CarrollBlog 9.30

I was invited over the weekend to a party at the house of a very rich woman via a mutual friend. The friend had been trying to introduce us for a long time because the woman loves books, loves all art. Loves it so much that in her villa she has a private gallery where she mounts a new vernissage every month. The purpose of this party was the opening of a new show. Very chi-chi and exclusive, supposedly. I went because what the hell. The house was astonishing, the party goers what you would expect at that sort of gathering. I wanted to leave after ten minutes but my friend insisted I wait till we saw the show. Eventually the hostess gathered us all together and brought us down a floor to her gallery. She gave a little speech about how excited she was about the artist and the show and how she was sure we were going to love it. I walked in and saw mounted on the wall many small wooden boxes about ten inches by ten inches. When you got up close you saw glued to the front of each box a few random words clipped from newspapers: "Popcorn bunny parade." Words like that. Then you realized these words were mounted on little doors that swung open. Inside, in the middle of the box were another few random newspaper words. "Trite chicken toothpick" I went from box to box looking to see if all of them were the same. They were. As I was looking at perhaps the 8th, my lower jaw slowly descending in dismay, I heard a soft smoky sexy voice nearby say in awe, "Aren't they brilliant? I've never seen anything like them." I glanced over and there was a beautiful woman, really a stunner. She was looking at me expectantly, waiting for an answer. Slowly a strange and evil smile grew on my face. I realized only after she'd fled that it was just like the smile on Jack Nicholson's face in the film THE SHINING when he bashes an axe through the bathroom door while trying to find his wife and kill her.

CarrollBlog 9.29

Twitter, Facebook, and JC blog-pals: Today the paperback edition of THE GHOST IN LOVE is officially released in the US. It would be a great and generous thing if you bought a copy or two. Thank you. Here’s a small excerpt for those who haven’t read it yet:

CarrollBlog 9.28

Out of the blue, his wife did a very bad thing to him and we were discussing it. Why had she done it? How could she? I said maybe there's something you missed or forgot; some word or significant event you overlooked that triggered her selfish, cruel act. He shook his head and snapped at me, 'No, I'm not doing that this time. I'm not going to try and search for some logical, acceptable reason because there isn’t any. What she did was wrong, that's all: flat-out, black and white wrong. We’re always trying to find reasons to rationalize others' awful behavior. Well, sometimes it isn’t justifiable—it’s only *bad*, pure and simple. Sometimes people are just 100% shitty and their actions prove it.'

CarrollBlog 9.27

“Part of life is a quest to find that one essential person who will understand our story. But we choose wrongly so often. Over the ensuing years that person we thought understood us best too often ends up regarding us with pity, indifference, or active dislike. Those who truly care can be divided into two categories: those who understand us, and those who forgive our worst sins. Rarely do we find someone capable of both.”

CarrollBlog 9.26

Someone wrote in to say they had bought one of my books for a penny. That really made me smile. What on earth can you purchase these days for one penny? And whether you end up liking the book or not, buying it for a single cent has to be one of the greatest bargains still around. It reminded me of how much fun it is to poke around in used book stores, flea markets and yard sales, looking for the unknown or unknown treasures. The first collection of Charles Bukowski's poetry I read cost ten cents in a used book store. I took it off the shelf (who's this guy?), had a quick look inside and froze. My eyes popped out of my head as I read poem after gritty, funny poem, the likes of which my 20 year old self had never seen before, much less dreamed could exist. Ten cents. I hear that a pack of twenty cigarettes in some American cities now costs eight dollars. One cig= forty cents. Four times more than my first Bukowski bouquet. Robertson Davies' FIFTH BUSINESS cost twenty- five cents in a box of books at a New Jersey yard sale. If someone were to ask what five books have influenced me most as a writer, FIFTH BUSINESS would be on that list. Twenty- five cents. Everyone wants to be paid and paid well for what they do. But there is also something very nice about knowing your work is available to the searching eye for one penny.

