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CarrollBlog 12.31
http://www.followtheblackrabbit.com/gallery.htm
CarrollBlog 12.30
Daron Larson had this good quote on his website (http://daronlarson.blogspot.com/). I think it's an appropriate one for the New Year: "I neither look forward, where there is doubt, nor backward where there is regret; I look inward and ask myself not if there is anything out in the world that I want and had better grab quickly before nightfall, but whether there is anything inside me that I have not yet unpacked. I want to be certain that before I fold my hands and step into my coffin what little I can do and say and be is completed." Quentin Crisp I wish you all a 2007 that lifts and carries you miles closer towards where you want to be.
CarrollBlog 12.29
She was talking about her childhood in Macedonia and how they celebrated Christmas there. In that time before the fall of Communism, fruit was an expensive rarity and bananas in particular were prized possessions. On the evening of January 6, the date the holiday is celebrated in Macedonia, there would be a loud knock on the door. The kids would run to answer it. A figure in a long cape with a hood hiding his face would ask in an ominous voice, "Are there children here?" The kids, knowing it was their father, would shout yes, us, we're children! From beneath his cape, this Grim Reaper would slowly and dramatically bring out a large wicker basket full of fruit with many bright yellow bananas on top. The kids always knew what was coming but nevertheless they were jumping with delight. Bananas! Look at all those bananas for us! http://www.jonathancarroll.fora.pl
CarrollBlog 12.28
People in Vienna who are blind or sight impaired wear large yellow bands with three black dots arranged in a triangle on their arm to alert others that they are handicapped. Passing one of them today, I thought wouldn't it be interesting if others wore color coded bands like that for all sorts of "handicaps" or positive qualities. For example, white would mean the person is a son of a bitch-- proceed at your own risk. Orange would mean they are a false friend. Black would say this person is fascinating but deeply neurotic, so be careful. Blue with two black circles would mean this guy talks a good game but in truth is a coward. Of course there would be color bands for good qualities too, but wouldn't it be helpful if you could tell at a glance whether you wanted to have contact with that stranger or not. Yes, it might take some of the mystery out of life but to tell you the truth, I'm exhausted by the mysteries I must confront daily and I assume you are too.
CarrollBlog 12.27
At the store 'Nello' on Madison Avenue in New York, 14 ounce wagyu sirloin steaks have been selling for $750. Wagyu dusted with white truffles goes for $1,050. At 'Masa,' a wagyu ribeye goes for $400 -- 16 oz. wagyu is flown in from Japan with special papers that feature a nose print and document the animal's ancestry.
CarrollBlog 12.26
ROMANTIC MOMENT After seeing the nature documentary we walk down Canyon Road where the mock orange is fragrant in the summer night It is just our second date, and we sit down on a bench, and if I were a bull penguin right now I would lean over and if I were a peacock I'd flex my gluteal muscles to If she were a female walkingstick bug she might and inject me with a rich hormonal sedative and if I were a young chimpanzee I would break off a nearby treelimb And if she were a Brazilian leopard frog she would wrap her impressive pummel me lightly against the surface of our pond Instead we sit awhile in silence, until human males seem to be actually rather expressive. enough credit for their gentleness. to get some ice cream cones and eat them.
CarrollBlog 12.25
If I owned a bar or restaurant, I would always keep it open both on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Almost everything in Vienna is closed then. But lots of people come here for the holidays and it's sad walking around town on those two days, seeing the tourists or the lonely looking for any place to eat or hang out while the rest of the city is home doing the traditional thing. Years ago a friend from out of town and I went out for a drink on Christmas Eve. For a while it was creepy and sort of like being in an ominous movie because everything was closed and dark, no one was on the streets, and the only places open were a few Chinese restaurants that were completely empty and iff'y looking at best. Eventually after wandering around for a long time, on a back street we found a small bar that was lit and open. We went in. It was like entering one of those happy beer commercials on television. As soon as we opened the door, everyone inside that packed buzzing place looked at us with big smiling welcoming faces. Like we were shipwreck victims who, like them, had somehow survived the Christmas storm by swimming to this shore and now we were safe. The feeling in that bar was unbelievably warm and...merry. Everyone was buying everyone else drinks and you wanted to hang out there for hours. ----------------------------------- http://www.hp.com/personalagain/us/en/making_hands.html
CarrollBlog 12.24
Lay your sleeping head, my love, from LULLABY by WH Auden Merry Christmas, Everyone.
