Scraps

“First of all, regarding intellectuals…It’s easy to knock them. Really easy. They’re usually not...

Sat, 12 May 2012 14:10:00 +0200

“First of all, regarding intellectuals…It’s easy to knock them. Really easy. They’re usually not very muscular and they don’t put up a good fight. It doesn’t turn them on—the sound of marching boots, or medals, or big limos—so, no, it’s not hard to take them down. All you have to do is rip the book from their hands, or the guitar, or the pencil, or the camera, and instantly they turn into useless, hopeless oafs. As a matter of fact, that’s usually the very first thing that a dictator does: break their eyeglasses, burn their books or ban their concerts. It doesn’t cost him much, and it can help him avoid all sorts of bother further down the line. But, you see, if being an intellectual means you like to learn, that you’re curious and attentive and can admire things and be moved by them and try to understand how it all hangs together, and try to go to bed a bit less stupid than the day before, well, then, yes: not only am I an intellectual but I’m proud to be one. Really proud, even.”

— Anna Gavalda, Ensemble, c’est tout (Hunting and Gathering)

Orson Welles on the work/life balance and his sense of...

Mon, 07 May 2012 14:46:59 +0200

Orson Welles on the work/life balance and his sense of “home.” I wouldn’t be able to answer these questions any differently.

Me & Orson Welles (& many others, I’m sure)

Y de repente suena...un piano, maravilloso piano.

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 10:18:39 +0200

Y de repente suena...un piano, maravilloso piano.

Approaching Thunderstorm It’s been raining for days in...

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 14:07:00 +0200

Approaching Thunderstorm

It’s been raining for days in Stockholm, and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve played this track. We don’t get thunder and lightening here. We don’t get the scent of rain either. The only clue we might get to an approaching storm is strong wind. And then it just starts raining. So now I’ve gotten in the habit of playing this track over and over again on rainy days, and after each rumble of thunder, I close my eyes, count to three, and imagine a bolt of lightening splinter through the sky. I love thunderstorms and always have. Most kids are frightened by them, but I was more fascinated. There was a strange beauty in them, and mystery too.

“God is bowling again,” my mother once said at the start of a thunderstorm. I must’ve looked confused. “When God throws the ball, we can hear it rolling across the sky,” she explained.

I gave it some thought and then said, “So what’s the lightening for?”

“Oh, that’s just the lane lighting up every time he bowls a strike.”

“So he doesn’t bowl a strike every time?”

“No, but almost every time,” she said nonchalantly.

The explanation didn’t suffice, but what could I say? I was only a child and had no other reasoning. And plus, that’s how everything was explained to me at the time. God was always up to something. When I asked where babies came from, he was the miraculous power behind it. When I wanted to know why people died, it was because God wanted them back in heaven with him. Every good thing I had was a gift from God, and I ought to be grateful to him. What about the bad things? The scary dreams and bullies at school? Why had God given me asthma? God had his reasons, I was told. Either he was punishing me for some disobedience, or he was doing something I couldn’t understand yet. The only thing I needed to know is that all of his ways were perfect.

So maybe now you understand why I struggled with the bowling analogy. If God were so perfect, then why couldn’t he bowl a strike every time?

deleted scene

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:41:00 +0200

“I thought there was more,” you said as I walked into the room. I looked at the table. There were four glasses. Two small plates. A bowl filled with pears and apples, plus a few moistened figs that you’d found in the back of the fridge. A basket of knäckebröd. A block of brown cheese, and next to it, the marmalade that my mom gave us for Christmas. The gift tag was still tied around its neck.

You’d done it all while I was in the bathroom washing my face. By the time I walked in, you were gathering all of your bed-tousled hair into a loose ponytail that leaned toward one side of your head. A slit of bare skin showed between your tank top and pale purple underwear. When I glanced at the table, you glanced too, then sprung over to grab a spiral notebook and pencil lying on one corner of the table. You’d started a grocery list. The idea of eggs and milk were put into the second drawer, just beneath the silverware.

I asked if you were warm. You said no. So why the open window, then? It was early February. Brittle strands of air floated over the breakfast table, as if they could settle into those empty spaces and fill them somehow. “Oh, I was letting some light in. It’s so sunny today,” you said. I looked back to see a slender shape of light lying diagonally across the table, holding the shadow of a long-stemmed lily.

Two coffee cups came out of a wooden cabinet and went into the middle of the table. Six cups now, and two empty plates. But plenty of light and fresh air, and that tall lily. You’d wanted an orchid, you mentioned the night before, but for some reason you couldn’t keep an orchid alive. Not that you’d given up. You’d try again, you said, but not today. After pressing the coffee, you added it to the table too.