CarrollBlog 9.25

Riding through Vienna on a bus yesterday, something dawned on me that I’d never thought of before: While moving along, I kept seeing places and sites that live vividly in my memory because of events that happened there: The faded Czech gasthaus where I often ate dinner during a bitter cold winter and where one evening before the food came, I finished writing my book THE WOODEN SEA. The outdoor restaurant next to the Danube Canal where A and I sat one glorious summer afternoon while the annual Viennese Gay/Love Parade was marching by a hundred feet away, trance music blasting. Memories like that. I realized everyone has their own, very personal and private map of where they live. If a million people populate a city, then there are one million different maps. Whether it's a city or a small town, there are precise sites and ‘x marks these spots’ all over it that are important or sacred or yes, sometimes crushing-- but only to you and occasionally the others who shared that experience with you. Although everyone has their own map, they rarely overlap because what matters to me, what I remember about the importance of those places in my life, usually means little to you and vice versa. Only after you’ve been with someone a long time are your maps similar. Even so, there remain places the people in our lives, even intimates, will never know the significance of to us: the park bench where you were kissed, a bar where he wept, the café with the huge windows that serves the great bagels, even those airport exit doors you watched so intensely while waiting for them to arrive that miraculous December night... The rest of the planet will pass these locations without a glance or a thought. But whenever *you* pass them you think there it is-- that one is fixed forever on the map of me.

CarrollBlog 9.24

As a boy, I knew a tough guy named Anthony who would always start fights the same way: he'd poke you in the chest and ask "What are you going to do about it?" If you did nothing, he shoved you harder and asked a little louder "What are you going to do about it?" again and again until you eventually got pissed off and swung at him. There are adults who do the same thing. Only instead of shoving you in the chest, they do little thoughtless, or mean, or bad...things, then bigger bad things, then unforgivable things, all the while silently asking "Do you still love me?"

CarrollBlog 9.23

One of the most famous children's books in America is Maurice Sendak's WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. The story, in short, is about a very bad little boy named Max who is sent to bed without dinner one night because he's been so naughty. But as soon as he gets to his room, The Wild Things-- wonderful monsters of all shapes and sizes-- appear and they all play happily together till morning. Max is delighted and has no fear of them. He's a brave little guy. Sendak has said readers often ask what he thinks happened to Max when he grew up. One night years ago the author was at a dinner party in New York. Seated next to him was the actress Sigourney Weaver. It turned out the glamorous Weaver was a big fan of his work and they chatted throughout the meal. Later she pointed to a man sitting across the table. She said he was her husband and one of the reasons why she fell in love with him was he reminded her so much of Max in WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE. Delighted, Sendak said he finally knew what happened to his famous character: Max grew up and married Sigourney Weaver.
And that’s what he tells anyone now when they ask what happened to the boy.

CarrollBlog 9.22

'In the beginning of their relationship, both proceeded as if they had entered a very dark room and were sliding their hands hesitantly up and down all the walls, feeling for a light switch while at the same time afraid that they might touch something sharp or dangerous. But from the minute they met, there was absolutely no game playing between them because they had had enough of that in their lives. They were eager to get to the heart of this matter. Both wanted to reach the point as soon as possible where sharing silence was just as good as sharing their life stories.

CarrollBlog 9.21

Even when things end badly, there are radiant moments or experiences with failed loves that are permanently written into one's history. Strawberries. Whenever they came into full season in spring, she remembered the day he brought her the strawberries. They were meeting at two and then driving out into the country. She'd had a harried morning in town. Her head was full of irrelevant stuff and tizzy when his car pulled to the curb in front of her. Reaching forward, she opened the door without thinking. She just wanted to be sitting still for the first time in hours, moving towards the country and silence, away from this. She needed a few seconds to grasp what was on the passenger's seat. Beige and bright bursting red, it was a rectangular wooden box filled with three pounds of the fattest, ripest strawberries she had ever seen. They were so big, so red and sensuous, particularly against the mocha brown of the wood, that she was mesmerized. It took moments to return to the world around her. Only then did she look at him. He was grinning, thrilled that his surprise had been such a hit with her. "I saw them at a roadside stand and couldn't resist. We'll eat them on the way out to the country." And they did.

CarrollBlog 9.20

this is terrific:
for those unfamiliar with it, the Iditarod is the famous dogsled race in Alaska

CarrollBlog 9.19

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.

