• view the full blog archive •
"A friend asked yesterday if this blog is addressed to anyone in particular? I said yes– it’s a love letter to someone I haven’t met yet."
CarrollBlog 10/31
After the death of his wife Edmonds could not stop blaming himself for it, although she had died of liver failure and there was nothing he could do but hold her hand while she withered away. Eventually he underwent analysis. The doctor said guilt was like a traffic light: A pedestrian comes to a red light. He looks both ways, sees the coast is clear, and then must decide whether to heed the warning or not. Often he crosses the street anyway.
Guilt is that traffic light. Stop-- don’t do this because it’s dangerous/bad/selfish… Don’t smoke that cigarette. Don’t have that affair. You are somehow to blame for her death. You see that red light, recognize its warning, but then choose to go anyway. If you cross the street, you don’t think-- what am I doing? Did I make the wrong decision? Of course not-- you get to the other side and keep on walking. If you smoke the cigarette you're an idiot if while you're smoking you're thinking this is bad, this is terrible. I'm killing myself. No, hopefully you smoke that bad thing but still enjoy those three minutes.
The analyst said holding on to guilt is like carrying that red traffic light around with you, which is ridiculous. So Edmonds gradually learned to listen to his inner voices, consider what they said, and then make his decision. Once he had, he rarely looked back now.
from the new book
-----------------
from GB:
http://www.foleygallery.com/artists/artist_ins.php3?artist=8
CarrollBlog 10.30
The Patience of Ordinary Things
by Pat Schneider
(found at www.daronlarson.blogspot.com)
It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they're supposed to be.
I've been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?
CarrollBlog 10.29
In New York, the view from my hotel window was right down onto Ground Zero. The weather was Fall- perfect and I kept thinking it must have been exactly like this on 9/11. In the distance you could see planes taking off and landing at La Guardia airport, which added an even more macabre element to the mix. What I found most astonishing was the festive atmosphere down on the street. Someone told me Ground Zero is the most popular tourist attraction in NY now. At all times of the day and night, lines of tourist buses are parked everywhere in the neighborhood. Swarming crowds from all over the world are there for a look. Photographing, laughing, everyone trying to get a better peek at things behind the huge construction barriers. Street vendors everywhere sell postcards of the flaming towers, as well as baseball caps and t-shirts emblazoned with "Never Again!" Oddly enough, directly across the street from where the Twin Towers stood is an old old church with a small graveyard that was completely untouched by the catastrophe. It looks like the kind of church/cemetery you see in some sleepy forgotten New England town. Right across from the heart of darkness.
_________________
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX40RsSLwF4
CarrollBlog 10.28
In Seattle the desperate destitute woman comes up to me and shouts in my face, "Gimme money! I haven't eaten for seven days. My God, give me some money so I can eat!" I give her two dollars. She looks at the wrinkled bills in her hand and shouts louder, "It's not enough! God damn you, it's not enough!" Throwing the money down on the sidewalk, she walks quickly away.
CarrollBlog 10.27
text message to the enigmatic Small Lina:
In the Caffe Nero at Heathrow airport, a dowdy looking couple are sitting together, both of them drinking large cups of hot chocolate and smiling. They look like human versions of Wallace and Gromit. The man turns to the woman and in a very pleasant voice says, "This fucking chair is killing me. My arse is dying." His wife sweetly responds, "Well then move, you dim twit."
CarrollBlog 10.10
I'll be leaving Saturday morning for New York to begin the US book tour. I'll try to check in here whenever possible over the next two weeks if there's any news, cool stories, or interesting things seen along the way. I haven't been to America in years so it should be interesting, especially in the midst of this run up to the US national election. I hope you'll all come to the readings, cheer wildly, and buy multiple copies of THE GHOST IN LOVE. It's the perfect Christmas stocking stuffer! See some of you face to face in a few days.