“Should I make some tea?” you asked, bringing your right hand up to cover your right cheek, fingertips lightening your cheekbones. I wanted to reach my hand there, to cover your hand and rub my thumb against that soft spot just under your ear. But I was sitting on the other side of the table. My hand was under my chin with my fingertips curled over my mouth. Could you see my smile? I was smiling. I didn’t want to make you self-conscious, but I wanted you to know that I saw you. All of your little gestures, I don’t always watch them like this, but today I did, and they made me ache. What the ache was, I wasn’t sure, except that it was good. It was some version of happiness, though I hate that word, its so elusive and overused now, everyone chasing it, selling it however they can. No, it was something deeper than happiness, something almost primal, and I could feel in my bones. I took my hand away so that you could see my smile, and to tell you that coffee is enough, no need for tea.

By the way your mouth curved up, I knew you’d gotten a little embarrassed.

You sat down on the other side of the table. It was a more of a long countertop really, we sat high on stools. You poured my coffee, then yours, while I cut thin slices of brown cheese. I hadn’t had brown cheese in years, not since I left my mothers breakfast table.

Other than knäckebröd crunching between our teeth, there was no noise except the breeze until you asked how I’d slept. “Good. I think I woke up in the exact same position I fell asleep in.” You said that was good, then reached into the fruit basket, grabbed two chilled figs and set them on the cutting board.

“How did you sleep?” I asked. You’d slept well too, except that you’d dreamt. You never remember your dreams, maybe once a year, and today was that day, you guessed. I asked about them, if they were good or bad. You glanced up at the ceiling. “Scary?” I continued. “Weird, boring, or maybe…” I raised one eyebrow “sexual?”

“All of it and none of it,” you said after swallowing, then paused again. “Things just happened.”

I wasn’t sure if you wanted to talk about the dream, but I figured you wouldn’t have mentioned it if not, and if I was wrong, then I’d find out soon enough. So I asked other questions, and slowly, hesitantly, you began to recount details and events that were as scattered as the items on our breakfast table, trying to organize them into something that resembled a whole meal.

As you talked, the shape of light moved closer to you, one corner stretching out so that it took more of a triangular shape. It let go of the tall-stemmed lily in order to catch your arm every time it was lifted to emphasize certain words. I extended one of my legs, hoping to find you beneath the table. Something about your shadow moving through the table and the talk of dreams made me do it. But it was a countertop really, not a table, and the only thing my foot could find was a solid slab of wood. I put the apple down and pushed my glasses up toward my eyes.

Suddenly the memory of us riding my bike through Copenhagen came back with such lucidity that it felt like the real world again. It was early evening, but it was summertime, the sun was still high and strong over the buildings. Squeezed together on one seat, your arms were wrapped around my stomach, and I was pedaling hard. We were in a hurry, but I can’t remember why or where we going, just that we soared through each intersection like birds, running red lights and everything. What I remember most is how the sun flickered across your figure. Sometimes I could see you when I looked back, but other times you were nothing but blinding flashes of light.

Now it’s only a daydream, but I know it happened, I do. And what’s actually happening is that you’ve stopped talking. You’ve whirled through the flecks of last night’s dream, and now its time for me to respond.

“Do you remember that night in Copenhagen?” I asked. “When we rode together on my bike?”

You said nothing for a few seconds, then gave a perfunctory reply, “Yeah, sort of. Why?”

I looked up, you were wrapped up in a yellowish haze, and I stared into it, still trying to find at least one sharp line when I asked, “Were we late to something? I can’t remember what we were doing.”

“Yeah, we were late for the one and only dinner reservation we’d made the whole summer. Among all the amazing restaurants in Copenhagen, you’d picked that cheap Italian restaurant, where the food dripped with butter – butter, for godsakes, on Italian food – and the waiters nearly harassed me with their fumbling hands, while you just sat imperviously across the table with bread crumbs stuck all over your chin.”

Ha. That’s right. You would put it like that too.

And you were right, it was a terrible place, a terrible night, everything about it was terrible, except for the bike ride there. It was the only time you ever let me ride you through Copenhagen on my bike, though I’d been wanting to do it all summer long. I can’t say why. It was like a vision I’d had years before, before I even met you, or knew what features were concealed behind those flares of light. It was a dream that I’d so badly wanted to make real, and finally did, but now it’s just something to recollect like this on a lazy Sunday morning, and to you, its nothing but the prelude to a terrible night that I begged you to forgive me for and then forget about, all of it, “Please baby,” my arms slashing through the blank air, “just forget the whole thing.”

What was tonight? It was a group of writers in a room with a bag of roasted nuts and a bag of...

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 13:42:00 +0200

What was tonight? It was a group of writers in a room with a bag of roasted nuts and a bag of chocolate-covered nuts. For two hours, the only world we knew was a purely fictional one. I used to read about the small literary group that J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis belonged to at Oxford. The Inklings, they called themselves, met regularly in pubs or cafés to read and discuss their unfinished work. What a dream, I thought, to share such fellowship with other writers. But now look at me, once a week, one of seven writers sitting around a table in a university basement, talking through ideas and asking questions about our works in progress. Who else knows what we’re doing with the majority of our time and energy? Most of the time, we don’t even know ourselves.