CarrollBlog 9.18

He was grinning when he sat down, as if something wonderful had just happened. Apparently it had. "I've just solved the secret of my marriage. Paper towels." He announced.
I looked at him the way you're supposed to when someone sounds vaguely insane. "Paper towels are the secret to your marriage?"
"Yes. Ann (his wife) has a thing for paper towels. She uses them like crazy on everything and basically refuses to use dishtowels or anything else in the kitchen. For years I've been saying to her 'Why don't you save some trees and use less of them?' In other ways she's very good about recycling and really cares about the environment, but not with paper towels. With them she's a lunatic."
I waited for him to continue, not knowing where this was going.
"For years we've been arguing about this absurd subject. Never major fights, but low burner stuff. I tell her it's not the paper towels, it's the waste. She listens every time and then completely ignores me. It's a ridiculous little thing I know, but it has always irritated me and she knows it.
"Anyway, the other night before dinner she washed her hands at the sink and tore some paper towels off the roll on the counter. Right next to them were hand towels I had just washed and stacked there. I put them exactly in that spot so she'd use them and not the paper ones. As usual though she ignored them and did what she always did-- reached for the paper. I was going to spout off about it for the 80th time when all of a sudden I had an epiphany. A light came on in my head and I thought, "Just let her have her paper towels. Stop being an idiot about this and let her use all the #$%& paper towels she wants until her last day on earth."
A second later I said exactly that to her. She grew a smile on her face as big as the sun; it was huge. She came across the kitchen and hugged me. That happened a week ago. Today she said, "I can't tell you how that silly little thing made me love you more. I keep thinking about it. You just said to yourself that's who she is, no matter how weird or eccentric, ignore it. I'm going to leave her alone about it from now on. Let her be who she is. I really love you for that."
He reached into the bag he had brought to the table and showed me what was inside: Paper towels.

CarrollBlog 9.17

An excerpt from a letter. Friends and family were discussing an extraordinary woman who, for some mysterious reason, has had only medium luck in love. Someone who knows her very well said this:

CarrollBlog 9.16

Two hours before my favorite dog Jack died, I took him to see the Christmas trees. A week before, it was discovered that he had cancer everywhere although he was only six years old. The doctor said the disease was moving so fast that the kindest thing I could do was to put him to sleep while he was still alert and filled with lebensfreude, as the German language puts it. The greatest thing about Jack was how funny he was. I have never owned a dog that made me laugh as much as he did. His last morning was no exception. For some reason, the boy had always loved Christmas trees. He loved to smell them and rub up against them. When there was a tree in the house over the holidays he was in heaven. To everyone’s amusement, he would delicately sniff it all the time like a perfume connoisseur. Or he would stand unmoving as if stoned under its branches for long minutes so that he could feel them on his back. A year ago I wrote about there being collection places around Vienna after Christmas where you can leave your tree and eventually city workers will take them away to the dump. One of these drop off places is in the park across the street, so on our final walk together I purposely took him to see the trees. It was the first week of the new year. Most people in the neighborhood had already brought their trees or Christmas wreaths to the designated spot and made a giant pile of them. Jack saw the pile and was absolutely mesmerized. He kept looking at it and then up at me as if to say, isn’t that amazing! Look at how many there are! After gazing in wonder for a while, he literally threw himself into that high pile, like a musician doing a stage dive into the audience. He burrowed and leapt around and grunted in total delight. His lungs had been badly damaged by the cancer so he was very short of breath. But he would not stop flipping and flopping. A young couple walking by stopped to watch him. They started laughing because he was so nutty in his ecstasy. Back and forth, wiggle-waggle, stop, wiggle-waggle some more. They laughed, my beloved friend Jack rejoiced, and the only thing I wanted in the whole world then was for that moment to go on and on.

CarrollBlog 9.15

The broken guys, the sleazy creeps, the lost, the haunted, the aimless. The ones who lived like you and me once upon a time but for a million reasons left Planet Normal and now exist in an almost-touching parallel universe with its own gravity and color spectrum. Have you got a dollar, a dime, a cigarette, a light, a heart to help me--they ask, plead, demand. A hat in their lap, some of them stare at you with an extraordinary mixture of hatred and help-me in their eyes. The ones on the sidewalk or in a corner of the bustling railroad station. crouched with a hand out and their heads down, unable or unwilling to look at the world. Shakily handwritten cardboard signs on the ground in front of them. "My heart is broken. I am homeless. Will work for food." You glance at them for a moment, maybe two. Sometimes you reach into a pocket for spare change. If they look scary or dangerous, you pick up your pace. Now and then it's a woman. Often overweight and strangely sexless, sometimes it takes a moment to even realize it *is* a woman. Alone, these people look sullen, despondent, or dead but with a pulse. Yet when a bunch of them are standing together they are often happy and exuberant. Their mood is festive. Some of them are drunk but some not. They just seem happy being part of a group. For the moment they are among people who listen to them, people who look at them without disapproval and distrust. There is often a confidence in their eyes then. They look at you like who's the fool now-- me or you?

