There was a discussion yesterday at Ward Six about Elmore Leonard. John was saying that he loved Leonard’s dialogue, and then someone posted a link to Leonard’s rules for writing, published some years back in the Times. The rules are simple and indisputable, as far as they go, and they have the limitations of any [...]
My dear and generous friend Miette has done a wonderful thing for me, she is going to begin podcasting The Man Who Can’t Die today, here: http://themanwhocantdie.com/
Miette has a wonderful podcast. She reads, sometimes from the bathtub, an eclectic slew of matter that staggers me with its breadth. She is also a great writer and [...]
I WANT TO LIVE!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/science/22angi.html
I have for many years loved the writing of Natalie Angier, and this article is no exception. But aside from her ferociously delicious vocabulary and the slightly bent perspective she brings to her subject (bent in the sexual sense!), both of which i savour in this story, I post this because it [...]
I don’t remember writing this, except for a line here and there. And it wasn’t some late night production. I wrote it in my head on the way to work, scribbled it out on paper and then put it on the computer at my desk. But it went into a folder on october 23rd and [...]
This the chapter excerpt I was going to read on Sunday but was persuaded not to.
Elma stared out the window of the car. Irmela got in back and pouted.
“I don’t have time to drive around, so I’m dropping you at David’s. You don’t like it there, get in the car and drive somewhere else. I [...]
An old, nearly lost friend wrote to say she had read my highschool reunion blogh and thought that i found the whole thing depressing. well, i’ve just reread it. to my old comrades! I was not depressed by you! I am happy I went and I am happy I saw you. I still want to [...]
My sister lives out on the island
And her husband takes the train
He’s big and he’s fat
And he doesn’t even have a brain
Don’t you know you have to kill
Kill your sons
Don’t you know you have to kill
Kill your sons
Then you run run run run run
Run away
-Lou Reed, Kill Your Sons
I went to a 30 something reunion [...]
I’ve always worked on Maggie’s farm. I’ve always hoped and dreamed there was a way out but Maggie’s farm has grown from one end of the universe to the other . Maggie’s farm has flattened the earth. You can’t walk out of it. There is no edge or beyond.
“I try so hard to be just [...]
Here’s a good poem for a bleak day, by Yeats, at the end of his life. Some poets you admire and some you love. Milton and Wordsworth I admire. Coleridge and Yeats I love.
A Stick of Incense
Whence did all that fury come,
From empty tomb or Virgin womb?
St Joseph thought the world would melt
But liked the way [...]
Recently I read a diatribe written by screenwriter Josh Olson, “I will Not Read Your Fucking Script” http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/09/i_will_not_read.php. There are over 800 comments. First of all, the piece is a distasteful screed, entertaining, yes. And I felt, after a while, a degree of sympathy, though that sympathy is qualified to the point of non-existence. First [...]
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