what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.
no nonsense
Faulkner loved his whiskey
and along with the
writing
he didn't have
time
for much
else.
he didn't open
most of his
mail
just held it up
to the light
and if it didn't
contain a
check
he trashed
it.
I was on cheap wine and green beer
and
dementia...........
she wasn't very
interesting
but few people
are.
the wine of forever
re-Reading some of Fante's
The Wine of Youth
in bed
this mid-afternoon
my big cat
BEAKER
asleep beside
me.
the writing of some
men
is like a vast bridge
that carries you
over
the many things
that claw and tear.
Fante's pure magic
emotions
hang on the simple
clean
line.
that this man died
one of the slowest and
most horrible deaths
that I ever witnessed or
heard
about....
the gods play no
favorites.
I put the book down
beside me.
book on one side,
cat on the other....
John, meeting you,
even the way it
was was the event of my
life. I can't say
I would have died for
you, I couldn't have handled
it that well.
but it was good to see you
again
this
afternoon.
Charles Bukowski
the passing of a great one
he was the only living writer I ever
met who I truly
admired and he was dying when I
met
him.
(we in this game are shy on praise
even toward
those who do it very well, but I never
had this
problem with J.F.)
I visited him several times at the
hospital (there was never anybody else
about) and upon entering his room
I was never sure if he was asleep
or?
"John?"
he was stretched there on that bed,
blind
and amputated:
advanced
diabetes.
"John it's
Hank...."
he would answer and then we would
talk for
a short bit (mostly he would talk and
I would
listen; after all, he was our mentor,
our
god):
Ask the Dust
Wait Until Spring, Bandini
Dago Red
all the others.
to end up in Hollywood writing
movie scripts
that's what killed
him.
"the worst thing," he told me,
is bitterness, people end up so
bitter."
he wasn't bitter, although he had
every right to
be......
at the funeral I
met several of his script-writing
buddies.
"let's write something about
John," one of them
suggested.
"I don't think I can," I
told them.
and of course, they never
did.
Charles Bukowski
oh yes
I've been so
down in the mouth
lately
that sometimes when I
bend over to
lace my shoes
there are
three
tongues,
For De vet det, kjære, at en mor er evig og alltid mor. Og barnet er evig og alltid et barn. Det er moderens og sønnens skjebne.
Herr læreren er jo...... vel, han er jo ikke lenger et barn.
Du gode Gud! Kaller De min sønn herr lærer? Nå står ikke verden til påske!
Banalt, men banaliteter er sanne (dette er også banalt; dette også; og så videre: og kanskje på enden, altså akkurat etter det uendelige semikolonet vil påstanden en eller annen gang likevel si noe nytt: . . . . )
James Wood's How Fiction Works, er en bok jeg gjerne anbefaler til andre bokelskere. Tidligere har jeg lest boken i papirformat, i kveld har jeg lastet den ned på Kindle for relesing.
Her er Erik Bjerck Hagen's omtale av boken.
Diktning og sannhet
På sykehuset
I MODERENS OG SØNNENS! Det var ikke dette jeg våknet av, for jeg sov ikke, det var denne setningen jeg skvatt til av, dette skriket som lignet et hyl, dette hvinet, som lød samtidig triumferende og resignert, krevende, men i alle fall egensindig og på en gang uselvisk, lik en sann bønn. Stemmen kjente jeg godt.
Ingen kunst av Peter Esterhazy
... each man's hell is in a different place.......
Dilettanten av Terje Holtet Larsen.
We spoke of a friend of ours who had died the night before, at forty-three. " But my God! I'm forty-one," a bearded banker said. "Don't worry," his wife, who is German, answered. "There is no order. It is not a line."
Time Tells
We are made of time.
We are its feet and its voice.
The feet of time walk in our shoes.
Sooner or later, we all know, the winds
of time will erase the tracks.
Passage of nothing, steps of no one?
The voice of time tell the voyage.
Voices of Time: A Life in Stories by Eduardo Galeano
No history is mute. No matter how much they own it, break it, and lie about it, human history refuses to shut its mouth. Despite deafness and ignorance, the time that was continues to tick inside the time that is.
- Eduardo Galeano
Your work should be an act of love, not a marriage of convenience.
"nothing matters and
we know nothing matters
and that
matters...."
I walk over and fill her drink: "you got class, doll, you're not like the
others...."
she likes that and I like it too
because to make a thing true all
you've
got to do is believe.