“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

That’s the short-short-short Hemingway was alleged to have penned.  I prefer “Hills Like White Elephants” myself, but there’s a virtue in flash fiction for even the most loquacious of novelists, perhaps especially so.   I think of flash fiction as something between a five-finger exercise and a prelude: it has value of its own, and value in what it forces one to do.

Which is get to the point.

*brief intermission while I restore the wireless connection on my son’s computer*

Much of what is good about good flash is, as with the six-word bit of Hemingway apocrypha, only implied.  If you only have a few hundred words, you can’t muse for pages on the inequities of the human condition or think back to the protagonist’s upbringing with missionaries in Namibia or go on about the fourteen varieties of flowers covering the hills surrounding the action.  Well, I can’t, anyway.  But you can give a sense of what has come before, and what may follow, and who these people are and why you should care about them, if only a little bit and until you turn the page.

I think I need to do one or two in the brief lull between revisions and sketching.

Today, on my morning walk, I saw this sign on the steps of a brownstone on East 10th street.

Although, “Please take, kids stuff. Clean!” is only five words it’s not unlike Hemingway’s famous, sometimes even considered best work, six word short story–”For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

In 2008 Smith Magazine put together a piece called Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. Click here to see an excerpt by NPR.

Smith Magazine is an amazingly cool online magazine devoted to storytelling.

Despite my ongoing interest in Oprah and her book club (you read it here first: she’ll return to it with a vengeance once she has her own cable network), I did not read her 2007 book selection, the Pulizer prize winning Cormac McCarthy novel The Road, until this weekend.  During Thanksgiving dinner at a friend’s house (where we ate a lovely, very non-Americana dinner of beef bourguignon a la Julia Child) the hostess begged us to read it so she could talk about it with others.  My friend (a Henry James scholar and now administrator—but don’t hold that against her) thought the novel so haunting, so emotionally affecting, that she read it twice (this despite it being about ¼ the length of a typical James novel).

So I picked up the novel on Friday and finished it (between grading, socializing, cleaning, etc) this morning.  And she is right: it IS haunting (it takes place post some sort of natural disaster, though those who felt the ash of Mount Saint Helen’s eruption in 1980 might have an idea). It also teeters on bad Hemingway in the sparseness of its language (this quote from the novel is  from Jennifer Egan’s glowing review in Slate comparing the McCarthy’s moral vision to Hemingway’s):

After they discover a basement full of human prisoners who will be used for food, the boy asks his father, (aka “the man”—similar to Hemingway’s the man and the girl in “Hills Like White Elephants”):

 We wouldn’t ever eat anybody, would we?
No. Of course not.
Even if we were starving?
We’re starving now.
You said we weren’t.
I said we weren’t dying. I didn’t say we weren’t starving.
But we wouldn’t.
No. We wouldn’t.
No matter what.
No. No matter what.
Because we’re the good guys.
Yes.
And we’re carrying the fire.
And we’re carrying the fire. Yes.
Okay.

But, once I got over that, and just allowed the simple sentences to work their incantatory magic (and just as in good Hemingway, they do), I was hooked.

The story of a father and son in search of food and survival, and some more good guys, years after the world was practically destroyed, where the few humans left have either become more fully godlike, thus empathetic and altruistic, or more fully human (and thus selfish, self serving, desperate), with a few sort of tottering in between.  The boy provides the moral compass in the story, reminding his father to retain what little humanity he has left. The father is a biblical figure, and if I knew the bible better I’d be able to figure out which one (the person who originally owned my used copy of the book had some wonderful annotations, pointing out references to Yeats and the prophet Elijah, but I’m not sure I buy the father as the Christ figure: the boy has more of Christ in him).

So yes, it’s the basic post-apocalyptic novel, though without aliens, just alienated humans.  I can imagine Hemingway’s Jake and Brett as the father and mother, and the child a throwback to those pre WWII times (she has a minor role in the novel, though it looks like, with Charlize Theron in the role, the mother has a much bigger role in the film). It’s one of those novels that will be discussed in Faith and Fiction classes alongside Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead (with its father and son travelling by foot in the post-Civil War south). It’s one of those novels that would work nicely with many a Hemingway novel: although for Hemingway, grace is in keeping a stiff upper lip, while for McCarthy, grace is in keeping the fire and light of compassion within lit, a much more optimistic moral, though also one that I can’t imagine films well.

