Wait, just let me read you this one part

[SPACERACE]

Hashi's kingdom lay before them, life-sized but apparently lifeless. The neat gray rows of miners' quarters seemed normal enough except for the occasional tuft of weeds pushing through a broken window, but there was an eerie stillness, almost as if a siren had sounded and everyone had cleared out, leaving the boys as a human sacrifice. The inhabitants were all waiting now, wherever they were hiding, for the boys to be slaughtered. Posters were still stuck to a bulletin board: a concert for the Kyushu Naval Brass Band playing "The River Kwai March," "Anchors Away," and "The Stars and Stripes Forever." The boys stood stock still for a moment, then, spooked by the silence, began to run. They ran among the houses, but the only sound they heard was the echo of their own footsteps. They stopped when they came to an abandoned tricycle with grass sprouting through its faded plastic seat, half expecting the children who had been trapping cicadas to appear from somewhere. When Hashi gingerly touched the handlebars, the bike collapsed with a rusty squeal, like a pig with a spike driven into its head, and a watery mixture of oil and rust oozed from the frame.

-Ryu Murakami
Coin Locker Babies

Perhaps the most twisted and fucked book I've ever seen.

[Lalitree]

You might also want to check out Naked (the Mike leigh film).

Oh man, dark film.

[Maaik]

that i don't know. what i do know is that crispin glover's been working on it for a really long time--like most of a decade--and it's got an all-retarded cast. should be interesting and weird.

The trailer is available

I cannot look at that URL w/out seeing "Crisping Lover."

[Andrew_TSKS]

read "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" by mark haddon last night and this morning. this part struck me in particular:

"it's best if you know a good thing is going to happen, like an eclipse or getting a microscope for christmas. and it's bad if you know a bad thing is going to happen, like getting a filling or going to france. but i think it is worst if you don't know whether it is a good thing or a bad thing which is going to happen."

simple, and weirdly worded (the book is from the point of view of a teenager with asperger's syndrome), but one of the truest statements i've ever encountered. it really struck me when i read it, even though i've thought pretty much that exact thing a million times.

[cold before sunrise]

something along the lines of what milly mentioned before about smoking cigarillos, except i think i remember this being from 'choke' by the guy who wrote fight club, his vice having been casual boinking:

"in a world where everybody is waiting for some blind, random disaster or some sudden disease, the addict has the comfort of knowing what will most likely wait for him down the road. he's taken some control over his ultimate fate, and his addiction keeps the cause of his death from being a total surprise."

and true that, although what strikes me is how underappreciated the mysterious seems to be. what's fun about knowing the answer?!

[SPACERACE]

read "the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" by mark haddon last night...

That book... man it just rubbed me the wrong way. I mean the perspective taken was certainly interesting and original and all, but the wording just annoyed the living hell out of me. I couldn't read more than 50 pages.

[Michael]

You might also want to check out Naked (the Mike leigh film).

Oh man, dark film.

That part when he is talking about how on that one day all the planets would line up to form a perfect cross had me freaked out for years.

[Andrew_TSKS]

holy shit, is that from that movie? creation is crucifixion sampled that ranting doomsday speech in its entirety on their "automata" lp (for fans who are confused right now, it's only on the vinyl version of the album), and i've been totally wanting to see whatever movie it's from for years. is that something i can rent at a typical rental place, or am i going to have to order it off the internet? or what?

[Bernard]

You should be able to rent Naked from any place that stocks arthouse films. If you can't find it, I'll send it to you. It is very, very dark -- the kind of movie where you find you want to avoid contact with people for a while afterward.

Reese, thanks for posting that bit -- I've been very curious about the 'other' Murakami.

[Michael]

Not sure how I feel about Ben Marcus. He's so weird and impenetrable (and sometimes too precious about it). But then he'll drop something like this, which is weird and impenetrable and still kind of terrifying:

The time was technical summer, a season that had been achieved by nature so many times, so incessantly, that a clotted arrangement of birds created splotches of ink called shodows, and whole days went by without gunfire. Shadows were simply blind spots that everyone shared. Kill holes were called graves, and apologies known as writing were incised in their surface. Rotten bags were called people. Milk was never sprayed from a fire hose at children until they skittered over the pavement like weevils, but the children wore shields of clothing regardless, and the people who guarded them were often trembling.

from "Children, Cover Your Eyes" (in, uh, Feb. Harper's again)

[Lalitree]

You might also want to check out Naked (the Mike leigh film).

Oh man, dark film.

That part when he is talking about how on that one day all the planets would line up to form a perfect cross had me freaked out for years.

Is that the same part with the Chernobyl stuff? That part has always sorta freaked me out.

[Bernard]

Not sure how I feel about Ben Marcus. He's so weird and impenetrable (and sometimes too precious about it). But then he'll drop something like this, which is weird and impenetrable and still kind of terrifying:

That is indeed odd -- is there a larger context for that? Or does the whole thing read the same way?

From a Sylvere Lotringer interview with Jack Fear, on the subject of Julian Casablancas, this funny bit:

"JF: I don't like his attitude toward Wagner. It was just the typical, very mediocre attitude expressed in very fancy language, but it was the very typical Village Voice attitude toward anybody that is making a success..."

[rtotalexvii]

hey bernard, those are really great.  i am not normally giving of the two shits about things like this, but that is great writing.  so thank you.

naked is definitely worth seeing.  the main character is also based on mark e. smith.

