"Every song I ever wrote was written for you."
- -Belle & Sebastian, "Dog On Wheels"

"I've written pages, upon pages, trying to rid you from my bones."
- -The Decemberists, "The Engine Driver"

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Got any?

“I grew.

“I grew and stretched and raged around the room, filled the place with my fists and feet. I got my knees off the floor and walked. I hit the walls and clawed them. I broke through the clothes that were put on me. I wailed and cursed, hard words that came through the open window to me. I only stopped to swallow snot and any food that got in my way. My mother grew fat on the air that I left her. I slept where I fell.”

- -Roddy Doyle, “A Star Called Henry” (yes, the same Roddy Doyle that wrote the Barrytown trilogy; woah)

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Today is my 3/4 birthday.

A poem of mine, "Hassle-Free Sex!", was published in former-fellow-student Gina Abelkop-aka-lovebettie's brilliant and beautiful omnibus, "Finery".

Click on that link to purchase or trade a copy. Really. You should. Not just for my poem, but for everyone else's stuff plus the gorgeous design of it. I'm listening to the "Amélie" soundtrack right now and it and this omnibus go together really well. The finer things in life... sigh... :)

"[John] Hughes was unforgivably remiss as far as multiculturalism goes. These are all suburban white kids, for god's sake! If The Breakfast Club were made today, Judd Nelson's part would be played by Tupac, and Anthony Michael Hall's by B. D. Wong. Ally Sheedy's character would be a lesbian, and the Emilio Estevez character wouldn't exist."

- Jason Cohen and Michael Krugman, "Generation Ecch!"

Nick Hornby is a phenomenal writer. I discovered him in Scotland (I hadn't known about his writing the novel "High Fidelity") with "How To Be Good". It is brilliant (in both the British and American definitions of the word), my favorite book of his, one of my favorite books/stories/works of words, period.

I'm reading it for the second time right now. I'm not usually a fan of the whole middle-class angst thing, but maybe it's the British thing, I don't know. All I know is that I love this book with a vengeance. And maybe it's wishful thinking but in it I can sense my own style and sense of humor. It never fails to make me laugh out loud and/or epiphanize every page or so.

( Read more... )

He's done it again. Wrote a novel that totally messed with my head, that is. It's really quite astonishing: many writers only manage to master the creation of one universe. This dude, on the other hand, creates a totally different world in each of his novels (I've read most of them). Not only that, but they're all convincing- even at their most absurd. The only common thread in his work I can see so far is that each created universe incorporates so much the mind of the main character, sometimes it's hard to distinguish what's reality and what's in the character's (often disturbed) perception of reality. Not that it matters. I'm used to being confused, and have given up the desire to know exactly which reality I'm in whenever I read Pat McCabe. I give myself over to the story, to his artful (sometimes by being intentionally not) use of prose.

"...Nobody becomes an artist unless they have to."
- -Janet Fitch, "White Oleander"

What is it that makes some of us this way? Are we a special breed? Destined from birth, or otherwise? (Nature or nurture?) Blue children, all of us?

Do we really see the world differently? I have always often thought I did, and have spent a lifetime trying to figure out exactly why. Could it be the "artist gene" in me? Is it that simple? Is there all there is to it?, is there nothing else?, no other reason?

I peek at the world through these oddly-tinted lenses, wondering desperately how others with different afflictions see their world. Their tinted lenses are a mystery to me. I fancy their shallow literalness, seeing not beautiful and individual blades of grass among a sea of green neighbors, but rather just a lawn.

They see water when I see a powerful body with a life of its own, rushing slapping against the frothy sandy shore, edging into our safe dry world, receding.

Or do they see just what I see? Only they can't put it into words, or images, or any other form of expression, so they let it pass, wistful with the possibilities.

Or do they just not care? They have better things to do with their time, more important things to think about. Whatever fills their world takes the place of my colors, my rhythms, my movements, my inward existence.

I read this twice, with only a few weeks in between each reading. The second reading helped tremendously with my understanding of its non-linear narrative (I'm pretty slow). I've been thinking a lot about this book, in some form or another. I'm still processing the whole "inarticulacy" thing, but I'm pretty sure that it has put into words something which has both evaded and haunted me my entire life- the gift and the curse of the ability to express through words, and the curse and the gift of not being able to express well enough. Know what I mean? I'll have to come back to this one.

rasp·ber·ry
Noun. Slang. A derisive or contemptuous sound made by vibrating the extended tongue and the lips while exhaling.

When I was a kid I was a voracious reader, and this definition of "raspberry" often came up in the children's novels I read. For example:

"'You're a jerk,' she said, and gave him a raspberry."

I didn't know what the hell that meant. I only knew "raspberry" as a fruit. Since when did she have raspberries? I would think. And why on earth would she give him one??

I did eventually figure out what a "raspberry" was. But I still remember fondly my utter confusion, and the weird mental images it brought.