Jonathan Carroll's Blog, page 55

CarrollBlog 4.13

Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: the salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way - an honorable...

CarrollBlog 4.12

Her dog is sweet but very neurotic. So neurotic that it destroys her apartment whenever she leaves it alone there for more than half an hour. She works as a social worker at an office that doesn't allow employees to bring their pets. This was a serious problem until she met Peter. He is a middle aged homeless man who spends half of the year in Vienna and the other half in Switzerland. When in Vienna, he lives in a tent on the Danube Island next to the river. According to her, he's a...

CarrollBlog 4.11

The lovers are a different thing altogether. You see them on the street smooching, groping, laughing, hugging, trying to eat one another in a few big bites. Seeing this makes you smile, but there's also a jab of something else in your heart towards them that's like discovering a bone in the middle of a bite of a delicious piece of fish. You must stop eating immediately to locate the thing with your fingers and get it out of your mouth before it chokes you. So too the lovers; you see them and ...

CarrollBlog 4.10

I bought your new book today when I was downtown and had a perfect place in mind to begin reading it. At the Museum Quarter a few minutes from my apartment, there is a vast open piazza-sort of space between the two new museums. It has become a favorite gathering place of the Viennese in nice weather. It's so big that there are several outdoor cafes and restaurants, a huge pool that kids and dogs wade in when it gets really hot, and lots of benches scattered around so there's always a place...

CarrollBlog 4.9

Take some time to read this carefully. It was sent to me recently by someone I know and it's been on my mind ever since I read it:

"A young lady I have been working with at the woman's center sent me an e-mail today and asked me what the definition of courage is.

My reply:

No can do. If you want the formal definition, I suggest you find Mr. Webster and chat it up with him. If you're looking, on the other hand, for experience with courage – or a lack thereof – I might have something for...

CarrollBlog 4.8

Inside the cafe early in the morning the first customers straggle in: The first-to-workers, a sunglassed hipster who's obviously been out all night and looks it, an earlybird or two-- not many. The feeling inside the place is like the weather outside-- glum, hunched, dark gray. The waitress who is usually in good spirits serves coffee with a blank face and says in passing, "I feel so damned tired this morning." Outside on the street an enormous yellow and blue moving van from Italy pulls up a...

CarrollBlog 4.7

I just had a mildly schizophrenic March re-reading FROM THE TEETH OF ANGELS , a novel I wrote over fifteen years ago (I seldom re-read my stuff because it makes me tsk-tsk too much about all the youthful writing mistakes). At the same time, I was slowly snow plowing along writing a new book which is hopefully about half done. Carroll past and future pulling in distinctly different directions. I re-read ANGELS because as some of you already know, it is now available as a KINDLE download at...

CarrollBlog 4.6

When you've owned a white dog (or cat I assume), even long after they're gone you still find their hair on everything. Your clothes (especially the dark things), the furniture, and odd places like a cup way in the back of a cupboard, or the solitary hair trapped beneath the clip of your fountain pen. After my dog Jack died and I'd find these reminders, it would make me sad. I would brush them quickly away and try to clear my mind of how much I missed my old friend. Years later, I...

CarrollBlog 4.5

Out of the blue someone I hadn't heard from in two decades wrote me an email. It was a long letter mostly detailing what they had been doing in the ensuing years. Then they reminisced about the last time we saw each other way back when. I didn't remember the event at all, but they did in detail. The gist of it was we were crossing a busy street together when a dog ran out in front of us and was hit square on by a speeding car. The impact was so great that it spun the large dog round and...

CarrollBlog 3.4

How Could You Ever Be Fine

By Stephen Dobyns

"Right now you are either out there or you're not—

smoking a cigarette, touching a sore place, looking

from a window and letting all the old faces

drift across your mind. It is hard to think of you

dowdy and forty, the problems dealt with, a life

of some sort on track, hard to think of you making it

past twenty-five. At least in books we know the end,

know the characters died or got married, had great

success or failure. But you are out there ...