CarrollBlog 10.9
This is a very cool website for both music and book fans. I was flattered when they asked me to chip in:
http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2008/10/book_notes_jona_2.html
CarrollBlog 10.8
Funny (and sad):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8aDTrU4ffk
CarrollBlog 10.7
A great Rilke poem from AP:
God Speaks to Each of Us
God speaks to each of us before we are,
Before he's formed us then, in cloudy speech,
But only then, he speaks these words to each
And silently walks with us from the dark:
Driven by your senses, dare
To the edge of longing. Grow
Like a fire's shadowcasting glare
Behind assembled things, so you can spread
Their shapes on me as clothes.
Don't leave me bare.
Let it all happen to you:: beauty and dread.
Simply go no feeling is too much
And only this way can we stay in touch.
Near here is the land
That they call Life.
You'll know when you arrive
By how real it is.
Give me your hand.
- Rainer Maria Rilke
CarrollBlog 10.6
Now
by Greg Watson
I told you once when we were young that
we would someday meet again.
Now, the years flown past, the letters
unwritten, I am not so certain.
It is autumn. There are toothaches hidden
in this wind, there are those determined
to bring forth winter at any cost.
I am resigned to dark blonde shadows
at stoplights, lost in the roadmaps of leaves
which point in every direction at once.
But I am wearing the shirt you stitched
two separate lifetimes ago. It is old
and falling to ash, yet every button blooms
the flowers of your design. I think of this
and I am happy, to have kissed
your mouth with the force of language,
to have spoken your name at all.
CarrollBlog 10.5
There was an interesting article in a US newspaper about the last days of a very famous European writer. He lived an astonishing life-- survived the Nazi years, worked as a diplomat in Paris after the war before moving to the US where he taught at a famous university for years, etc. In his old age he won the Nobel prize for literature, and finally returned in triumph to his homeland to live out his last days as a god touted and adored by the whole country. But the gist of the article was that all he was obsessed with at the end of his life, in his 90's, was where he would be buried. He wanted a place in a famous castle burial ground, the equivalent of Poet's Corner in London's Westminster Abbey. But the authorities said no and he knew that before he died. Having lived an amazing event filled Cinerama life like that, almost 100 years old, Nobel Prize, survived the Nazis... but all you're concerned about at the end is where your bones will end up. It left me shaking my head. No matter where you are, it is never enough.
CarrollBlog 10.4
The old woman comes up to me on the street and says without hesitation "Paulie died."
I don't know what she's talking about, but a second later I recognize both her and what she means. She and her ancient dog Paulie used to walk around the neighborhood for what seemed like hours. He barely moved but she was all right with that. I'd see them out early in the morning and late at night always inching along, Paulie sniffing here and there, checking things out you know he had already checked out ten thousand times in his life.
"How old was he?"
"Eighteen. He just didn't wake up one morning."
I waited a moment and then said as gently as I could, "Well, eighteen is a good long life."
"He always liked you."
"He did?"
"Yes, I know he was always glad to see you. He thought of you as a friend."
I want to say something but don't know what. I manage a "thank you."
She nods and walks away.
CarrollBlog 10.3
a really good clip from ML. If you like it, there's a part two too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JIz7I5yzwQ
CarrollBlog 10.2
The American poet Hayden Carruth died this week.
N sent this in, one of his most famous poems, asking if it could be posted in his memory.
Scrambled eggs and whiskey
in the false-dawn light. Chicago,
a sweet town, bleak, God knows,
but sweet. Sometimes. And
weren't we fine tonight?
When Hank set up that limping
treble roll behind me
my horn just growled and I
thought my heart would burst.
And Brad M. pressing with the
soft stick and Joe-Anne
singing low. Here we are now
in the White Tower, leaning
on one another, too tired
to go home. But don't say a word,
don't tell a soul, they wouldn't
understand, they couldn't, never
in a million years, how fine,
how magnificent we were
in that old club tonight.
-------------------
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhDRVKDcXQo