CarrollBlog 7.1

The big jeans shop is having a summer sale-- Everything half price. Over in a corner three teenage girls are trying on t-shirts. They are all about 14 or 15, fresh faced and happy and chatty as only teenage girls out shopping with their pals on a summer day can be. Each one holds up a shirt against her chest to see if it fits/looks good on her. After one is finished trying, she hands it over to her friend. The shirt is black and in large rhinestones across the front it says SLUT.
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Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond the grasp, but if you will sit down quietly, it may alight upon you.

CarrollBlog 6.30

Like Riding a Bicycle
by George Bilgere

CarrollBlog 6.29

In the intriguing new novel THE GARGOYLE by Andrew Davidson, there is an interesting passage that's had me thinking since I read it. To paraphrase the author, the main reason why we want to sleep with beautiful people is because for that time we are with them intimately, we literally "own" their beauty. It belongs to us alone for as long as they are in our arms. I no longer have a copy of the book so I can't give the exact quote, but that's the gist of it. Over the years I've heard lots of reasons why we're so drawn to physical beauty, but that's the first time I ever heard that take on it and it's an intriguing one.
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"Writing a book is a bit like surfing. Most of the time you're waiting. And it's quite pleasant, sitting in the water waiting. But you are expecting that the result of a storm over the horizon, in another time zone, usually, days old, will radiate out in the form of waves. And eventually, when they show up, you turn around and ride that energy to the shore. It's a lovely thing, feeling that momentum. If you're lucky, it's also about grace. As a writer, you roll up to the desk every day, and then you sit there, waiting, in the hope that something will come over the horizon. And then you turn around and ride it, in the form of a story."

CarrollBlog 6.28

Women like to use chopsticks. Men not so much. Look around in any Oriental restaurant and almost all of the female customers-- single or with others-- are eating with chopsticks. Males only around 50%. Is it because women are more adept with their hands and fingers, as well as pleased by the novelty of using something other than knife and fork? Or is it because men are more impatient and just want to get the damned food into their mouths, not dropping half of it into their lap as they're bringing it over?
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TW ( a male) has this to say about my not- at- all scientific observation above:

CarrollBlog 6.27

It's always interesting to watch deaf or hearing impaired people conversing using hand language. Almost without exception, their faces are incredibly animated and *involved* in whatever it is they are discussing. It doesn't matter whether it is the speaker or the listener-- everyone in that conversation is fully immersed in it. Contrast that to people talking to one another who can hear. Just the expression on their faces tells you how frequently distracted or detached they are from what's being said. The next time you see people signing to each other, look at their faces and their body language. Then shift your glance anywhere others are having a spoken conversation. What a difference. I don't know if it means the deaf participate more fully because of their handicap, or simply because they are better conversationalists.
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"Make excellent mistakes."

CarrollBlog 6.26

I just received news from Farrar Straus & Giroux that (so far) my book tour of the US in October starts out like this:

CarrollBlog 6.25

It's pretty hard to improve on the wonderfulness of a ripping summer thunderstorm, but I recently witnessed an example. The storm came in pretty quickly although you knew about fifteen minutes before it hit that those galloping dark clouds would have something loud to say when they arrived. I was working at my desk when the storm broke and the only reason I looked up was because open windows started flapping in the wind. Then came the screams. Before standing up I listened carefully a few seconds because although they were high and many, they didn't sound scared or distressed; just a lot of jubilant screaming. When I went to close windows, the storm really got rocking-- horizontal rain, furious wind, raindrops the size of golf balls verging on hale. As I walked around the apartment shutting windows, I finally saw where all this noise came from: a school class of eight or nine year old's was down on the sidewalk with their teacher waiting for the stoplight to change. All of them were absolutely positively furiously and utterly *drenched.* Their school is nearby and what had obviously happened was while out on a class trip, they got caught in this storm just as they were walking back. The wonderful part was that all of these children were dancing, every single one of them. I mean really- going- nuts- boogey'ing. And if not dancing, jumping jumping jumping in absolute ecstasy as they got soaked. All the kids had given up trying to stay dry which was impossible anyway in that downpour. They were just getting wet as hell while standing at the light, loving it and showing their love as purely as only kids can do-- dancing wildly and shouting with top- of- their- lungs joy. I couldn't even distinguish which ones were their teachers because the rain was coming down so hard. It's been years since I saw that much happiness exploding all at the same time.
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"Fellini said, 'When you are trying to direct, they will tell you there are a lot of rules. Of course these rules are important, but in reality the way to tell a story is the way you would tell it to your friends in a cafe. And if you have a talent as a narrator, you will tell this story well. Otherwise all the technique in the world will never help you.'"

