CarrollBlog 1.31

selections from Esquire Magazine's THE RULES:

CarrollBlog 1.30

The Ineffable
by George Bilgere

CarrollBlog 1.29

All over Vienna are restaurants that specialize in Balkan or southern European food-- Bulgarian, Rumanian, Croatian, Turkish... In the windows of these places are frequently posters for singers who are going to be performing there soon. I always assume these singers are well known in their countries. One of the things I've noticed after years of looking at these posters is that the names of the singers-- Temek, Plevar, Bratka-- often sound like the names of wolves in fairy tales.

CarrollBlog 1.28

“It’s okay to head out for wonderful, but on your way to wonderful you’re going to have to pass through all right. And when you get to all right, take a good look around and get used to it because that may be as far as you’re going to go.”

CarrollBlog 1.27

An interesting idea for a book or a movie: Take someplace very famous like OZ but set another story there, perhaps happening at the same time as, say, Dorothy is wandering around. Or someone sees Cary Grant get strafed in the cornfield while they’re doing their chores, etc. You could have the new character/plot intersect with the famous one, or play a part in it, albeit small. Or leave the big story out altogether but make it plain where this is being set so the audience will have fun knowing the environment already and some of the rules there.

CarrollBlog 1.26

"Months after they'd broken up he realized something chilling: From now on, she would be describing their affair to other men in the same quiet reasonable tone she used to explain to him when they were together why her past relationships had failed. Many times he had listened to her lay out with nuance, wit and the perfect amount of self-deprecation why this or that one hadn't worked. Back then he would say about one of her past boyfriends, 'He sounds like a good guy.What went wrong?' She'd take a deep breath, smile small, and after a few beats let her breath out slowly and dramatically. Just that way of exhaling said a lot. Only then would she make eye contact and say something wistful like, 'He *was* a good guy, a very good guy, but we never really understood each others' hearts.' So now how would she explain *their* failed relationship to her next new boyfriend? That she never really felt physically close to him? Or their views of the world and life never connected? He'd been a good guy too, but in the end she ran away as she'd done so often before. In her post game analysis of their finished love, what 'praising with faint damns' things would she say about him?"

CarrollBlog 1.25

AFTER AWHILE
By Veronica Shoffstall

CarrollBlog 1.24

"He had not turned out well. There is a sort who does well in high school and of whom much is heard and expected and who thereafter does less and less well and of whom finally is heard nothing at all. The high tide of life comes maybe in the last year of high school or the first year of college. Then life seems as elegant as algebra. Afterwards people ask what happened to so and so? And the answer is a shrug. He was the sort who goes away."

CarrollBlog 1.23

Today was the first time I've seen her in months. Saw the dog first and when my eyes traveled up, the sunglasses. It's gray and overcast in Vienna this afternoon so there's no need for them. That's the first thing I thought-- it's one of those babes who wears dark glasses for power effect, even when it's raining. But then I recognized her: the blind one. My eyes dropped again to the dog-- a honey colored Labrador retriever-- and there was that special harness seeing eye dogs wear. I hoped to catch a glimpse of her face. That was impossible but you can always hope. I've seen her full face only once. It was summer and coincidentally she was walking down the same street. She was bare faced that day. From a distance I was almost physically stopped by her beauty. She's young, 20's I would guess, tall and thin, hair almost the same color as her dog. Normally she wears big fashionable sunglasses that not only cover her eyes but much of her upper face. That day though there were none and you could see everything. She's a knockout-- high chiseled cheekbones, full lips. You'd love to see what she looks like when she smiles. Only that-- a really gorgeous young blind woman who wasn't wearing shades that day; letting the world see her dead eyes as she moved confidently along towards who knows where. It was nice encountering her today again after such a long time. Any big beautiful blond striding across the world is always a welcome sight.

