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Me and Gary, brooding (September 2004)

READIN

Jeremy's journal

Books, which we mistake for consolation, only add depth to our sorrow

Orhan Pamuk


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Saturday, May 12th, 2012

🦋 Countdown

Prak nodded again.

"Forty-two," he said, "yes, that's right."

He paused. Shadows of thought and memory crossed his face like the shadows of clouds crossing the land.

Today begins the final week of my forty-second year of life.

posted morning of May 12th, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Birthdays

Friday, May 11th, 2012

🦋 Dear editor of Rub out the words,

Two things to consider:

  1. Most people who will be reading this book will know who Brion is without being told every time the name appears that it is Brion [Gysin] and likewise that it is [Maurice] Girodias...
  2. Even if that were not the case (and to be sure there are more obscure references that you clarify), the clarification could easily be done in a less intrusive manner than the bracketed insertions you use throughout, which tend to wreak havoc with the slack meter and the smooth readability of Burroughs' composition.
Other than that, on the other hand, it is a wonderful read, and a great resource to have on hand; so thanks!

posted evening of May 11th, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Rub Out the Words

Thursday, May 10th, 2012

🦋 Mr. Bradley Mr. Martin

It seems that M. was hurrying home after swallowing his mescaline tablet with hot tea in a cafe -- too cheap to support a hot plate you dig -- and he met B in the market and he had met B before but never seen him as hardly anyone does see him which is why he is known as El Hombre Invisible -- So B. said "Ah Monsieur M., Sit down and have a coffee and watch the passing parade...." and M. shook him off saying: "No! No! I must go home and see my visions" and he rushed home and closed the door and bolted it and drew the curtains and turned out the lights and got into bed and closed his eyes and there was Mr. B. and Mr. M. said: "What are you doing here in my vision?"

And B replied: "Oh I live here."

love
william burroughs
(letter to Allen Ginsberg, Oct. 30 1959)

posted evening of May 10th, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about William S. Burroughs

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

🦋 Before there was "Pierre"...

Don't Care didn't care. Reading and thinking about Sendak in the last couple of days (and particularly this post from Erica Friedman at the Hooded Utilitarian) have made me remember this post from last summer. (Read the whole thing.) What a fantastic nursery rhyme!

posted evening of May 9th, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Readings

Tuesday, May 8th, 2012

🦋 Sendak

There are so many beautiful things in the world which I will have to leave when I die, but I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready.

posted evening of May 8th, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Obituaries

Monday, May 7th, 2012

🦋 Pynchon in Public Day

Happy birthday, Mr. P!

posted evening of May 7th, 2012: 1 response
➳ More posts about Thomas Pynchon

Sunday, May 6th, 2012

🦋 Punch lines

This weekend I am noticing punch lines in my reading. I read two stories by David Foster Wallace -- "Mister Squishy" which I found to be beautiful, engaging writing but lacking in punch lines, and "The Soul is not a Smithy", which is my new favorite DFW and which abounds in brilliant punch lines; now am reading and enjoying a novel by Julian Barnes called The Sense of an Ending, which actually, coincidentally, has a fair bit in common with "The Soul is not a Smithy", at least on first impressions. I got a good laugh out of this punch line, delivered as Barnes' narrator is recounting his youthful efforts to find a girlfriend:

Some girls allowed more: you heard of those who went in for mutual masturbation, others who permitted "full sex,"as it was known. You couldn't appreciate the gravity of that "full" unless you'd had a lot of the half-empty kind.

posted morning of May 6th, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about David Foster Wallace

🦋 Moving patterns

Click through for more. via the House of Substance.

posted morning of May 6th, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Pretty Pictures

Saturday, May 5th, 2012

🦋 Greens and amber

I got a nice, impressionistic photo in the course of this morning's bike ride (up to West Orange, down to Millburn, up through the Reservation and meet Ellen on top of South Mountain) -- a street light on South Orange Ave. under the cloudy sky.

posted morning of May 5th, 2012: Respond
➳ More posts about Cycling

Monday, April 30th, 2012

🦋 Otra vez publicación

I got word yesterday that Metamorphoses, the journal of literary translation at Smith College, accepted my translation of Slavko Zupcic's story, "Tescucho, Italia" -- nice! This is the first piece that I have had accepted after submitting it to a couple of magazines and being rejected. Glad I kept sending it out. It will appear in the fall 2013 issue of Metamorphoses.

posted evening of April 30th, 2012: 1 response
➳ More posts about Translation

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