R.L. Swihart's Blog, page 90

Versailles: Window

Versailles: Window.

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From Chekhov's Letters (10.27.1888)

What do I call good? The images which seem best to me, which I love and jealously guard lest I spend and spoil them for the sake of some "Party" written against time.... If my love is mistaken, I am wrong, but then it may not be mistaken! I am either a fool and a conceited fellow or I really am an organism capable of being a good writer. All that I now write displeases and bores me, but what sits in my head interests, excites and moves me--from which I conclude that everybody does the wrong thing and I alone know the secret of doing the right one. Most likely all writers think that. But the devil himself would break his neck in these problems.

Morro Bay Collage

 Morro Bay Collage.

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From Chekhov's Letters (5.30.1888)

   Her eldest daughter, a woman doctor--the pride of the whole family and "a saint" as the peasants call her--really is remarkable. She has a tumour on the brain, and in consequence of it she is totally blind, has epileptic fits and constant headaches. She knows what awaits her, and stoically with amazing coolness speaks of her approaching death. In the course of my medical practice I have grown used to seeing people who were soon going to die, and I have always felt strange when people whose death was at hand talked, smiled, or wept in my presence; but here, when I see on the verandah this blind woman who laughs, jokes, or hears my stories read to her, what begins to seem strange to me is not that she is dying, but that we do not feel our own death, and write stories as though we were never going to die.

Downtown LB: Walking

 

Downtown Long Beach. Walking. (AQ still UNHEALTHY.)

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Glass Half Full

Harmony. Glass half full, please.

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From Carver back to Chekhov

Love Carver but you can overdose on dysfunctional America: And there's a taste of it in every family.

And a friend says I really need to read the Chekhov of the Suburbs: Cheever. Everything in time.

Ergo: Bouncing back to Chekhov. I wanted to reread some of his letters.

This one is from a letter to a cousin about his mother:

My second request is of more importance. Please go on comforting my mother, who is both physically and morally broken. She has found in you not merely a nephew but a great deal more and better than a nephew. My mother's character is such that the moral support of others is a great help to her. It is a silly request, isn't it? But you will understand, especially as I have said "moral," i.e., spiritual support. There is no one in this wicked world dearer to us than our mother, and so you will greatly oblige your humble servant by comforting his worn-out and weary mother....

Morning Glories

 Long Beach CA. The Bluffs & Beach. Marine Layer & Smoke. Morning Glories.

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Madrid: Glass Palace

 Madrid 2019. Glass Palace. Charles Ray

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Seal Beach: If I Were A Seagull

 

If I were a seagull. Morning in Seal Beach CA.

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