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CarrollBlog 1.31
"...When I look at a work of Art I ask myself: does it challenge me, does it touch, move and inspire me? Do I learn something from it, does it startle or amaze me - do I get excited, upset? That is the test any artwork has to pass: can it create an emotional impact on a human being even when he has no education or any information about art? I’ve always had a problem with art that you can only understand if you have a degree in art history, and I have a problem with theories in general. Most of them are bullshit anyway. Most critics and theorists have little respect for artists, and I think the importance of theory in art is totally overrated. Real art is self-evident. Real art is intense, challenging, enchanting, exciting and unsettling; it has a quality and magic that you cannot explain. Like the Blues, a poem of Rimbaud or Rembrandt's late self-portraits. Art is not logic, and if you really want to experience it, your mind and rational thinking will be of little help. Art is something spiritual that you can only experience with your senses, your heart, your soul. Think of Bob Dylan, Mozart, Howling Wolf, Goya, Bukowski and Robert Crumb - do you need to know the theories that some busybodies might attach to their art in order to experience it? Marcel Duchamp said: "The work of art is always based on the two poles of the onlooker and the maker, and the spark that comes from the bipolar action gives birth to something - like electricity." These two poles is all you need - you don't need a third one.
-Gottfried Helnwein
CarrollBlog 1.24
"They had been in love once—equally and passionately. Like a spider web that you walk into, it is not so easy to get all the tendrils of real love off after you have passed through it."
- from the new novel
CarrollBlog 1.23
"Hello Mr. Carroll, it's David Tedeschi in Spring Lake, NJ again.
Yesternight, my wife and I had a 'Jonathan Carroll' moment - at least I'd like to think it was.
To me, a 'JC' moment is when a person - a stranger, usually - transcends the typically shallow, civil interactions we all share on a daily basis. They show themselves as they really are, with no warning, with no apology, for good or ill.
We were waiting on line at our local A&P, stocking up for the blizzard which now rages outside. I expressed out loud, to my wife, that I loved to look and see what people buy in the supermarket, especially before a storm.
The woman ahead of me in line snapped around and smiled, locking her eyes with mine.
"It always makes me feel strong", she said.
"Excuse me?", said I, confused.
"It makes me feel strong. Shopping for food. I raised two boys, both in college now, both over 6 feet tall and 200 pounds. I loved to shop for them. I loved to feed them. We never had cable TV, and I never had a new car, or a really nice pair of shoes, but I knew that if I could get them fresh oranges, the best meat we could afford...I knew I was in control, and that I was a good mother."
She smiled at me then, deeply, warmly. It was a smile I couldn't help but return, because I knew, being the son of a single mom, what she meant.
See?
Hope you're well in the New Year - can't WAIT for that book!
Take care-
David
CarrollBlog 1.21
"There is an old Neapolitan expression meaning that someone is crazy, "Da i numeri" ("He gives numbers"). It comes from the lottery. Superstitious ticket buyers in Naples would ask asylum inmates to shout out numbers and then bet on whatever came to those unbalanced minds."
CarrollBlog 1.18
In front of a beautiful bamboo painting:
"Bamboo without mind,
yet sends thoughts soaring among the clouds.
Standing on the lone mountain, quiet, dignified, it typifies the will of a gentleman."
CarrollBlog 1.17
Nearby is a movie theater that used to show films in English. We went there a lot because they always showed first run films, had a great big screen (and some smaller ones), and it was a seven minute walk from the apartment. Out of the blue, the theater closed one day because business had apparently been lousy for a long time. It was surprising and sad but what could you do? The place stood empty and forlorn for about six months, its billboard still showing times movies were shown. The other day I walked by and saw men working on the billboard, facade, etcetera. When I passed later, I saw that they were turning the theater into a discount women's shoe store. The idea of that transformation has haunted me ever since I saw what was going on.
CarrollBlog 1.16
"Dogs are our links to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit on a hillside with a dog on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring, it was peace."
-Milan Kundera
CarrollBlog 1.15
He was as loud and useless as a leaf blower.
She is one of those women who is always changing their hairdo. Like a dog constantly changing its sleeping position, trying to find the perfect spot.
He said he couldn't live without her, now that she was
gone. His friend answered you can't live without her or is it just that life is darker and has more teeth?
At her funeral, there wasn't a wet eye in the house.
"Love is the potent force that tears off all masks, and
men who run away from love do so in order that
they may preserve their masks."
-PD Ouspensky
CarrollBlog 1.12
Alas Jeffrey Thomas wrote in and pointed out, via the always reliable Snopes/Urban Legend website, that the nice story about the runners in the Special Olympics I posted yesterday is only partly true. It did happen, but only a couple of the contestants stopped, turned around and went back to help the fallen runner. I guess that's better than none. But it was nice to think, if only for a few hours, that such things really do happen 100%.
CarrollBlog 1.11
Apparently this is a true story:
Recently at the Seattle Special Olympics nine contestants, all physically or mentally disabled, assembled at the starting line for the 100-yard dash. At the gun they started out, not exactly in a dash, but with a relish to run the race to the finish and win. All, that is, except one little boy who stumbled on the track, tumbled over a couple of times, and began to cry. The other eight heard the boy cry. They slowed down and looked back. Then they all turned around and went back......every one of them. One girl with Down's Syndrome bent down and kissed him and said,"This will make it better." Then all nine linked arms and walked together to the finish line. Everyone in the stadium stood, the cheering went on for several minutes.
CarrollBlog 1.10
Six boys are playing basketball together on a court in the park. All of them are absolutely terrible at it and their game is more wrestling match than anything else. They are having a wonderful time.
Often when I walk around I see very young women pushing baby strollers. What's interesting is how many of them, sometimes not much older than girls, have a similar expression on their faces or look in their eye. I guess you could best describe it as a look of surprise, sometimes almost of shock. It's a look that says how did I get here?
After Christmas there are designated places around town where people can dump their Christmas tree and the city will dispose of it for you. Suddenly you'll come upon one of these large piles of trees and it's like a weird, totally unexpected forest in the middle of Vienna. Pine tree after pine tree piled on top of each other, the stray bit of silver or gold tinsel waving in the wind. When I first saw these seasonal piles years ago I thought they were sad. Christmas was over, dump the tree unceremoniously on a pile, blah blah. But now I like them, like their surreal appearance and their just as fast disappearance after a week or two.
CarrollBlog 1.9
In the supermarket I am an inveterate snoop into other's people's shopping baskets. You can get a pretty good insight into a person's life by checking what sorts of things they choose to buy. At the checkout counter today there are two people in front of me. A teenage boy with spiked hair, a 'Foo Fighters' t-shirt, and camouflage pants is buying a case of beer, a huge box of chocolate marshmallow cookies called "Super Dickman" (a double entendre in any language), and a jumbo bottle of ketchup. When he pays he takes a small tightly wadded ball of bills out of his pocket. Behind him is a sour faced middle aged woman who has a basket filled with health this, lo-cal that, three bunches of celery, two different kinds of toilet cleaner, and biggest of all, a blue and white bag of cat litter. She pays with two brand new bills out of what looks like a brand new wallet.
CarrollBlog 1.6
Polish proverbs:
"Wherever you go, you can't get rid of yourself.
The greatest love is a mother's, then your dog's, then a sweetheart's.
