« October 2008 | | December 2008 »

CarrollBlog 11.30
Most people like to imagine themselves as big novels-- 800 page doorstops that include forty fascinating characters buzzing around each other, major crisis and triumphs, perhaps even a world scale event like a war or a natural disaster in the background. All of this preferably described with the panache and poetry of a Russian master like Tolstoy or a French wordsmith like Proust. But the truth is most of us live 243 page lives, if that. There are only a few major characters in our individual stories, maybe a mid-level crisis or two, certainly some triumph or tragedy sprinkled throughout. But none of it is profound or interesting enough to demand more pages, more explication, more background. Thoreau famously said most people live lives of quiet desperation. He could just as easily have said most lives can be summed up effectively in 200 page novels written by adequate midlist authors.
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R has this to say about the above:

I'm not sure most of our lives could even reach that 200 page book. A pamphlet might be more likely. Or even a short story, wedged in a compilation. And even then all of us won't sell as well as that novella, sat smugly on its shelf. And the novella still envies the novel who, of course, wishes it could be like those other novels, the ones who have really achieved something.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be that short story. To know if you were lucky you'd leave behind a trace of yourself in your readers' minds - a smile, a frown, perhaps a sense of puzzlement or joy.
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listen to the story:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4244994
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqGQ72bre30

CarrollBlog 11.28
IF I MAY
by Brooks Haxton

I would like to thank (besides my family, you, my teachers, friends and readers) hydrogen
for fueling the stars without which poetry
would not exist. The sun has been the star
most crucial to my work, but distant stars
have been there for me, too, and planets, meteors,
the moon. About the moon, I'm grateful
that our boys left flags up there, and brought back
rocks and dust. I'd like to thank the dust.
The oceans may or may not have put
molecules together that first time
to form a living cell, but I would like
to thank the oceans for that dreamy look
they give us when the cameras turn toward Earth

. . . God I want to thank
especially, if He exists, which I believe
He does. He may not. Probably not.
But I would like to thank Him. Thanks.

CarrollBlog 11.27
"This is the way it starts-- you look at someone you have never met before and you recognize them. That's all. You just recognize them. And then it begins."

Tony Parsons

"Memory does not make films, it makes photographs."

Milan Kundera

"You can't fix stupid."

Ron White

"The truth is ongoing and beyond explanation, so it is better to be left with a question than to be given an answer."

Reshad Feild

"This gift of his for seeing, for noticing things that others don't, was one of his great qualities. To see beyond the usual, to pick out objects, real or abstract, that only he noticed. This ability he had to establish a relationship between himself and an object, between himself and a word, or between two words, and to collect such things, is essential to a creator."

Jose Donoso speaking about Pablo Neruda
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A new anthology by Peter Straub has just been released called POE'S CHILDREN-- The New Horror. Don't be scared away by that word 'horror' though-- there are a large number of really interesting stories in the collection by the likes of Neil Gaiman, Kelly Link, Dan Chaon, John Crowley, and me too. Check it out if it sounds like your thing. I was really intrigued and impressed by Straub's range of choices. Spooks don't live there-- things much worse.
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and finally, someone's good cause who just happens to read this blog:

http://pages.teamintraining.org/va/cmc09/dbessom

CarrollBlog 11.26
One of the things I've noticed while reading some YA books recently is how often parents (or foster parents) of the main characters are often villainous or worse. Whether it's the Harry Potter series, Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson, Neil Gaiman's CORALINE or many others, elders' indifference or flat out cruelty towards the protagonists are frequently the major causes of the problems in the stories. In a number of cases, Mom and Dad are even the bad guys incarnate. I know it harks back in part to the days of things like the Grimm Brothers or Anderson fairy tales in which a stepmother is often wicked and abusive, but why has this stereotype carried down these hundreds of years to today?
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JA answers the above with this:

"You asked why-- have you heard teenagers talk? Kids, teenagers
especially, are dramatic. Parents are their real-life villains, even
when their actions are completely justified. Teens, though, often
think they are right and everyone else is wrong, and geez, why are you
torturing me like this for no reason? The characterization of parents
as evil creatures takes it one step further, it's just hyperbole.
Either kids can relate to it and say, "ugh, I know what it's like to
have parents like that!", or they'll think, "man, at least my parents
aren't that bad!".
------------------------------------
and A says this:
"I expect parents play the role of villains in stories because too often we see real parents who are villains on an extreme scale (as in the recent Josef Fritzl case in Austria) and more often to a lesser degree as well. Not the sort of parents who dock your pocket money because you didn't do well on your exams, but the kind who systematically sabotage your well-being for their own selfish needs, whether consciously or not. Add to that the response already posted: teenagers are dramatic enough to start with, and breaking free from a parent's will to exercise one's autonomy is vital to becoming one's own person."
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmQFwIKsU1U

CarrollBlog 11.25
In the gym, two giant guys are talking. They look either like linebackers on a professional football team or a tag team in WWF wrestling. Both have very short crewcuts, huge sculpted bodies, and the air of confidence of someone who knows they can easily bench press 200 + pounds. They're having an intense conversation. As I walk by them, I eavesdrop.

"So you can put the braces on my teeth? I don't need to go to someone else?"
"No. That's what I do for a living."
"How long will I have to wear them?"
"It depends on how quickly your mouth responds."
"I'm a little bit scared of this."
"You don't have to be. I'm good at my job."

By then I'm too far past to hear any more but suddenly I like both of them a lot.

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Here's a cool link sent in by the inimitable RP:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:UNUSUAL

CarrollBlog 11.24
Purgatory Is Nearer in November
by Josephine Jacobsen

November is beautiful as the word sounds, is gray, is bare,
Is compact of wind, of leaves blown and the thin, tall rain;
Brought back to our care are the dead in November,
and the air of these days is charged with their pain.

For these are not the free dead, not the remote, bright crowd
Of our picture-book, or our image of nebulous heaven:
These are caught, tangled in a web comfortless as a shroud--
These have not familiar place, nor flight, nor oblivion, even.

They have not escaped yet-they are close in the clouds massing
together;
At the cold first drop you will stare on the dark ground and remember.
They are the accent of autumn, they are the source of the tone of this
weather.
The heart is reached by the waiting dead, in their month, in November.

CarrollBlog 11.22
advertisements by Bruno Aveillan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTtpFmgBmTI
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H22QvGq5m7s

CarrollBlog 11.21
I like those declarations that begin "The world is made up of two types of people.." Because in so many cases it really is true. One type of person always pays for the drinks; the other type never pays for anything. One type of person is always complaining; the other never does. Etcetera. Today's version is the telephone voice. The world is made up of two types of people-- those who immediately tell you who they are when they call: "Hi. it's Jon." And those who assume you know who it is just by the sound of their voice. They say only "Hi" but that's all. When you don't recognize them by their "Hi", you have to ask the embarrassing question "Who is this?" which of course hurts their feelings even before your conversation with them has begun. Or how about this version-- Years ago when I was on a book tour, a woman came up after a reading and said only "Remember me?" I said no. Her face fell. When she spoke again her voice was edgy and offended. Turns out she had been my student 16 years before when she was in 10th grade. 16 years. I looked at her like she had to be kidding. She looked at me like I was a jerk for not remembering. This sort of thing has happened to me more than once. So I beg you-- whoever you're calling, at least in the immediate future, for the sake of peace tell them who you are right off the bat. Maybe not your husband, girlfriend, mother, etcetera. But those not in your closest intimate circle-- tell them. And for God's sake, don't say only "Hi, it's me" and leave it there. I picked up the phone ten minutes ago and that's exactly what someone said. I answered "I know a lot of me's. Which one are you?"
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBvaHZIrt0o

CarrollBlog 11.20
While I'm doing my biz at a urinal in a public toilet at a subway station, a phone rings. I look around but I'm alone. I assume it belongs to someone sitting inside one of the two closed stalls. Sure enough, a very loud voice answers. So help me God, this is what he says:

Hello? What? Yeah, yeah-- I have heroin, cocaine, and some pretty good hash. Do you want any of them? Yeah yeah, the cocaine is pretty good but if I were you, I'd go for either the heroin or the hash. What? Yeah, the usual price."

At which point I was done and it was time to leave.
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Look for your own. Do not do what someone else could do as well as you. Do not say, do not write what someone else could say, could write as well as you. Care for nothing in yourself but what you feel exists nowhere else. And, out of yourself create, impatiently or patiently, the most irreplaceable of beings.

– André Gide

CarrollBlog 11.19
For some reason, I've been a frequent witness to rowdy groups of teenage boys lately and I've come to at least one general conclusion about them: in most groups of more than five, there are almost always two recognizable types-- the sound effects guy and the Karate Kid. Inevitably there is one boy who makes an unending array of sound effects to match whatever is going on. If the gang are all hurrying to get on a subway, he's the one who makes the 'vroom-vroom' or tire squeal of racing cars. Or if someone in the pod is being dumped on by the others, Mr. Sound Effects always offers up the convincing 'rat-a-tat-tat' of a machine gun mowing the poor guy down, or the sound of some other incoming explosion to match what is happening to the victim. Mr. S.E. is also adept at beat box, lions roaring, jungle birds or monkeys screaming, seven kinds of whistling, trucks reversing, etc. The other inevitable type in these guy gangs is the one who never stops throwing fake karate kicks and chops at others in the pack. Sometimes he's good-- you can tell he actually takes karate or tae kwon do classes. Other times he's just the one who's the most Attention Deficit/tightly wound member of the band who expresses himself best by constantly whipping out flying kicks or Bruce Lee-like punches to either cow or impress his peers, or whatever girls happen to be around them at the time.
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the following is part of an actor's actual resume:

"His film roles include the bizarre lead werewolf in The Howling, the over-sexed gorilla in Trading Places, and a physicist/gorilla in The Man With Two Brains. He doubled for Jack Nicholson in the Devil transformation scenes from Witches of Eastwick, played Peter Pan's Shadow in Hook, a gorilla in Born To Be Wild, Quasimodo in Naked Gun 2½ and a starring role (as a female gorilla) in Mom Can I Keep Her."

CarrollBlog 11.18
Snow
by George Bilgere

A heavy snow, and men my age
all over the city
are having heart attacks in their driveways,

dropping their nice new shovels
with the ergonomic handles
that finally did them no good.

Gray-headed men who meant no harm,
who abided by the rules and worked hard
for modest rewards, are slipping

softly from their mortgages,
falling out of their marriages.
How gracefully they swoon--

that lovely, old-fashioned word--
from dinner parties, grandkids,
vacations in Florida.

They should have known better
than to shovel snow at their age.
If only they'd heeded

the sensible advice of their wives
and hired a snow-removal service.
But there's more to life

than merely being sensible. Sometimes
a man must take up his shovel
and head out alone into the snow.

CarrollBlog 11.17
Dogs carrying their leashes in their mouths as they trot happily down the street next to their owners.
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Groups of people standing outside buildings, smoking hungrily around a single large ashtray.
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bums carefully arranging stuff inside their many plastic bags
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the small wonderful talent of a waitress bringing six different people their coffee and cake on her two extended arms at the cafe.
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the sound of a train whistle in the air when you are nowhere near a train station or tracks.
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the momentary mysteriousness of hearing someone talking on a cellphone in an exotic sounding foreign language.
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When you are very hungry, the thrill and delicious anticipation of the moment when the waiter finally brings your food to the table and you see it for the first time.
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the pleased look on the faces of old women leaving a beauty salon with a new coiffeur. Their hair looks either like frozen cotton candy or hedges that were just trimmed.

CarrollBlog 11.16
http://ru.youtube.com/watch?v=TBHGH_B750g

CarrollBlog 11.15
Here's a good Billy Collins poem from DL:

Envoy
by Billy Collins

Go, little book,
out of this house and into the world,

carriage made of paper rolling toward town
bearing a single passenger
beyond the reach of this jittery pen,
far from the desk and the nosy gooseneck lamp.

