Jonathan Carroll's Blog, page 30

CarrollBlog 9.18

When you consider something like death, after which (there being no news flash to the contrary) we may well go out like a candle flame, then it probably doesn't matter if we try too hard, are awkward sometimes, care for one another too deeply, are excessively curious about nature, are too open to experience, enjoy a nonstop expense of the senses in an effort to know life intimately and lovingly. It probably doesn't matter if, while trying to be modest and eager watchers of life's many spectacles, we sometimes look clumsy or get dirty or ask stupid questions or reveal our ignorance or say the wrong thing or light up with wonder like the children we all are. It probably doesn't matter if a passerby sees us dipping a finger into the moist pouches of dozens of lady's slippers to find out what bugs tend to fall into them, and thinks us a bit eccentric. Or a neighbor, fetching her mail, sees us standing in the cold with our own letters in one hand and a seismically red autumn leaf in the other, its color hitting our sense like a blow from a stun gun, as we stand with a huge grin, too paralyzed by the intricately veined gaudiness of the leaf to move.

Diane Ackerman, "A Natural History of the Senses"

CarrollBlog 9.16

You really need to tell your stories. It's not just a good idea; it's downright urgent. There's a backlog of unexpressed narratives clogging up your depths. It's like you have become too big of a secret to the world. The unvented pressure is building up, threatening to implode. So please find a graceful way to share the narratives that are smoldering inside you -- with the emphasis on the word "graceful." I don't want your tales to suddenly erupt like a volcano all over everything at the wrong time and place. You need a receptive audience and the proper setting.

Source unknown

CarrollBlog 9.13

This is about all the bad days in the world. I used to have some little bad days, and I kept them in a little box. And one day, I threw them out into the yard. "Oh, it's just a couple little innocent bad days." Well, we had a big rain. I don't know what it was growing in but I think we used to put eggshells out there and coffee grounds, too. Don't plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me. Choke those little bad days. Choke 'em down to nothin'. They're your days. Choke 'em!"

Tom Waits

CarrollBlog 9.12

Recovery

by Jan Zwicky

And when at last grief has dried you out, nearly

weightless, like a little bone, one day,

no reason in particular, the world decides to tug:

twinge under the breastbone, the sudden thought

you might stand up, walk to the door and

keep on going . . . And in the seconds following,

like the silence following the boom under the river ice, it all

seems possible, the egg-smooth clarity of the new-awakened,

rising, to stand, and walk . . . But already

at the edges of the crack, sorrow

starts to ooze, the brown stain spreading

and you think: there is no end to it.

But in the breaking, something else is given—not

that glittering jumble, shrieking and churning in the blind

centre of the afternoon,

but something else—a scent,

like a door flung open, a sudden downpour

through which you can still see the sun, derelict

in the neighbour's field, the wren's bright eye in the thicket.

As though on that day in August, or even July,

when you were first thinking of autumn, you remembered also

the last day of spring, which had passed

without your noticing. Something that easy, let go

without a thought, untroubled by oblivion,

a bird, a smile.

CarrollBlog 9.1

Sea of Faith

by John Brehm

Once when I was teaching "Dover Beach"

to a class of freshmen, a young woman

raised her hand and said, "I'm confused

about this 'Sea of Faith.' " "Well," I said,

"let's talk about it. We probably need

to talk a bit about figurative language.

What confuses you about it?"

"I mean, is it a real sea?" she asked.

"You mean, is it a real body of water

that you could point to on a map

or visit on a vacation?"

"Yes," she said. "Is it a real sea?"

Oh Christ, I thought, is this where we are?

Next year I'll be teaching them the alphabet

and how to sound words out.

I'll have to teach them geography, apparently,

before we can move on to poetry.

I'll have to teach them history, too-

a few weeks on the Dark Ages might be instructive.

"Yes," I wanted to say, "it is.

It is a real sea. In fact it flows

right into the Sea of Ignorance

IN WHICH YOU ARE DROWNING.

Let me throw you a Rope of Salvation

before the Sharks of Desire gobble you up.

Let me hoist you back up onto this Ship of Fools

so that we might continue our search

for the Fountain of Youth. Here, take a drink

of this. It's fresh from the River of Forgetfulness."

But of course I didn't say any of that.

I tried to explain in such a way

as to protect her from humiliation,

tried to explain that poets

often speak of things that don't exist.

It was only much later that I wished

I could have answered differently,

only after I'd betrayed myself

and been betrayed that I wished

it was true, wished there really was a Sea of Faith

that you could wade out into,

dive under its blue and magic waters,

hold your breath, swim like a fish

down to the bottom, and then emerge again

able to believe in everything, faithful

and unafraid to ask even the simplest of questions,

happy to have them simply answered.