And the novel has flaws: it’s painful and horrific at times to read (though for me, the style of the writing mitigates the horror, which in itself is a bit of a horror if you think about it), but despite their months-long travel with each day being darn similar to the next, I still found it engrossing. Luckily, I’ve avoided most commentary on the novel, so I didn’t know exactly how it would end. I suspect there are those who would argue that the ending is contrived, and contradictory (I’m being deliberately vague here for those who haven’t read it), but it also provides the reader with the necessary catharsis after the long, tense journey.

But I couldn’t help the little voice in my head echoing the last line in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises: “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

 ”If I had to give young writers advice, I would say don’t listen to writers talking about writing or themselves.” – Lillian Hellman  

“But words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.” – Lord Byron   

“Anybody can make history. Only a great man can write it.” – Oscar Wilde 

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart…” – William Wordsworth 

“Fiction is the truth inside the lie.” – Stephen King 

“All good books have one thing in common – they are truer than if they had really happened.” – Ernest Hemingway  

“If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water.” – Ernest Hemingway

“For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.” – Ernest Hemingway 

Writing is by nature a solitary experience. When I need a little company, I find that quotes about writing by my favorite authors connect me to something larger than myself.  When I write, I like to immerse myself in words and all things writing. This satisfies the obsessive part of my nature. Reading the words of those who inspire me,  I am inspired to forge ahead, and to above all, keep writing. – Suzie

Depuis qu’Ernest Hemingway a publié Les neiges du Kilimandjaro, nombreux sont ceux qui se sont mis à rêver d’atteindre le sommet de cette montagne située au nord-est de la Tanzanie et composée de trois volcans éteints. On compte aujourd’hui quelque 25 000 personnes qui s’y risquent chaque année. Selon le blog des Karavaniers ,  la moitié seulement atteint le sommet et 25 meurent en chemin. Est-il utile de préciser  que le défi exige de  se dépasser physiquement et moralement ?

Ceux qui ont la santé et la forme physique se lancent dans cette expérience pour se dépasser ce qui leur permet souvent, pendant qu’ils accomplissent leur exploit, de réaliser les efforts quotidiens que doivent faire, les malades ou ceux à qui la vie ne fait pas de cadeaux. C’est pourquoi l’événement est presque toujours lié à une oeuvre humanitaire.

Dans le cas de ma fille, Gina Desjardins, il s’agit d’un rêve. Il faut dire que rien ne lui fait peur. Elle n’avait que 16 ans quand elle fut victime d’un grave accident d’auto dont elle aurait bien pu  ne jamais sortir vivante. Elle s’est battue et a gagné. Du coup, elle a développé un appétit insatiable pour la vie et pour tous les moments exaltants que l’on peut vivre.

Après avoir nagé avec les dauphins sauté en parachute, fait l’essai du plus haut bungee au Canada et du trapèze, tenté le street surfing et la plongée sous-marine, ou piloté un avion,

Gina s’est montré très enthousiaste quand son père, Gérard Desjardins lui a proposé de l’accompagner pour escalader le Kilimandjaro.

Comment dire non à la fabrication d’un si beau souvenir ? D’autant plus que le défi se fait pour amasser des sous afin de venir en aide aux victimes démunis à la suite d’un sinistre. Une problématique que Gina connaît bien pour avoir souvent discuté avec son père, autrefois  expert en sinistre et maintenant franchisé d’une compagnie de nettoyage après sinistres, la compagnie Gus. C’est d’ailleurs cette compagnie qui est à l’origine de  la Fondation Gus au profit de laquelle est organisée cette expédition.

Mais pour se rendre en Tanzanie, il faut des sous. Geekette connue pour sa participation quotidienne à M. Net,  pour ses écrits technos et jeux vidéos dans Destination Via Rail , pour son blogue personnel et celui sur MSN et ses nombreuses participations à diverses émissions de télévision et de radio en tant que spécialistes, Gina organisera une soirée levée de fonds pour l’aider à atteindre des objectifs. La date n’est pas encore déterminée, mais je vous invite à la suivre sur Twitter pour connaître tous les détails.

De plus, grâce à la collaboration de Simon-Olivier Fecteau (ex Chic & Swell, réalisateur du film Bluff , réalisateur des Bye Bye mettant en vedette Rock et Belles Oreilles, chroniqueur à Informan et j’en passe) et au caméraman Leland Miller, elle a créé un petit vidéo amusant décrivant la raison de cette ascension.

