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"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 8.31
In My Next Life
by Mark Perlberg
I will own a sailboat sleek
as fingers of wind
and ply the green islands
of the gulf of Maine.
In my next life I will pilot a plane,
and enjoy the light artillery
of the air as I fly to our island
and set down with aplomb
on its grass runway.
I'll be a whiz at math, master five or six
of the world's languages, write poems
strong as Frost and Milosz.
In my next life I won't wonder why
I lie awake from four till daybreak.
I'll be amiable. mostly, but large
and formidable.
I'll insist you be present
in my next life—and the one after that.
CarrollBlog 8.30
What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?
Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.
Philip Larkin
CarrollBlog 8.29
If You Forget Me
by Pablo Neruda
I want you to know
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
CarrollBlog 8.28
Sometimes as you’re chugging through your day, you see or hear something that completely stops you and makes your mind move in all kinds of interesting different directions. Walking down a busy street, I looked up and saw a blind woman (sunglasses, white cane) moving toward me. Then she stopped, turned right and walked into a hip women’s boutique. My mind started racing—how does a blind person shop for clothes? Feel? Touch? Do they ask for help, do the people who work in the shop say oh no, that looks terrible on you—try something else. Does the blind person ask for specific colors… Question after question galloped through my head. It was nice because until that moment, I had never thought about that but the search for answers made my mind feel…bigger.
CarrollBlog 8.27
Hooray for the old people, mad or halfway there, who are shouting and gesturing furiously at the world as they walk down the street. You see them and do a double take— who are they talking to? Are they talking to me? When you’re sure neither is true, you watch them in their fury raging at everything and nothing. High drama. Opera without music. When was the last time you screeched and howled like that at anything? It would be easiest to say those poor people—life has driven them around the bend. But when you think about it, passion in any form keeps our blood flowing, especially when you’re eighty-three and the days don’t offer any variety, much less adventure or kisses. I think Dylan Thomas was getting at that in his famous poem when he said “rage at the dying of the light.” If we can’t love, then rage means at least we’re still here, visible and ornery, not yet willing to let the blanket of silence be pulled over our heads for good.
CarrollBlog 8.26
"We’re often wrong at predicting who or what will transform us. Encountering certain people, books, music, places or ideas… at just the right time can immediately make our lives happier, richer, more beautiful, resonant or meaningful. When it happens we feel a kind of instant love for them that is both deep and abiding. Now and then it can be something as trifling as a children’s book, a returned telephone call, or one night at a seaside bar in Greece."
from the new book
CarrollBlog 8.25
"I believe in things that serve their function well and can be used again and again with trust. I have read about an artist who makes ladders that cannot be climbed -- the steps go every which way. It's an interesting idea; it challenges our sensibilities, but only for a minute. Then it's just what you said -- the work of a wiseguy. What I still can't understand is why someone would put so much of their life and imagination into doing that sort of work every day. Building a ladder that goes nowhere is the same as making films about people hurting each other in all sorts of imaginative ways."
Outside the Dog Museum
CarrollBlog 8.24
interesting distinction:
"Eric Fromm's distinction between benign and malignant aggression – benign aggression being only used for survival and is rooted in human instinct, whereas malignant aggression is destructive and is based in human character.”
CarrollBlog 8.23
“What was astonishing to him was how people seemed to run out of their own being, run out of whatever the stuff was that made them who they were, and, drained of themselves, turn into the sort of people they would once have felt sorry for.”
Philip Roth
CarrrollBlog 8.22
The restaurant up the block is well known for its wiener schnitzel. They are enormous, usually the size of a frisbee on steroids, served along with an equally large salad of some sort or other. The place prides itself on its ginormous portions and as a result, it's very popular despite the fact it's sort of a dump. What I like best about it is in summer they have tables out on the sidewalk. Once in a while you see the waitress bringing out the orders and the looks on the customers' faces as they're being served are almost always the same-- part embarrassment, part delight, part hesitation-- how the hell am I going to EAT all that? If you catch their eye as this happens, they look like naughty nine year old's who have been caught stealing cookies.