CarrollBlog 9.9

The Word

by Tony Hoagland

Down near the bottom

of the crossed-out list

of things you have to do today,

between "green thread"

and "broccoli" you find

that you have penciled "sunlight."

Resting on the page, the word

is as beautiful, it touches you

as if you had a friend

and sunlight were a present

he had sent you from some place distant

as this morning—to cheer you up,

and to remind you that,

among your duties, pleasure

is a thing,

that also needs accomplishing

Do you remember?

that time and light are kinds

of love, and love

is no less practical

than a coffee grinder

or a safe spare tire?

Tomorrow you may be utterly

without a clue

but today you get a telegram,

from the heart in exile

proclaiming that the kingdom

still exists,

the king and queen alive,

still speaking to their children,

—to any one among them

who can find the time,

to sit out in the sun and listen.

CarrollBlog 9.8

If what's always distinguished bad writing— flat characters, a narrative world that's clichéd and not recognizably human, etc.— is also a description of today's world, then bad writing becomes an ingenious mimesis of a bad world. If readers simply believe the world is stupid and shallow and mean, then [Bret Easton] Ellis can write a mean shallow stupid novel that becomes a mordant deadpan commentary on the badness of everything. Look man, we'd probably most of us agree that these are dark times, and stupid ones, but do we need fiction that does nothing but dramatize how dark and stupid everything is? In dark times, the definition of good art would seem to be art that locates and applies CPR to those elements of what's human and magical that still live and glow despite the times' darkness. Really good fiction could have as dark a worldview as it wished, but it'd find a way both to depict this world and to illuminate the possibilities for being alive and human in it.

David Foster Wallace

CarrollBlog 9.7

Stefan Sagmeister's list of how to be happy:

Complaining is silly. Either act or forget.

Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid.

I have to live now.

Being not truthful works against me.

Helping other people helps me.

Organizing a charity group is surprisingly easy.

Everything I do always comes back to me.

Drugs feel great in the beginning and become a drag later on.

Over time I get used to everything and start taking it for granted.

Money does not make me happy.

Traveling alone is helpful for a new perspective on life.

Assuming is stifling.

Keeping a diary supports my personal development.

Trying to look good limits my life.

Worrying solves nothing.

Material luxuries are best enjoyed in small doses.

Having guts always works out for me.

BECAUSEby Linda PastanBecause the night you asked m...

BECAUSE

by Linda Pastan

Because the night you asked me,

the small scar of the quarter moon

had healed—the moon was whole again;

because life seemed so short;

because life stretched before me

like the darkened halls of nightmare;

because I knew exactly what I wanted;

because I knew exactly nothing;

because I shed my childhood with my clothes—

they both had years of wear left in them;

because your eyes were darker than my father's;

because my father said I could do better;

because I wanted badly to say no;

because Stanley Kowalski shouted "Stella…;"

because you were a door I could slam shut;

because endings are written before beginnings;

because I knew that after twenty years

you'd bring the plants inside for winter

and make a jungle we'd sleep in naked;

because I had free will;

because everything is ordained;

I said yes.

CarrollBlog 8.30

Hate Hotel

by Tony Hoagland

Sometimes I like to think about the people I hate.

I take my room at the Hate Hotel, and I sit and flip

through the heavy pages of the photographs,

the rogue's gallery of the faces I loathe.

My lamp of resentment sputters twice, then comes on strong,

filling the room with its red light.

That's how hate works—it thrills you and kills you

with its deep heat.

Sometimes I like to sit and soak

in the Jacuzzi of my hate, hatching my plots

like a general running his hands over a military map—

and my bombers have been sent out

over the dwellings of my foes,

and are releasing their cargo of ill will

on the targets below, the hate bombs falling in silence

into the lives of the hate-recipients.

From the high window of my office

in the Government of Hate,

where I stay up late, working hard,

where I make no bargains, entertain no

scenarios of reconciliation,

I watch the hot flowers flare up all across

the city, the state, the continent—

I sip my soft drink of hate on the rocks

and let the punishment go on unstopped,

—again and again I let hate

get pregnant and give birth

to hate which gets pregnant

and gives birth again—

and only after I feel that hate

has trampled the land, burned it down

to some kingdom come of cautery and ash,

Only after it has waxed and waned and waxed all night

only then can I let hate

creep back in the door. Curl up at my feet

and sleep. Little pussycat hate. Home sweet hate.