Tag: quote

They were obviously giving a large party, exactly the kind that Marta dreamed of ever since she was a child. Heaven help her if she missed it. Down there opportunity was waiting for her, fate, romance, the true inauguration of her life. Would she arrive in time?

She spitefully noticed that another girl was falling about thirty meters above her. She was decidedly prettier than Marta and she wore a rather classy evening gown. For some unknown reason she came down much faster than Marta, so that in a few moments she passed by her and disappeared below, even though Marta was calling her. Without doubt she would get to the party before Marta; perhaps she had a plan all worked out to supplant her.

Then she realized that they weren’t alone. Along the sides of the skyscraper many other young women were plunging downward, their faces taut with the excitement of the flight, their hands cheerfully waving as if to say: look at us, here we are, entertain us, is not the world ours?

Dino Buzzati, “The Falling Girl” (viamerelyhumanbeing)

The focus of my fiction has often been young women. Most of my early stories featured them. There could be a number of reasons, from seeking to understand them for my own purposes to my protective nature forcing itself upon my creativity. Mostly, though, I want to see these young women get through an ordeal. I see so many of them corralled into spheres of anxiety and self-doubt that does nothing for them besides make their youth and their lives thereafter unnecessarily difficult.

robbing from the world

the “robbing from the world” part is what gets me… the world gives a lot to us already, why not try to make something you believe is great of it? Is it so wrong to take from something so incredible like the world and do something with it?

The world is pretty goddamn incredible, isn’t it? And terrible. Incredible and terrible and most of what happens in our lives is in between those two.

I don’t believe it is wrong. If a person is going to consider writing and make a go of it then she or he must accept that the inspiration and source for much of the work will come from the universe in which we live, where everything has happened. Natural occurences, the despair and hope of it, universal coincidences and the passage of time, nonsensical words, vagueries and statements, conversations about the weather, fleeting glances, the stares into souls, sex crimes and sex punishments, shattered molecule bonds, glorious atoms, warm little organs so safe in their cages until they face the outside world, the love of the word “love”, towers built by old men who did not expect us, the rain sheen reflecting a tragedy in dark asphalt, hidden memories, emotionless sociopathic lovers, our parents’ regrets and not their triumphs, the inevitable loss that all will face and have no idea how to process, and the billions of other things that aren’t romantic in any sense of the word and yet deserve to be recorded because someone will read about them and appreciate what has been written and said.

robbing from the world

the “robbing from the world” part is what gets me… the world gives a lot to us already, why not try to make something you believe is great of it? Is it so wrong to take from something so incredible like the world and do something with it?

The world is pretty goddamn incredible, isn’t it? And terrible. Incredible and terrible and most of what happens in our lives is in between those two.

I don’t believe it is wrong. If a person is going to consider writing and make a go of it then she or he must accept that the inspiration and source for much of the work will come from the universe in which we live, where everything has happened. Natural occurences, the despair and hope of it, universal coincidences and the passage of time, nonsensical words, vagueries and statements, conversations about the weather, fleeting glances, the stares into souls, sex crimes and sex punishments, shattered molecule bonds, glorious atoms, warm little organs so safe in their cages until they face the outside world, the love of the word “love”, towers built by old men who did not expect us, the rain sheen reflecting a tragedy in dark asphalt, hidden memories, emotionless sociopathic lovers, our parents’ regrets and not their triumphs, the inevitable loss that all will face and have no idea how to process, and the billions of other things that aren’t romantic in any sense of the word and yet deserve to be recorded because someone will read about them and appreciate what has been written and said.

wellspring

Creativity is always key. The artist’s wellspring, or something.

I remembered a quote about this because I live on quotes. Rudolfo A. Anaya wrote:

“… a writer’s job is to find and follow people like Justino. They’re the source of life…  They may be illiterate, but they understand our descent into the pozo of hell, and they understand us because they’re willing to share the adventure with us. You seek fame and notoriety and you’re dead as a writer.”

People willing to share the adventure—do we rob them of something? Do we carry away a small part of what they told us? Or are we the ones to lose a part of ourselves?

wellspring

Creativity is always key. The artist’s wellspring, or something.

I remembered a quote about this because I live on quotes. Rudolfo A. Anaya wrote:

“… a writer’s job is to find and follow people like Justino. They’re the source of life…  They may be illiterate, but they understand our descent into the pozo of hell, and they understand us because they’re willing to share the adventure with us. You seek fame and notoriety and you’re dead as a writer.”

People willing to share the adventure—do we rob them of something? Do we carry away a small part of what they told us? Or are we the ones to lose a part of ourselves?

the curtains

For posterity:

I’m putting up the curtains I had as a small child.
They are made entirely of layers of pink lace.
I want him to feel like a pedophile while I am on
top of him. Those curtains looming above him
like some pale distant first grade crush. My figure
clinging to his body like a child to its mother in
a room full of strangers.

By Brianna G. F.

the curtains

For posterity:

I’m putting up the curtains I had as a small child.
They are made entirely of layers of pink lace.
I want him to feel like a pedophile while I am on
top of him. Those curtains looming above him
like some pale distant first grade crush. My figure
clinging to his body like a child to its mother in
a room full of strangers.

By Brianna G. F.