CarrollBlog 8.21
I was reading an article about suicide bombers in the Mideast and the startling upsurge of women who have been doing it. One detail that struck me in particular was this: Almost to a one, the women who have been caught before they had a chance to act wore lots of makeup. In fact that is one of the details the security forces look for in potential suspects: When they see a woman who is very made up acting at all suspiciously, they go on high alert and usually stop her. They have discovered that most of the bombers-to-be put on lots of makeup before they go because they believe they are about to go to heaven and want to look their very best when they reach the other side.
CarrollBlog 8.20
If a Clown
by Stephen Dunn
If a clown came out of the woods,
a standard-looking clown with oversized
polka-dot clothes, floppy shoes,
a red, bulbous nose, and you saw him
on the edge of your property,
there’d be nothing funny about that,
would there? A bear might be preferable,
especially if black and berry-driven.
And if this clown began waving his hands
with those big white gloves
that clowns wear, and you realized
he wanted your attention, had something
apparently urgent to tell you,
would you pivot and run from him,
or stay put, as my friend did, who seemed
to understand here was a clown
who didn’t know where he was,
a clown without a context?
What could be sadder, my friend thought,
than a clown in need of a context?
If then the clown said to you
that he was on his way to a kid’s
birthday party, his car had broken down,
and he needed a ride, would you give
him one? Or would the connection
between the comic and the appalling,
as it pertained to clowns, be suddenly so clear
that you’d be paralyzed by it?
And if you were the clown, and my friend
hesitated, as he did, would you make
a sad face, and with an enormous finger
wipe away an imaginary tear? How far
would you trust your art? I can tell you
it worked. Most of the guests had gone
when my friend and the clown drove up,
and the family was angry. But the clown
twisted a balloon into the shape of a bird
and gave it to the kid, who smiled,
let it rise to the ceiling. If you were the kid,
the birthday boy, what from then on
would be your relationship with disappointment?
With joy? Whom would you blame or extol?
CarrollBlog 8.19
This Longing
by Martin Steingesser
... awoke to rain
around 2:30 this morning
thinking of you, because I'd said
only a few days before, this
is what I wanted, to lie with you in the dark
listening how rain sounds
in the tree beside my window,
on the sill, against the glass, damp
cool air on my face. I am loving
fresh smells, light flashes in the
black window, love how you are here
when you're not, knowing we will
lie close, nothing between us; and maybe
it will be still, as now, the longing
that carries us
into each other's arms
asleep, neither speaking
least it all too soon turn to morning, which
it does. Rain softens, low thunder, a car
sloshes past.
CarrollBlog 8.18
MAD MEN manners (beware of Mr. Bungle, kids)The best part comes after the puppet show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s7X5-Drctk
CarrollBlog 8.17
The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle
of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed.
Einstein
CarrollBlog 8.16
"Imagine yourself in pieces.
Imagine all the people who have known you for only a year or a month or a single encounter, imagine those people in a room together trying to assemble a portrait of you, the way an archaeologist puts together the fragments of a ruined facade, or the bones of a caveman . Do you remember the fable of the seven blind men and the elephant? It's not that easy, after all, to know what you're made up of."
Dan Chaon, AWAIT YOUR REPLY
CarrollBlog 8.15
SILENCE
by Stephen Dobyns
I am the music you were born to.
Then you put me aside, waiting your own;
like sticks scratching together, you wanted your own.
I am the song you will sing longest.
I am the clothing you were born in.
Then you changed me for bright red and blues;
like a clown or bridegroom you wanted everything perfect.
Death is a marriage; you will wear me to the wedding.
I am the house you were born in.
Then you left me and went traveling;
like a child without parents or fortune you went traveling.
I am where you are going.
CarrollBlog 8.14
“Kafka imagines a man who has a hole in the back of his head. The sun shines into this hole. The man himself is denied a glimpse of it. Kafka might as well be talking about the man’s face. Others “look into it.” The most public, promiscuous part of his body is invisible to himself. How obvious. Still, it takes a genius to say that the face, the thing that kisses, sneezes, whistles, and moans is a hole more private than our privates. You retreat from this dreadful hole into quotidian blindness, the blindness of your face to itself. You want to light a cigarette or fix yourself a drink. You want to make a phone call. To whom? You don’t know. Of course you don’t. You want to phone your face. The one you’ve never met. Who you are.”
Leonard Michaels
CarrollBlog 8.13
Solving the Puzzle
Stephen Dunn
I couldn’t make all the pieces fit,
So I threw one away.
No expectations of success now,
None of that worry.
