April 13, 2012
The fourth day she reduced the teabags inside the pot to one
“The fourth day she reduced the teabags inside the pot to one, and he commented the tea had gone very weak, as though it was being controlled by the weather or an outside force. He did not lift the lid of the pot, because he was not accustomed to doing such things for himself.” –from Anakana Schofield’s Malarky
January 26, 2012
More about stories (and Skippy Dies)
“Maybe instead of strings it’s stories that things are made of, an infinite number of tiny vibrating stories; once upon a time they all were part of one big giant superstory, except it got broken up into a jillion different pieces, that’s why no story on its own makes any sense, and so what you have to do in a life is try and weave it back together, my story into your story, our stories into the other people’s we know, until you’ve got something that to God or whoever might look like a letter or even a whole world…” –Paul Murray, Skippy Dies
November 23, 2011
What to expect
“They named me Ruth Frances Beatrice Brennan, and took me home. They days blended together, one into another with no distinctions. The crying, the feeding, the changing, the chafing, the washing, the soothing, the burping, the singing, the sleeping, the waking. As new parents, James and Elspeth were surprised by their fatigue, as well as my dismissal of it. If someone had told them what to expect (and no one had), they hadn’t taken it in, and now, rather than forging ahead, they were rolling and rolling.
Sometimes Elspeth hung over me with smears of purple under her eyes, the skin there loose and fine, like something that would tear easily. She begged me to understand, though she knew she asked too much of me. Just as I asked too much of her, and him, and they of each other. James formed a habit of going to get things before they were needed, because it made him feel helpful and also allowed him to escape, just briefly, what he’d never expected to have to endure.” –Kristen den Hartog, And Me Among Them
November 12, 2011
Time passes for the curators
“As a scholar of a historical science I was accustomed to seeing the events of the past unfold before me like a parade. But I had thought of myself as a bystander, timeless. How ironic for me, the time traveller, to suddenly realize at the edge of a contemporary archeological exacavation that I was simply another event in the parade. And that time passes for curators, as well as for the things they study”. Dr. Peter L. Storck, “Passing into History”, ROM Magazine, Fall 2011 cc. Joan Didion, Blue Nights
September 7, 2011
Upon my word…
“‘…The women one meets– what are they but the books one has already read? You’re a whole library of the unknown, the uncut.” He almost moaned, he ached from the dept of his content. “Upon my word, I’ve a subscription.”‘ –Henry James, The Wings of the Dove
July 23, 2011
"A good democratic system is polyphonic…"
“A good democratic government is polyphonic. It doesn’t speak with a unified voice but contains numerous ones of genuine power and high pitch that aren’t under the sway of a central conductor. The idea of real competition within an elected government is the great development of the parliamentary system.
This sometimes produces ugly dissonance – as we saw in Washington this month as the many competing voices of Congress and the White House nearly disagreed their country into bankruptcy – but it’s crucial to have laws and structures that allow competing claims to power among different groups of elected officials. When I hear people calling for “consistency” in government policies, I worry: The best and least corruptible systems are those that produce the least consistency.”– Doug Saunders, “The Week the Yanks saved the Brits”
July 13, 2011
The world was upside down
“‘I don’t know why you’re laughing,’ said Aunt Irene. ‘I don’t see anything to laugh about. Everything strikes me as rather worrying.’
‘I’ll make a cuppa tea,’ said Mrs. O’Connor. She made terrible tea, very slimy, strong and tooth-stripping, but there was no denying its restorative powers.
‘If it does this to one’s cups,’ said Aunt Irene when Mrs. O’Connor had gone home to make tea for her boys, ‘what must it be doing to the lining of one’s stomach?’ She rubbed at the stained inside of the porcelain teacup. ‘I can’t be too rough,’ she said. ‘All its little gilt flowers will come off. They were designed for China tea. No one ever imagined Mrs. O’Connor would cross their path.’
The world was upside down. On the whole, this pleased Aunt Irene as much as it angered Mrs. Mason. It was more interesting that way, but it was hard on the porcelain.”– from The 27th Kingdom by Alice Thomas Ellis
July 8, 2011
She could see that you might consume babies
“‘Why did the nuns expel you?” Kyril asked, venturing a little further, his head bent in an attitude so suggestive that Aunt Irene felt that, if he had been a stranger and addressing her, she would have emptied the orange pekoe over him. Sometimes she was so afraid for him with his reckless offensiveness that she felt sympathy for Focus’ [the cat] mother who, finding that the world had intruded and that strange human adults had fondled her kittens, had eaten the better part of the litter and was starting on Focus when he was rescued by Aunt Irene’s friend and thereafter raised on tinned milk dealt out by an old fountain-pen tube. She could see that you might consume babies when they were sweet enough to eat. At least you would know where they were. She worried about Kyril all the time, going about as he did in a world of fire and water, sudden concussions, cold steel and heights and depths, and taking so little care.” —The 27th Kingdom, Alice Thomas Ellis
July 4, 2011
A story that would not be illuminated
“This was a shopping center that embodied the future for which El Salvador was presumably being saved, and I wrote it down dutifully, this being the kind of “colour” I knew how to interpret, the kind of inductive irony, the detail that was supposed to illuminate the story. As I wrote it down I realized that I was no longer much interested in this kind of irony, that this was a story that would not be illuminated by such details, that this was a story that would perhaps not be illuminated at all, that this was perhaps even less a “story” than a true noche obscura [dark night]. As I waited to cross back over the Boulevard de los Heroes to the Camino Real I noticed soliders herding a young civilian into a van, their guns at the boy’s back, and I walked straight ahead, not wanting to see anything at all.” –Joan Didion, Salvador
June 26, 2011
Words can't bring me down
“YOU, FEMALE LIVING PERSON, ARE RESPONSIBLE… for your self-esteem, and this means not listening to self-esteem pop or anyone who says you’re perfect. Do you hear Jay-fucking-Z rapping to dudes about how they’re perfect just the way they be? Ever heard a Stroke talk about how he’s a beautiful burst of true-coloured fireworks that makes stars pale in comparison and the sky feel blessed by God? No, right? That’s ’cause guys (super-loosely speaking, straight guys) are sanguine enough in their guyness to not require number-one anthems of hyperbolic over-consolation. Nor do they read self-help books about how to “celebrate” their “flaws.” Nor, in my not-limited experience, do wannabe-men talk about “just being themselves,” because, duh. You were born this way. Now strive to be (and I’m saying be, not look) better. Ain’t but one thing that’s gonna hold you down, and that’s the airbrushed, slicked-on attitude that you’re a precious gem of beinghood that doesn’t ever need to change. Changing is, quite obviously, the only way you get to be a better person. Anyone who tells you not to change is someone who doesn’t care if you lose at life. Girl, it’s just human sense. Just like you’re not inferior, you’re also nowhere close to being “perfect,” you’re not even consistently amazing, you definitely need to fix like six things about yourself, and you can stop singing total bullshit into your hairbrush, like, now.” –Sarah Nicole Prickett, “Women’s Responsibilties” (emphasis mine, because I love that final sentence madly)