It is time to decamp,
put on a jacket and venture outside,
time to be regarded by other eyes,
bound to be held in foreign hands.

So off you go, infants of the brain,
with a wave and some bits of fatherly advice:

stay out as late as you like,
don't bother to call or write,
and talk to as many strangers as you can.

CarrollBlog 11.14
In Scottsdale waiting for the food to come, I overheard this from the table directly behind mine:
"I want you to do something for me tomorrow, okay? When you go out on the street, if you see a little girl wearing anything red, I want you to tell me about it after, okay? Maybe make up a story about her, or just describe what she's wearing if it's interesting. But only if she's wearing red. I don't want to hear anything about another color, only red."
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a classic, not to be missed:

http://web.fccj.edu/~hdenson/ENC%20Syllabi/horse.htm

CarrollBlog 11.13
"Even if I had amazing recall, and I don't, recollection is often just self-fashioning. Some of it is reflexive, designed to bury truths that cannot be swallowed, but other 'memories' are just redemption myths writ small. Personal narrative is not simply opening up a vein and letting the blood flow toward anyone willing to stare. The historical self is created to keep dissonance at bay and render the subject palatable in the present."

David Carr, THE NIGHT OF THE GUN
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www.kuksi.com

CarrollBlog 11.12
Another writer told me a story while I was on this recent tour. He says it's true so I assume it is. A friend of his works in a big bookstore in Miami. One day a middle aged woman comes in and asks for the number one book on the New York Times bestseller list. The salesman says sorry, but we're sold out of that right now. We should have it back in stock in a few days. However we do have number 2 and all of the others books on the NY Times list. Indignant, the woman says "Absolutely not; I never read anything but the number one." And she walked out of the store.
----------------
here's a treat for you from RPC:
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1392-carbon-copies-i-write-dead-peo

CarrollBlog 11.11
A number of readers in the UK and other places outside the US have written in asking where they can order copies of THE GHOST IN LOVE. I just learned that Amazon.UK is now selling it, which I assume also means it will be available from the German Amazon.com as well. For a while I was concerned this wouldn't happen because Farrar Straus & Giroux told me there were all sorts of international rights problems involved in selling the US edition outside the US. But I guess those have been resolved and the book is now there. So order immediately or else you will not receive a Christmas card this year either from me or my dog Harry Lyme.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnj8s6TW3OY

CarrollBlog 11.9
Someone told me they read on a blog that two people had tattooed on their wrists the phrase "Hope gleams in the idiot heart," a line from the Russian poet Mayakovsky that they found in my novel THE MARRIAGE OF STICKS. I have always loved the permanence of tattoos, the conviction by the person who gets one that they will be happy to have this thing on their body ten, twenty, thirty years from now. But besides the stupid tattoos I see all over the place today, I have yet to see or think of anything I would want on my skin forever. However hearing about this tattoo today I thought, that's a pretty cool thing. A good permanent reminder that no matter what, there are almost always surprises around life's corners and we should keep our heads up to see them coming.
--------------------------------
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3FLETalaMI

CarrollBlog 11.8
some terrific Russian animation from the always wonderful VS:

http://ru.youtube.com/watch?v=Aeiybs8uC0A

http://ru.youtube.com/watch?v=2OwCWSBl4jk

http://ru.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrPtgoPK0lc&feature=related
------------------------------
and another poem, this time from NG:

God Says Yes to Me
by Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

CarrollBlog 11.7
How To Be a Poet
by Wendell Berry

(to remind myself)

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill--more of each
than you have--inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your work,
doubt their judgment.

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.
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"But now I am coming to the understanding that success has less to do with the accumulation of things and more to do with the accumulation of moments, and that creating a successful life might be as simple as determining which moments are the most valuable, and seeing how many of those I can string together in a line"

Pam Houston
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cool site, now defunct:
http://obsoleteword.blogspot.com/2008_07_01_archive.html

CarrollBlog 11.6
An American novelist who won the Prix de Rome and is spending the year at the American Academy in Rome sent this report of American election night, Italian style:

"We stayed up all night. The first returns weren't due until one in the morning, but no one could sleep, or some people slept for an hour or two and woke around midnight and came downstairs where some other fellows had set up a party in the high-ceilinged Salone. Popcorn, chocolate chip cookies, chianti, olives, vodka, beer. The TV was set to CNN. People wandered down in their pajamas; others wore suits. Pennsylvania was called around two in the morning and the room broke into cautious cheers. A few of us drank café correto (espresso with grappa) to stay awake; others played pool to pass the still-nervous hours. The president of the academy came in--Carmela Franklin lives next door--wearing slippers and pajamas. The sky was just turning light outside when Obama came on the stage in Chicago. We ran upstairs and woke up the kitchen's executive chef. Everyone in the salone sat glued to the TV. A lot of us were crying. Outside seagulls were flying over Gianicolo in the dawn. It was a beautiful morning, marbled blue skies. The Tiber a grey ribbon. Even the armed guards across the street
who protect the US embassy to the Holy See said, buon giorno,and then added an enthusiastic "Obama!"
-------------------------
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIMdBK8yr_g

CarrollBlog 11.5
While passing a very small backstreet art gallery I look, stop, then look again. The only thing in the gallery is one white wall with every possible inch covered by Bic ballpoint pens that have been glued onto it. You know the kind of pen-- transparent, with a blue cap you pull off and stick on the end while you're writing. I can only make a mad guess, but I'd wager that there were at least a thousand of them on that wall. They were in no particular design or pattern-- just pen upon pen upon pen on a wall. I'm thinking-- the piece can't be for sale because it's one wall of the gallery. You can't call it an exhibition because there's only that one piece. I'm standing there staring at a thousand ballpoint pens glued to a wall and trying to figure out just what the hell THAT all means. Or am I just fatally unhip? Shaking my head and shrugging my shoulders, I walk away ordering myself to stop trying to work out what it is I just saw.

The expression on a person's face when they've run to catch a subway or bus but just miss it and the doors close on them.
The expression on their face when they watch puppies play together on the sidewalk.
The expression on their face when they walk out of a public toilet, visibly relieved and bleary eyed.
The expression on a child's face when it is being scolded by an adult.
The expression on a cop's face when someone is explaining to him why they're not wrong.
The expression on a grandparent's face while they watch a grandchild eat ice cream.
The expression on both lovers' faces when they are having a heated argument.
The expression on a man's face when he is listening to his new love explain something.
The expression on a student's face when they suddenly understand a difficult concept for the first time.
The expression on your face while you read this.

CarrollBlog 11/3
While on this recent book tour, I was often asked what kind of books I read when I was young. I admitted I didn't read at all as a kid. In fact books were anathema to me. The first real one I ever read (besides school assignments) was OF MICE AND MEN by Steinbeck. Why? Because my older brother said he would give me a dollar if I did. It just so happened I had the hots for the magnificent 12 year old Wendy Nelson at the time. I wanted to take her on a date miniature golfing and needed all the money I could get. So I agreed to read his book. When I was finished, I went to my brother and asked for the dollar. Naturally he didn't trust me. I had to pass a verbal pop quiz just to make sure I wasn't gypping him out of his buck. When he was convinced I had read it, he handed over the money and asked if I liked the book.
I nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, it was really good."
"Would you like to read another?"
"No."

CarrollBlog 11/2
One night at a hotel bar in Texas, someone told me the story of a man who for years made audio recordings of all his favorite sounds: trains passing through town at night, wind in the trees, crashing ocean waves, fire crackling in a fireplace, certain birds, rain on the roof... He did it so that if he ever became very sick and incapacitated, he could listen to those sounds to remind himself of the things in life worth loving and holding on to.

please feel free to contact us with any comments, requests, questions or issues.