CarrollBlog 12.23
This came in recently to the "Collaborate" section of the website. It made me smile for a long time: "There are many little rewards to working in a used bookstore. One of them is the privilege of being surrounded by old books, to learn about them and from them. When people sell their books back to us, you often find personal inscriptions inside. Some are lengthy and heartfelt. Reading them, you imagine the giver had hoped the recipient would cherish it forever, and yet here it is, in the hands of a stranger, the book and its sentiment discarded, for whatever reason. This inscription was written on the half title page of a trade paperback copy of your novel "Sleeping In Flame" - "For illustrating the kind of lover I want to be, I give you this book. My dreams lie within. Always remember that the answers come with questions, so trust, and ask. At least with someone else's imagination we have the opportunity in this life or the next, to love again. To the only girl I want to steal horses with, enjoy. Still burning, and breathing you," Thought you might find this interesting... Michael Hockinson Powell's Books on Hawthorne Portland, Oregon"
CarrollBlog 12.22
Every year at this time a friend goes a little crazy and bakes hundreds of Christmas cookies which she then gives away to friends and co-workers. Each person gets a box of them that must weigh four pounds. Even if you're a Christmas cookie fanatic, it takes weeks to eat all of them. I got my stash earlier today. Carrying it home under my arm, I bumped into a really raggedy street person who looked like he hadn't had a merry Christmas in one hell of a long time. He asked for money. Instead I spontaneously offered him the box of cookies. He snatched it out of my hands and looked it over suspiciously, as if it were a trick or a ticking bomb ready to go off in his face. Satisfied that it was okay, the man asked shyly if he could open it. Then he asked what was inside. Before I could answer, he saw the mound of cookies in there and his face transformed. Cookies! he said, almost groaning. Cookies, cookies, cookies. He wouldn't stop saying that word as he reached in, grabbed a handful and ate them all at once. O.N. sends another interesting one in-- watch the trailer: http://www.oneclub.org/oc/thealchemists/
CarrollBlog 12.21
For Polish readers, the first chapter of my new novel ___________________________________________________ A true story from RP, a fellow Vienna resident: An old lady is riding a tram. There are two annoying little kids running around, being generally obnoxious. Most of the people in the tram are annoyed. She turns to a woman who appears to be the mother and asks if she could keep her kids a little more quiet and not let them run around in there, bothering all of the other passengers. At this the mother is instantly visibly offended, saying she does not believe in giving her children orders. She is raising her kids anti-authoritatively, how dare some old woman question her parenting, etc. A teenage boy has been standing there the whole time listening. He walks over to the mother, takes the piece of gum out of his mouth that he has been chewing and sticks it to her forehead. He says "My parents raised me anti-authoritatively too." Seconds later the doors of the tram open and he walks out.
CarrollBlog 12.20
From "My Father's Suitcase," the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech by Orhan Pamuk For me, to be a writer is to acknowledge the secret wounds that we carry inside us, wounds so secret that we ourselves are barely aware of them, and to patiently explore them, know them, illuminate them, own them, and make them a conscious part of our spirit and our writing... All writers who have devoted their lives to their work know this reality: whatever our original purpose, the world that we create after years and years of hopeful writing will, in the end, take us to other, very different places. It will take us far from the table at which we have worked in sadness or in anger; it will take us to the other side of that sadness and anger, into another world. The question we writers are asked most often, the favorite question, is: Why do you write? I write because I have an innate need to write. I write because I cannot do normal work as other people do. I write because I want to read books like the ones I write. I write because I am angry at everyone. I write because I love sitting in a room all day writing. I write because I can partake of real life only by changing it. I write because I want others, the whole world, to know what sort of life we lived, and continue to live, in Istanbul, in Turkey. I write because I love the smell of paper, pen, and ink. I write because I believe in literature, in the art of the novel, more than I believe in anything else. I write because it is a habit, a passion. I write because I am afraid of being forgotten. I write because I like the glory and interest that writing brings. I write to be alone. Perhaps I write because I hope to understand why I am so very, very angry at everyone. I write because I like to be read. I write because once I have begun a novel, an essay, a page I want to finish it. I write because everyone expects me to write. I write because I have a childish belief in the immortality of libraries, and in the way my books sit on the shelf. I write because it is exciting to turn all lifes beauties and riches into words. I write not to tell a story but to compose a story. I write because I wish to escape from the foreboding that there is a place I must go but as in a dream cannot quite get to. I write because I have never managed to be happy. I write to be happy.