CarrollBlog 9.14

In a heavy rain, I was walking quickly along trying to get there. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a large dog dashing across the pedestrian zone. It was so wet that water was flying off its long coat. It was moving so fast and looked so excited that I stopped just to watch where it was going. Twenty feet away stood a very chic, elegantly dressed woman. All in beige, she had long sweeping hair a la Rita Hayworth. She held a newspaper over her head in a futile attempt to keep it dry in the rain. But seeing this dog racing toward her, she dropped the paper and slapped both hands against her thighs, urging it to come. The wet beast happily threw itself on her. Because it was big, its long outstretched paws went halfway up her arms. My first thought was oh man, he's going to ruin her coat. But she was laughing and kissing the dog by then, indifferent to what it was doing to her beautiful clothes, just as happy to see it as it was to see her.

CarrollBlog 9.13

Rain is good for romance. Walk through any city on a rainy day and you're bound to see this: couples close and happy under a shared umbrella, one's hand wrapped around the other's on the handle. Or getting gloriously drenched together, usually grinning and soaking wet, the hell with an umbrella. Or head to head at small tables under outdoor cafe awnings. Pretending they stopped here to keep out of the rain, but really using the excuse to sit close together and touch a lot. Others enter a store laughing, laughing at their wetness, delighted about everything. They don't want to buy anything; they're just using this dry place as an intermission. A happy older couple across the restaurant helping each other dry off. They're chatting animatedly for the first time in days, comparing notes about walking hand in hand through the storm to get here. They're both famished now. Something about walking in the rain. They'll eat like champions.

CarrollBlog 9.12

LIVING HUNGRY AFTER
By Jack Gilbert

CarrollBlog 9.11

"A few years ago, a young taxi driver drove me to John F. Kennedy Airport on Long Island. After a few minutes of conversation, I discovered that Mike had belonged to my synagogue years before I came to the community.
"So, rabbi," he asked while we sat in heavy traffic, "what do you say to a Jew like me who hasn't been in a synagogue since his bar mitzvah ceremony?"
Thinking for a moment, I recalled that in Hassidic lore, the baal aqalah (the wagon driver) is an honored profession. So I said, "We could talk about your work."
"What does my work have to do with religion?"
"Well, we choose how we look at the world and at life. You're a taxi driver. But you are also a piece of the tissue that connects all humanity. You're taking me to the airport. I'll go to a different city and give a couple of lectures that might touch or help or change someone. I couldn't have gotten there without you. You help make the connection happen.
"I heard on your two-way radio that after you drop me off, you're going to pick up a woman from the hospital and take her home. That means that you'll be the first non-medical person she encounters after being in a hospital. You will be a small part of her healing process, an agent in her re-entry into the world of health.
"You may then pick up someone from the train station who has come home from seeing a dying parent. You may take someone to the house of the one that he or she will ask to join in marriage. You're a connector, a bridge builder. You're one of the unseen people who make the world work as well as it does. That is holy work. You may not think of it this way, but yours is a sacred mission."

CarrollBlog 9.10

While walking this morning, I was thinking about sea glass and what an extraordinarily good metaphor it is for what we all hope for in life. When it was created and initially used, the glass had no value. It was part of a greenish Coke bottle, a brown wine bottle, olive oil, or a blue drinking glass. Nothing of importance. Use up the contents and throw the bottle away. Somehow or other the glass broke and its pieces were scattered. This one ends up in the ocean. For a long time, maybe even years, it lives there being tossed and tumbled, roiled here and there by the whims of the sea. It's not a good life, but it manages to keep afloat. All the time it's in there however, its sharp edges are being worn away by the water's constant movement. The violence of storms, the bleaching sun, saltwater... all of them transform it. Eventually it gets washed up on a beach somewhere. It is the same glass it once was but also something new. Not entirely but almost. The color has been burned away by the sun and the acid sea, making the glass more translucent, ethereal, and lovely. It has no more edges. But without them it has taken on a shape, a form, that is often singular and one of a kind. Sooner or later someone comes by and notices it. They are immediately attracted. They love it for what it has become. Often they take it home and in some cases, even turn it into a piece of jewelry. Something they treasure.