The remaining pieces seemed
to seek their companions.
A design appeared.
I could see the connection
Between the overgrown path
And the dark castle on the hill.
Something in the middle, though,
was missing.
It would have been important once.
I wouldn’t have been able to sleep
without it.
CarrollBlog 8.12
Unsaid
by Dana Gioia
So much of what we live goes on inside–
The diaries of grief, the tongue-tied aches
Of unacknowledged love are no less real
For having passed unsaid. What we conceal
Is always more than what we dare confide.
Think of the letters that we write our dead.
CarrollBlog 8.11
Lovely animation that says it all:
http://tinyurl.com/mv94ah
CarrollBlog 8.7
On Monday morning I will walk down
to the market with my heart inside me, mysterious,
something I will never get to hold
in my hands, something I will never understand.
from "The Mysterious Human Heart" by Matthew Dickman
CarrollBlog 8.6
The famous YouTube clip of the dancing wedding party has now been parodied by some people who simply copy the format (the wedding party dancing down a church aisle), but set it this time in a divorce courtroom. The clip is getting a lot of play but there's nothing new there-- it's simply a copy of the original with a different setting. It reminds me of something that happened back in college and was one of my great lessons. I was the editor of the college literary magazine. For one issue I had the good idea to go to famous artists of the time and ask if they'd give us work for our magazine. Surprisingly some did and the result was a cool looking product. However what I remember most was talking to the famous fashion photographer Hiro who was gracious enough to donate some very striking pictures of commuters on the Tokyo subway. When he gave them to me I thanked him a hundred times for hius generosity. He said, "Well, my part was the easy one-- I just took the pictures. Your job is the hard one-- to take my pictures and create something entirely new with them." The idea hit me like a hammer. Neil Gaiman once said it's not important where a writer (or artist) gets their ideas-- it's what they do with them. The original wedding-dancing clip was new and fresh and joyful in a way we've never seen before. The parody was only a copy set in a different venue. The result? We remember the original. We smirk at the parody and quickly forget it.
CarrollBlog 8.5
One of those people who always seems to be in the way, physically and otherwise. You know who I'm talking about--the kind who stand directly in the middle of a sidewalk while looking in a store window or talking on their phone, oblivious to the fact they're making everyone who passes detour around them. While shopping, they leave their cart in the middle of the supermarket aisle, blocking the world. When they get to the checkout counter they don't take their wallet out until they're told their bill, then they rummage for five minutes in that wallet to find every single coin they need to pay. On a city bus they sit in the middle of a bench seat so it's difficult for anyone else to sit there. If they're looking for a parking spot, they drive their car six miles an hour down the middle of the street making it difficult and often dangerous to pass them. When you're having a conversation with someone, this person often joins the conversation by interrupting with nothing interesting or even faintly relevant to what you've been talking about. If they were insects, their bite would be somewhere between a horsefly and a wasp.
CarrollBlog 8.4
Cherishing What Isn't
by Jack Gilbert
Ah, you three women whom I have loved in this
long life, along with the few others.
And the four I may have loved, or stopped short
of loving. I wander through these woods
making songs of you. Some of regret, some
of longing, and a terrible one of death.
I carry the privacy of your bodies
and hearts in me. The shameful ardor
and the shameless intimacy, the secret kinds
of happiness and the walled-up childhoods.
I carol loudly of you among trees emptied
of winter and rejoice quietly in summer.
A score of women if you count love both large
and small, real ones that were brief
and those that lasted. Gentle love and some
almost like an animal with its prey.
What is left is what's alive in me. The failing
of your beauty and its remaining.
You are like countries in which my love
took place. Like a bell in the trees
that makes your music in each wind that moves.
A music composed of what you have forgotten.
That will end with my ending.
CarrollBlog 8.3
A really wonderful story:
http://tinyurl.com/mepwxg
CarrollBlog 8.2
You've got to see this. If you like part 1, watch all parts of it. The last section will knock you flat):
http://tinyurl.com/n23xpw
CarrollBlog 8.1
If I am to grow poor
let it be like a land
ravaged by blight.
If I am to grow poor
let it be with pride.
Torah scrolls
are saved from the fire.
Not me.
If I die, this is my desire:
Let me be
like some ship wrecked at sea.
Waters without end
will extinguish the fire.
by Dahlia Ravikovitch