Pour ceux qui aimeraient l’encourager en faisant un don, même un tout petit, invitation à vous rendre ici

Même si je vous avoue être très inquiète, je ne peux que lui souhaiter d’atteindre ses objectifs et de réaliser son ascension avec succès et, par la même occasion, de contribuer à aider ceux qui se retrouveront à la rue après un sinistre. Qui sait, ça pourrait être nous ?

Puxando de memória uma biografia do Napoleão, que eu li no 3º colegial, a situação que mais se gravou em minha memória foi dos momentos anteriores a sua queda, quando ele estava a parte de tudo e todos, num estado de coisas onde soluções e possibilidades não mais existiam. Ele estava sem chances e estava sozinho. Triste, não? A gente pode chamar de fim da linha, esgotamento, punição kármica aos abusos cometidos e de derrota. De todos, derrota é  o nome mais triste, pois implica em si a idéia de luta, de tentativa, de vontade.

Livro que muito trata disso, do lutar ao máximo e perder, é o Velho e o Mar do Hemingway, onde o Santiago até que se esforça e se reencontra como pescador, mas perde, mesmo que dignamente, para as forças da natureza. Perder, perder, perder é algo terrível. Pior ainda é quando não há espaço para sentir raiva e culpar alguém, isso deixa uma sensação de cansaço que beira as portas da melancolia, da verdadeira morte do espírito.

Imagem que traduz tudo isso que estou dizendo é uma do Fernando Pessoa, em que ele faz uma comparação com um fósforo frio, que se queima todo, mas não consegue mudar o ambiente e a dinâmica da vida e do Mundo, acaba riscado, apagado e jogado no chão, sobrevivente de si mesmo. Espírito e carne, fósforo e espírito, velho e pescador, vida e natureza, duelos, sem fim.

Para uma amiga, que não foi exatamente muito bacana numa situação pessoal, expliquei um dos princípios norteadores de toda a ação da minha vida: “não fazer nada errado e quando fizer, não deixar que alguém descubra, nem deixar que a consciência te devore.”

A consciência da culpa é muito fácil de ser ignorada. A consciência do esgotamento de opções, da inacessibilidade de um tempo passado e melhor, é terrível e constante. O saudosismo não é só português… No fim, todos, uma hora ou outra, vão descobrir algo que Steinbeck já bem disse em ratos e homens:

A guy needs somebody – to be near him. A guy goes nuts if he ain’t got nobody. Don’t make no difference who the guy is, long’s he’s with you. I tell ya, I tell ya a guy gets too lonely an’ he gets sick.”

Pois não importa a derrota, quando você tem alguém verdadeiramente ao seu lado.

I haven’t quite had the time to figure out how this piece of fantastic machinery works, (ie. pages, ie. where to put my poetry and prose versus everyday ramblings), but I will soon, and mark my words, once I figure it out it will be fucking epic.

Other than my general lack of any technological know-how, life continues on ever so swiftly.  Last night I got home from work at a later hour than usual, but it was a goooooood Wednesday!  I’ve been thinking of keeping a tip vs. paycheck journal, but so far haven’t found a smart place for it.  Now I’m thinking to make an excel spreadsheet about it… do some comparisons at the end of a 3 month-ish period and see how much money I actually earn.  But, like I said, last night was fantastic.  It was reminiscent of some of the first nights I worked at King Eddies, with more than 100$ in tips coming my way at the end of it, despite me begging for mercy.  The thing is, if you’re busy – you’re happy.  No waitress is going to be happy sitting with the same customers for the entire night – you’re just going to get frustrated even if the person(s) is(are) your best friend(s).  But if you have a legit stream of newcomers that you semi-know and can entertain the fuck out of? You are your own best friend.  You are the queen of the butterflies, flitting from table to table with your gorgeous smile and anticipating beers and presenting wines from behind your back like magician’s tricks, much to the awe and congratulations of the patrons (ie. audience).  You are everywhere at once, you are working the room and you know you are damn good at it.  Everybody loves you, and the table at the back from Alberta, full of hockey players and moms, that is getting rowdy singing Rasputin at the top of their arms?  They give you hugs every time they see you with another rye and coke, or rye and diet or vodka water lime (mostly because you remember each person’s specific drinks, and partly because you’re russian and they’re hockey players).   They sing, they laugh, the ask you whether your nipples are pierced, and then they leave in a giant flurry of stumbling tall men, in cabs too small to their hotel across the street.  You are now satisfied – they are happily drunk, they are coming back for more, and they tip like madmen!