Love enters a man through his eyes, a woman through her ears.
CarrollBlog 1.5
"All my teachers have been women. Though several men have taken me aside for an hour to tell me the things they know." - Don Paterson
CarrollBlog 1.4
In Tanzania, the normal greeting is "Habari," which means "How are you?"
The typical answer to that is "Imara" which means "Strong."
CarrollBlog 12.31
I was watching the play ANGELS IN AMERICA yesterday on dvd. At the very end there is a lovely line that I think is the perfect sentiment to start off a new year--
More life!
The great work begins.
CarrollBlog 12.22
"Being a poet is not writing a poem, but finding a new way to live."
Paul la Cour
CarrollBlog 12.21
Men generally regard women as cartoons: Funny, colorful, loud, and being with them reminds you of how much fun and wonder you knew as a child.
Men see other men as documentaries: Serious, informative, essentially dull after a few minutes.
Women generally regard men as cartoons : Ridiculous, exaggerated, and they run around accomplishing little. But being with them is fast, amusing, and a nice way to waste time.
Women see other women as documentaries : Educational, sometimes you wish you could go where they're describing (but not really), typically about exotic creatures you like to look at but wouldn't want in your life.
What would you rather watch-- POPEYE or a film about the migration habits of otters?
CarrollBlog 12.20
"Friends, every day do something that won't compute. Love someone who does not deserve it. Denounce the government and embrace the flag. Give your approval to all you cannot understand. Ask the questions that have no answers. Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years. Laugh. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts. Practice resurrection."
Wendell Berry, "The Mad Farmer Liberation Front"
CarrollBlog 12.15
An interesting moment this afternoon:
I was walking in an underground passage on my way to the subway. Things echo in those places. But at a bank of open telephone booths nearby, a woman was talking so loudly that she didn't need an echo to be heard above everything else. Her voice was one decibel away from shouting. She was also speaking very very slowly-- sort of a "one-slow-word-at-a-time" thing. Everyone passing in either direction wore the same look: "Do you hear that?" But it was impossible not to hear. When I passed the booth and looked in to catch a glimpse of the shouter, two things happened simultaneously: I saw from her face that she had Down's Syndrome. Then a moment later someone coming from the other direction looked into the booth too and recognized the woman's condition. Then another and another person passed, all of them looking towards the noise, and all of them grew the same expression on their faces: relief. All of their faces (and I assume mine too when I made the discovery) showed the same kind of relief. As if things made sense again. Normal people don't shout slow words into public telephones like that, only the handicapped. The world was logical and okay again now that we had seen and recognized what was going on.
CarrollBlog 12.13
Like so many kids, I had my obsessions when I was young. For a while it was collecting autographs, then baseball, then “Famous Monsters of Filmland” magazine and that attendant world. But one of my longest standing obsessions was with professional wrestling. I was absolutely crazy for those larger than life characters and their loony, violent world. I think one day I’ll write in detail about why. But for now just one memory that crossed my mind today, probably because it is close to Christmas.
When I was growing up, my family lived about an hour from Manhattan. Once in a while we’d all go in to the city to a movie, go shopping, eat at a favorite restaurant, family stuff. But without fail, always to see the skaters and Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. One December at the height of my wrestling madness, we had just finished a day poking around the city together in the middle of the Christmas rush. My father and I were walking back to the garage near Rockefeller Center to pick up the car. As was often the case, I was rattling on to him about something that had to do with wrestling (I’m sure). I talked about little else in those days. I knew all the wrestlers, all their signature moves, who were their tag team partners, their sworn enemies… I knew it all. I loved the drama, the hugeness of the men, the easy to tell good and badness of things.
While I rattled on, my father strode quickly toward the garage. But suddenly he stopped and put a hand protectively across my chest. I didn’t know why because we were not near a street. I looked up at him but all he did was point at something in front of us. As soon as I looked there, my eyes bugged out and my jaw dropped. Walking our way was the biggest man I had ever seen, and instantly I knew him. One of my greatest heroes at the time was the wrestler Sailor Art Thomas. I had four photographs of him up on my bedroom walls and that’s how my father recognized him now. His gimmick(all wrestlers, whether they were good or bad guys, had to have one) was a hugely beautiful, weightlifter’s body. He must have been close to seven feet tall and 300 pounds. All he needed to do was step into a ring, take off his shirt and everyone swooned. He looked like a black Arnold Schwarzenegger. And that day he was fifty feet away from us. Sailor Art Thomas.
He must have seen the recognition and adoration on my face because he grinned and strode right up to us. He put out his enormous hand to shake. I barely had the courage or wits to extend mine, although the only thing I wanted to do in life at the moment was shake that giant’s hand. Somehow I managed to croak in my seven or eight year old adoring voice, “I think you’re the best wrestler in the world, Sailor. Could I have your autograph?”
He nodded and kept shaking my hand. He held it as gently as you’d hold a hamster.
I got paper and a pen from my smiling father. In a certain real way, it felt like he had conjured this whole wonderful thing. What I remember most clearly was how slowly and carefully Sailor Art Thomas wrote his signature on a green piece of paper for me in the dying light of a December day.
CarrollBlog 12.9
Hello Mr. Carroll - I enjoy your books, but have never felt the need to write until I stumbled upon the article below on the Boston Globe's web site yesterday. It seemed to be a classic "Jonathan Carroll moment" - unexpected, moving, and yet another reminder of how much we don't know about the world and what we miss when we trudge through our daily routines with our eyes half shut. It had me thinking about the zoo scene in White Apples, and since I'm still doing that this morning, I thought that I'd pass it along. Enjoy the holidays - Stuart
P.S. - Don't these gorillas have great names?
Gorillas pay last respects to leader
December 8, 2004
BROOKFIELD, Ill. --After Babs the gorilla died at age 30, keepers at Brookfield Zoo decided to allow surviving gorillas to mourn the most influential female in their social family.
One by one Tuesday, the gorillas filed into the Tropic World building where Babs' body lay, arms outstretched. Curator Melinda Pruett Jones called it a "gorilla wake."
Babs' 9-year-old daughter, Bana, was the first to approach the body, followed by Babs' mother, Alpha, 43. Bana sat down, held Babs' hand and stroked her mother's stomach. Then she sat down and laid her head on Babs' arm.
"It was like they used to do in the exhibit, lying side by side on the mountain," keeper Betty Green said. "Then Bana rose up and looked at us and moved to Babs' other side, tucked her head under the other arm, and stroked Babs' stomach."
Other gorillas also approached Babs and gently sniffed the body. Only the silverback male leader, Ramar, 36, stayed away.
Keepers said the display wasn't surprising.
"She was the dominant female of the group, the peacekeeper, the disciplinarian, the one who kept things in a harmonious state," Pruett Jones said.
Koola, 9, brought her infant daughter, whom Babs had showered with attention since her birth in August.
"Koola inspected Babs' mouth for a while, then held her baby close to Babs, like she loved to do the last couple months, letting Babs admire her," Green said.
Babs had an incurable kidney condition and was euthanized Tuesday. Keepers had recently seen a videotape of a gorilla wake at the Columbus, Ohio, zoo and decided they would do the same for Babs. Gorillas in the wild have been known to pay respects to their dead, keepers said.
"I had a headache for the rest of the day after all the tears I cried watching them," Green said.
CarrollBlog 12.7
I'm coming home around 5:30 in the evening. A few feet from my place, a man is walking towards me with a child in his arms. A little girl about three or four, she looks tired and cold. She's resting her head on her father's shoulder. But just as I'm about to turn in, her face lights up so much that it stops me in my tracks. Her head is up. Both she and Daddy are grinning from ear to ear. I must turn and look behind to see what has suddenly made them so happy. An enormous man dressed as Santa Claus is walking down the street towards us. He must be six foot nine or ten and fat too. The biggest Santa Claus I have ever seen marching down through the winter dark towards the little girl. It seems like he has materialized out of nowhere just for this meeting. When he reaches her, he stops and starts to talk. But I don't want to hear anything he says because I want to keep the moment pure and think he is the greatest Santa that ever was. I rush to get into my building. What must be going through her head? It is easily the kind of memory you grow up and old with and embellish and smile about for years.
CarrollBlog 12.6
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others,
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
Emerson
CarrollBlog 12.5
"What is the path? There is no path. On into the unknown."
Goethe, FAUST
CarrollBlog 12.3
What is it about walking on an escalator that isn't moving that always make you feel odd and sort of creeped out?
Why do we cover our mouths when we're very surprised? In Viennese cafes, there's a wide variety of coffee to choose from. One of the most popular is called an "einspanner." Fill the bottom of the cup with two shots of espresso and then add a big dollop of frothy whipped cream on top of that. I asked a Viennese friend where the word comes from. She said in the old days at funerals, horses pulled the casket to the cemetery in a specially designed carriage. Whenever they were put to this task, the animals wore white headpieces, sort of like helmets, that covered their ears and the tops of their head. This helmet was called an einspanner. White helmet on top of a black horse.
Whether the story is true or apocryphal, it's good and spooky. Cemetery coffee. A special coffee to sip on the way to the graveyard.
CarrollBlog 12.1
"If you can smell garlic, everything is all right."
-JG Ballard
How about a series of detective novels about a very conflicted Jewish/Japanese shamus named Zen Cohen?
CarrollBlog 11.28
The mind is forever building
its model airplane.
-Erin Belieu
CarrollBlog 11.26
I heard a nice Thanksgiving story: My Italian editor and his girlfriend were in Vienna and we had coffee. He said they'd just gotten a dog but that it was taking time to get used to because what they'd done was go to the Rome animal shelter and ask for the dog that had lived there longest. They didn't care about the make or model, age or color. They just wanted to adopt whatever poor creature had been there longer than any other, take it home and give it at least some love in its lifetime. So they got this mutt who's old and very tired. They named him Burrito. I asked is there anything nice or special about Burrito? They said no, not yet, but we're growing to like him for that reason alone.
CarrollBlog 11.24
I had been on the phone for a good two hours. Someone was trying to cheat me in business and apparently felt no compunction lying about everything to save his skin and wallet. What was most frustrating was the whole mess was his doing, yet now he said it was mine. I was livid and as I talked to lawyers and insurance agents and and and the future of the situation looked lousy.
Finally I'd had enough of the telephone, thinking about the situation, being angry but powerless, etc. So I got up and went out for a walk. About ten minutes from my place I came on an interesting sight: In front of a supermarket, a man delivering crates of oranges from a produce truck had apparently lost control of his cart. Hundreds of oranges had fallen off and spilled all over the sidewalk. That in itself was an eye opener. But even better was the fact that literally every person on that side of the sidewalk was bent over, retrieving the fruit for him. Men, women, children, old couples... the works. And most of them didn't just pick up one orange, put it back in the box and walk away. They stayed stooped over until they had filled their arms, waddled awkwardly over to his cart and dumped them, then went back to pick up more. Best of all, most of the people were either smiling or laughing while they did it.
Watching this, it didn't make me feel better but it really made me feel different.
CarrollBlog 11.22
Years ago I was in Kennedy airport in New York waiting to catch a flight back to St. Louis where we were living at the time. I was reading John Gardner's wonderful novel FREDDY'S BOOK. I was crazy for Gardner's work at the time and this novel had me in raptures. It was so good that I was even reading it while standing in line to check in, something I almost never do. Like people who can sleep anywhere (on planes, in cars, sitting up...), there are people who can read anywhere but I am not one of them. I'm a comfort reader. I want to be totally comfortable when I (sit down to) read and that usually means a quiet place, a good chair, etcetera. But this book had me hypnotized so I read it everywhere. To pass the time, my wife asked what I was reading because whatever it was obviously had me. I showed her the distinctive Brad Holland cover and told her a little bit about the plot. I finished my croon by saying in the voice of an excited ten year old "It's just a WONDERFUL book!" And as I said it, I noticed who was standing behind my wife in line: John Gardner. I knew he lived in the St. Louis area and he was easily recognizable from his book jacket photos because he had an albino's white very long hair and smoked a Sherlock Holmes pipe.And by God, there he was five feet away listening to me rave on about his book. I looked at him, recognized who he was and said again "This is just a WONDERFUL book!" Gardner did an "aw shucks- thanks- a lot" sort of thing and turned away but I think he was pleased because it's not often writers are recognized in public. I have always wanted to re-read that novel but never have because I'm afraid I won't like it as much and then the memory of that lovely synchronicity in New York airport will be somehow diminished.
CarrollBlog 11.18
"Imagine that you are given the choice of two possibilities: to spend a night of love with a world famous beauty, let's say Brigitte Bardot or Greta Garbo, but on condition that nobody must know about it. Or to stroll down the main avenue of the city with your arm wrapped intimately around her shoulders, but on condition that you must never sleep with her. I'd love to know exactly what percentage ofpeople would choose the one or the other of these possibilities." -Milan Kundera
CarrollBlog 11.14
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy." -Tom Waits
CarrollBlog 11.13
On top of my computer is an odd group of objects that I've found over the years outside while walking around and arranged up there as a kind of shrine to nothing. There is a masked action figure in a blue jump suit, both arms raised in victory. A naked sitting baby that I think had a head and face once but they appear to have been pulled off, leaving only what looks like a round pink pencil eraser now in its place. In the baby's lap I placed a green clay heart that's about an inch and a half high and obviously hand made. Finally there's a "Matchbox" AUDI TT convertible in sexy but badly scratched metallic blue. The woman who comes to clean the apartment once a week, Frau Annie, invariably takes these things away and sort of hides them in my room in various places. Sometimes I can't find one or more of them for days. It has become a kind of game of hide the easter egg between us-- Frau Annie hides my found objects and I search for them. This has been going on for I don't know how long. Today I finally asked her why she won't just leave them alone up there. She looked at me, arms crossed tightly over her chest, eyes all squint and accusation. Then she said "They're very strange all together like that. Scary looking. Like voodoo." I felt like saying "If you think that's bad, you should read my books."
CarrollBlog 11.10
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 11.8
The discussion on the radio this morning was about the pope and a recent new biography. the author was talking about how the Pope spent his youth considering important questions and I thought to myself: that's where I'm going wrong. I'm always thinking of too simple questions. But it also made me realize that I'm attracted to people who ask good questions. and I concluded that it's what scientists and good artists (writers) have in common: they ask good questions that takes their lifetime to answer, which they do in chunks (i.e. a scientific paper or a book) and yet any good question never gets answered... it just leads you to interesting discoveries.