CarrollBlog 12.19
My friend the policeman told a funny story. One of his colleagues is a no-nonsense, straight arrow cop who also happens to be physically huge and very scary looking. This man likes nothing more than to pull a car over, scold the driver for breaking the law, and then give them a summons. He prided himself on never letting anyone talk their way out of a ticket, no matter how valid or sad their reason. If you broke the law, you were punished. One day he stopped a car that was flying along way over the limit. He climbed slowly and dramatically out of his patrol car and ambled up to the other one, now parked. When he got there he saw that the driver was a very good looking woman. In his best scary-cop voice he said to her, "Why were you speeding? Where's the fire?" The woman looked up at him and immediately said, "Between my legs. Is your hose big enough to put it out?" The cop was so shocked both by her answer and the woman's tone of voice that without another word, he turned right around, got back into his car and drove away.
CarrollBlog 12.18
In the middle of the floor of a busy public toilet, a man is sitting reading the newspaper. Many people walk in and out of the narrow room, glance at him and sidestep around him to get to the urinals. He does not lift his head once. He is wearing what look like reading glasses, a winter coat and a wool winter cap. There is a backpack nearby on the floor but it is closed. He licks his thumb carefully and turns the page on the paper. Someone comes over and offers him a coin. He looks up for the first time, smiles, and says "No thank you." Then lowers his head again and goes back to the newspaper. http://www.almagnus.com/english/galeries/photos/galc1/01c.htm
CarrollBlog 12.17
The British writer David Hare said "write about what bites you." One of the things that has bitten me with the new book I am writing is this question. Think about it in the tub this evening: However old you are, you have memories that belong in your personal hall of fame. Memories of times where you were happier than ever before. When you'd made that extraordinary one of a kind business deal, kissed that person for the first time that you had been dying to kiss forever, saw your new baby born. You know-- those memories. You also know that for most of us, life is generally ho hum/same old/been there-done that. The vast majority of our days are nothing special. Chances are they will continue to be like that till we die, with the rare exception now and then. So the gods come down and offer you a choice-Go back and live (somehow) eternally in one of those golden memory moments. Or you can go on living as usual with the possibility of more and maybe even better golden moments in the future. Realistically speaking, the chances of those amazing experiences exist, but they are slim. We all want to be happy. You remember damn well when you were the happiest you have ever been. The gods give you a chance to go back and inhabit that time forever, or take your chances on more but in the murky undependable future. Which will it be? Walker Percy, THE LAST GENTLEMAN
CarrollBlog 12.16
Early on Saturday morning in the empty cafe, the waitress and I are talking. Out of nowhere she says, "I hate working here right before Christmas. Most of the people who come in are stressed and really unpleasant. You can't believe how rude some of them are and what they say. I thought people were supposed to be happy now. Whatever happened to Christmas spirit?" She asks acidly, shaking her head. A few minutes later just as I'm about to leave, a drunken bum in a Santa Claus hat pushes the door open and staggers in. "Merry Christmas!" He hollers and staggers right back out onto the street again. The waitress and I look at each other. I say, "Ask and you shall receive." AVERAGE INDIVIDUAL SPENDING BY HEDGE FUND MANAGERS WITH AN AVERAGE NEW WORTH OF $197.4 MILLION, OVER A ONE-YEAR PERIOD:
CarrollBlog 12.15
"Ancient Egyptians believed in sending the dead into the afterworld with everything they needed to mirror their life on earth, especially food and drink. James and Kay Salter, LIFE IS MEALS
CarrollBlog 12.14
What is with this 'predictive text' feature on cell phones when you are sending someone an SMS? In the pantheon of small pains in the ass it is without question the most annoying tool anyone has invented in quite a while. The premise is that you tap in a letter or two and the feature will guess what you are about to write and put in the rest for you. Write ca and your phone writes cat or category or Carroll if you are me. The problem being it is always wrong. I mean, literally ALWAYS. It is like handing that task over to a person who is either very dim or genuinely retarded. Invariably I have to go back and erase everything it has written and start again from ca. I have sometimes found myself so frustrated trying to write a message while the damned thing keeps jumping in and writing wrong, unwanted words that I start to mutter at the phone. As if it were an annoying, boorish person who thinks they know what I want to say but never once has the slightest clue.You know, those types who are always one from ON: http://youtube.com/watch?v=O8JmN_-oudY