What’s better then that?  A close second would be getting more than 8 hours of sleep for me, since these guys kept me at work till about 2:15 last night, and I wake up at 7 on Thursdays.  But it was worth it – I’ll sleep on the bus and dream about dancing 20$ bills on the way to my retardedly early English class.

I hear the best writers lived in bars… except the thing is I don’t think they worked there, but .. er… drank there.. so really the best writers should be my regular customers… except they’re not.  But I will be from listening to all of their ridiculous drunk stories time and time again.  I will be.

Time to go dry my hair.  And eat something.

Ciao. Arina.

The first time I saw a hummingbird, I was in church. Not in the sanctuary, actually, but upstairs in the annex at Sunday School. The morning was bright, lovely, and warm, and the hummingbird flitted just outside the open window. I was too young then to think of it as some kind of sign, but something stirred in my heart that I had never felt before. I learned something about beauty, then, and fragility, and the importance of keeping your eyes, mind, and heart open to all possibilities.

Those qualities are important, too, in the lifelong discipline of learning that we all share. I try very hard to keep my heart open whenever I learn by reading, which is why I’m not ashamed to admit that I often hurry to my computer, intent on notating a section of lovely prose or a lesson I’ve just learned. I’m not ashamed to admit that reading makes me feel excited and alive. Sometimes I read aloud just to hear the beauty of the words or to understand what I’ve just experienced; sometimes I laugh, and sometimes I even cry.

There’s a name for this sort of intense, fully immersed reading: lectio divina (spiritual reading). All reading is spiritual to me, because a book–if it’s any good–enters directly into the human heart. And there it remains, if you’re fortunate enough, to form the essence of the person you are continually becoming: the person you are destined to be.

Sometimes friends ask me how many books I’ve actually read. Truly, I’m not really sure: seven thousand? Ten thousand? I do know that at it’s peak, my library contained over 1,500 books. Many, far too many, are now gone in the chaos of the last two years. I probably have only a hundred or so with me now in Pennsylvania, but the good news is that I’m once again acquiring these treasures at a rate commensurate with my usual pace. Which means, of course, that I’m investing again: not only in books, but in my lifelong education. Little wonder, then, that I often refer to myself as an autodidact…self-taught. I’ve read less than some, more than some. But what I’ve read stays with me, affects me, shapes me. I feel every book I’ve ever read, no matter how long ago it was (some, of course, more than others). And these books, as Wendell Berry wrote, converse with each other as much as they converse with me. There’s an alchemy going on here inside my heart, filled with Robert Jordan and Jake Barnes and Brett Ashley and Daisy Buchanan and more characters than I possibly have space to name. They whisper to one another; they whisper to me. Soon others will join them, and the conversation will take on even more dimensions. In the meantime, I will keep reading. In the meantime, I will keep learning. I will never, ever, stop learning…

“Never confuse movement with action. “

-Ernest Hemingway

“Conocer a un hombre y conocer lo que tiene dentro de la cabeza, son asuntos distintos.”
-Hemingway-

Cuando estás apunto de morir ves desfilar toda tu vida en fotogramas. Eso dicen, puedo asegurar que es falso.
Hace un instante me encontraba sentado en esa silla, en este porche esperando lo inevitable. Miraba la silueta del árbol -siempre estuvo ahí en medio, impasible, inmutable-. Es el único elemento intuible, la bruma lo invade todo.

Estoy sentado, sitúo la culata en el suelo, la inclino dirigiéndola hacia mí y contemplo, como nunca lo hice antes, esos dos ojos azabache de mi fiel Vicenzo Bernadelli; doble cañón, calibre 12. Abro la boca, el frío se cuela hasta lo más profundo de mi pecho. Dirijo los implacables orbes hacia el cielo, el cielo de mi boca, ni un pensamiento, presiono el gatillo, nada, ninguna detonación, ni sesos desparramados; continúo con vida. Observo el arma, compruebo si sus entrañas portan la carga letal. Vacía, olvidé armarla.

