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"A friend asked yesterday if this blog is addressed to anyone in particular? I said yes– it’s a love letter to someone I haven’t met yet."
CarrollBlog 04.29
"He asked questions that were personal but never out of line or prying. Compelling questions, ones that made her consider carefully before answering, although they were about her and the way she felt or saw things. It felt as if she were looking at herself in a new kind of mirror—one that showed her angles she hadn’t seen before.”
from GLASS SOUP
CarrollBlog 04.28
The Italian language seems to have a great expression for almost everything. For example when a person is going to sleep at night, Italians say "sogno d'oro"
which essentially translates as "I wish you dreams of gold."
In comparison "Good night" or "Sweet dreams" sound so lame.
CarrollBlog 04.27
Sometimes a man stands up during dinner
and walks outside, and keeps on walking,
because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.
And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.
And another man, who remains inside his own house,
dies there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children have to go far out into the world
toward that same church, which he forgot.
Rilke
CarrollBlog 04.26
The French novelist Marcel Proust believed that people must know and understand themselves before they can know or understand others. He developed a list of subjective questions that he felt would help reveal to people their true selves and the inner personalities of those around them.
IF YOU COULD CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT YOURSELF, WHAT WOULD IT BE?
WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER YOUR GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT?
WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO LIVE?
WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE FICTIONAL HERO?
WHO ARE YOUR REAL-LIFE HEROES?
WHAT IS THE QUALITY YOU MOST ADMIRE IN A MAN?
WHAT IS THE QUALITY YOU MOST ADMIRE IN A WOMAN?
WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST FEAR?
WHAT IS YOUR CURRENT STATE OF MIND?
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE OCCUPATION?(WAY OF SPENDING TIME)
WHAT HISTORICAL FIGURE DO YOU MOST IDENTIFY WITH?
WHICH LIVING PERSON DO YOU MOST ADMIRE?
WHAT IS YOUR MOST TREASURED POSSESSION?
WHEN AND WHERE WERE YOU HAPPIEST?
WHAT IS YOUR MOST OBVIOUS CHARACTERISTIC?
WHAT IS THE TRAIT YOU MOST DEPLORE (HATE) IN YOURSELF?
WHAT IS THE TRAIT YOU MOST DEPLORE IN OTHERS?
WHAT IS YOUR GREATEST EXTRAVAGANCE?
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE JOURNEY?
WHAT DO YOU MOST DISLIKE ABOUT YOUR APPEARANCE?
WHAT DO YOU CONSIDER THE MOST OVER-RATED VIRTUE?
ON WHAT OCCASION DO YOU LIE?
WHICH WORDS OR PHRASES DO YOU MOST OVER-USE?
WHAT IS IT YOU MOST DISLIKE?
WHAT DO YOU VALUE MOST IN YOUR FRIENDS?
HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO DIE?
IF YOU WERE TO DIE AND COME BACK AS A PERSON OR AN ANIMAL, WHAT DO YOU THINK IT WOULD BE?
IF YOU COULD CHOOSE AN OBJECT TO COME BACK AS, WHAT WOULD YOU CHOOSE?
WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO (WORDS YOU LIVE BY OR THAT MEAN A LOT TO YOU)?
WHO HAS BEEN THE GREATEST INFLUENCE ON YOU?
CarrollBlog 04.25
Over the weekend a friend said she recently re-read Thomas Wolfe's great first novel LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL. But to her dismay, she was very disappointed by the experience and wished now that she hadn't done it. The book was one of the very important markers of her youth but re-reading it now after all these years, she found Wolfe verbose and sophomoric/trying way too hard.
I said I'd made a deal with myself years ago that I would no longer re-read books that I once loved. Although I know many people do it all the time, in my experience it never fails to disappoint. In certain ways the experience is similar to looking up old loves years later, hoping that despite the passing of years they will have remained as wonderful as you remember them. Or even more unrealistically, that somehow those intervening years will have magically made them even better.
CarrollBlog 04.22
Lines from various interviews with Leonard Cohen:
"No matter how old you are the heart goes on cooking, sizzling like shish kebab."
"There is a crack, a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."
"As you get older, you get less willing to buy the latest version of reality."
