Jonathan Carroll's Blog, page 68

CarrollBlog 11.31

For the first time in her life, adult Danielle realized it is all of our selves that have lived up until this moment that decide what we do: not only the me who is living right now.

And there is no saying which one of those selves will prevail.

Out of that revelation grew the second one: *all* of our selves-- past and present-- determine what we do every minute of our lives.

Danielle Voyles did not start stealing when she was twelve. She started stealing when her six-year-old self ordered...

CarrollBlog 11.30

I firmly believe in small gestures: pay for their coffee, hold the door for strangers, over tip, smile or try to be kind even when you don't feel like it, pay compliments, chase the kid's runaway ball down the sidewalk and throw it back to him, try to be larger than you are-- particularly when it's difficult. People do notice, people appreciate. I appreciate it when it's done to (for) me. Small gestures can be an effort, or actually go against our grain ("I'm not a big one for paying...

CarrollBlog 11.28

Vienna is a city of plaques. All over town you see them on the sides of buildings announcing Mozart lived in this house on Blutgasse (Blood Lane), or Beethoven composed the Heiligenstadt symphony here. Of course there is a large one at Berggasse 19, the office of Sigmund Freud. Further down the fame ladder you have impressively sized plaques that announce the film director Fritz Lang lived in a dark unprepossessing building near an equally anonymous place where Billy Wilder stayed before...

CarrollBlog 11.28

Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back — in many ways it is a feast fit for a king.

The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.

Frederick Buechner

"Do you know a cure for...

CarrollBlog 11.27

Part of the act of creating is letting go. I remember very vividly when writing The Land of Laughs that I reached the part in the story where the dog speaks for the first time. I wrote the passage and stopped. I thought-- the *dog* just spoke-- that's crazy. But a moment later I said okay, let's just see where that goes. In an essential way it was the turning point of all writing I have done since then. My paradigm moment came about because I simply let go, accepted the nutty for fact, and...

CarrollBlog 11.26

"While much in this life is beyond our control, all of us hold the power to choose our friends. We can each be a Nobel prize winner at friendship. None of us are perfect friends always, but one way to think about friendship is in terms of carefulness. Be careful with those you love. And surround yourself with people who are careful with you. A good friend of mine devised a rather taxing standard for love and friendship - and a grim one too - "who would you want to become a refugee with?" If y...

CarrollBlog 11.25

I've been reading Nicholas Weber's good new book THE BAUHAUS GROUP about the founding of the famous design movement. The personalities of the people involved were really larger than life. Here's one story. For those unfamiliar with them, Walter Gropius was the founder of Bauhaus. For a while he was married to the infamous Alma Mahler who was famous mostly for her many husbands and lovers, among them Gustav Klimt, Gustav Mahler, Gropius, Oskar Kokoschka, Franz Werfel and others.

"Alma...

CarrollBlog 11.24

WARNING

by Jenny Joseph

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired

And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

And run my stick along the public railings

And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

And pick flowers in other...

CarrollBlog 11.23

She said she fell in love with him the night of the flying saucers. It was one of their first dates. At the time it was obvious he was more interested in her than vice versa. She *was* interested, but he didn't make her hair stand on end. In Manhattan they went into a diner and sitting at the counter, ordered coffee. Those were the days of cigarettes and coffee at any time of the day or night. They lit up and started chatting. The waiter who served them was short and thin, scrawny. After...

CarrollBlog 11.22

I now fully believe there are people who spread pain wherever they go. They aren't necessarily bad like a Hitler or some other outsized villains. Often they are just you and me's trying to live their lives. But somehow pain bringers are cursed with a dark talent for making things go bad; leaving behind them suspiciously long trails of angry broken hearts, or dreams, or plans… Whether it's conscious or unconscious they continuously mess life up, or make jobs harder for others to do, confuse...