By the way the short story in this week’s New Yorker, “Blue Roses”

By the way the short story in this week’s New Yorker, “Blue Roses” by Frances Hwang, is really good. (It is not online. Buy the magazine.) It is about friendship and family and being a foreigner with American children and getting old. And dreams. Here is a little bit of it:

My friendship with Wang Peisan is strange, I know. She makes everyone around her crazy. Ever since she was a child, she has been indulged, her life as delicate as a teacup. She had weak lungs, and her parents didn’t expect her to live. They bought her larger and larger coffins as she grew. In one of her dreams, Wang Peisan wanders lost in a museum, room after room filled with coffins no bigger than a tissue box. She opens one after another—like Goldilocks, she says—and it exasperates her that she won’t be able to fit into any of them. What can you do with a person who has dreams like this?

I was just about to post about this!  The narrator is a terrific character, one of the most fully-realized I’ve read in a long time.  I rarely laugh out loud at short stories.

The New Yorker has made the last three stories that I really liked subscriber-only…

The New Yorker is something I used to peruse at the dentist’s office when there were no National Geographic or travel magazines to ogle. I also knew it was chock full of dry cartoons because there was a Seinfeld episode about it. Most recently, I discovered the magazine features good fiction and good writing in general, which I occasionally catch up on when browsing the website.

A few days ago, at the bookstore, I decided to finally buy one. See what the fuss is about. I skipped straight to the fiction and it was “Blue Roses.” I stood in Periodicals and read some of the story while a guitarist strummed in the cafe. The story played, the guitar accompanied, and all I could think was: yea.

By the way the short story in this week’s New Yorker, “Blue Roses”

By the way the short story in this week’s New Yorker, “Blue Roses” by Frances Hwang, is really good. (It is not online. Buy the magazine.) It is about friendship and family and being a foreigner with American children and getting old. And dreams. Here is a little bit of it:

My friendship with Wang Peisan is strange, I know. She makes everyone around her crazy. Ever since she was a child, she has been indulged, her life as delicate as a teacup. She had weak lungs, and her parents didn’t expect her to live. They bought her larger and larger coffins as she grew. In one of her dreams, Wang Peisan wanders lost in a museum, room after room filled with coffins no bigger than a tissue box. She opens one after another—like Goldilocks, she says—and it exasperates her that she won’t be able to fit into any of them. What can you do with a person who has dreams like this?

I was just about to post about this!  The narrator is a terrific character, one of the most fully-realized I’ve read in a long time.  I rarely laugh out loud at short stories.

The New Yorker has made the last three stories that I really liked subscriber-only…

The New Yorker is something I used to peruse at the dentist’s office when there were no National Geographic or travel magazines to ogle. I also knew it was chock full of dry cartoons because there was a Seinfeld episode about it. Most recently, I discovered the magazine features good fiction and good writing in general, which I occasionally catch up on when browsing the website.

A few days ago, at the bookstore, I decided to finally buy one. See what the fuss is about. I skipped straight to the fiction and it was “Blue Roses.” I stood in Periodicals and read some of the story while a guitarist strummed in the cafe. The story played, the guitar accompanied, and all I could think was: yea.

not like you

I saw them then. At the farthest corner where it was darkest. The sisters crouched together in each other’s arms. I saw their faces that were pale but smeared with something—dirt? blood? and I saw they were crying and they saw me, for a long time we looked at each other. “I’m an alive girl,” I whispered. “I’m an alive girl not like you.

—Not like you – Ghost Girls

I have been in a morbid state of mind since the spring. March, maybe, but definitely April.

At my day job, for instance, I discuss mutilated corpses and the best way to display them, the realistic way to portray a decapitation, or zombie women and their impossibly healthy-looking breasts (all of which is actually related to my work tasks, believe it or not, but I’m not at liberty to discuss specifics.)

And then there’s this. The writing. Every story I have in progress at the moment (for who can commit to just one?) includes death or disease in some way. Some are humorous, some are serious business, some focus on it and in others death is only a minor snag in a character’s path. There are ghosts, wastelands, churches, hospitals, accidents, murders… It’s a surprising list. I never would have guessed that I’d be writing such things, but then I never would have guessed that I’d be writing anything at all.

It’s occurred to me that perhaps I am trying to come to terms with the finite nature of life. I have witnessed and understand birth and creation (as far as a childless man can understand such things), and life as a struggle is ongoing. But death, now that’s something else, something I don’t know. I have never lost anyone close to me to death. They’ll tell me that’s good, appreciate the people in my life while they are here, and I’m trying by God, but what must it be like? To witness it, to experience it? No one wants to think about it because it’s generally a conversation killer, thus using my work as an outlet. Would it be better to contain it, keep it all to myself?

I’ve attended one funeral. I was seven and it was for my aunt’s child who passed away days after birth. The Father talked about things and my aunt cried while my brothers and I played near some headstones. The sky was appropriately gray. The slick and professionally tended grass was fun to run around on. The tiny white casket was adorned in flowers.

I know I’m going to lose someone, and not in the way that we all lose someone who we would like to believe is still out in the world somewhere. It’s going to be someone that I can never speak to again. Someone whose existence has ceased. I understand the inevitability of it. I might be the one to go, who knows? But I wonder what I’d think. I wonder if I’d allow myself to cry.

Can you imagine it, talking to the dead? What would you say? What could you possibly have to say?