let me tell you a story

Clothing dreams

Oh no. Not this again. It's the clothing dream. I've been having it for fifty years. Aisle after aisle, closetful, metal rack after metal rack of clothing, stretching into the distance under the glare of the flourescent tubing- as goudy and ornate and confusing, and finally as gloom and oppressive as the dreams of a long time opium smoker. Why am I compelled to riffle through these outfits, tangling up the hangers, tripping on the ribbons, snagging myself on a hook or buttom while the feathers and sequins and fake pearls drop to the floor like ants from a burning tree? What is the occasion? Who do I need to impress?

There's a smell of stale underarms. Everything's been worn before. Nothing fits. Too small, too big, too magenta. These flounces, hoops, ruffles, wired collars, cut-velvet-capes, none of these disguises is mine. How old am I in this dream? Do I have tits? Whose life am I living? Whose life am I failing to live?

by Margaret Atwood from The Tent

(I can't remember the pics source)

so long and thanks for all the fish

There is a theory which states that if anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.

There is another theory which states that this has already happened.

28. A HUNDRED THINGS CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE; A LETTER IS ONE

27. ONE THING I AM NEVER GOING TO DO WHEN I GROW UP

is fall in love, drop out of college, learn to subsist on water and air, have a species named after me, and ruin my life. When I was little my mother used to get a certain look in her eyes and say, "One day you're going to fall in love." I wanted to say, but never said: Not in a million years.

The only boy I'd ever kissed was Misha Shklovsky. His cousin taught him in Russia, where he lived before he moved to Brooklyn and he taught me. "Not so much tongue," was all he said.

from The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

people

"Bigfoot understood that there were two types of people in the world: those who do what they say they're going to do--and everyone else"

from Kitchen Confidential

chapter nine

I was reading the Bell Jar, the story of Esther Greenwood and she did something I could never do. So, she has the chance to spend a month in New York working at a fashion magazine and as the time to leave comes she:

"I was my last night

I grasped the bundle I carried and pulled at a pile tail. A strapless elasticized slip which, in the course of the weat, had lost its electricity, slumped into my hand. I wave it, like a flag of truce, once, twice… The breeze caught it, and I let it go.

A white flake floated out into the night, and began its slow descent. I wondered on what street or rooftop it would come to rest.

I tugged at the bundle again.

The wind made an efford, but failed, and batlike shadow sank towards the roof garden of the penthouse opposite.

Piece by piece, I fed my wardrobe to the night wind, and the flutteringly, like a loved ones’s ashes, the grey scraps were ferried off, to settle here, there, exactly where I would never know, in the dark heart of New York."

I could never throw my clothes to the air, but I guess it most feel great.

you're the one that I've kept closest

"I've always been good at not thinking about the things that are really troubling me"

from Atonement

A person rises on words and falls on a syllable

"There are dead stars that still shine because their light is trapped in time. Where do I stand in this light, which does not strictly exist?"

Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo

how romantic, this is love

As they mada for the house, Elizabeth and Darcy happened upon a herd of unmentionables, no more than a dozen in number, which had quartered itself in a garden not ten yards from the road. The creatures were crawling on their hands and knees, biting into ripe heads of cauliflower, which they had mistaken for stray brains. Elizabeth and Darcy laughed at sight, and for a moment, resolved to keep walking-- as the smile, the pair realised thay had stumbled onto their oportunity to fight side by side.

And so they did.

from Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

¿qué es lo que le ocurre a un clavo para que decida que ya no puede más?

"A mi siempre me ha sorprendido el asunto ese de los cuadros. Están colgados durante años, después, sin que pase nada, pero nada de nada, zas, al suelo, se caen. Están ahí, colgados del clavo, nadie les dice nada, pero ellos, en cierto momento, zas, se caen al suelo como piedras. En el silencio más absoluto, con todo inmóvil a su alrededor; ni tan siquiera una mosca que se mueva, y ellos, zas. No hay causa. ¿Por qué precisamente en ese instante? No se sabe. Zas. ¿Qué es lo que le ocurre a un clavo para que decida que ya no puede más? ¿Tiene él también un alma, el pobrecillo? ¿Toma decisiones? Habló largamente sobre el tema con el cuadro, estaban indecisos sobre cómo actuar, hablaban de ello todas las noches, desde hacía años, después decidieron una fecha, una hora, un minuto, un instante, ya está, zas. O los dos lo sabían ya desde un buen principio, ya estaba todo preparado, mira, yo me largo dentro de siete años, por mí está bien, de acuerdo, pues entonces quedamos para el trece de mayo, vale, hacia las seis, pongamos las seis menos cuarto, de acuerdo, pues buenas noches, hasta entonces. Siete años después, un trece de mayo, a las seis menos cuarto: zas. No hay quien lo entienda. Es una de esas cosas que mejor no pensarlas, porque si no puedes acabar volviéndote loco. Cuando se cae un cuadro. Cuando despiertas y ya no la amas. Cuando abres el periódico y lees que ha estallado la guerra. Cuando ves un tren y piensas tengo que largarme de aquí. Cuando te miras en el espejo y te das cuenta de que eres viejo. Cuando, en mitad del océano, Novecento levantó la mirada de su plato y me dijo: "En Nueva York, dentro de tres días, bajaré de este barco"
Me quede de piedra.
Zas."

--Novecento by Alessandro Baricco

fairy tales

She thought fairy tales were a bad idea, especially ones involving princesses who were awakened from long sleeps upon being kissed by a prince; apparently stories like that would give the children, all girls, the wrong idea about what to expect in the world when they grew up. Her speech on fairy tales always amused me because I had in my head a long list of things that contributed to wrong expectations in the world, and SOMEHOW fairy tales did not make and appearance on it

from Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid

quote of the day

"All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways"

from Life of Pi

new attitude

"Yo seré, de hoy en adelante, lo que elija en este momento. Seductoramente
aturdida, profundamente reservada, hipócrita. Yo impondré, desde el principio, y con un poco de impertinencia, las reglas del juego."

from "Lección de cocina" by Rosario Castellanos

quote of the day

But the present is no less dark than the past, and its mystery is equal to anything the future might hold. Such is the way of the world: one step at a time, one word and then the next [...] for knowledge comes slowly, and when it comes, it is often at great personal expense.


from Ghosts by Paul Auster

quote of the day

"I was walking down a street in Belgium, wearing a skirt that came down to my ankles and carrying a bag filled with books that at last I could understand"

from Annie John

quote of the day

Nothing is forgotten. Nothing I have forgotten is worth the remembering.

from Foe

quote of the day

"But memory is desperate to leave us. Memory knows that we cannot endure its company. Memory would reduce us to fools"

from Blood and Gold

...really?

quote of the day

Le charme, source de vie, comme le style, source d'écrire.

quote of the day

"I am not a cat person, Luce. I think people overwhelm pets with emotions they can't express to their friends. I'm sure most animals would prefer to be left alone."

from What Casanova Told Me

quote of the day

Anonymity is the big lie of the city. You aren't anonymous at all. You're common, really, common like so many pebbles, so many specks of dirt, so many atoms of materiality.

from What we all long for

quote of the day

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.
"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

The Great Gatsby