"I never discuss my mistresses or my tailors."
CarrollBlog 04.21
When I was seventeen, my father was invited to Japan to collaborate on a screenplay with the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. My mother and I accompanied him. It was a crazy, once in a lifetime trip. Kurosawa was considered a god in Japan for having made such classic films as THE SEVEN SAMURAI, THRONE OF BLOOD, RASHOMON, and others. Because he had specifically asked my father to co-write his first Western film, we were treated like mini-gods.
Kurosawa's son was my age and a member of one of the most famous rock groups in Japan at the time. A very good guy, he immediately adopted me and introduced me both to his friends and his life which was fast, glittery, and full of great looking women who smiled a lot but naturally didn't speak a word of English.
One night he said he was fixing me up on a blind date with the prettiest girl of all. I was to meet her at the Hotel New Otani at 10 pm for drinks and then we would see how things went. I asked if this girl spoke English and was told no. But don't worry because she's fun anyway. The implication was clear that we wouldn't need to talk after a certain point, etcetera. I was hesitant but what the hell-- I was seventeen and game for anything. So I put on my best and went to meet her at a hotel which was on the other side of town.
Tokyo is a huge city and to this day I remember how long the taxi ride was. I was nervous and eager and ready for anything. Still, the ride there seemed to take a very long time. When I arrived, only one very good looking girl was waiting in the lobby. Since I was the only blond, 6'4" person there, she came right over and said in halting English that she was the one. The reason we met there was a revolving bar/restaurant on top of the hotel, the only one of its kind in town. If you sat there long enough, you got to see all of Tokyo without moving from your chair.
I think our "date" lasted an hour. I don't remember. Of course it was a disaster and the girl made no sign whatsoever that she was interested in going beyond a drink or two. Silence, smiles, and then more deepening silence. Eventually it became too much and I signalled a waiter for the check. When it came I tried to keep the sang froid but it was hard because the bill was astronomical-- out the window, crazy expensive. Trying to be a 17 year old James Bond, I pretty much kept my cool and paid. Then I escorted the girl down to the lobby and gave her every last yen I had for her taxi ride home. She said thank you and left.
I was seventeen and very unhip to the ways of the world. Never once did it cross my mind that I could take a taxi back to my hotel, ask the driver to wait when we arrived, and get money from the desk to pay for the fare. I just thought "I'm broke so I I have to walk back." To this day I do not know how far it is from the Hotel New Otani to the Hotel Tokyo Prince but the walk took all night, and I am not exaggerating. I walked across that city for hours, having only one thing to guide me: behind my hotel was a huge television tower called, as I remember, the Tokyo Tower. Whenever I got lost, which was about every fifteen minutes, I would either look for the tower way off there in the distance, or I would ask someone. I would say "Tokyo Tower! Tokyo Tower!" in a desperate voice and then shrug exaggeratedly. When people understood what I was asking, they pointed in one direction or another and I was off again. This went on all night. Sometimes I got very very lost but was saved by small police booths throughout the city. Not much bigger than telephone booths, they seemed to be all over the place. In one of them I saw a man on the ground being beaten by two policemen. In another I saw three women, obviously prostitutes, huddled together and staring shamefacedly at the ground while being yelled at by a cop. These booths seemed to be hives of activity. Not only cops hung out there but loafers, voyeurs, and passersby if anything interesting was happening inside. Whenever I got really stuck, I would walk up to one and ask whoever was there "Tokyo Tower!" Some were amused, some suspicious, most people were as helpful as they could be to a tall American teenager who obviously spoke no Japanese.
The funniest part of the adventure happened in one of these booths. The first time I went in and asked for directions, a cop held up a hand for me to be quiet and lifted the telephone. He spoke into the receiver and then handed it to me. I took it and on the other end, a clearly Japanese man spoke a rapid fire English to me. So fast I barely could understand it. But we figured each other out finally and he explained in great detail where I was and how to find the way back to my hotel. But Tokyo is a myriad of little streets and tiny streets and alleys, dead ends, etcetera. So it was a very easy place to lose your way in, even with good instructions. Some time later and a few miles on, I ambled into another of these booths and did my routine. "Tokyo Tower! Tokyo Tower!" Shrug. Again a policeman held up his hand, picked up the phone, and by God suddenly I was talking to the same guy again in English, only this time he sounded more annoyed. Hadn't he told me where to go last time? Didn't I know how to follow instructions?