CarrollBlog 12.13
I know several very good looking women who in recent times have all coincidentally gotten terrible dogs. These curs constantly bark, or run away, they're completely uncontrolled, and perhaps worst of all they're sullen, neurotic, or just plain unfriendly. It's interesting to be with these women and their canine companions out in the world. The dog will do something bad and a victim will get justifiably angry at their behavior. Just as they are about to yell, they look up at the owner for the first time and see it's a pretty woman. Instantly you can see the victim's reaction recalibrate on their face. They either get more or less angry. Women tend to yell louder, while men bite their anger into a much smaller shape before they let it out. I know if I owned one of these miscreant dogs that I'd get hell from everyone, but not these ladies. Lucky dogs.
CarrollBlog 12.12
Having almost been hit by a car yesterday while crossing the street (young driver who wasn't looking where he was going), I was thinking about unexpected ways of dying last night. In "Outside the Dog Museum," Harry Radcliffe talks about this when he witnesses a death in a car wash. What I was thinking about in particular was the odd way certain writers have died. Apparently Tennessee Williams choked to death on a bottle cap after raising a bottle of pills to his mouth. The great Sherwood Anderson, who was such an important influence on Hemingway, swallowed a toothpick at a cocktail party while traveling to Brazil on a ship. He died several days later of peritonitis. The Austrian writer Odon Von Horvath was walking down a Paris street during a big rainstorm and got bonked on the head (to death) by a large tree branch. But the story I like best is one of the most famous Greek philosophers (whose name I naturally can't remember now) was supposedly killed when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his head from high in the sky, crushing the guy's skull. And how did you die? Oh, I was hit on the head by a large tortoise that was dropped by an eagle...
CarrollBlog 12.11
The small but real pleasure in life of finding an object that is the absolute best of its kind for you and subsequently knowing that you don't need to look for others anymore because you've found THE one. The right coffee, the right rollerball pen, the right notebook, the right underwear, the right diner, the perfect cheeseburger. In many ways life is an ongoing (and sometimes unconscious) series of searches for big things and small. Happiness, a partner, peace, the perfect cheeseburger. As we all know, actually finding the big ones are rare; impossible much of the time. But the small ones are sometimes attainable if we are lucky. How satisfying it is when we come across something that perfectly fits the curve of our desire. I read an interview recently with a famous musician. They were talking about the guitar they used, a surprising choice because it is a relatively cheap, nothing special brand and model. The performer said they had discovered it when they were first starting out. After testing countless others over the years, they realized this specific guitar was the one they liked best. They owned seven of them now and never even tried others because they were absolutely certain they had found what they were looking for in that department. http://shop.kissochbajs.com/default.asp?lang=uk1
CarrollBlog 12.10
I Wash The Shirt by Anna Swir For the last time I wash the shirt From among all bodies in the world,
CarrollBlog 12.9
One of the milestones of growing older is hearing that people you know have committed suicide. It usually doesn't happen (from my experience) until you are in your thirties. There are exceptions of course-- the first person I ever knew who committed suicide was one class behind me in high school. He had gotten a B- on a biochemistry exam and drank poison. But for most, life doesn't start to darken until they are into their thirties and realize that the future isn't opening for them like the Red Sea for Moses. The second step on this ladder is when people you know who are significantly younger kill themselves-- ex-students, friends' children, young colleagues. I heard the other day that a student of mine from many years ago shot himself. Besides the sad and disturbing thoughts that came with the news, the only thing I could think about was this 17 year old wiseguy who used to sit in the front row of my class and make trouble. We sort of liked each other, sort of didn't. He was smart but lazy. When I thought about him back in those days I had the feeling he'd probably do okay in life. Not spectacularly, but okay.
