Jonathan Carroll's Blog, page 62

CarrollBlog 1.29

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

CarrollBlog 1.28

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

Bill Withers

CarrollBlog 1.27

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

CarrollBlog 1.26

"Months after they'd broken up he realized something chilling: From now on, she would be describing their affair to other men in the same quiet reasonable tone she used to explain to him when they were together why her past relationships had failed. Many times he had listened to her lay out with nuance, wit and the perfect amount of self-deprecation why this or that one hadn't worked. Back then he would say about one of her past boyfriends, 'He sounds like a good guy.What went wrong?' She'd t...

CarrollBlog 1.25

AFTER AWHILE

By Veronica Shoffstall

After a while, you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and

chaining a soul. You learn that love doesn't mean leaning and company

doesn't always mean security.

And you begin to learn that kisses aren't contracts and presents

aren't promises. You begin to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes ahead –

with the grace of an adult and not the grief of a child.

You learn to build all your roads on today, because tomorrow's

CarrollBlog 1.24

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

Walker Percy, THE LAST GENTLEMAN

CarrollBlog 1.23

Today was the first time I've seen her in months. Saw the dog first and when my eyes traveled up, the sunglasses. It's gray and overcast in Vienna this afternoon so there's no need for them. That's the first thing I thought-- it's one of those babes who wears dark glasses for power effect, even when it's raining. But then I recognized her: the blind one. My eyes dropped again to the dog-- a honey colored Labrador retriever-- and there was that special harness seeing eye dogs wear. I hoped to ...

CarrollBlog 1.22

One of the Butterflies

by W. S. Merwin

The trouble with pleasure is the timing

it can overtake me without warning

and be gone before I know it is here

it can stand facing me unrecognized

while I am remembering somewhere else

in another age or someone not seen

for years and never to be seen again

in this world and it seems that I cherish

only now a joy I was not aware of

when it was here although it remains

out of reach and will not be caught or named

or called back and if I could make it s...

CarrollBlog 1.21

"He puts down the pen, folds the sheet of paper, and slips it inside an envelope. He stands up, takes from his trunk a mahogany box, lifts the lid, lets the letter fall inside, open and unaddressed. In the box are hundreds of identical envelopes, open and unaddressed. He thinks that somewhere in the world he will meet a woman who has always been his woman. Every now and again he regrets that destiny has been so stubbornly determined to make him wait with such indelicate tenacity, but with...

CarrollBlog 1.20

I watched a short clip on how to properly fold a pocket square (or handkerchief) and put it in the breast pocket of a sports jacket. You know—the one that looks so casually stuffed in, as if it took the wearer two seconds and was done as a hurried afterthought. Not so. There were five proper steps to the process. Then when you've finally got the thing in place, it must be carefully adjusted so that it looks like it was done in seconds. I smiled at the oxymoron of the whole process...