CarrollBlog 6.24

It's interesting that as a rule, the people with the thinnest skins are the ones who are or want to be artists. Sure it's a broad generalization and there are bound to be exceptions. But most writers/composers/painters etcetera I know are deeply insecure about what they do, riddled with self-doubt, or black holes when it comes to compliments about their work. Nothing ever fills them up. Even the ones who strut around (successful or un-) telling the world that they KNOW they're good are usually pretending. All you've got to do is be in their presence a while and it's obvious. Most writers I know either don't read reviews of their work or say they try not to because the bad ones do big damage, no matter how good they think the book is. Even the ones who have sold millions, had movies made... all the signs you would think a person would need to prove their work is appreciated. But not so.

CarrollBlog 6.23

oh god it's wonderful
to get out of bed
and drink too much coffee
and smoke too many cigarettes
and love you so much.

CarrollBlog 6.22

He was winter to her. Whenever she thought of their relationship everything was framed in winter-- hot drinks, heavy sweaters, their breaths white together on the cold air when they took their walks. They had been together in the summer too, but he wasn't summer to her. He was always winter. It made her think we assign people-- lovers especially-- seasons in our minds. She told a girlfriend this and the other gushed back immediately, "Yes! I know exactly what you mean! I've been married so long but I still always think of Ted against a summer background. Wearing shorts and t-shirts, eating ice cream, or on a beach together playing with the kids... Never in winter. I never picture him in a big coat or gloves or anything. Why do you think we do that-- give people seasons?"
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One in from ON:

CarrollBlog 6.21

Friday night, 8 pm

CarrollBlog 6.20

"I once knew a woman who liked to imagine Love in the guise of a sturdy dog, one that would always chase down the stick after it was thrown and return with his ears flopping around happily. Completely loyal, completely unconditional. And I laughed at her, because even I knew that love is not like that. Love is a delicate thing that needs to be cosseted and protected. Love is not robust and love is not unyielding. Love can crumble under a few harsh words, or be tossed away with a handful of careless actions. Love isn't a steadfast dog at all; love is more like a pygmy mouse lemur.

CarrollBlog 6.19

The beautiful woman walks by talking on a cellphone. Her voice is the most annoying petulant whine-- real dentist drill stuff-- and it stays that way until I can no longer hear her speaking. I cannot imagine living with that voice or, God forbid, that kind of personality day after day. If she could somehow magically step outside her voice for a few minutes and listen objectively to it, would she be horrified or affected at all by what it sounds like to other people?

CarrollBlog 6.18

"He'd gone on and on about the mistake and how sorry he was for having made it. She was silent a while and then said "It's a good mistake to make because it's a big one; no going back from fuck ups like that. If you're going to screw up, better to do it big time so your regret is thick and long lasting. Niggling regrets are no good-- they just annoy you like mosquito bites. Better they be colossal and leave scars that last a lifetime because you're more apt to learn from big mistakes. Little ones only piss you off."

CarrollBlog 6.17

There's a waiter at the cafe across the street who's always very formal and impeccable in the way he goes about his business. Very old school, you get the impression he's been serving coffee "just so" for decades and his manner is his art. He greets you formally when he comes to your table, dips his head in assent when you've given an order, lays the things down carefully but with a flourish when he brings them. You rarely see him talking to the other waiters, and he always seems to stand at attention while waiting for new customers to sit at his assigned tables. Croatia's national soccer team wears checkerboard red and white colored shirts. They are incredibly loud and vibrant-- more so than any other team. When their fans are in town it looks like a thousand moving checkerboards moving around with their hats, flags, shirts, etc. This morning as I was walking by that cafe, a man pulled up on a bicycle. I smiled because he was decked out in all-Croatia: red and white checkerboard baseball cap, t-shirt, and a sizable plastic flag stuck into the back of the bike. A real fan. Then he turned my way and my smile got even bigger when I realized it was the oh-so reserved waiter.
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be sure to click on the different dates to hear samples:

CarrollBlog 6.16

Love: Beginnings
by C. K. Williams

CarrollBlog 6.15

Lazarus Department:

CarrollBlog 6.14

There's a funny You Tube clip going around that was on some country's version of 'Candid Camera.' They mounted a fake life sized skeleton on a motorcycle and somehow got it to drive down the street. Inside the skeleton was a speaker so that they were able to broadcast loud scary things to whoever it passed. The film captures the reactions of all the people who encountered this Grim Reaper on a bike. As you can imagine, 100% of them were terrified and ran away as fast as they could. A friend of mine who saw the clip said two interesting things-- If this were real life, did those people really think they could RUN AWAY FROM DEATH? And her second observation was that ALL of the people ran in the same direction the skeleton was driving. Not one of them went the opposite way, which makes a lot more sense if you are trying to escape: If he's going left, you sprint right. So there you are-- advice for the day old Mr. Skeleton comes calling: You can't escape no matter how fast you run. But if you *do* try to get away, for God's sake don't run in the same direction he's going, especially if he's on a motorcycle.
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some hobbies you should just avoid:

CarrollBlog 6.13

Austria played Poland last night in the European cup soccer championships. The game was held in Vienna, so all day leading up to it, the streets around town were again full of fans for both teams hooting and hollering. The match ended in a 1-1 draw, but what was coolest was while working in my room with all the windows open around 9 pm,I heard tremendous shouts roar out of windows all over the neighborhood. Austria had tied the game in the very last minute and everyone everywhere in town watching the game yelled their joy at the same moment.
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In the late 18th century, Goethe traveled to Italy, where he saw Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper." At the time, people in Germany had heard of the painting but had no visual concept of it. He returned to Germany and wrote about it. There is a Greek term for this called "ekphrasis," or expressing an image in words.

CarrollBlog 6.12

An interesting email from WC:

CarrollBlog 6.11

While eating lunch today I was watching the Shopping Channel on TV. Suddenly my fork stopped halfway to my mouth because I'd had an epiphany-- Almost every time I bump into a TV shopping channel, whether it be in Europe, the US, or elsewhere, the object for sale at the moment is a vegetable chopper. It chops, it shreds, it dices-- you know the mantra. I would bet dollars to donuts that the most advertised object on shopping channels the world over is the humble, albeit ubiquitous, hand held vegetable chopper. The greater question is... why?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KAjvsyZv4Y
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and from RC:
http://www.break.com/index/surfing-with-a-great-white-shark.html

CarrollBlog 6.10

Austria and Switzerland are hosting the European soccer (football) championships this month and living in the center of the 'fusbol' frenzy is fun so far. Everywhere you go in Vienna, especially on game days, you're surrounded by happy lunatic fans wearing big "Cat in the Hat" hats or shirts/pants/scarves... in their team's colors, faces painted, honking horns, hollering team slogans... In a way it's like living inside a circus surrounded by happy clowns. On Sunday before the first match played in Vienna (Croatia vs. Austria), I went downtown to see the madness firsthand. Croatia's colors are red white and blue. Everywhere you went were huge crowds wearing team shirts in those colors-- singing, chanting, waving flags... Best of all, everyone was in a good mood. Many of them were drunk but not nasty or in-your-face aggressive. They were just having a great time on a sunny Sunday in June, revving up for the big game. In strategic places around town, gigantic screens have been erected so the people who don't have tickets can still watch the action with all their friends and other team supporters. Someone told me he had a bunch of pals from Croatia who were driving to Vienna (five hours) for the game, watching it on one of those open air TV's, and then driving right back home so they could be at work Monday morning. They just wanted to come here and be part of the hoopla a while.

CarrollBlog 6.10

http://www.yuppiepunk.org/2008/04/a-not-so-complete-history-of-literary-tattoos.html

CarrollBlog 6.9

Song
by Edwin Denby

CarrollBlog 6.8

"...in China today there are lots of wonderful gates still standing. Do you know how the Chinese built these gates? People would take carts out to old battlefields and gather the bleached bones that were buried there or lay scattered about. China's a pretty ancient country-- lots of old battlegrounds-- so they never had to search far. At the entrance to the city they'd construct a huge gate and seal the bones up inside. They hoped that by commemorating the dead soldiers in this way they would continue to guard their town. There's more. When the gate was finished they'd bring several dogs over to it, slit their throats, and sprinkle their blood on the gate. Only by mixing fresh blood with the dried-out bones would the ancient souls of the dead magically revive. At least that was the idea.
"Writing novels is much the same. You gather up bones and make your gate, but no matter how wonderful the gate might be, that alone doesn't make it a living, breathing novel. A story is not something of this world. A real story requires a kind of magical baptism to link the world on this side with the world on the *other* side."

Haruki Murakami, from SPUTNIK SWEETHEART

CarrollBlog 6.7

In the cafe, the old woman is sitting alone by the window. A waitress comes over and asks what she would like. The woman orders but the waitress doesn't leave. "You have a new hairdo," she says, cocking her head to one side and squinting one eye. The old woman immediately lifts both hands and touches her firmly packed hair. Then she starts to complain about how the hairdresser didn't get it right, it should be this and not that... But as she rattles on about what's wrong with her new 'do, her face says she is absolutely delighted that someone noticed the difference.
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CarrollBlog 6.6

Isn't it interesting how many of us will spend a lot of money on clothes (or for that matter, other valued possessions) we rarely use-- that beautiful cocktail dress or sharp looking shirt. But in our every day, we much prefer to wear clothes that are years old, beat up, and probably cost little when we bought them. Yes, the comfort factor plays heavily into this, but recently when I came home wearing a very nice suit and tie and couldn't WAIT to tear them off and change into some old jeans and a ten year old sweatshirt, I suddenly thought something's odd about this. An expensive suit, or a fountain pen you only use to write your name occasionally, a new car you're often worried about driving because someone might scratch it, the crazy-expensive shoes you never wear in bad weather, the fabulously delicate silk lingerie you haven't worn since buying it six months ago... the list is surprisingly long. In other words for many, we continue to pay lots of money for things that make us uncomfortable, worried, wary or worse.
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one from ED:
http://www.uchu-country.com/works/hairhats.html

CarrollBlog 6.5

To celebrate the publication of THE GHOST IN LOVE at the end of September, we've hired the graphic/website design company LIGHTCAGE to radically overhaul the look and content of jonathancarroll.com, as well as add all sorts of cool new audio/visual bells and whistles. The official launch will probably be some time in August, but you'll begin seeing changes relatively soon. This is the first time the site has gotten a major facelift since it began almost a decade ago and it's exciting. From what I've seen and heard so far, I think you will be too when you see what LIGHTCAGE has planned. Stay tuned.

CarrollBlog 6.4

Two wheelchairs facing each other in the park. From afar all I can make out is the people sitting in them are both wearing black. Getting closer I see they are girls about eighteen dressed from head to toe as Goths. Their faces are almost China white and their long hair black. Both have severe anorexia or some other wasting disease that has made them hideously thin. I cannot imagine that they are not dying. They're laughing and waving their hands all around as they explain whatever. Dark clouds overhead and the crack of loud thunder nearby. Both look at the sky, smile, and go back to their conversation.

CarrollBlog 6.3

There are certain words that usually make me cringe when I hear or read them. One of those words is "deserved." I once read a profile about a photographer who was very famous in the 1970's and 80's. At the peak of his success he ruined everything by taking drugs. But eventually he got hold of himself, cleaned up, and went back to photography. The profile was written because he was having his first major show in years. The line I vividly remember him saying was, "I deserve the acclaim I'm getting now because of the hell I've been through in the last decade." Soon after the show was over he dropped dead. When people say things like, "They deserve their good fortune (or bad) because of this or that" I always want to ask, "How do you know what people *deserve*? Have you figured things out? If so, would you please tell me because I keep getting it wrong."
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"The most powerful weapon you have is your courage," Ishmael said. "Yet the line between courageous and foolhardy is hazy at best."
"Be patient," said Job.
"Be wary," said Jacob.
"Be amazing," said Adam

CarrollBlog 6.2

Things to Do in the Belly of the Whale
by Dan Albergotti

CarrollBlog 6.1

Certain things must be here. Most importantly the pile of sticks in the fireplace. Every one of those pieces of wood is important. Written on each is a date and a reason. I have never counted, but would guess there are twenty now. Hugh's collection was much larger, but he started his years before I did.