CarrollBlog 12.8
"If you write books-- or a certain kind of book, anyway-- you can't resist a scan round the hotel swimming pool when you go on holiday. You just can't help yourself, despite the odds: you need to know, straight off, whether anyone is reading one of yours. You imagine spending your days under a parasol watching, transfixed and humbled, as a beautiful and intelligent young man or woman, almost certainly a future best friend, maybe even spouse, weeps and laughs through three hundred pages of your brilliant prose, too absorbed even to go for a swim, or take a sip of Evian. I was cured of this particular fantasy a couple of years ago, when I spent a week watching a woman on the other sided of the pool reading my first novel HIGH FIDELITY. Unfortunately, however, I was on holiday with my sister and brother in law, and my brother in law provided a gleeful and frankly unfraternal running commentary. "Look! Her lips are moving." "Ha! She's fallen asleep! Again!" "I talked to her in the bar last night. Not a very bright woman, I'm afraid." At one point, alarmingly, she dropped the book and ran off. "She's gone to put out her eyes!" my brother in law yelled triumphantly." Nick Hornby, THE COMPLETE POLYSYLLABIC SPREE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8J5ZxVApQ0&mode=related&search=
CarrollBlog 12.7
There's an apocryphal story about the American poet Robert Frost I have always liked and which I used to tell creative writing students. The story goes that someone asked Frost what advice he would give to the beginning writer. The great poet said if someone comes to him and says "I want to write because I have important ideas and stories that I want to tell the world," their chances are pretty slim of ever succeeding. But if someone says I want to be a writer because I love more than anything else to play with words and language, then that person stands a real chance of making it.
CarrollBlog 12.6
I was reading a review today of a poetry collection by one of my favorite writers. The book was written in 2000 and went on to receive the Pulitzer Prize, one of the three most prestigious literary awards in America. The review however slammed the book, saying it was a stale rehash of the writer's previous work, nothing new here, he's run out of ideas, etcetera. This poet recently released a new collection. Following the thread, I looked up that same magazine's response to this newest work. Whoever the reviewer was this time, they used almost identical language-- rehash, nothing new, retread...etcetera. It reminded me of years ago, I got tired of people who didn't like my work saying "Oh, it's another typical Carroll book. You know-- talking dogs, flying children, weak hero, strong woman. The same old Carroll stuff in a different package..." So I purposely sat down and wrote KISSING THE BEEHIVE. It is not only a realistic novel, but very purposely does not have a single trace or trope of anything I had written before, fantastical or otherwise. When the book was published and I was doing PR for it, more than one journalist asked "Where are your talking dogs? Did you run out of ideas and that's why you've written a realistic novel?"
CarrollBlog 12.5
I don't know how we got onto the subject, but the woman giving me a haircut told an interesting story. She said her ex-husband had had a gruesome accident and was clinically dead for a few minutes before they revived him. He lost so much blood in the accident that he had to be given huge transfusions. After fully recovering, he was an almost entirely different man. Where once he had been tight fisted, now he was very generous with her. At the same time, where once he had said repeatedly what's mine is yours, after the accident he made it plain that he would get her whatever she wanted but everything would remain in his name. She said in general what had been black in his personality before the accident became white and vice versa. It got so peculiar and hard to deal with that eventually she told him point blank that he was no longer the man she married; he was 180 degrees different. She used the nice phrase "his poles had reversed." Finally she could no longer bear it and they were divorced, although to this day he says she is the only woman in the world for him. When she had finished telling me the story, she said for perhaps the fifth time-- "It was the transfusion. I am certain that putting all that blood in him from another person at one time changed him forever." I could only shrug-- maybe she was right.