Ahora me encuentro de pie, entro en la casa y busco. Soy incapaz de recordar la ubicación de los cartuchos.
Se trata de mi hogar, pero la frivolidad con la que observo la estancia es preocupante. Acaricio el mueble que cubre la pared norte del salón hasta llegar a las puertas que abren el mini-bar. Por inercia, lleno el vaso con ginebra, doble de ginebra.

Paseo la palma de la mano sobre la pieza sobresaliente del mueble hasta llegar a la repisa que corona el fogón de la chimenea. ¿Y la caja de cartuchos? Debería encontrarse ahí, justo encima de la chimenea. Desde la aparición de la bruma los recuerdos comenzaron a volverse frágiles, volátiles.

La sensación de extrañeza se torna curiosidad, una leve curiosidad. Ando hacia el centro de la estancia, en medio una mesa de vidrio. Un álbum sobre la mesa. Una rosa seca adorna la portada. En ella unas letras impresas en color plateado. Mi nombre figura junto al de Ángela. Abro con lentitud, al azar, nada; hacia adelante, más nada; hacia atrás, ni una imagen. Se encuentra totalmente en blanco.

Dirijo la atención hacia el primer peldaño. Cada paso es más lento, más pesado que el anterior. Alcanzo el pasamanos, aferro con fuerza mis dedos gobernando la bola gris que anuncia el inicio, el primer paso hacia la planta superior. No sabría explicarlo, otra vez ese frío. Apenas iniciado el ascenso, me detengo, no sé la razón pero no debo subir. Acepto sin cuestionar la acción dando la espalda a la escalera. Es como si una nube en mi cabeza se interpusiera entre yo y la realidad, la realidad y yo.

Enfrente la pared sólo muestra la roca, ningún tipo de ornamento, nada. A la izquierda una cocina, nada de interés. Regreso al exterior, al frío. La silueta de un árbol en medio y la bruma, eterna, paciente. Miro la escopeta, ¿por qué la llevo al hombro? ¿Quién es Ángela? ¿Dónde me encuentro?

Otros cartuchos:

http://momentosdelucesysombras.blogspot.com/2009/11/una-y-otra-vez.html

http://visionesdelaluna.blogspot.com/2009/11/experimentacion-locura.html

En la recámara:

http://momentosdelucesysombras.blogspot.com/2009/11/abu.html

“How can I make my life sound amazing in -this- book?”

You may have heard of the “six word story” idea that has been floating around the internet and college writing classes for some time.  The goal is to come up with a phrase that describes in exactly six words a person’s thoughts on a particular subject.  The concept is believed to have started with the famous author, Ernest Hemingway, who accepted a challenge to write a short story in six words.  His response was this – For sale: baby shoes, never worn.  Of course, few persons would be able to come up with such a thought provoking six word story as the one produced by Hemingway.  Still, it is a fascinating exercise and a good way to refine and distill our ideas on a specific theme. 

The Thanksgiving Holiday seems to me to be a good subject for a “six word story.”   I encourage the readers of this blog to come up with some examples that express what Thanksgiving means to them.  I’ll get you started with two of my own.  I love eating at any time (big surprise), but especially at Thanksgiving, so I came up with Favorite meal – turkey, dressing, pumpkin pie.  Another one hints at the busy rehearsal and performance schedule that awaits musicians after the Thanksgiving holiday.  Last rest before rush of December. 

This should get you started.  I look forward to hearing your “six word stories.”

in the morning. Going to eat breakfast soon (if you know my weird breakfast habits)

So behind on my Hemingway essay..I totally brought this on myself. I’ll probably work on it all night tonight and sleep on the bus tomorrow
Speaking of LNS, I’m so excited! Tomorrow is it!

But first I have to write this essay..
I need to start going to sleep past 9:30 hahha

Joselito Morales e’ nero come la notte e sicuramente a quest’ora passeggia per le strade dell’Avana con la sua sgangherata valigia di cartone strapiena di avocado. Lui e gli avocado formano una curiosa mescolanza di nero e verde, che spicca sui colori sempre cangianti dei Caraibi.
“Lo sa che tutti i pugili nobili vanno in cielo?” Mi domando’ una sera che eravamo seduti sul Malencon.
“In quale cielo?” gli chiesi io.
“Non nel cielo dei preti, ma in quell’altro, quello che e’ pieno di belle ragazze che non dicono mai di no quando le invitano a ballare. In quel cielo li’ si puo’ bere quanto rum si vuole, e gratis. E’ il cielo dove papa Hemingway accoglie tutti quelli che sono stati nobili.”
Mi piacque l’idea di Joselito e credo in questo cielo.

