The Wrong End of the Telescope

by Rabih Alameddine

Every idiot thinks they’re a writer; they’re not.

Literature today is an opiate.

Bless your soul, Bob Marley, savior of bad parties everywhere.

“But all these Northern Europeans think they fart higher than their ass.”

You wanted people’s stories, not them. You cared for the tale, not the teller.

for her, heels were oppression, but for you, they were liberation.

Jane Joyce, who wrote You Sissies.

Look at you. Building any kind of explosive device would ruin your manicure.

I told them if they could Beyoncé, everyone would know they’re gay.

He followed the sounds to the house, just as Melquíades, the gypsy in One Hundred Years of Solitude, found his way to Macondo by following the song of the birds.

You don’t reach eighty years of age without being right, and I’m ninety-nine, our grandmother said

You still cling to romantic notions about writing, that you’ll be able to figure things out, that you will understand life, as if life is understandable, as if art is understandable. When has writing explained anything to you? Writing does not force coherence onto a discordant narrative.