Jonathan Carroll's Blog, page 71

CarrollBlog 11.1

I don't play chess but I really like the Chess Club. Housed in a store that used to sell mirrors and window glass, the Club's display windows are full of different wood and stone chess sets for sale as well as faded, curling pamphlets and sun bleached books with wonderfully obscure, arcane titles like "Gevonoff's Thrumble Openings and Counters." The windows are half frosted but you can see into the place which, like a vampire, only comes alive after dark. The store is around the corner from m...

CarrollBlog 10.31

Here's a really spooky Halloween story for you from the American TV personality Dick Cavett:

The actor Basil Rathbone was entertaining a friend one night at his home in the Hollywood Hills. Both men were keenly interested in dogs and their breeding. His friend had brought with him two handsome specimens. As it got late, the two friends had a parting drink and called it a night. The friend and the canines got into the car and drove away. But, sadly, not very far.

As Rathbone turned to go...

CarrollBlog 10.30

Almost every day for years I've passed the blind woman on her way to work. In her right hand she holds a long white cane that she taps in front of her to sort the familiar geography of the sidewalk she must know so well after having walked it a thousand thousand times. I always give her a wide berth because she taps the stick in a continuous sweeping 180 degree semi-circle in front of her-- left/middle/right/middle/left... This morning walking along, lost in thought, I heard a loud clunk...

CarrollBlog 10.29

She Dreamed of Cows

by Norah Pollard

I knew a woman who washed her hair and bathed

her body and put on the nightgown she'd worn

as a bride and lay down with a .38 in her right hand.

Before she did the thing, she went over her life.

She started at the beginning and recalled everything—

all the shame, sorrow, regret and loss.

This took her a long time into the night

and a long time crying out in rage and grief and disbelief—

until sleep captured her and bore her down.

She dreamed ...

CarrollBlog 10.28

An unusual Croatian exhibition is traveling around Europe. 'The Museum of Broken Relationships' is the name of the exhibition that has already visited Bosnia Herzegovina, Slovakia and Germany. The museum was a hit in 2007. Anyone can visit the exhibition and bring any things relevant to ex-relationships and ex-partners. It doesn't matter if it was a long-term marriage that ended in a painful divorce or just a short hot affair. The main point of the exhibit is to get rid of these painful...

CarrollBlog 10.27

We were talking about a couple that recently announced their engagement. They've been together a while and are very much in love. Although the woman is four or five years older than the man, they attended the same school. Something about this made me smile. Imagine back to when they were both students-- he in the 7th grade, she in the 12th. She's very good looking and always been the kind of woman who makes men stare. Imagine way back in their school days if you were to go up to that 13 year ...

CarrollBlog 10.26

"In the Western Pacific, there is the concept of the *kula*, which refers to the way in which objects accumulate value entirely on the basis of who owned them. The objects themselves tend to be collections of shells that have little or no intrinsic worth, until they are passed from tribal leader to tribal leader, when they take on the luster of provenance."

Richard Todd

CarrollBlog 10.25

Once on a book tour of Poland, I was told some big shot 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 too long. ...

CarrollBlog 10.24

"There are different species of laziness: Eastern and Western. The Eastern style is like the one practiced in India. It consists of hanging out all day in the sun, doing nothing, avoiding any kind of work or useful activity, drinking cups of tea, listening to Hindi film music blaring on the radio, and gossiping with friends. Western laziness is quite different. It consists of cramming our lives with compulsive activity, so there is no time at all to confront the real issues. This form of...

CarrollBlog 10.23

The middle aged woman giving out flyers on the sidewalk has bad Parkinson's Disease. As she tries to get passersby to take the black and white advertisement for a new Sushi restaurant, her offering hand trembles badly. I look at her face: a mixture of disappointment and frustration—please take this paper/why won't you take it? She has a large stack of them in her other hand. She's not been very successful at spreading the new sushi word today. Passing by, I slow to take one but her quaking...