I thought, while walking home. That’s how I think – by walking. Sometimes I’ll walk for three solid days, until my shins are split and there’s a blister on every toe. All of that for just a few pages of words, you ask?
I wish I could explain.

Late as it was, the streets were busy. I passed several bars where smokers huddled in clusters near the door. It’s March, but still below zero in Stockholm. I approached the Konsert Hus with its unmistakable blue walls, sitting on one corner of the market square. I love this square at night. When the market stalls have been rolled away, and only a sprawling lawn of cobblestone remains. There is life everywhere, no matter what the hour. Young life – usually traveling in packs, unconscious of anything or anyone outside of their little coterie. Older life – coupled together, arm in arm, one is tapping his cane, the other is dressed in wool or fur. Bored life – sitting on the theatre steps, watching whatever it is that people watch when there’s nothing to see but the shuffling of feet from one corner to another.

I haven’t always lived in a city like this. Where I came from, you didn’t walk the city streets at night. If I were still there, I’d have driven the two miles home from writer’s group, stopped at ten or twelve traffic lights, crossed three interstates, and circled my neighborhood a few times trying to find a parking space. But I’m not there, and in fact, could never be there again. (I wish I could explain this too.)

Before passing through the square, I stop in front of the Konserthus to gaze up at Orpheus, towering high into the black sky. He’s standing on top of Cerebrus, a three-headed dog that guards the underworld, while playing a lyre. Eight human figures rise up toward Orphues in response to his mysterious and powerful music, spewing from the lyre like a fountain, awakening men from the sleep of materialism and their lower natures. Music can do all that, you ask? Well, I believe so, but again, what does the writer know?

I crossed the square, remembering the night I walked alone through Paris, from a bar in le Marais to our hotel in Montparnasse. My Swedish colleagues did not want me to walk, and in fact, were already searching the streets for a taxi. “But I love Paris at night,” I told them. They told me it was unsafe. I could get mugged or raped. And it’s too far, they said, it would take me hours to walk all that way. I looked toward the Parisians for support, but even they were shaking their heads as if they could not recommend it. And then I heard a voice in my ear. “You’ll be fine,” it said reassuringly. I looked up. Our red-headed producer was smiling. “And you’re right. My city is best at night.” He nodded his head toward the Notre Dame and off I went.

It was 5 am when I finally walked into the hotel lobby. The concierge smirked at me as if she knew, oh she knew that I’d just wiggled out of a man’s arms without even waking him. Maybe I did have that glow. And messy hair.

I climbed the stairs to my room, exhausted, gratified. The room felt stuffy, but I closed the window and unpeeled the sweaty clothes from my body: brown heeled boots that had clicked and clacked across more than 20 miles of Paris, navy blue pants, a tank top, and a cropped sweater vest. The sweater vest was new. I bought it earlier that evening after a pigeon shat on my shoulder. I was near the Pompidou when it happened, on my way to meet the whole production crew for Moroccan couscous. Lord knows I couldn’t show up to Chez Omar with pigeon poo, but it was 7 pm and all the shops were pulling their gates. Eventually, I found one open shop: a fucking American Apparel. This is heartbreak: to be in Paris and only shop at American Apparel. But desperate times call for desperate measures. I grabbed the only acceptable item that I could find in the whole store - a cropped navy blue sweater vest with tiny white polka dots, which cost me an idiotic amount of money.

But that was then, and this is now. It’s March, not August. I’m in Stockholm, not Paris. And I did not walk all the way home tonight, I walked through the Parliament gates, into the Old Town, through winding passageways that give me terrible knee pain because the cobblestones are so intense, but I cannot avoid those streets any more than I can avoid those chocolate-covered nuts present at every writer’s meeting, even though the sugar makes me sick.

Following the dark medievel alleyways, I peeked inside of windows and wandered into the courtyard of the Royal Palace, which is especially magical at night. If the sky is clear, you can look up over the palace walls and see the stars. It almost feels like being in a scene of Aladdin. But tonight it’s cloudy, and eerily quiet, I’m a solitary figure, except for the two palace guards standing on either side of courtyard, holding guns and stoically watching every move I make, since I’m the only one to watch. I pick up my pace and move quickly toward the exit.

I imagine the old days, when the King and Queen ruled, when this small island was fortified, and the surrounding islands were just rural ridges. I hear the bustle of daily life, the drumming sound of horse hooves, shopmakers making whatever their shop makes, murmuring in the squares, women trading loaves of bread for scarves and socks, sailboats drifting outside of the city walls - I don’t know if any of this is true or not, it’s just what I imagine. But by this time, my knees were really hurting, and so I moved towards the train station, thanking the cobbled streets for helping me connect with those who walked them so many hundreds of years ago.

I got off at my stop, but did not go straight home. Though tired, I wasn’t done thinking, and plus, I wanted to hear a new album that I bought yesterday and started listening to on the train. So I wandered my deserted neighborhood with earphones, just me and the music, except for one guy who passed me on the main road. We didn’t make eye contact. You don’t really do that in Sweden. I looked up at the sky. A hole was being torn out of it, as if something were about to make an entrance into this world I inhabit. I watched that spot in the sky for a while, but nothing ever came, probably because I didn’t expect that anything would.

