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Travels in the Scriptorium
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
Lady Chatterley’s
Radio Free Albemuth
Farenheit 451
Moral Disorder
Indignation
The Black Swan
When you are engulfed in flames
1984
Unaccustomed Earth
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“…And this Lane pill isn’t the exception, you can be sure. Listen, I talked with him for twenty deadly goddam minutes one night while Franny was getting ready to go out, and I say he’s a big nothing.” He reflected, arresting his razor stroke. “What in hell was it he was telling me? Something very winning. What was it?… Oh, yes. Yes. He was telling me he used to listen to Franny and me every week when he was a kid - and you know what he was doing, the little bastard? He was building me up at Franny’s expense. For absolutely no reason except to ingratiate himself and show off his hot little Ivy League intellect.” Zooey put out his tongue and gave a subdued, modified Bronx cheer. “Phooey,” he said, and resumed using his razor. “Phooey, I say, on all white-shoe college boys who edit their campus literary magazines. Give me an honest con man any day.” Mrs. Glass directed a long and oddly comprehensive look at his profile. “He’s a young boy not out of college yet. And you make people nervous, young man,” she said - most equably, for her. “You either take to somebody or you don’t. If you do, then you do all the talking and nobody can even get a word in edgewise. If you don’t like somebody - which is most of the time - then you just sit around like death itself and let the person talk themself into a hole. I’ve seen you do it.”
Zooey turned full around to look at his mother. He turned around and looked at her, in this instance, in precisely the same way that, at one time or another, all his brothers and sisters (and especially his brothers) had turned around and looked at her. Not just with objective wonder at the rising of a truth, fragmentary or not, up through what often seemed to be an impenetrable mass of prejudices, clichés, and bromides. But with admiration, affection, and, not least, gratitude. And, oddly or no, Mrs. Glass invariably took this “tribute,” when it came, in beautiful stride. She would look back with grace and modesty at the son or daughter who had given her the look. She now presented this gracious and modest countenance to Zooey. “You do,” she said, without accusation in her voice. “Neither you nor Buddy know how to talk to people you don’t like.” She thought it over. “Don’t love, really,” she amended. And Zooey continued to stand gazing at her, not shaving. “It’s not right,” she said gravely, sadly. “You’re getting so much like Buddy used to be when he was your age. Even your father’s noticed it. If you don’t like somebody in two minutes, you’re done with them forever.”
Mrs. Glass looked over, abstractedly, at the blue bathmat, across the tiled floor. Zooey stood as still as possible, in order not to break the mood. “You can’t live in the world with such strong likes and dislikes,” Mrs. Glass said to the bathmat, then turned again toward Zooey and gave him a long look, with very little, if any, morality in it. “Regardless of what you may think, young man,” she said.
(Franny and Zooey - J.D. Salinger)
This post is the creative work of Iris Watts Hirideyo and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
)
There are few things that I love more than finding a piece of writing - whether an insight or description, a sentence or paragraph - that succeeds in making real something I knew to be true but couldn’t put in writing myself. There’s something about discovery (as opposed to creation) that makes your sense of belonging something tangible. Kim Morgan’s tribute to Patrick Swayze had such an effect on me, particularly the following words:
And his face, his tough yet pleading face, filled with such mysterious need that, combined with his body, a body that understood dance, made him a unique, underrated creature.
Read the full post here.
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[Click on the thumbnail for a larger view]
This post is the creative work of Iris Watts Hirideyo and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
)
Look at what we can do…
It seems fitting to get back on this train of thought on the July 20th that marks the 40th anniversary of a shining example of what we can do… Forty years ago today people converged in wide-eyed awe in front of their TV sets and marveled at the seeming impossibility of what they beheld while that sentence took hold of their minds and filled their hearts to the brim.
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I’ve got his words scattered throughout this blog, just as he’s got pieces of me scattered throughout his books.
Habit (The Romantic Movement)
Committing to Reading
Quotes for R.
Commitment to Reading
Alain de Botton’s website
This post is the creative work of Iris Watts Hirideyo and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
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Essays in Love
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Woody Allen (Complete Prose)
Mrs. Dalloway
The Catcher in the Rye (Reread)
Persuasion
In Cold Blood
Committing to Reading
Committed to Reading
Many thanks to Robbie and her ‘flabbergastingly’ bad influence ;)
—— ∫ ——
What arguments are about is never as important as the discomfort for which they are an excuse.
(Essays in Love - Alain de Botton)
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I have three books left to read from my previous reading list - two of which I’m halfway through. And being the girl who’s never been taught to be where she is, I’ve already made a second list. Ugh!
The Conversations - Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film
On Beauty
Walden
The New York Trilogy
White Teeth (Reread)
Wuthering Heights (Reread)
On the Road
Divisadero
Naked
Dress your family in corduroy and denim
They rushed down the street together, digging everything in the early way they had, which later became so much sadder and perceptive and blank. But then they danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I’ve been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’
(On the Road - Jack Kerouac)
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