CarrollBlog 11.7
"German word for the day: What is a "friedhofjodler"? Or literally translated, "cemetery yodeller?"
In the old days, tuberculosis was incurable. Whoever who got it eventually died from the disease. The cough of a tubercular is apparently very different sounding from that of a normal cough. In Vienna when people familiar with the sound of that specific cough heard it, they'd say "There goes a friedhofjodler."
CarrollBlog 11.5
"Ninety percent of being in love is making each other's lives funnier and easier, all the way to the deathbed." -Lois Smith Brady
CarrollBlog 11.4
I dropped off a jacket at the dry cleaner and paid my 7 euros. It'll be ready Monday. As I was walking down the street it suddenly hit me-- what the hell IS dry cleaning? You drop off your dirty, unwashable-in-water clothes and pick them up a few days later ironed and in a plastic bag, supposedly cleaned. But how do I know they've been anything but ironed and bagged for seven Euros? Some smartass will answer well, the spots are gone. There's your proof. And maybe they are, but how do I know the person behind the counter didn't examine the jacket, find the spot, spray some wonder spot remover stuff on it and poof-- spot gone. Then they ironed it, bagged it and five minutes later it was back up on the rack ready for Mr. Gullible Owner to pick it up? On Monday. Maybe dry cleaning's an age old brilliant scam. Maybe all you have to do to be a dry cleaner is to invest in lots of plastic bags and one of those impressive automated racks that they hang the clothes on when they're "clean." Maybe--
CarrollBlog 11.2
It dawned on me this morning that one of the many reasons why an artist creates is because his work is his real last will and testament. These stories, pictures, music... are the sum total of what I've accumulated in my life. Now that I'm gone, you inherit it. Do whatever you want with it-- Save it, share it, give it away. This is how I saw the world. These are the conclusions I came to. This is the only concrete manifestation of what I achieved. Now it's yours. Do with it however you see fit.
CarrollBlog 11.1
People love to look at helicopters and I don't know why. It is one of life's small mysteries. When most people hear a helicopter flying overhead, they stop whatever they're doing and stare up, trying to locate it. This doesn't happen with airplanes. A plane goes by overhead and you keep walking without so much as an eye flick towards the sound. For years the most popular (dumb) show on Austrian television has been a series about a helicopter emergency rescue team. It is so far fetched and ridiculous that it makes the first ten minutes of any James Bond film look like mild stuff.
I was walking across the Heldenplatz the other day. For some reason a helicopter was there and about to take off. Its rotor was spinning, making that loud whack-whack sound we all know from films. It was a beautiful day and there were a couple of hundred people in the square. It seemed like every last one of them was frozen in place watching and waiting for this miraculous machine to lift off. I glanced at it but kept moving because it was unbelievably loud and I was in a hurry to get to an appointment. What was interesting though was any person's eye I happened to catch as I went looked at me like I was nuts not to be standing there with them, waiting for take off. Every single one that I made eye contact with looked at me like I was either crazy or up to no good because I was ignoring the helicopter.
CarrollBlog 10.28
Have a look at www.bookcrossing.com The idea is terrific: Take a book you like and set it "free" by leaving it in a cafe, a bus, on a park bench... Hopefully someone out there in the world will find it and read it, and then pass it on to other strangers in just as serendipitous a way. To keep track of your book's fate, put a "book crossing" sticker (available at the site) inside. The sticker numbers the book and explains what's going on. Hopefully, the finder will report to the book crossing website where they found it, what they thought of the book and what they ultimately did with it. There's so little man made magic out there in the world. Gestures like this are like those wonderful souls who go around planting forests tree by tree.
CarrollBlog 10.26
The Angel said, “I like black and white films more than color because they’re more artificial. You have to work harder to overcome your disbelief. It’s sort of like prayer.”
CarrollBlog 10.25
Jonathan- Was going to send you this a week or so ago, when it happened, but real life got in the way and it's only this evening, when I'm in London and staying at John Clute's place, that I'm reminded to do so.I get the train from Cardiff to Bristol late each Wednesday evening, after a long day teaching. The evening in question, I sat down with a cup of tea and an intention to relax the whole journey home before opening a bottle of wine at home and calling it a day.A young woman got on after I did, and sat opposite me, across the aisle, and at a table seat. She smiled hello in that way people do to perfect strangers on trains and I smiled back and wished I was ten years younger. About five minutes later, just before the train was to leave, a young guy got on, sat directly opposite her and proceeded to embark on what I took to be his standard pick-up line. About how nice it was to talk to someone on a quiet train, and how it made the journey go so much faster.She pointed to her ears and mouthed "I'm sorry, I'm deaf". Her voice, the halting, half-recognised speech of someone deaf from a very young age, bore this out.He apologised and explained quickly that he didn't know any sign language. She shook her hands in a 'don't worry' manner and all was well.A moment or two later, he fumbled in his jacket pocket and pulled out his mobile phone. Tapping away at the keys, he wrote a message and passed the phone over the table to her.It's not often that I reverse my opinion of someone in an instant, but right there, right then, I did. For the next hour, they conversed by not sending text messages. Each one would write a sentence or three, and show the other, who replied on their own phone. This lasted all the way until she got off the train before the Bristol stop.The expression of unadulterated joy on her face was a pleasure to watch. She was having a conversation. Exchanging God knows what, saying whatever she wanted without her hearing barring her.I smiled all the way home. I was as close as I'll ever get to being witness to a moment in a Jonathan Carroll story.
Hope all's well. Best, as ever.
Tom Abba
CarrollBlog 10.20
While reading a review of a new biography of Cary Grant, I remembered a story a screenwriter had told me. This man had worked with Grant on and off over the years. One day they were chatting about women and Grant said, "I'm going to tell you the secret to seducing women."
The screenwriter immediately said "You're full of shit. You're Cary Grant. You can have any woman you want in the world. What the hell do you know about seducing women?"
CarrollBlog 10.18
There's a beggar I used to see on the street who I'd often give money to because he was friendly and in his own way, dignified. For some reason or another, he disappeared and sometimes I wondered what happened to him, assuming naturally the worst. Today I bumped into him in his old spot for the first time in a year. It made me very happy and smiling, I immediately reached into my pocket for some change. When he saw me, he sprang up and came right over to shake hands. I was sort of thrown off but recovered enough to shake and ask how he was.
Fine, he said. I've been travelling.
Good-- are you back now?
For the time being, yes.
I started to give him the money but when he saw what it was he wouldn't take it. "No, no--I'm just glad to see you again," he said and walked back to his seat.
CarrollBlog 10.14
The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours.
The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause.For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours
-Leo Marks
CarrollBlog 10.13
A concept I've been thinking about a lot recently and which I was able to include in my new novel GLASS SOUP is this: Wouldn't it be great if, at difficult times in our lives, we were able to turn to younger versions of ourselves and ask them for help? For example, you're frightened of something now because you've learned from past experience that you have good reason to be scared. So you ask your 27 year old self to take your place now. Because at 27, you were afraid of very little in life (for better or worse). 27 year old you had a sureness and confidence that for many reasons you lost along the way to today. Or you meet someone wonderful, but in the past you were hurt so many times in love that you're wary and cynical about becoming involved. But 19 year old you wasn't. They believed fully in the magic and infinite possibilities of new love in a way you haven't for years. If we have lived a long enough time, we have been many people, both strong and weak. Somewhere in our souls those people must still exist. Some of them were optimistic, bulletproof, trusting, sure of what they were doing, and sincerely believed life's possibilities were limitless. Scared, confused, depressed, wary, apathetic-- whatever frame of mind you are in now, there were time s in your life when you were just the opposite. How great it would be if we could turn to those other versions of ourself and say you can handle this moment better than me. Please take the wheel now and drive this bumpy part of the road.
CarrollBlog 10.7
"We use words to understand each other and even, sometimes, to find each other." - Jose Saramago
CarrollBlog 10.6
Once on a book tour of Poland, I was told some bigshot politician wanted to meet because he liked my books. I had never heard of the man but said sure, why not? At the end of the tour a party was given at a lovely restaurant in Warsaw. Almost all of the lighting in the room was via hundreds of small candles placed everywhere. It made things very intimate and romantic, if a little dark. The politician and I were introduced. Both of us were sort of stiff and kept smiles on our faces a little too long. He had brought his wife and daughter along so there was quite a bunch of us squeezed into a large booth in one corner of the restaurant. On the shelf behind the booth were a long row of flickering candles. As we talked, I unconsciously leaned back and stretched my arm across the top of the booth. The politician's teenage daughter was next to me and we chatted. Suddenly her eyes widened in real alarm, seeing something behind me. Turning, I saw that my arm was on fire. I had put it too close to the candles back there and guess what? Half the length of my arm was on fire. Flames, smoke, the whole thing. The politician was sitting on my other side. When he saw (or smelled) what was happening, without a moment's hesitation he took both his and my water glasses and threw them on my jacket, dowsing the flames. Silently, he helped me take off the jacket which by then was wet, still smoking and smelly. I looked at it in my lap, then at him and said "I'd vote for you."
CarrollBlog 10.5
A friend asked yesterday if this blog is addressed to anyone in particular? I said yes-- it's a love letter to someone I haven't met yet.
CarrollBlog 10.4
"The long haired woman out for a Sunday walk alone by the Danube. She's dressed up-- silk, leather, high heels. Did she wear this nice outfit just because she felt like it, or because she's going somewhere afterwards, manybe meeting someone special? Her head is down; her hands in the pockets of her trousers. Her shiny hair falls straight, a brown curtain hiding her face. I'm dying to see that face but the curtain doesn't move enough. She continues looking at the ground, probably thinking something over. She passes by going in the opposite direction. I don't turn around but can still hear her high heels clicking the pavement for quite a while. I smile, feeling both cheated and pleased at the mystery. It's so easy to fall a little in love with strangers.
CarrollBlog 10.3
The nerd who is accidentally very fashionable because the clothes he wears-- Puma sneakers, Adidas three stripe warm up jacket, rectangular black eyeglasses-- are IN these days. The irony of course being that he bought those things five or ten years ago at discount stores. Back then they were dirt cheap and plentiful because no one would be caught dead wearing them, they were so out.
CarrollBlog 10.1
"Love doesn't need a reason. Hate needs a reason."
- Stephen Dobyns
"Express yourself-- it's later than you think."
-Brad Holland
CarrollBlog 9.30
I have grown to deeply dislike the word "fondly." I realized that today when I received a letter from someone saying they "fondly remembered" an evening we'd talked at a party a long time ago. It feels like the kind of word either diplomats or cowards use to placate people or keep them at arm's length emotionally. A woman saying she is very fond of you, which of course means she doesn't feel more than that and you ain't got no chance of anything else happening with her. Or a teacher saying they are very fond of your child but there is this one problem... I worked closely with someone professionally who would sign all of their letters "Fondly." I always wanted to tell them how annoying that goodbye was to me. Neither fish nor fowl. You don't have to kiss me, but don't patronize me either with a tepid, half-hearted word-wave like that. Funny how when you work with words every day, you inevitably develop favorites and enemies among them.
CarrollBlog 9.29
I'm in a cafe in the very late afternoon having a shot of caffeine to perk me up. The place is full, only one table free. Lots of movement in there, shoppers coming and going. A very good looking woman comes in, dressed expensively. She sits at the free table and stares at the floor. Her eyes don't move until some minutes later the waitress comes and takes her order. She goes back to looking at the floor. Eventually the waitress reappears.The woman has ordered a HUGE piece of cake, mega-goo-deluxe, as big as the plate it is on. Thanking the waitress, the woman proceeds to attack the sweetie. Never in my life, and I am not exaggerating, have I seen a person eat something so incredibly fast. If it took two minutes I would be surprised. The fork and her mouth never stopped moving. At first I was sort of smitten by how good looking she was, then intrigued by her floor stare, but most of all by this speed cake orgy. When she was done she daintily wiped her pouty, perfectly lipstick'd lips, stood up and left.
CarrollBlog 9.27
I had one of those great shivery moments today that life zaps along your spine every once in a while like an electric shock. There is an exhibition on in Vienna of the painter Tamara de Lempicka. I have always liked her work very much and was eager to see this show. One of the paintings was a portrait of the novelist Andre Gide. It is a striking picture, strong and very memorable. Part of the delight too was I had never seen the picture before. Standing in front with their backs to me was a couple looking at it too. After a while the man said something to his wife, then for some reason turned completely around and looked at me. In that first second he looked exactly, and I mean exactly, like that portrait of Gide we had been staring at. I was so shocked that I think I twitched. Even more strange, next came a moment when there he was in the flesh looking at me and a few feet behind him was this painting... of him. Of course after a few seconds had passed I saw they didn't look so much alike, but for a few moments there....
CarrollBlog 9.24
"Sometimes you dance just to keep from dying." - James Kaplan
CarrollBlog 9.23
In a bookstore yesterday I bought a postcard that fascinated me. It's a photograph of two sheperds in Balou Lekh, Nepal. Backs to us, they're standing in an open meadow watching their small flock of sheep and herd dogs. It is a brilliantly sunny day. Their bodies cast long black shadows across the ground, as if they were figures on a sundial. In front of them miles in the distance is one of those astonishing panoramic views of the blue-gray Himalayas. The photo is so rich and exotic in both subject matter and locale that you don't know where to look first. When I got home I propped the card up next to the computer screen. Since then I find myself staring at it often and dreaming. An eye doctor once told me that if you work at the computer a lot, you should frequently look away, out the window if possible and focus on the natural world a while to give your eyes a rest from the electronic jitter. I used to do that, but now with this card, with an eye flick I'm in Balou Lekh.
CarrollBlog 9.20
When I was in Italy a couple of weeks ago, a magazine interviewer asked this question which I thought was interesting: A UFO lands in your backyard and the aliens knock on the door. They ask you to suggest one book they can read that best describes Mankind and the Human Condition. Which one would you suggest that gives beings from another planet a good idea of who we really are? I mentioned the first thing that came to mind and to this day I stick with the suggestion-- the children's book Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. For those who don't know it, a little girl gets into bed at night. As she drifts off to sleep, she says goodnight to all of the things she loves and that make up her small world. It is a book about observation, love, and gratitude. When I am feeling optimistic, I think those are the qualities that make us special and will hopefully save us in the end.
CarrollBlog 9.19
If you had to choose, what would you rather drop-- something liquid, or something solid?
Explain your choice.
CarrollBlog 9.17
We can't control what life deals us, just how we respond to it." - Danny Gregory
CarrollBlog 9.16
After unending, diligent summertime observation I have come to the conclusion that there are essentially two kinds of ice cream eaters: Those who go slowly, lick every corner of the cone or spoon, rolling the sweetie around in their mouths until it's all gone... And then there are the others who, by the looks of it, eat their gelati (usually cones) as if in a huge hurry to be finished. They're licking fast fast fast while their eyes flit here and there as if they really should be somewhere else, or they're afraid of being caught in the act. Which of course begs the question why the hell did they buy the stuff in the first place if they're rushing to be done? It seems to me that one of the primary laws of eating ice cream is savor, never gulp.
CarrollBlog 9.15
A funny crazy thing this morning:
I walk the dog very early in the park across the street. Punks have set up camp in one corner of it (right near the 'Amnesty International Torture Museum,' ironically enough, and there are always a few of them sleeping in an amorphous pile. Their staked out corner is right near a park entrance. This morning a bunch of prostitutes were standing nearby, chatting loudly. Really dressed to the nines-- waist high white boots, Dolly Parton hairdos, purple or orange micro-minskirts, the works. If they weren't prostitutes I'd like to know who their employer is. Anyway, they were loud and laughing and having a good time chatting. I was standing about thirty feet away while the dog grazed on the grass. Suddenly one of the punks poked his head up from beneath his blanket and screamed at the whores to shut up. Normally people are afraid of them because they're ferocious looking and dramatically loud about everything. Most passersby give them a wide berth. Not these women. In even louder screams, they told the punks to fuck off. That did it. Suddenly there was a furious shouting match between punks who'd had their beauty sleep interrupted and whores who were just finishing for the night. Eventually one of the punks must have said something really offensive, a big no-no, because as one, the women came charging into the park and leapt onto the pile of sleepers in full, howling banshee fury. It looked like one of those fights in a cartoon where dogs and cats are fighting so hard that they lose all shape and size and you just see one big whizzing scrum. The funniest thing of all was most of the punks tried to hide in their sleeping bags while their attackers kicked and screamed at them. Some fought back, but these usual masters of their small universe, used to scaring all park people, were suddenly confronted by real toughies who were neither impressed nor afraid of their black leather bluster.
CarrollBlog 9.13
A man I know had been having a very good and satisfying affair with a woman for some time. As a sign of appreciation, he decided to invite her over for dinner at his apartment-- something he hadn't done before. He liked her very much and decided to do the whole thing right: candlelight, linen tablecloth and napkins, nice plates and glasses, etcetera. And of course cook something great. She arrived and they chatted while he put the finishing touches on the meal. But as they ate and time wore on, she became more and more withdrawn and cold. Finally it got so bad that he asked if anything was wrong.
She hesitated but finally pointed to one of the plates.
"Why did use plates? Why not just plastic or something?"
Taken aback, he answered "I wanted to make a nice meal for you. I thought I'd use my nice plates, a tablecloth, you know-- the good stuff."
"But that's all? That's the only reason?" She narrowed her eyes, as if not trusting what he'd said.
Thoroughly confused now, he said "Yes, that's all."
"You're not in love with me?"
He hesitated because he didn't want to hurt her feelings, but the whole evening was becoming so weird and mysterious that he thought he should just tell the truth."No, I like you very much but I'm not in love."
Her face lit up and she smiled from ear to ear. "Oh, thank God! As soon as I walked in here and saw these nice plates I thought Oh no, he's in love with me. Because you never use plates in a situation like this unless you're in love. I was so afraid I was going to have to say that I don't love you. But now everything's okay. Do you want to go to bed?"
CarrollBlog 9.11
Italian phrase of the day: "caccati in mano e prenditi a schiaffi" which roughly translates as "Take a shit in your hands and then hit yourself with it."
CarrollBlog 9.9
My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened. - Montaigne
CarrollBlog 9.7
Those towns everywhere in the world, tiny places often, not even towns in some cases-- villages, dorfs which barely rate a name on a map-- suddenly become known to everyone forever for one unimaginably horrible event-- My Lai, Lockerbie, and last week Beslan.
CarrollBlog 9.6
"For a long time, she held a special place in my heart. I kept this special place just for her, like a reserved sign on a quiet corner table in a restaurant."
Haruki Murakami
CarrollBlog 9.3
Heard a great line today from a friend who used to fight forest fires in Oregon and California:
"When you're trying to escape a fire that's gotten too close, you're running so fast that you could go across a mile of whipped cream and not leave a footprint."
CarrollBlog 9.2
IA Hollywood story from years ago: I had an appointment to meet a very high-powered producer who was flavor of the month with the studios at the time. The scuttlebutt was he could get any movie made because of a recent unbroken string of hits.
His director of development called and said this man had personally asked for a meeting with me because he liked my books so much. I was thrilled and delighted.I’d heard the producer was also famous for dressing beautifully. So that day I made a point of dressing as nicely as I could. I had a Borrelli shirt in an unusual color that I hadn’t worn yet so I decided today was the day for its maiden voyage. Borrelli shirt, best suit, polish the shoes—Off to the meeting.When I got to the company’s office it was like something out of CITIZEN KANE. On entering, I was met by a stunning secretary who marched me through room after beautiful room, full of light and arrangements of wildly exotic flowers. Flowers like I had never seen before in my life. To another, much bigger room, more knockout secretaries, more light, more flowers….Until I reached HIS office. I was met there by the director of development, a woman dressed in a frighteningly chic black men’s suit. We shook hands and she opened the door to the inner sanctum.Inside, the office looked as big as a basketball court. I’m talking HUGE here. And way on the other side of the room was the man. He was screaming into a telephone, furious, frothing at the mouth angry at whoever was on the other end. It sounded like he was going to kill the guy. I thought oh great, he’ll be in a good mood for this meeting.But then a miracle occurred: The boss finally looked up from his desk, saw us standing there and froze. Without another word he hung up the phone. The assistant said “Mr. X , this is Jonathan Carroll, the novelist.” Mr. X immediately got up from his chair and walked towards us with his hand stuck out, as if he wanted to shake. I started to raise my hand to shake but realized at the last moment his hand was way too high. When he reached us, he took hold of my shirt in his hand and said “That is a great shirt! Where’d you get that shirt?”I told him, he nodded, and then asked me “Who are you?”I said my name again and just to make sure, said I wrote novels.“Why are you here?”“Because we’re supposed to have a meeting.”
He looked at me like I had two heads. “I never meet with novelists. They’re all nuts. Talk to her.” He pointed to his assistant and walked away.
CarrollBlog 8.31
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 8.30
I don't understand why anyone would want to buy a thousand dollar satellite navigation system for their vehicle, unless of course they are long distance truckers. How often do you even need a map when you use your car? I don't think I've taken one out of the glove compartment in five years. And the way these gizmos are located in the middle of the dashboard or even further to the right naturally means that any number of accidents will happen when drivers rear end other cars because they have taken their eyes completely off the road so they can see where they're going on the navigation screen.
CarrollBlog 8.27
"It is the poet's purpose to put the world into words, and, in that way, hold it steady for us."