When I looked down, someone was strolling past me, casually, with earbuds in his ears too, hands in his pockets. It was the same guy I’d passed earlier on the main road. We sorta made eye contact this time, but not really. We did the typical Swedish thing, where you dart your eyes toward someone, and then dart them away right as you’re passing one another. I continued toward the park, the album was winding down, I was cold and tired and thinking of going home, but I’d already decided to hear the album from its first note to its last breath. By the time I was one block from my building, I rounded a sharp corner and, what do you know, there he was again. This time we smiled, mutually amused. I don’t know the guy at all, and may never see him again, but for half an hour tonight, he’s the only one who might possibly know what I was doing.

It’s sleeting/snowing/something outside. But I like it -...

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 15:41:00 +0200

It’s sleeting/snowing/something outside.

But I like it - the dark gray, the clacking sound, like a busy typewriter - it’s good for writing.

I’m listening to Tyler Lyle. Good for the soul.

I’m breaking a ten-year caffeine addiction. Only green tea this morning.

I just read an article about the pink slime found in industrial meat. It’s not shocking at all. The only shocking thing is that it’s still going on, several years after we became aware of the industrial food dangers. I cannot for the life of my understand. How far will this go? This poisoning of our bodies and the soil, the soil we eat from, the soil we will seek rest in at the end of our lives. Does anyone see how interconnected we are? Us, the luscious Amazon rainforests, the arctic ice caps, the salmon upstream, the honeybees in our gardens? It’s so obvious. I feel like an idiot for having to state the obvious in conversations with people, but then I realize that their blindness is a choice. Greed has infantillized their minds, which is so ironic since industrialized nations still think they’ve progressed beyond those “savages” that they erased from their sight.

When I read the words of Chief Seattle, chief of the Suquami Indians, I do not get the impression that he is primitive or brutal in the least. On the contrary, his words are full of profound wisdom and peace. They reach deep into the psyche and extend far beyond the “shelf life” of every product on the market today.

Chief Seattle:

How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us.

If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man.

The white man’s dead forget the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars. Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the red man. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man —- all belong to the same family.

So, when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land, he asks much of us. The Great Chief sends word he will reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves. He will be our father and we will be his children.

So, we will consider your offer to buy our land. But it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us. This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you the land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father.

The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The rivers carry our canoes, and feed our children. If we sell you our land, you must remember, and teach your children, that the rivers are our brothers and yours, and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.

We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his father’s grave behind, and he does not care. He kidnaps the earth from his children, and he does not care. His father’s grave, and his children’s birthright are forgotten. He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads. His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert.

I do not know. Our ways are different than your ways. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. There is no quiet place in the white man’s cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring or the rustle of the insect’s wings. The clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around the pond at night? I am a red man and do not understand.

The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond and the smell of the wind itself, cleaned by a midday rain, or scented with pinon pine.

The air is precious to the red man for all things share the same breath, the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath. The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a man dying for many days he is numb to the stench. But if we sell you our land, you must remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.

The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh. And if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred as a place where even the white man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow’s flowers.

So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept, I will make one condition - the white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers.

I am a savage and do not understand any other way. I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a passing train. I am a savage and do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be made more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive.

What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of the spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.

You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of our grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children that we have taught our children that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.

This we know; the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected.Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We shall see. One thing we know which the white man may one day discover; our God is the same God.

You may think now that you own Him as you wish to own our land; but you cannot. He is the God of man, and His compassion is equal for the red man and the white. The earth is precious to Him, and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator. The whites too shall pass; perhaps sooner than all other tribes. Contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.

But in your perishing you will shine brightly fired by the strength of the God who brought you to this land and for some special purpose gave you dominion over this land and over the red man.

That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires. Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone.

The end of living and the beginning of survival.

And so it springs again The colors we have not seen in so many...

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 14:21:00 +0100

And so it springs again
The colors we have not seen
in so many months overwhelm
me. I take long walks
around these small islands
and try to take some pictures
but there’s no way to capture
the feeling of having survived
something cruel. There’s no way
to catch the movement
of ice sweating off of the hills
or the sound of wind chimes
along the shore where the ice
splits and scatters and laps
up onto the rocks. The rocks!
I’d forgotten about them
Heavy and still

It’s not warm yet, I make my scarf
into a cloak. I make a fire
out of words and put them
to the melodies of birds. I can’t recall
the words now, they sprouted wings and flew
away, but I don’t regret a single one.
Lover,

Never think that those stones you threw
all winter long, trying to break through
my skin have disintegrated like the snow.
Det som göms i snö, kommer fram vid tö.
Don’t be fooled by surfaces. Beneath
the ice is a ground covered in stones.
Sunken

treasures, the color of old bruises
healing. Soon they’ll turn green
with seaweeds and mosses
that someone will pluck and sell
at their restaurant, twenty bucks
a plate, plus tax. Lover, never think
that I expected anything in return. Come
like the foragers, come like the spring.
Fly south when the winter returns
but I will stay here, heavy and still
I feel strong.

_____

Lover, Never
Some music I was listening to on those long walks.
Listen on Spotify or download here.

the morning smells of dying flowers drooping over the table in two wine bottles we emptied last...

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 08:05:00 +0100

the morning smells
of dying flowers
drooping over the table
in two wine bottles
we emptied last night
with some oily black
olives. but where’s
the cup we spit
the seeds into, one by
one after another?
in my dream they
were floating on the sea
glittering like crystals
of salt, and you said:
the descendants of kalamata
returning home.

The 11 Commandments Henry Miller on Writing

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:30:00 +0100

The 11 Commandments

Henry Miller on Writing

There are times in life when you know exactly what is it you want. I’m not talking about dreams, or...

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 23:07:00 +0100

There are times in life when you know exactly what is it you want. I’m not talking about dreams, or life-altering decisions here. I’m talking about moments, mere hours.

It’s Friday. And what I want tonight is a long, leisurely meal in a small trattoria thick with bursts of laughter and the scent of rosemary. I’m trying to focus on the menu, trying to put my meal together course by course, so that I can move on to the wine list. There will be sangiovese tonight. Vin santo with dessert. And who knows, maybe grappa too. My appetite is good. I was out trekking through the Tuscan mountains all afternoon, taking deep breaths and sweating off this morning’s breakfast. Now I’m all cleaned up, amongst friends again.

Actually, I’m underground in Stockholm, writing this on my iPhone, which seems like a degrading way to articulate these current desires. They deserve to be scratched onto real paper, by hand, letter by letter, forming phrases like RISOTTO AI FUNGHI PORCINI, or CROSTATA DI MARMELLATA. The page ought to be stained in red blotches, where the “blood of Jove” has trickled down my chin.

Yet, here I am, clucking these words out on a florescent screen. The boy sitting behind me is frantically kicking the seat, which doesn’t help when the iPhone keypad is half the size of my fingers. Nearly every word is misspelled.

I’m reminded of the essay that Wendell Berry once published in Harper’s Magazine, titled Why I Am Not Going To Buy A Computer, and his follow-up essay, Feminism, The Body, And The Machine. People kept telling him that a computer would aid his work by helping him writer faster, easier, and more. Mr. Berry actually took a moment to ask himself: Do I want to write faster, easier, and more? No, he decided. “My standards are not speed, ease, and quantity. I have already left behind too much evidence that, writing with a pencil, I have written too fast, too easily, and too much. I would like to be a better writer, and for that I need help from other humans, not a machine.”

God, I love Wendell Berry, and I can assure him that technology does not always quicken one’s task. What a laborious process this was, trying to construct a few sentences on my iPhone, especially with that kid behind me, pounding his feet into my back, and his mom standing above me yelling, “Sluta! Kom hit nu!”

I turned around to get a good look at the rascal, and what a surprise to find a head full of silky black hair. No way that fair-skinned woman with flaxen curls could have birthed him. Obviously he was adopted. And I guess there ought to be a special allowance for adopted kids, right? They probably come from a rough place. Maybe they were abandoned, or abused, and imagine how displaced they must feel now.

He didn’t seem damaged in the least. With eyes closed, he’ thrown his head back and swayed it to the rhythm of his legs, swinging passionately now, as if guided by an upbeat song that only he could hear. And judging by the enormous smile on his face, it was a glorious piece of music.

I wanted to take his picture so that I could pull it up whenever I was having a bad day. My iPhone was in hand, after all. But wasn’t that like turning him into a Hallmark card? And plus, my iPhone is a piece of crap. 3G. They don’t even make software updates for the 3G anymore. By the time I could’ve gotten the camera open, that little guy would’ve been putting his pajamas on and picking out a bedtime story.

So I’m with Wendell Berry. Technology is useless when it comes to real life. I’m with him on many things, actually. Particularly on topics of agriculture, community, education, good work, care of the earth, economic health, technological heroism, and the corruption of wealth.

Just this morning, I was reading about Bill Gates’ new partnership with Monsanto to “end world poverty.” I read it about it from many perspectives - North America’s, Africa’s, India’s - and the more I read, the more despair I felt. Sometimes I can feel so hopeless about the world we’re living in.

But what is the use of despair, especially when I’m riding the train with a little Asian boy who is filled with music and unbridled joy? Or when there are things in this world like oak-aged wine and gnocci slathered in truffle oil? When there are days, like today, when I know exactly what it is I want - even if I can’t have it, because having it is not the point. The point is knowing. Hearing the echoes deep inside. And giving them a voice, a human language, or at least trying to. These things take practice, I think.

So take heart and carry on with the scraps. Whether they’re carved beautifully onto paper or stuck in a mechanical device with red squiggly lines under most of the words; whether they’re constructed of memory, or desire, or the here and now, just continue.

Charlie Kaufman: Screenwriters Lecture

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 21:55:00 +0100

Charlie Kaufman: Screenwriters Lecture:

“Say who you are, really say it in your life and in your work. Tell someone out there who is lost, someone not yet born, someone who won’t be born for 500 years. Your writing will be a record of your time. It can’t help but be that. But more importantly, if you’re honest about who you are, you’ll help that person be less lonely in their world because that person will recognize him or herself in you and that will give them hope. It’s done so for me and I have to keep rediscovering it, and its profound importance in my life. Give that to the world, rather than selling something to the world. Don’t allow yourself to be tricked into thinking that the way things are is the way the world must work and that in the end selling is what everyone must do. Try not to.”

“This is from E. E. Cummings: ‘To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best night and day to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.’ The world needs you. It doesn’t need at you at a party having read a book about how to appear smart at parties. These books exist. And they’re tempting. But resist falling into that trap. The world needs you at the party, starting real conversations, saying, I don’t know. Being kind.”

“It isn’t easy but it’s essential. It’s not easy because there’s a lot in the way. In many cases a major obstacle is your deeply-seated belief that you are not interesting. And since convincing yourself that you are interesting is probably not going to happen, just take it off the table. Think, ‘Perhaps I’m not interesting but I am the only thing I have to offer, and I want to offer something. And by offering myself in a true way I am doing a great service to the world, because it is rare and it will help.’”

—Charlie Kaufman, in his Screenwriters Lecture. I can highly recommend it.

This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a...

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 11:22:00 +0100

This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor… Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. —Rumi

I recently spent a month in France and Italy. At the beginning of the trip, I was a nervous wreck. There was so much energy in me, I couldn’t stay still, and the more I tried to keep it under control, the more I felt like I was going to explode. It was a terrible feeling.

Eventually, I did calm down. Got steady on my feet and rubbed my eyes until I could see things more clearly. Beautiful, wonderful things. I can smell the cheeses now, I can taste the sangioveses, the syrrahs, I can hear people arguing in the streets and then burst out in laughter ten minutes later.

Italy is a special place. There, you can say the things you need to say. You are treated like an adult who can make their own decisions, however good or bad they may be. You aren’t publicly shamed for stepping over invisible lines. People don’t shake their heads when you pronounce words incorrectly. They smile delightfully and use every muscle in their bodies to communicate a response. And if you walk up to an Italian with tears in your eyes, they won’t harden their face like a concrete wall. In fact, the opposite happened.

A woman stopped to ask me for directions. She was wearing an orange scarf, that’s what I remember. And I remember how the lines of her face melted with compassion when she looked into my eyes. Which made the tears fall down my cheeks. Before I could respond to her question, she was raising her hand to touch my jawbone, as if to remind me that I was whole, that I was alive. She didn’t ask for an explanation, she didn’t offer a solution, or a single word. Just the merciful touch of fellow human being who knows what its like to feel pain.

The truth is, I wasn’t in pain. My tears were joyful ones, but she didn’t know that. And what difference does it make? They’re both part of the human experience. “You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness,” as J.S. Foer put so well.

I stayed with several Italian families who live off their small plots of land, sustained by anything the land can yield - wines, breads, cheeses, raw honey, fruit preserves, roasted chickens, herbal pestos, chestnut pancakes, berry crostatas. They wasted nothing and had no extras. They wore the same outfits every day. They didn’t have cell phones, computers, or gadgets of any sort. Pen and paper were sufficient for tallying our bill. An old boom box could play CDs just fine. They sang in their kitchens and yelled at each other through the windows without caring who heard. It wasn’t disgraceful to laugh, or to be upset. I found myself relaxing, completely, for the first time in I don’t know how long. Like wads of paper, they opened up my shriveled soul. They served gorgeous dishes with such humility. Asked each morning if I’d gotten cold during the night. Moved my wet clothes around the lawn so that they stayed in the sun.

I’m not trying to over-romanticize anything. We were honest travelers. We paid for the heat we used, the towels, every meal, the coffee and even the water. When given the option to purchase a bottle of their homemade wines, sadly, I had to decline. But when it was time to leave and our suitcases were in the car, the farmers told us to please wait. Running up from the cellar, he carried a bottle of wine and thrust it into my arms as if I’d do him a great favor by accepting it. I’d seen the cellar earlier, it wasn’t very big, just enough for their family. But still, they all gave, however they could. Even when there is very little, I learned, there is always something to give.

In Montepulciano, I met a third-generation coppersmith who insisted on making me a gift, as he does for all those who are visiting shop for the first time. A copper medallion, engraved with the date, my initials and the Mazzetti seal. Signore Mazzetti had just shown me a fish platter that could end up in a museum some day. He showed me water pitchers, perfect honeycomb patterns, portraits of his grandfather, from whom his artisanal gift derives. Some of his pieces are not for sale, though they’d make him a fortune. Some are priced higher than market value, others are priced much lower. Why? I asked.

Because our labor cannot be measured by market trends or even price tags, but by the amount of pleasure we derived from doing it, by how much we invested ourselves. Only you can say what its worth, he said. Signore Mazzetti takes pride in his work and shares himself freely, piece by piece, medallion by medallion. Partly because he doesn’t want to be forgotten, but at least he understands his value in this world, and to me, that is a mark of nobility.

There isn’t a stack of copper medallions sitting on his shelf, waiting for new visitors. The gift I took home was made right before my eyes. I watched and waited as Sig. Mazzetti hammered and forged, stopping to tell to a few stories (in Italian. Thank goodness I was with an Italian who could translate). Why would I be in a hurry? Everyone in Italy seemed to ask me this question. What’s the use of rushing your life away? If this is your chance to live, shouldn’t you take it as slow as possible?

It took time for the Mazzetti craft to evolve. Three generations, in fact. It takes time for those Tuscan grapes to age in wood barrels, and for tomatoes to ripen in the sun. It takes time for stories to materialize, and if you’re just rushing through the moments of life, who knows what part of the story you’re missing. It might have taken over 400 years to complete the Duomo in Siena, but there is nothing like it in this world.

And yet, other things occur so quickly that you can’t even grasp them. You just wake up one day and walk out to the stone walls of an Etruscan city. You look out over the valley, silver trees paint the hillsides, little strands of smoke spiral from chimneys, a cathedral stands up straight and tall, and all of a sudden you can’t even say how you got there, or whether this is you or not. It feels like you’re standing on the edge of your own life. You didn’t plan this, couldn’t have planned this - Nobody gets what they want, they get something else. The most important things in life happen by surprise.

You know what I’m talking about. The things that are too big to be coincidences, too deep to see or find words for. Those who get inside of you and stay there, swirling. Maybe for the rest of your life, I can’t say for sure yet. All I know is that life is incredibly generous, it offers us so many chances.

There was a moment when Misty and I were driving through Genoa. On bridges that suspended high into the air, we tunneled through the green Ligurian mountains. It had been raining, but eventually the dark clouds passed and blinding light came spewing from the sky. We were stunned by the beauty around us. “The only thing that could possibly make this any better,” I told Misty, “is if a rainbow suddenly appeared and fell into the valley below.”

Ten minutes later, we both gasped. Right before our eyes, a long rainbow poured out of the sky. Falling and falling, for miles, all the way to the bottom of the valley, and then reaching like an arm back into to the heavens.

That rainbow was a harbinger: it appeared on day 1 of my journey, when anything was possible. Your dreams are not unreasonable, it reminded me. Do not close yourself up, even if seems like a good idea at times. Like the rainbow, open your arms, stretch them as far as they will reach. If you fall, then good. Fall divinely. Trust what is inside. Trust that your labor is ordained. And out of that trust, keep going, for that is the way.

So much had changed when I returned to Stockholm. One month ago, the world had been in flames, and we were doing our best to save it. Collecting red berries for marmalade. Bright orange pumpkins for carving and roasting. Gold leaves to decorate our doorframes. Now what was left? Gray sticks set against a gray sky. There were no leaves either - just their jagged shadows pasted onto the sidewalks. A different sort of beauty, a time for rest, for renewal, when the past fades away into long dark nights, making empty spaces that will freeze over, waiting to be filled with new things.

I was very quiet that first week, mostly because I had four different languages tumbling in my head. It took some time for Swedish to roll forward into my mouth again. Even last week, when I was checking out at the market, the cashier handed me my receipt. Varsigod, she said. I hesitated. It was awkward. She looked at me as I flipped through several words in my head, trying to find the right one. Grazie, I said.

That word still comes in Italian. It was wrong, and the cashier frowned before glancing away, but it just felt like the right word. Grazie. I’m so thankful to Italy, to those I met, every unexpected visitor, you guides from beyond, I still carry you with me. Every day, I am grateful. You touched my jawbone, you brought me back to life.

What I said:“Well, thanks for your time. We’ll be in...

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 10:05:00 +0100

What I said:
“Well, thanks for your time. We’ll be in touch. And best wishes until then.”

What I wanted to say:
“Let me get this straight… I’m supposed to get up before dawn every morning, put on ugly, uncomfortable clothes, skip breakfast whenever there are early meetings (which happens often, you say), work intensely and tirelessly into the evenings, not because the work is worthwhile or meaningful (quite the contrary, in fact), but to make you famous, to make you a lot of money, to make sure that you get ahead and stay ahead, every day, no excuses - did you really just look at me and say “no excuses?” Yes, you did. All the while, I’m expected to neglect who I am, what’s inside of me, my natural tendencies, abilities, and unique voice, my basic needs and the wishes I have for my own life? Um, I’m sorry, but this is the only life I’ll ever have, and I can’t bear to waste it on your frivolous little exploits. Goodbye.”