CarrollBlog 9.9

In the display window of the art gallery is only one thing-- a sensational black and white photograph of a beautiful woman eating a very large jelly donut. There's white powdered sugar all over her face. She's staring at the camera and laughing, obviously indifferent to how ridiculous (and wonderful) she looks. But the best part of the picture is this: a few feet behind her, out of her line of vision, a mongrel dog is sitting nearby staring up at her with absolute hatred and envy. It is hilarious. I have rarely seen a picture of an animal with such a human expression on its face. This one is pure jealousy.
It's such a great picture that I have to enter the gallery and look at this photographer's other work. That is when it becomes interesting because although the place is full of the person's other work, all of it is mediocre crap. Bad calendar art, the many pictures are all a hundred miles away from the excellence and originality of that one photograph in the window.
Was that photograph an accident? Or was it simply the peak of this artist's career; the only great photo they ever had, or would, take. That was it forever--one shot, one moment of true greatness.

CarrollBlog 9.8

Since yesterday's entry, there have been some people writing in asking for other past blogs. So for the next few days, some more oldies but (hopefully) goodies:

CarrollBlog 9.7

blog entry from 9/17/2007 (for JH, who asked for it):

CarrollBlog 9.6

A friend told me his wife was watching the TV show ENTOURAGE. The main characters go into the desert and take psychedelic mushrooms ("dropping 'shrooms'") to get high. The woman later asked her husband in a serious voice, “What does it mean to drop shrimp? Do you get stoned if you do that? They kept talking about dropping shrimp and having visions.”

CarrollBlog 9.5

Lots of people have written in asking about the quotes, links, etcetera that I post here now and then. What some might not know is that there's many more of them (over 1000) posted on the Twitter account I have been doing for the past half year. I know to some of you, Twitter is the anti-Christ, but you can access my page there even if you don't have an account. Just go to www.twitter.com and my account "jscarroll." Or just click the Twitter link on my website cover page. Many delights there for those of you who like the sorts of things posted here for years.

CarrollBlog 9.4

Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder, wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling, gasping, confusing, itching, scratching, mumbling, bumbling, grumbling, humbling, stumbling, rumbling, rambling, gambling, tumbling, scumbling, scrambling, hitching, hatching, bitching, moaning, groaning, honing, boning, horse-shitting, hair-splitting, nit-picking, piss-trickling, nose sticking, ass-gouging, eyeball-poking, finger-pointing, alleyway-sneaking, long waiting, small stepping, evil-eyeing, back-scratching, searching, perching, besmirching, grinding grinding grinding away at yourself.

CarrollBlog 9.3

"Forget that first kiss, the first sex, the first tears of misunderstanding, the first fight. Forget the first amazing gift from them that says they thought long and hard about you and what you love. Here is physical proof they tried as best they could to get you something concrete, in the hand- there that shows some of the intensity of their feeling for you.

CarrollBlog 9.2

An old friend suffered a stroke recently. They’re doing as well as can be expected. The thing they miss most is that for some nefarious neurological reason, they’re not able to read anymore. This woman was one of the most voracious readers I’ve ever known. The fact she cannot do it now while recovering is insult on top of injury. I saw her the other day. She said she wanted to read my new book THE GHOST IN LOVE but had tried and was unable to. I offered to give her a copy of the audio version, and she was pleased it existed. I was too but truth be told, I’d never listened to any of it. So before handing it over, I listened to a stranger read my story out loud for the first time. The reader has a very good strong voice that pulls you in quickly, but listening was a strange experience nevertheless. Because I knew where I was and exactly what I had in mind when I wrote the tale; what was happening in my life as I tried to get the phrases and rhythm right. Hearing them spoken by someone in tones very different from those going through my head when I created them was both eye opening and weird. The words were mine, the sentences were mine, the story too, but spoken in that other voice… It was like dancing cheek to cheek with a stranger. You can feel their breath on your neck, their bones against yours. For moments here and there you’re close to being one.. but not really.

CarrollBlog 9.1

A Thank-You Note to Men
By Mary-Louise Parker