July 2009
33 posts
“What can I do with this whirlwind
of good-willed imbeciles
and what with...”
– Jaime Sabines
“The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who...”
– Henri Nouwen
“I hope to cure myself of you in a few days. I must stop
smoking you, drinking...”
– Jaime Sabines
“Yet, through it all, she’ll remain essentially untouched by emotional...”
– Linda Goodman, in regard to the Scorpio woman
“To be completely woman you need a master, and in him a compass for your life.”
– Marlene Dietrich
“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension,...”
– Anais Nin
“Nudity somehow implies that anything could happen, but the Times is committed to telling its readers that many things will not happen, because the world is under control, benevolent people are looking out for us, the situation is not as bad as we tend to think, and although problems do exist, they can be solved by wise rulers. The contemplation of nudity or sex could tend to bring up the alarming...
How to Sleep with a Writer
Carefully. First of all, you must be prepared to see yourself dressed up in her clothes. In drag, in costume, in spangly eyeliner and a fedora hat. You have to steel yourself, and accept the following with equanimity: She is going to write about you. It takes a strong person to bear this: you’ll see your private jokes, your secrets, your childhood, the angle of your penis, the heft of your...
“Elegy depends crucially upon the passions: without love, anger, jealousy, pity...”
– Ruth Rothaus Caston
Penny Serenade
Cary Grant: when you're with me, you're safe.
Irene Dunne: I don't know if it's safe.
Cary Grant: I'm darned if I do, either.
“Revelation is always wonderful and casts a magic light on those revealed. The...”
– David Thomson
“At Hollywood occasions, one must be thoroughly prepared with information as...”
– David Thomson
“Many are convinced that mechanical time does not exist. They wear watches on...”
– Alan Lightman
Nitimur in vetitum. Quod me nutrit me destruit.
I didn’t answer. I had heard these arguments before. I had used them myself. They tell some truth, and the truth they deny is a truth about the heart. The body can endure compromise and the mind can be seduced by it. Only the heart protests.
The heart. Carbon-based primitive in a silicon world.
“Modern science broke down the barriers that separated the heavens from the...”
– Alexander Koyre
“A courageous scientific imagination was needed to realize that not the behavior...”
– Albert Einstein
“The Map. The Treasure. There is no Netscape Navigator to help me find my way...”
– Jeanette Winterson
The Powerbook
Ali: What brings you to Paris?
She: The Eiffel Tower.
Ali: Do you like towers?
She: I like structures without cladding. I try to let the lines show through. Not on my face, of course, but elsewhere. My work, my life, my body.
Ali: Clean living?
She: Clean space. The easiest thing in the world is to wallpaper yourself from head to foot and put an armchair in your stomach.
Ali: Sounds uncomfortable.
She: Oh no, it's very comfortable. That's why people do it.
Ali: But not you.
She: [put's Ali's hand on her abdomen.] This is where I feel things. Excitement, danger... Sex. And to go on feeling I have to keep some empty space.
She: What about you? What brings you to Paris?
Ali: A story I'm writing.
She: Is it about Paris?
Ali: No, but Paris is in it.
She: What is it about?
Ali: Boundaries. Desire.
She: What are your other books about?
Ali: Boundaries. Desire.
She: Can't you write about something else?
Ali: No.
Bedtime Stories
He called me Jess because that is the name of the hood which restrains the falcon.
I was his falcon. I hung to his arm and fed at his hand. He said my nose was sharp and cruel and that my eyes had madness in them. He said I would tear him to pieces if he dealt softly with me.
His game was to have me sit astride him when we made love and hold me tight in the small of my back. He said he had to...
J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Lord of the Rings: The Two...
Aragorn: What do you fear my lady?
Eowyn: A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond recall or desire.
“Desire is half of life; indifference is half of death.”
– Kahlil Gibran
“I will not be just a tourist in the world of images, just watching images...”
– Anais Nin
““And I want to kiss you.”
A man was exercising two dalmatians under the trees....”
– Jeanette Winterson
“What is peculiar to modern societies is not that they consigned sex to a shadow...”
– Michel Foucault
“Stories are maps. Maps of journeys that have been made and might have been made....”
– Jeanette Winterson
“It’s an old joke that if you ever have to murder anyone in L.A. (and most...”
– David Thomson
“Below Mulholland there are bodies buried:
Ghosts, spooks, those flaming images...”
– David Thomson, quoting Nabokov from memory
How To Find Things
My great grandmother gave directions in reverse so we’d know where not to go. She’d send me looking for things by saying: - You know the cabinet by the window? It’s not in there; look under the sink and you’ll find it. The lesson here is that knowing where to go is important but knowing where NOT to go can help too.
From Be The Boy
“Women would be amazed if they knew what men desire about them. Yes, of course,...”
– John Walsh, Desire: What really turns us on? written for The Independent on February 14, 2009. 