CarrollBlog 1.22

One of the Butterflies

CarrollBlog 1.21

"He puts down the pen, folds the sheet of paper, and slips it inside an envelope. He stands up, takes from his trunk a mahogany box, lifts the lid, lets the letter fall inside, open and unaddressed. In the box are hundreds of identical envelopes, open and unaddressed. He thinks that somewhere in the world he will meet a woman who has always been his woman. Every now and again he regrets that destiny has been so stubbornly determined to make him wait with such indelicate tenacity, but with time he has learned to consider the matter with great serenity. Almost every day, for years now, he has taken pen in hand to write to her. He has no names or addresses to put on the envelopes: but he has a life to recount. And to whom, if not to her? He thinks that when they meet it will be wonderful to place the mahogany box full of letters on her lap and say to her, 'I was waiting for you.'

CarrollBlog 1.20

I watched a short clip on how to properly fold a pocket square (or handkerchief) and put it in the breast pocket of a sports jacket. You know—the one that looks so casually stuffed in, as if it took the wearer two seconds and was done as a hurried afterthought. Not so. There were five proper steps to the process. Then when you’ve finally got the thing in place, it must be carefully adjusted so that it looks like it was done in seconds. I smiled at the oxymoron of the whole process: Casualness prepared oh so carefully. Afterwards I remembered something I’d once read about Charlie Chaplin. Anyone who has seen his films knows the actor was also a superb natural athlete. Chaplin fans agree that one of his most astonishing scenes was in a film where he climbs a bunch of staircases wearing roller skates. It’s a hilarious brilliant ballet of falling and slipping and almost falling and almost killing himself up one set of stairs and down another. You can imagine how hard it must be to climb stairs wearing roller skates. Anyway, it’s an inspired piece of choreography and duly famous. The author of the article said he read some of Chaplin’s movie scripts. The actor wrote and directed most of his films. In that particular script, when it comes to that big scene the only direction the author gives himself is “Bit on staircase. Make it look funny.’

CarrollBlog 1.19

On a rainy, gloppy, post-snowfall Monday, city crews are finally taking down holiday decorations that were strung up in November. Multicolored ornaments that doubled as street lights, giant many pointed stars that hang above the sidewalks, more. The final, municipal sign that the Christmas season is officially over. Standing at the counter of a café, I watch two men high on a crane disconnect one of these stars. When it’s detached from its moorings, they drop it into the back of their truck on top of other decommissioned stars. It’s a pretty forlorn scene—crummy wet weather, Christmas stars dumped unceremoniously into a truck as if they were pesky tree branches that had gotten tangled in electrical wires during a storm. The waitress watches for a moment too and then smiles at me. “I’m just glad my kids aren’t around to see that,” and then goes back to work. Exactly what is needed at those moments—a café philosopher who puts it all back into proper perspective with one sentence.

CarrollBlog 1.18

The first time they went to bed, he entered the room and she said "You're wearing a different watch."
He glanced at it, as if seeing the black rubber thing on his wrist for the first time. He said tentatively, "It's my night watch."
"You change watches before going to bed?"
"Yes. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and want to know what time it is. This one has a very bright dial."
"Why?"
Looking at her dark nail polish, he wished they weren't having this conversation. "Why do I want to know what time it is?"
"Yes." She was smiling at him. Not with him-- *at* him. A moment ago things were sexy. Now they were funny. He was hoping a quick right answer would make the air sexy again.
"I don't know. To see how much more time I have left to sleep."
Her smile grew to the size of a Frisbee. "I like you."
The gravity he was used to had disappeared altogether from the room. He was drifting in her outer space and didn't know how to maneuver in it. "Is that good?"

CarrollBlog 1.17

Cleaning my room (or desk, closet...) often ends up with coming across an object that makes me stop and think, Jesus, why did I buy that? It can be any number of things-- a hat, a pen, a book, a pair of shoes I haven't seen since I bought them, brought them home and put them deep in the closet. But the reaction is almost always the same-- why did I buy that? The answer of course is YOU didn't buy it-- THEY did. The guy you were that day back in history who saw the hat and thought for whatever reason it needed to be added to his life. Maybe what we're really asking is How could I ever have been the kind of person who would want something like this?

CarrollBlog 1.16

Coincidence department: I re-read this poem an hour before I heard about the Haitian earthquake. I thought it a good one to post today, no matter what you believe.

CarrollBlog 1.15

The two women at lunch-- mother and daughter, obviously. The girl is beautiful, tall, eighteen or so. She can't sit still in her seat. She bounces around, tosses her hair, eats too fast, talks a mile a minute while looking all around just in case there is something interesting she hasn't seen yet. The mother is also beautiful, perhaps fifty, her eyes alone are a 500 page novel.Serene and smiling she is a total contrast to the young woman sitting across the table. How happy she is to be here with her daughter, how proud. Not many years ago this is the same child who frequently tried every bit of patience she had. The difficult student, the one with dyslexia or ADHD, or just wildly impatient about anything that didn't interest her. But now look at her-- this wonder, this young woman who is moving way too quickly out of my life and into her own. She has already set sail and I can only watch. But today she's generous enough to have lunch with Mom and talk about things that matter with her first, her greatest pal. She doesn't even know it is a gift. But Mom does.

CarrollBlog 1.14

A director of an Edward Albee play asked the playwright to read out loud one of the central monologues of the play so she could gain insight into what he meant when he wrote it. "Hearing him read it, with his own cadence, was fantastically illuminating." People frequently ask what you intended in a certain book when you wrote this or that. But I have always said that as soon as I finish writing a book, I become "only" another reader of it, nothing more or less. As a result, what I think of a certain character or passage in the story is no more valid, and in some cases less so, than another reader's opinion. This is not even talking about the fact you were an entirely different person when you wrote the work. What you meant back then is sure to be different from what you mean or think now of certain things in that book. Albee reciting a passage from a play he wrote ten or twenty years ago is similar to someone who read a play many years ago and is coming back to it after a few thousand days (and experiences) have passed. They read it now with the soul and perception of the person they have become. But the one who read those words the first time is very different from the person reading them today.

11/11/2008

CarrollBlog 1.13

What if every person in the world made love the same way? Men way A, women way B. No matter who you looked at: pretty or ugly, old or young, tall or short, Mexican or Mauritanian, you knew exactly what they would be like in bed because all men did it Way A, women Way B. How would that affect human relationships/sexuality/monogamy, etcetera? When this thought crossed my mind this morning, I immediately asked someone's opinion. They said knowing all people were the same in bed wouldn't change things. Because everyone has a different smell, personality, feel to their body... the desire to experience a variety of others sexually would remain. But I don't know.

CarrollBlog 1.12

I've recently discovered the terrific poetry of Ellen Bass. I'm going to post some of her work in the days to come-- poems and excerpts. Take a look:

CarrollBlog 1.11

"When he worked at Brooks Brothers, Kaspar was friendly with another salesman there, a transplanted Dutchman named Remco Snoerwang. Remco collected Malaysian parang machetes and Indonesian Golok knives. Scary looking things, he kept every single one in his collection razor sharp. He said sharpening knives and ironing shirts were his ways of relaxing.
"One Monday Remco came to work looking very sad. While he was out of town over the weekend, his apartment had been broken into and the entire knife collection was stolen. Ironically, the only thing the thieves left behind was the sharpening stone for the blades. Kaspar knew what a terrible loss it was because he’d been to Remco’s place and listened while he enthusiastically recounted how he’d acquired each knife. He was not married, had no girlfriend, and lived simply in a small studio apartment that had one window. His knives were his only treasure but now they were gone. After commiserating, Kaspar asked Remco what he was going to do about it.
"The other man held a large paper shopping bag. He brought it up and put it on the counter between them. Reaching in, he lifted out a colorful yellow, red and blue box. 'It took me a while to start breathing again. Then after making a police report, I sat on a bench and thought about it. I ended up going to the nearest appliance store and bought this: the most cutting edge, high tech, expensive steam iron I could find.'”
"The answer was so odd and unexpected that Kaspar laughed out loud.Remco laughed too, shook his head, and patted the box. 'It cost a fortune, but it’s the only therapy I could think of that would work. I’ll go home tonight and iron all my shirts to perfection. That’ll be my way of mourning.' He put the box back into the shopping bag. 'My father taught me a good lesson about this. He said buy whatever you want in life so long as you can afford it: A Ferrari, thirty dollar cigars, Golok knives… it doesn’t matter what. Enjoy the hell out of them, but never ever own anything you can’t walk away from. Like if your house caught fire, no matter how much you love your possessions, you can still walk out the door without feeling the need to go back for any of it. And if it’s gone, it’s gone. The end. Sure you love it and you’ll miss it, but it’s only stuff. Just walk away.'
“Now you’re sounding like a Zen Buddhist, Remco.”
“I just know how dangerous it is to wrap your need around the things you own. Because sooner or later everything breaks, or it rips, gets old, lost… Or stolen and no matter how it happens, when it’s gone if you’re too attached to it you feel gutted, like someone’s cut off a limb. But Kaspar, it’s just stuff. Are we crazy? A little perspective, please. Own it, yes, love it, but be able to move on if you lose it. If you can’t do that, then don’t get it because it’ll make you sick and that’s one of the few diseases we can avoid.”
“But you loved your knives.”
“I did, and I do, and I hope they’ll be found. But tonight what I’ve got is my super-duper new steam iron, so I’m going to have an ironing orgy to make me feel better. And you know what? It will.”

CarrollBlog 1.10

A couple of readers who have been following my blog a long time mentioned recently I’ve recycled a number of old entries here. They wrote in to say they don’t like that. I figured out that since starting over six years ago, I’ve written more than 2000 entries. I hope eventually that I’ll write a couple of thousand more. However a year ago the blog was linked daily to FACEBOOK. From the large and varied reaction from the FACEBOOK readers it is clear that most of them have never seen any of these oldies, a situation I decided to remedy with these recent re-runs. So to you long time followers who are disgruntled that you’ve not been getting your usual-daily dose of new, the plan for the immediate future is a mix of old and new, at least for the time being. I hope that whatever new entries I do add here will be enough to keep you reading. But if not, travel safe and thanks for your company on the first part of the trip. Maybe we’ll cross paths again somewhere down the road.

CarrollBlog 1.9

Near my apartment is a theater that specializes in putting on children's plays. It's nice to pass there in the early evening because a matinee is often just over and the kids spill out of the building joyous and frenzied and making LOTS of noise. But last night was different. It had been dark since four. As I walked towards the theater I saw literally hundreds of white balloons milling around in front of the theater. It was a surreal, startling image. Were my eyes playing tricks? But as I walked closer no, they were balloons all right. For some reason the theater employees had passed out white balloons to the entire audience as they were leaving. Out on the street as the night began, from afar it looked mysterious and funny and romantic all in one. Hundreds of white balloons glowing and bobbing in the night, moving around, more and more of them spilling out of the theater, kids running around and shouting, their balloons, cries and laughter everywhere.

CarrollBlog 1.8

O Best of All Nights, Return and Return Again

CarrollBlog 1.7

Two interesting quotes from David Foster Wallace:

CarrollBlog 1.6

After New Year’s Eve there’s always some lone wolf shooting off the last of their fireworks. Four days later you’re walking down the street and suddenly there’s a BAM! or that long whistle of a rocket going off. I always feel vaguely sorry for these late launchers. I picture a man, a young man (never a woman--that’s a compliment, ladies) with nothing to do and a few firecrackers, stragglers, left over from the festivities. He’s bored and those red devils on his dresser are just going to waste, so what the hell-- I’m going to go out and make some NOISE… But shooting them off days after 12/31 is never the same as exploding in a new year. Those single bangs and booms sound lonesome, even pathetic when they go off all alone 100 hours into a new year. Sort of like the kid who wants attention but the only way he can get it is to scream. People do turn and look at him quizzically for a few seconds, then shrug and go back to whatever it was they were doing.