-William H. Gass
CarrollBlog 8.25
Somewhere in everyone's inner city is a cemetery of old loves. For the lucky contented people who like where they are in their lives and who they're with, it is a mostly forgotten place. The tombstones are faded or overturned, the grass uncut, brambles and wild flowers grow everywhere.
For other people, their place is as stately and ordered as a military graveyard. Its many flowers are well watered and tended, the white gravel walks carefully raked. All indications that this spot is visited often.
For most of us our cemetery is a hodge-podge. Some sections are neglected or fully ignored. Who cares about these stones, or the loves who lie beneath them. Even their names are hard to remember. But other stones are important whether or not we like to admit it. We visit them often, sometimes too often, truth be told. And
one can never tell how we'll feel when these visits are over-- sometimes lighter, sometimes heavier. It is entirely unpredictable how we'll feel going back home to today.
CarrollBlog 8.24
One of those days that give you a preview of the next season, the year's next chapter. Very cool. Cloudy then clear then cloudy again, windy. The tang of late fall is on the air. Some of the racing clouds are winter purple. The reassuring summer blue sky is right behind them. Still, once you see those clouds, you recognize their color and remember. Cold rain lives in that color; sometimes even snow.
Walking out the door you take a light sweater with you. Or if you decide not to, a few minutes later you're buttoning up your shirt. Out on the street dogs are friskier, walking faster. The slow paws and floppy tongues of yesterday are gone. The ice cream parlor is only half full for the first time this month. Windows in many of the passing cars are rolled up. Tomorrow summer will return but today is an hors d'oeuvre of the meal to come.
CarrollBlog 8.23
Those small stores, the side street stores, Mom and Pop markets with one aisle, two heads of wilted lettuce, a sixty watt lightbulb overhead for illumination. The "vintage" record shops with two men (never more than three) poring through the stacks looking for that one "Zombies" 45 or the rare Charles Mingus album on the Blue Note label. How many of these dark and empty stores have these collectors visited, always looking for undiscovered treasure? The stationery stores that have had the same three cheap Parker fountain pens and curling notebooks in the window display for years. The narrow stores, the half empty ones, unpainted, unloved. The stores that sell plumbing fixtures and toilet seats, brown-green work clothes and uniforms, Chinese specialty markets that sell only canned goods stacked to the ceiling. Toy stores so small and sad that never in a million years would you bring a child in there, even just for a look. How do any of these stores make money? How do these people survive?
CarrollBlog 8.20
Today's oxymoron: A kid on the street comes up and asks if I have any spare change. The only trouble is while asking, he's talking to someone on a cell phone.
CarrollBlog 8.19
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 along "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, colonostomy bags, etcetera I'm looking at my half eaten lunch, thinking maybe it's time to go.
CarrollBlog 8.18
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 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.
-from GLASS SOUP
CarrollBlog 8.17
A Rumanian man told me a great story about growing up in Bucharest in the last days of Communism under Ceaucescu. He described how insanely paranoid the State was about anything that might threaten the status quo. Once a Russian telecommunications satellite malfunctioned and broke up in space. There were wild rumors that huge pieces of the satellite would rain down on the earth, particularly on Bucharest for some odd reason. To combat this, the Army stationed soldiers all over the city for days with ominous looking guns to... What? No one knew exactly what they were meant to do-- shoot down pieces of the satellite? Or shoot people who were hit by the pieces of satellite? Or...State run television continually reassured the populace that the soldiers were there to protect them from any threat of satellite.
CarrollBlog 8.16
I was reading an article in the paper today about the actor/director Vincent Gallo and all the trouble he's had with his new film, BROWN BUNNY. The last time I was in Los Angeles I was sitting in a hotel lobby waiting for someone. Gallo stomped very loudly in on a pair of industrial strength cowboy boots. He's quite short and frail but his "ten miles of rough road" boots made him a little taller but not much. There was no one in the lobby but the people behind the reception desk and me. Gallo checked us out with half-interested/half-impatient eyes. Upon realizing we weren't who he was looking for, his eyes went absolutely blank, like a parking meter clicking over to "Expired." I smiled, thinking "I'm back in Hollywood."
CarrollBlog 8.14
"Yet the only tattoo I want
is of a fist and a rose, together.
Fist, that helps you survive,
Rose without which
you have no reason to."
-Tony Hoagland
CarrollBlog 8.13
I am walking by one of Vienna's many fountains when I see a man washing himself with an orange. I'm so shocked-- yes eyes, it's true-- that I take a seat on a bench nearby and watch. An old man with a scruffy, unkempt white beard, he is shirtless on this hot August afternoon. His long pants are drooped down so low that they are almost falling off his hips. You can easily see the black elastic of his underwear.
He is standing next to an ornate bubbling fountain with half an orange in each hand. His washing method is to dip an orange half into the fountain and then rub it over his upper body as if it were a bar of soap or a washcloth. He works diligently for a while with one of the halves, then without a moment's hesitation shifts to his other hand and the other orange piece held there. Dips it into the water, then rubs it rub-a-dub-dub over the part of his torso he hasn't gotten to yet. He is very thorough. Finally he is done and throws the orange halves on the ground. All I can think is what does he smell like now?
CarrollBlog 8.12
Surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further. -Rilke
"She stops at a cafe to rest. A man sitting at the window reads a book, scribbling intently in the margins. She wishes for a book like that. One that she could carry with her, writing notes in the white spaces, turning down the corners of the best pages. One that would offer itself up to her, making sense of things. She would turn to any page and find the answers to her questions. A sort of bible."
-from "How the Blessed Live", Susannah M. Smith
CarrollBlog 8.11
More Estonia Women's names:
Teevi Soop
Tiina-Liina Lepasepp
Touliki Poom
Tinc Pincel
Elo Kukk
CarrollBlog 8.10
I finished the final corrections on GLASS SOUP yesterday and sent them in to Ellen my editor. Basta Finito, the new book is done. I can never decide what that feeling is like-- do I like the fact the labor of two years is done so now I don't have to think about that #%%& book anymore? Or horrified that my friend the manuscript, whose secrets only I knew for so long, is now out there in public facing the music, vulnerable as hell? Is it an annoying guest who has finally FINALLY left and now you can breathe a big sigh of relief, or is it a child who doesn't know a thing but must now go out and fend for itself, whether it likes it or not?
CarrollBlog 8.6
One of the most interesting websites I've come across is www.moleskinerie.com It was created by devotees of the Italian "Moleskine" notebook, but it is much more than that. Almost every day it offers, among other things, links to intriguing often fascinating websites. Ernest Hemingway's handwritten notebooks, spectacular photography, Danny Gregory's "Everyday Matters," even genuinely interesting daily blogs (a real rarity now when the word blog is usually synonymous with verbal diarrhea). Moleskine is by all appearances a website created by and for people who are obsessed with certain matters in the best sense of the word. Obsession with anything (other than ourselves and our plight) tends to fade as we grow older for all sorts of reasons. But websites like this one remind us this needn't be so.
CarrollBlog 8.5
"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms-- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." - Viktor Frankl
CarrollBlog 8.4
"People write because it seems like it'll be an easier job than carpet laying, or that they might meet more girls. And they write because the world strikes them as being a marvelous place, and they want to keep bringing that to everyone's attention. You know, a scary place, a menacing place, an exciting place because it's scary and menacing. But mainly, kind of glorious." -Warren Zevon
CarrollBlog 8.2
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 fiction, 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 get together. 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 the 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. We walked in slowly to see mounted on the wall 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 6th, I heard this soft, smoky sexy voice 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 that I realized only after she'd fled was similar to the smile on Jack Nicholson's face in THE SHINING when he bashes his axe through a door while trying to find his wife and kill her.