Around five in the morning when the sky was beginning to brighten, I was really really lost and dog tired and just beginning to doubt whether I would ever see my mother and father again. Luckily another police booth came into view and I dragged myself in. This time I didn't even say one word before the duty cop took one look at me, picked up the phone and dialled.
I took the proferred phone and said "Hello?" On the other end a familiar voice screamed 'WHAT, YOU AGAIN?!? YOU THERE, STUPID. YOU HOME! LOOK UP, JUST LOOK UP! LOOK ALL AROUND. GOOD BYE!"
And when I did look all around, I saw that the Tokyo Tower and my hotel were directly behind me, no more than a few blocks away.
CarrollBlog 04.20
"... It's so painful to think, and tell me, what did thinking ever do for me, to what great place did thinking ever bring me? I think and think and think, I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it."
Jonathan Safran Foer
CarrollBlog 04.19
That nervous, chicken-like twisting of the head back and forth people make when they arrive at an unfamiliar subway stop and are looking up and down the platform for the exit.
CarrollBlog 04.18
I was thinking about what objects have become ubiquitous in modern society that were essentially nonexistent ten years ago. The two solid things that came to mind were the mobile telephone and people carrying around bottles of (expensive) mineral water. Most mornings I walk to breakfast around six o'clock. Along the way I invariably see at least two or three people talking on mobile phones. But who the hell are they talking to at that hour? I don't think I have ever talked to anyone on the telephone at 6 a.m. And those that don't have mobile phones in their hand (or bag) have bottles of designer water. How did that happen? Where did the trend come from? Has the Western world's thirst so increased in the last decade that we must have drinking water with us at all times?
CarrollBlog 04.17
I see a woman climbing out of a car. Using both hands to get out, she has stuck her ice cream cone completely into her mouth so that only the long point of it shows. She looks like a unicorn whose horn has slipped.
CarrollBlog 04.16
Nice line from a NY Times article by Rich Cohen about Hunter Thompson:
"Thompson was among a group of American writers who knew how to be young but never figured out how to grow old: F.Scott Fitzgerald, Jack Kerouac, Eugene O'Neill."
Thompson's definition of "Gonzo," as in Gonzo journalism:
"Learning how to fly as you're falling."
CarrollBlog 04.15
What always amuses me is receiving Internet spam from XZPPPR103
(or some such random combination) touting a "red hot stock" that I should buy lots of immediately. How could anyone believe that a sane person (or even a sane fool) is going to buy stock sight unseen from someone "named" XZPPPR103?
Or Viagra from a vendor who either doesn't know how to spell the word, or purposely spells it "Viaggggra" to avoid spam detection. Buy something that I'm going to put into my body from a seller who doesn't even know how to spell the name of their product? Gee, I don't think so.
CarrollBlog 04.14
Stuart Titus sent this website in.
I still don't know how I feel about it. You decide.
www.postsecret.blogspot.com
CarrollBlog 04.13
When I was doing the book tour in Poland, an interviewer asked if I'd ever imagined a time when I would run out of ideas and dry up creatively. A time when there would be no more books inside me and nothing more to say.
I said sure, it happens to most writers sooner or later.
"When?" she asked.
"Excuse me?"
"When will it happen to you?"
I looked at her to make sure I'd heard her question right.
The expression on her face said she was entirely serious.
"Oh, I don't know-- maybe next Thursday?"
CarrollBlog 04.12
There was a feature on TV the other night about a man in lower Austria whose hobby is to scour junk shops and flea markets for old appliances-- refrigerators, mixers, floor fans.. and painstakingly restore them to their former glory. That kind of small obsession has always delighted me when I see it in people. The fact someone works so hard and with so much love to make a toaster into a phoenix says we're not all bad. Collectors, restorers, obsessives about the smallest things in life that most of us pay no attention to once they've outlived their usefulness. I love going to the flea market and seeing these people poring carefully over old movie magazines from the 1950's. Or closely examining the workings of cheap Russian wristwatches. Sellers' tables covered with only old huge steel locks, or smudged hand puppets in desperate need of everything, empty apothecary bottles. Look at the faces of the people holding those bottles, those puppets, those locks.