I wonder how many people have had these same thoughts. I wonder how many have swallowed them, for lack of choices. I wonder how many could actually hear their own inner voice after ignoring it so many times before. I wonder if this guy’s proposal sounded like a dream for some people. I wonder what’s beneath the words that people say, and don’t say. I wonder about so many things, but I’ll keep wondering someplace else -

“The secret story is the one we’ll never know, although we’re living it from day to day, thinking we’re alive, thinking we’ve got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn’t matter. But every damn thing matters! Its just that we don’t realize… ―Roberto Bolaño

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” ―C.G. Jung

1028

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 18:43:00 +0100

i have to mourn this
and i have to do it now

dear heart, you knew
it’s always coming

this way of living, in love
with so many things costs

you everything
you have

no other choice but
to say goodbye

again and walk away
do not look back

okay? listen, don’t look
back. you knew this

was coming but it
was worth it at

the time - two o’clock
bell towers shouting

from the hill
where he is planted

between the cobble-
stones, you’ll move like

an afternoon shadow, out
through the city walls

down into the mist-
filled valley where

you came from, ciao
mia bella, the greeting

echoes, a faint goodbye
now let me go, dear

heart, you are bigger
and stronger

than you ever knew
but i am worn out

from all that walking
uphill to stand beside

the grave of St. Margherita
as if she still has

a hand in this game, as if
she ever did

FALL

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 20:43:00 +0200

FALL

light spilled onto the floora scattering of fern leavesthe color of champagnenow its time for...

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 17:55:00 +0200

light spilled onto the floor
a scattering of fern leaves
the color of champagne
now its time for breakfast

- opening the blinds
from FOUND IN A NOTEPAD

now i will step out soak up the light, howeverbleak it is, i need it. florescentrain trickles down,...

Mon, 10 Oct 2011 17:52:00 +0200

now i will step out
soak up the light, however
bleak it is, i need it. florescent
rain trickles down, a vacuum hums &
voices spurt through an inert box - who are you
footsteps above, moving so quickly
across the drooling pane, hooded heads - is that me
my name being called? turn
then & be
sucked back in

- conference call
from FOUND IN A NOTEPAD

When I sat down to write this morning, the first thing I did was...

Sat, 03 Sep 2011 10:55:00 +0200

When I sat down to write this morning, the first thing I did was think of Salman Rushdie. I have done this every morning for almost four and a half years, and by now, it is an essential part of my daily routine. I pick up my pen, and before I begin to write, I think of my fellow novelist across the ocean. I pray that he will go on living another twenty-four hours. I pray that his protectors will keep him hidden from the people who are out to murder him…. Most of all I pray that a time will come when these prayers are no longer necessary, when Salman Rushdie will be as free to walk the streets of the world as I am.

I pray for this man every single morning, but deep down, I know that I am also praying for myself. His life is in danger because he wrote a book. Writing books is my business as well, and I know that if not for the quirks of history and pure blind luck, I could be in his shoes. If not today, then perhaps tomorrow. We belong to the same club: a secret fraternity of solitaries, shut-ins, and cranks, men and women who spend the better part of our time locked up in little rooms struggling to put words on a page. It is a strange way to live one’s life, and only a person who had no choice in the matter would choose it as a calling. It is too arduous, too underpaid, too full of disappointments to be fit for anyone else. Talents vary, ambitions vary, but any writer worth his salt will tell you the same thing: To write a work of fiction, one must be free to say what one has to say. I have exercised that freedom with every word I have written - and so has Salman Rushdie. This is what makes us brothers, and that is why his predicament is also mine.

The man’s life is in ruins, and yet he has continued to do the thing he was born to do. Shunted from one safehouse to another, cut off from his son, surrounded by security police, he has continued to go to his desk every day and write. Knowing how difficult it is to do this even under the best of circumstances, I can only stand in awe of what he has accomplished. A novel; another novel in the works; a number of extraordinary essays and speeches defending the basic human right to free expression. All that is remarkable enough, but what truly astonishes me is that on top of of this essential work, he has taken the time to review other people’s books - in some cases to write blurbs promoting the books of unknown authors. Is it possible for a man in his position to think of anyone but himself? Yes, apparently it is. But I wonder how many of us could do what he has done with our backs against that same wall.

He is carrying the burden for all of us, and I can no longer think of what I do without thinking of him. HIs plight has focused my concentration, has made me reexamine my beliefs, has taught me never to take the freedom I enjoy for granted. For all that, I owe him an immense debt of gratitude. I support Salman Rushdie in his struggle to win back his life, but the truth is that he has also supported me. I want to thank him for that. Every time I pick up my pen, I want to thank him.

- Paul Auster, “A Prayer For Salman Rushdie,” p 176-178 in The Art of Hunger

Why Young Americans Don't Fight Back

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 12:18:00 +0200

Why Young Americans Don't Fight Back:

Young Americans—even more so than older Americans—appear to have acquiesced to the idea that the corporatocracy can completely screw them and that they are helpless to do anything about it ….