CarrollBlog 1.5

It is a given that almost every time I see X, we will talk about her nutty family.
Most people have several abiding themes in their lives that preoccupy them, whether they are aware of this or not. As a result, they incessantly return to them in different guises and conversations. Someone I know is always agitated about the difficulty of everyday life. Nothing seems to fit right for them; nothing really functions the way it should. Another friend obsesses about the ongoing challenge of finding the right life partner.Yet another talks about real estate and where is the best place to buy property. I am convinced that if I were to say to any of these friends 'do you know we have talked about this subject from different angles a zillion times over the years?' they would be flabbergasted. An interesting experiment is to step outside yourself and ask what are my ongoing themes? What rattles endlessly around in my mind and heart like a marble(s) in a clothes dryer?

CarrollBlog 1.4

A beautiful August day, I take the dog for a long walk in the Augarten park and then stop for lunch at a favorite garden restaurant nearby. The place is half filled, mostly with lone morning drinkers. Dog and I sit down, order and then settle in to enjoy the moment. Bliss. The kind of bliss you have on a late summer day when there is nothing to do but hang around and enjoy the sun on your face. No time at all later, two very dolled up old women come over and ask if I'd mind sharing my table with them. Startled, I look around at all of the empty tables nearby. That look must show on my face because one of them says "We like to sit here."
So I say sure and they plunk down. Silence. The waiter brings my meal and they order drinks.
Long silence.
Eventually one sighs and says "Poor Hansi."
The other sighs too and says "Now he's dead. Prostate cancer. It must be hard on a man."
I look up and both women are staring at me. I quickly look down again.
Longer Silence. I glance up again and they are still looking at me.
"And how is Elfi?"
"Dead. You hadn't heard?"
"No! How did she die?"
"Colon cancer. Very tragic."
"What exactly happens when you get colon cancer?"
"Well--"
As her friend goes on in great, vivid detail about colon cancer, colonoscopies, colostomy bags, etcetera I'm looking at my half eaten goulash, thinking maybe it's time to go.

CarrollBlog 1.3

In both movies and books we often see portrayed those moments of enlightenment when suddenly, miraculously, everything becomes clear to a character. They abruptly stop walking on a crowded street and standing there, stare off into the distance while people pass by. Or they lift their head from a book in the library as their jaw drops open in surprise. NOW they know what to do! Some people call these "light bulb moments" because if the scene were portrayed in a cartoon, we would see a light bulb suddenly click on above the character's head, their eyes would widen, and they'd rush out of the picture to solve the problem that has been challenging them. Sort of like the inevitable scene in a Popeye cartoon right after our hero eats a can of spinach.
But what about the light bulb moments that are 100% wrong? All the inventors who had out of the blue epiphanies where everything became clear and they rushed off to invent something no one either wanted or bought? The left handed backscratcher. The dog self-walker. Or the moment in a famous battle where an important general thought "Now I understand! We've got to change strategy and attack this way." Wrong. Everybody died. Throughout life, all of us have moments where the solution to a problem that's been dogging us suddenly reveals itself in a flash. The light bulb clicks on brightly above our heads. "Oh my God, that's it! That's exactly the way to resolve this." Nope. "It" happens to be the very wrongest way to handle this and by following that new inspired line, we get into much more trouble. How about the many many many times in human history when peoples' light bulb moments have been entirely wrong.

CarrollBlog 1.2

I always enjoy watching people who wear sunglasses on cloudy days or at night. Or those who wear clothes like heavy leather jackets in summer. You look at the expressions on their faces to see if you can detect what they're trying to broadcast to the world by wearing those inappropriate things-- I'm cool. I'm mysterious. I'm famous. I'm all of these things. I mentioned this to someone the other day and they said, "You're being mean. Maybe they just want to wear the new sunglasses they bought that day."

1.1.2010

Youth
by W.S. Merwin