Hemingwaywantabes, pleased to report that my new Thomas Merton biography, Beneath the Mask of Holiness, has been released. One nice review thus far:

Mark Shaw’s latest captures a most controversial period of time in the life of a very enigmatic personality, Thomas Merton. Mr. Shaw doesn’t fail to envelop the reader in a fair, honest, provocatively enlightening, and highly entertaining read. Mr. Shaw treats his subject with dignity, sensitivity, and profound reverence. For followers of Merton, this is a must read. For those just now learning about Merton or those barely acquainted with the man and his work, “Beneath the Mask” cannot be more recommended.

That’s from Peter Mursak, a fellow monk of Merton’s. More at www.markshawbooks.net. Savings at amazon.com

A big welcome to everybody who has discovered this blog via the ‘Freshly pressed’ section of the WordPress homepage and read my post On Writing: The romance of the writer from Hemingway to Gladwell.

It’s been wonderful to have so many new visitors, and so many insightful and thoughtful comments, so thank you all for stopping by. It has been a crazy 24 hours for the blog – there’s been more pageviews in the past day than there had been previously in the total life of this blog, up to the point WordPress kindly gave me a plug.

So, to introduce myself, I’m Steve. I live in London, and have been properly knuckling down with this blog over the past six months or so. If you’ve had a nose about, you’ll see that it has predominantly been a blog focused on sport. However, once I hit 100 posts I decided I’d liked to broaden the subjects I cover here. and really blog about whatever interests me. While I expect there will still be plenty of sporting posts, after my unexpected success (exposure is perhaps a more apt word – but sounds a little icky!) yesterday, I’m definitely going to cover other stuff.

What is on the horizon?

In sport, I’m a big football (soccer) fan, so there will be plenty of coverage and commentary on that. I’ve also over the past few years got more and more into baseball. However, I’ve reached the point where I really want (and probably need) to learn some more. So, I’m planning My Baseball Winter, a series of posts where you can follow me getting to grips with some of the different aspects of the sport, be it the history, the statistics, the culture that surrounds it. We’ll see.

In non-sporting posts, I’m currently reading Kingsley Amis’ Every Day Drinking and have got some fun stuff in mind along those lines on the joys and pitfalls of drinking.

I’m sure to cover music too, be it reviews or more general thought-pieces. I’m sure films, books and other art will get a look in too. You know, the usual stuff.

And finally, after yesterday’s post, more writing on, well, writing. I think it is a fascinating subject and I look forward to exploring it some more.

My biggest aim for this blog is to encourage more and more comments from you guys, so please do feel free to add your thoughts. Any suggestions are very welcome, and your comments so far have certainly enriched this blog no end.

If you fancy subscribing to this blog, here is my RSS feed. Otherwise, I do hope some of you find the time to pop along again at some point, and I’ll do my best to visit every person who has been kind enough to comment.

Thanks again!

Steve

PS Please excuse the dreadful trousers/shorts I’m wearing in the picture. I love the picture as it reminds me of a pretty magical day out. I’m a sentimental old thing, really.

Note to self:  depriving yourself of Peet’s when you’re used to it every morning is not a good way to make friends.  My brother and I are riding this unpleasant tsunami together which has been a trip because a) no one around us believes we have the wherewithal to abstain from coffee and b) suddenly our co-workers don’t like us.  Hmm, that’s weird.  I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that we walk into work snapping and barking rather than making jokes.  Gee, why is everyone dispersing in all directions like they were just hit with a mushroom cloud?  As if taking a nosedive in popularity hasn’t been an unpleasant enough side effect from this challenge, I can’t even bring myself to write anything that is slightly more entertaining a tax document.  No wonder Hemingway was a drinker.  He didn’t want to bore his audience to death.  No alcohol, no caffeine?  I might as well start writing about the migration patterns of the European pine sawfly.   Where is the edge in that?  Without coffee or alcohol I just feel like a bland flatliner with nothing interesting to say. 