CarrollBlog 12.4
Up the street a new cafe/bar has opened. It's a very modern place with lots of chrome, white walls, and natural wood floors. Nice enough, but the furniture looks like it came right out of a public school cafeteria-- ugly formica tables and laminated fake wood, uncomfortable looking chairs with spindly chrome legs. I cannot imagine ever wanting to sit in one of those chairs for more than ten minutes, much less spend an evening perched on one while drinking and chatting with friends. Whenever I pass by and look in the window I think how could the owners choose to buy ass-killing furniture like that if they want customers to hang around in there and spend money? I know a single guy who is constantly dating but never has much luck with women. Spend ten minutes with him and a new date and you know why. He's manic about trying to make them laugh, make them think he's interesting, keep them entertained. As a result he's too loud, too wired, too everything. You can see these first dates looking at him with the squinted, half-closed eyes of people standing in a wind tunnel while air is blown at them at hurricane force. This guy's friends constantly tell him to relax, quiet down, don't try to overwhelm dates and they'll like you more. But he never heeds this advice and continues to fail. I bring up these two disparate things because it constantly amazes me how smart, capable people (including ourselves, sadly) can look at something, consider the possibilities, and then make a decision that is so obviously, no-brain'erly wrong. Whether it be furnishing your bar with Triage chairs, or scaring dates away with wind tunnel ways. http://youtube.com/watch?v=nZY5Oz8TAMM
CarrollBlog 12.3
Great trees are envied by the wind. Japanese proverb "It is the eye which makes the horizon." Ralph Waldo Emerson "Faith is a torment. It is like loving someone who is out there in the darkness but never appears, no matter how loudly you call." Ingmar Bergman "I don't want to live. I want to love first and live incidentally." Zelda Fitzgerald
CarrollBlog 12.2
At dinner the other night someone was talking about a couple who had recently divorced after a long, pretty happy relationship. The way it was described reminded me of that nice line from Gabriel Marquez "there are long loves and there are short loves." This sounded like a long love that had run its course and now was over. But as is so often the case when marriages end, things got ugly and acrimonious. Words were said, lawyers were hired, etcetera. The woman, a writer, was working on a novel in which she included things about their failed relationship and subsequent break up. Before the divorce was finalized the novel was published.The husband read it and was both offended and deeply hurt by what she said. When he confronted her about it, she said "As soon as we started this divorce you stopped being a person to me and now you're just material."
CarrollBlog 12.1
I hadn't seen her for a while. She looked great which was a relief because the last time we talked she was a mess. An obsessive/compulsive, in the past she was difficult to even be around because she had way too many tics and eccentricities. If you were walking down the street together and she saw a cigarette butt, you would have to stop while she rearranged the position of the butt "just so." Sometimes this took quite a while and she could never tell you afterward what the perfect position was-- she just had to keep pushing it around with her foot till she found it. Or when she saw a dirty word written anywhere-- on a wall, on the street, in a newspaper, she would have to repeat the last sentence she had said three times to herself to make things right again. Her list went on and on. It was hard to imagine how she got through a day with her many strange self-imposed rules and regulations. She had a big dog she adored and it was apparently the animal that more or less saved her. She was out walking it with a friend and going through her usual three ring circus of quirks and weirdnesses. Seeing a certain color combination, she stopped dead on the spot and had to cross the street immediately or else. Jerking on the dog's leash for it to follow her, the animal came dutifully but slowly. When they got to the other side, her friend said, "Have you ever thought about the fact that every time you do one of those weird things, you make the dog do it too? You're always dragging it here and there, or making it zig zag, or walk in circles, or suddenly cross the street... I know you love it, but you should see the look on its face when you force it to do these things. You really do torment the dog." She said she was so horrified by the thought of "tormenting" her great friend that she immediately got hold of herself, changed what she could, and life has been a lot better since. |