CarrollBlog 7.30
After watching a lot of MTV recently, I realized that the majority of their reality shows are based on humiliation in one form or another. How much money will it take to make you eat worms/take off your clothes/do something really stupid in public, etc? How will you respond when you're rejected for a date because the other girl is sexier? What will you say as you and two others watch a stranger of the opposite sex go through your bedroom drawer by drawer, looking for intimate or embarrassing things? The most famous of these shows, JACKASS, is only about wild and crazy guys doing insane stunts (like having someone throw a baseball full speed at your crotch) which invariably end up with them in some kind of physical agony. We're supposed to enjoy the madness of these Dada doings, but isn't half the fun of the show seeing what kind of pain and humiliation these guys suffer as a result?
CarrollBlog 7.29
Had lunch yesterday at the Kleines Cafe, the cafe used in the night scene of the film BEFORE SUNRISE. It's cosy as hell, serves great food, and sits on one of the most picturesque squares in Vienna.
Two old men were sitting nearby having a very animated conversation. I wasn't paying attention, but after a while it was sort of hard not to notice how much they were enjoying their chat. Eventually I heard "Borges" mentioned and then "Julio Cortazar." Hearing the names of two of my favorite writers, I perked up and began to eavesdrop. These men were talking about books and writers they loved. Both of them were very animated, very passionate about their likes and dislikes. When one or the other heard a name or a title they were unfamiliar with, they furiously scribbled it down on one of the wad of napkins supplied by the amused waitress who, by the look on her face, was used to the shenanigans of these two old guys.
I was sure when they left the cafe they'd go right to the nearest bookstore and buy what they had written down.
I left a little sooner than I'd planned because I wanted to go while they were still in the middle of arguing about books that mattered to them.
CarrollBlog 7.28
I was reading an article in a UK paper about the famous /eccentric photographer William Eggleston. Apparently he had a girlfriend for many years who inspired him a lot, blah blah. A friend who knew Eggleston for years had a nice line about their relationship- "She pushed him past his greatness."
CarrollBlog 7.27
And in keeping with yesterday's topic of blogversation, I received a spam in the evening that caught my eye. It was advertising "underground teenage vaginas." Is that anything like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
PS What is an "underground vagina"?
CarrollBlog 7.26
There's a remarkable program on late night german tv once or twice a week. Itís a talk show about sex. The moderator is an ugly drag queen named Lilo who makes no bones about the fact she is an ugly drag queen. Her guests vary from a to z, as you can imagine. One night her visitors included a lesbian s&m couple whoíd videotaped one of their whipping sessions to show us, explaining in calm and loving detail why they do and enjoy what they do. What astonished me was 1- How pretty the masochist was and how scarred her ass was 2. How hard her partner hit her. The next person on Liloís tired couch was an extraordinarily plain looking woman who does all the voice-over moaning for porno films in Germany and Switzerland (itís apparently a very rare talent to be able to moan differently for every hump, or so she said). Then came the most successful porn star in Germany, who happens to be an American named something sweetly corn fed and midwestern like Sally. Her breasts were so enormous youíd have thought she needed a built-in shelf. Sally was there promoting her newest film, Jurassic Fuck, in which she is chased around and diddled voraciously, indescribably and repeatedly by- you guessed it- a dinosaur, albeit of suspiciously human proportions. i.e. some fool got up in the dumbest looking green rubber suits you can imagine. Sort of like BarneyÇ gone mad, or randy, or something. The only difference being barney is purple and sings, whereas this guy was vomit green and squirts.
I was enthralled. What delighted me most was how calm and cool the guests were, even as Lilo showed clips of their various home movies, porn movies, orifices, dinosaur dicks, etc.
I know the U.S. has its own porno cable stuff, but whatís so delicious in this is how everybody on the show was so matter of fact. You would think they were discussing the virtues of higher education, or the pros and cons of banning smoking in public. While in America, I watched TV constantly both because I love television and itís the worldís greatest baby-sitter. Here I almost never watch except for CNN or a movie in English. But there are times when shows like this come on that make me happy to be living here. What does porno have to do with it? Nothing, other than the calmness, the ìwho cares what you do so long as you donít get in my faceî ness of it. Europe may be square and behind the times compared to America, but in other ways it is very urbane and cool. Cool in the best way. Cool in the way we always thought cool should be when we were growing up.
CarrollBlog 7.23
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, Bratzka-- often sound like the names of wolves in fairy tales.
CarrollBlog 7.22
"A mujaheddin fighter once told me that fate gives all of us three teachers, three friends, three enemies, and three great loves in our lives. But these twelve are always disguised, and we can never know which is which until we've loved them, left them, or fought fthem."
-from SHANTARAM by Gregory Roberts
CarrollBlog 7.21
Not a Smart Idea Department:
A huge advertisement for a local plastic surgeon plastered all over an old beat up Mercedes taxi. All you need is one look at that wreck of a car and you think "That is definitely not the doctor to fix my nose..."
CarrollBlog 7.20
One of the nice things about summer is at least once a day you see a woman or two dressed all in white. It doesn't matter if she's in a dress or slacks, a t-shirt and shorts. It's the color not the combo that matters. Out of the flurry of lush summer colors there she is, standing out in the middle of all that, singular, separate, usually marvelous.
CarrollBlog 7.19
"I've been re-reading Viktor Frankl's wonderful book MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING recently and as with all books that matter, keep a pad and pen nearby to scribble down the many quotes that rise from the pages like word (or idea) angels that you want to keep and remember. A sample:
"What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment."
CarrollBlog 7.16
Coming to the end of work on a novel is like watching someone pack a bag the day before leaving on a trip. Both of you know they are no longer really "there." In body yes, but their mind and spirit are already at the airport, or on the plane planning what to do when they get arrive...
All you can do is ask "Can I help with anything?" knowing you can't, knowing you are really no longer part of their equation, and that no matter how much they care for you they are already gone. They smile, shake their head and then go back to packing. You stand in the doorway watching.
CarrollBlog 7.15
I have fallen in love with the names of Estonian women. With names like these, how could they not be fabulous? I want an Estonian girlfriend immediately. A sample:
Minni Nool
Kerli Toots
Triin Ploomipuu
Kadri Uus
Tuuli Soomets
CarrollBlog 7.14
There's a street person in the neighborhood I see at least a couple of times a week wandering around. Periodically she shaves her head down to the bone and in winter wears shorts and flip flops. Now and then the look in her eye is clear, most of the time it's either mad or deeply paranoid. She seems harmless but nevertheless makes me nervous and I give her a wide berth.
Today I was walking home and was passing a flower shop when she came through the door, holding two long stemmed flowers. They were beautiful things, the kind of glowing pink flowers that bloom only in the tropics or during high summer. Holding them both in her left hand, she looked radiant. I've never seen her smile like that.
I felt a strange mixture of things, a real mixed salad of emotions. Delight, shame, surprise, wonder. Had she bought them? Were they given to her? Was she delivering them? Seeing that picture really knocked me and my image of her for a loop.
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