CarrollBlog 04.11
Line of the day:
"She had a lot of lies but few allies."
CarrollBlog 04.09
Sometimes you get a hankering for a specific meal at a restaurant that no longer exists. When you think about it, you can clearly imagine the great soups they offered, or those very special roast potatoes you had so often there. I hate it when this happens because no matter how good the soup is elsewhere, once you start thinking about the ones at the dead restaurant, there is no replacement for them.
Years ago a restaurant opened nearby called "The Green Donkey" that I discovered entirely by accident one happy day but fell in love with at first bite. Not only was the food great, but it was the kind I love most-- simple, beautifully cooked and plentiful. I'm not a big restaurant person but I went there often because the meals were so good and the menu so varied. One day I invited the woman I used as the model for the character of Isabelle Neukor in WHITE APPLES and GLASS SOUP. I wanted to introduce her to the place because I knew she would like it too. But to my great dismay, seemingly overnight "The Green Donkey" had disappeared and been replaced by a mediocre Thai restaurant. It was like a hard punch right in the appetite.
And damn it, still whenever I walk by that restaurant I can't help but look sadly in the window and think about lost potatoes.
CarrollBlog 04.07
last poem
by Halina Poswiatowska
This is the last poem
for you.
There'll be none more
I said.
Then
I closed the letter with a stamp
and dropped
the square flat heart
into the mailbox narrow slot.
Now people tread with caution
around the letterbox
and keep asking
what's that?
Did a bird move into
the letterbox
for it beats its wings on the sides
and nearly sings.
CarrollBlog 04.06
At least once every time I go to Poland I embarrass myself when it comes to public toilets there. For the life of me I cannot remember that the sign for men on toilet doors in Poland is a triangle, and for women it is a circle. It is the only place I have ever come across that distinction and I simply cannot remember which is which from visit to visit. So of course once every goddamn trip I sashay (usually hurriedly) right through the door marked with a circle and surprise whatever nice woman happens to be in there. I'm sure after having asked my Polish hosts fifteen times what the hell is the sign (again) for the men's room, but still making the mistake, they think I am either a true nitwit or a very practiced "accidental" voyeur.
CarrollBlog 04.05
Ostrowa, Poland
All of Poland is festooned now with white and yellow flags with a black ribbon at the very top draping down over it. It's like seeing innumerable swarms of tropical butterflies everywhere. I asked what the flag meant and was told white and yellow are the colors of the Vatican and of course black is for mourning. Almost everything is closed here now as the country mourns its favorite son. The most striking sight I saw yesterday was as we drove to Kalisz, a small circus was set up by the side of the road. All of the performers and a couple of the not so wild looking animals were walking aimlessly around their space, not having much to do on this day when circuses were not welcome in Poland.
CarrollBlog 04.04
Poznan, Poland
It's both strange and interesting being in Poland on this book tour while the death watch for Pope John Paul 2 is going on. The Poles generally adore him (both because he's a Pole and because he helped liberate them from Communism). He has been Pope for so long that many of the young people have never known anyone else as Pope and find it hard to imagine when tomorrow or the next day comes and there will be an Italian in that place or a German or whoever replaces him. Last night I was at a party in a very exclusive club in Wroclaw. It was a real scene from a Fellini film like 8 1/2 or an updated Satyricon. The place was full of very chic, beautifully dressed and coiffeured women and men. Laughing, drinking, partying up a storm because the Poles love to socialize and use anything as an excuse, even the visit of a weird American writer to their city. But at the same time up on a wall was a very large television tuned to the news and broadcasting a constant array of people weeping, holding candles, deep in prayer around the world for the dying Pope. I kept shifting my eyes back and forth from the exquisite shiny women and men around me with full glasses and smiles and those on tv obviously torn apart by the sadness of what was inevitable. Fellini would have had a field day. Every once in a while one of the partygoers would ask their neighbor Any news yet? or even Has he died yet?