankly. After a minute or two, he chuckles. “Maybe I just want to ogle your hot ass as you bend over to put cookies in the oven…”
Sylvia Plath’s Son Kills Himself
Easter Post
Richard Yates, The Easter Parade (with a link to Tolstoy’s The Resurrection)
A Better Resurrection by Syliva Plath
I have no wit, I have no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numbed too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
A lift mine eyes, but dimmed with grief
No everlasting hills I see;
My life is like the falling leaf;
O Jesus, quicken me.
And from The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St. John, chapter 20, verses 24-31, from the Douay-Rheims New Testament (thanks Barry, for suggesting this version of the New Testament): READ MORE >