Thanks to the live feed on Facebook, my brother and I have been taking potshots at each other and antagonizing as the Facebook press conferences roll on.  At this point, so as not to kill anyone, we’ve desperately started looking for loopholes. Question #1:  Does decaffeinated green tea count?  I say yes because he’s probably getting a little hit from the traces of caffeine while I’m over here walking across hot coals with my peach tea.  ‘What about coffee enemas then?’ I ask.  ‘I think we could slip that one under the radar.’  Well, he literally had a hernia at the very mention of ‘coffee enema’:

After I talked him off the ledge and he informed me that no matter what I couldn’t break him, I asked him to get back to me when I extended the 10-day challenge to 30 days.  No big, just a few more days.  His reply: “Hmmm, this sounds like ‘Come on, you can jump off the 10th step…..it’s only one higher than the 9th!!’

No wonder that 20 years later when I decide to take him through another gruelling test ‘The 10-day No Caffeine Challenge” and surreptitiously attempt to extend the boundaries he becomes defensive:  “Hey, wait a minute….this seems a little familiar…“Come on, you can jump off the 10th step…..it’s only one higher than the 9th!!”.  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  So yes, I guess I ‘ve jeopardized my powers a bit with that whole basement step jumping thing and lost some credibility.  It is unlikely he will rise to the next level and answer to the 30-day challenge.  On the other hand, never underestimate the seduction of competition and triumph on a public forum, or the rabid and blind desire to please big Sis! 

El catalán Vila Matas decía que Hemingway trajo a la literatura el gesto del aficionado, logro hacer que la palabra y la estructura comunicaran pensamiento, sentimiento y también sentido físico. Eso, que parece fácil de hacer ahora y lo hicieron muy bien Salinger y Carver, el robusto tomador de daiquiris  nunca lo dejó de hacer.
La obra de Dante Montich para mí tiene ese gesto y esa intensidad que está perdiendo la pintura actual, pintura que toma la frialdad y la superficialidad de cierta fotografía de moda, la obra de Dante molesta y esa molestia al principio nos desplaza creyendo que es sólo una cuestión estética y  si logramos penetrar descubrimos que la paleta es todo sentimiento.La causa es efecto , lo físico y lo químico son el principio y el final, al igual que los mejores cuentos la pintura de dante nos cuenta dos historias, una que vemos y otra que no.

un bloody para el maestro, mi maestro.

At McSweeney’s, famous authors are rewriting the funny pages:

“It’s a mighty sorry business, Sarge being blown up like that,” Beetle said. The other soldiers in the café nodded silently. He ordered another bottle of vermouth and drank the vermouth. It was a good vermouth.

That’s Papa doing Beetle Bailey. Also: Jane Austen does Peanuts, and James Joyce revises Garfield. I tried my own:

The legend of Calvin! In this legend we have a suburban boy, Calvin, conqueror of worlds mostly internal. Our Hero sits atop his Mt. Olympus, staring down with the other Gods at a steep slope of briars and oaks and a tiny path just wide enough to guide a blood red wagon…and it was blood red. The Adventurer! The King Of His And Every World! The Last Man Worth Not Just His Salt But All The Damn Salt In All The World’s Seven Damn Seas! He grabbed the black mono-handle on his Radio Flyer and something changed. His parents never understood it. Neither did Hobbes, really…no on could, save The Legend himself. VROOOOM! He was off with a kick and without a look left or right – The Legend heeded no rules. VRIIIIIIIM! He hit the lip over the sidewalk and – Whoosh! – he was off. The Legend lived!

Hopefully you got the comic. Author guesses encouraged in the comments (or, for the answer, just highlight the line below).

Answer here:Tom Wolfe

Oh, and I really would love to see you create your own. In the comments.

Ein neues Design hab ich jetzt auch – wenn es vielleicht auch ein wenig dunkel ist, aber das passt ja zur Jahreszeit und meinen derzeitigen Gemütsschwankungen.

Ich habe mich dieses Jahr im übrigen durchgerungen, tatsächlich mal einen Roman zu schreiben. Nachdem Doro mich schon Wochen vorher damit genervt hat, habe ich mir einen neuen Account zugelegt und zähle jetzt fleißig meine Worte für Nano (=NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month).

Glücklich bin ich trotzdem nicht, denn ich hänge 6 k hinterher und finde meine Story gerade zum kotzen. Aufhören kann ich aber auch nicht, weil ich ja selbst wissen will, wie die Geschichte endet.

"Chet Baker"

“A cat has absolute emotional honesty: human beings, for one reason or another,

may hide their feelings, but a cat does not.”

~ Ernest Hemingway