[SPACERACE]

Reese, thanks for posting that bit -- I've been very curious about the 'other' Murakami.

It's an interesting book, certainly, and I sometimes wonder what the hell Ryu Murakami is like as a person, to be able to think the things that transpire in the book.

The hardest part was picking what to quote. I considered posting the book's first paragraph, but I didn't want to gross anyone out too bad.

But I will if you want me to, because I'm sadistic like that.

[elpollodiablo]

Are you alright?
   She looks at me, puzzled, as if she forgot I was there.
   "You remind me of him."
   Who?
   "Hawthorne."
   There is a feeling of pride, gone too quickly. I realize what she means, and tell her I don't enjoy killing.
   "I didn't say that. It's just the way you talk, the way you look at people. You're career, Jimmy. You're never going to shake that."
   You've been in as long as I have.
   "It's different back east. Tell me it isn't."
   It's not, but I don't tell her.
   She slumps back against the headstone, placing her shoulder inches from mine. The heat rises off of her in dense waves, like the hot august sun on new blacktop. The tears stand out against the dirt on her cheeks; I reach out to wipe them away, and she lets me. Her skin yields slightly beneath my fingertips.
   Some time later, she pushes my hand away.
   "Get up. I want to show you something."
   I follow her to the rear slope of the hill, to the mausoleum there facing the north. The facade of the small stone building is brilliant in the washed moonlight; glimmering marble and a shining aluminium gate illuminate her figure as she stoops to inspect the lock. The inscription above the door reads 'Stuart James Iha.' Above the name, a copper rendering of the New Allied seal, the south-eastern Federation he had a hand in creating. Plastic flowers in terracotta planters surround the gateway, bobbing merrily in the breeze while their natural inspiration wither in the fine, dry soil around them. No dates are listed on the door, and I wonder how old Tuesday's father was when he was killed.
   Stuart Iha's death had prompted a time of national mourning, and some said, the beginning of the end for the golden age of the revolutionaries. Shot in his bed by the jealous lover of his first Lieutenant, Tuesday's father had been given the sort of quiet death rarely afforded a man in his position. Many thought it an insult; an end not befitting a man of his stature. Regardless of pride, dignity or circumstance, though, Stuart Iha was gone, had died while fighting a battle that very few claimed to understand: the Southern Californian State had been in existence scarcely three months when Iha had begun operations in the Airzona desert. His death was senseless, and people equated it with his new cause.

Me. HA.

[Bernard]

Go ahead & post it! I have a fairly strong stomach for things like that.

This lovely piece from Bruno Schulz:

"The whole forest seemed to be illuminated with thosands of lights and by the stars falling in profusion from the December sky. The air pulsated with a secret spring, with the matchless purity of snow and violets. We entered a hilly landscape. The lines of hills, bristling with the bare spikes of trees, rose like sighs of bliss. I saw on these happy slopes groups of wanderers, gathering among the moss and the bushes the fallen stars which were now damp from the snow."

He doesn't excerpt particularly well, you really have to read the whole of a story to give yourself enough time and space to slip into the strange, dreamy mood he creates.

[Bernard]

One last one for the weekend, as a cautionary tale for those of us who drink:

"He knows if he drinks himself past a certain threshold, he'll start perceiving himself as an interesting person. So intersting that someone in this restaurant or in the street should get involved with his subjectivity. In Rome this would not be dangerous the way it would be in South america, but it would be obnoxious. Jesse has become economical about giving himself ugly memories."

Gary Indiana, Dreams Involving Water

[Michael]

This is long and I have homework, but fuck it. It's from the new Alice Munro collection (which is so awesome) and seems like it might be the kind of thing of interest to some here. (I also really like the idea of this thread, so...) All you need to know is that Harry and Eileen are the parents and Lauren is their pre-adolescent child:


     Wine could be one of the signs. Sometimes. Sometimes not. But when Harry got out the bottle of gin and poured half a tumbler for himself, adding nothing to it but ice--and soon he wouldn't even be adding ice--the course was set. Everything might still be cheerful but the cheerfulness was hard as knives. Harry would talk to Lauren, and Eileen would talk to Lauren, more than either of them usually talked to her. Now and then they would speak to each other, in almost a normal way. But there would be a recklessness in the room that had not yet been expressed in words. Lauren would hope, or try to hope--more accurately, she used to try to hope--that somehow they would stop the fight from breaking out. And she had always believed--she did yet--that she was not the only one to hope this. They did, too. Partly they did. But partly they were eager for what would come. They never overcame this eagerness. There had never been one time when this feeling was in the room, the change in the air, the shocking brightness that made all shapes, all the furniture and untensils, sharper, yet denser--never one time that the worst did not follow.

     Lauren used to be unable to stay in her room, she had to be where they were, flinging herself at them, protesting and weeping, till one or the other would pick her up and carry her back to bed, saying, "All right, all right, don't bug us, just don't bug us, it's our life, we have to be able to talk." "To talk" meant to pace around the house delivering precise harangues of condemnation, shrieks of contradiction, until they had to start flinging ashtrays, bottles, dishes, at each other. One time Eileen ran outside and threw herself down on the lawn, tearing up chunks of dirt and grass, while Harry hissed form the doorway, "Oh, that's the style, give them a show." Once Harry bolted himself in the bathroom, calling, "There's only one way to get out of this torment." Both of them threatened the use of pills and razors.

[Bernard]

"You see, it would be like your smile, but lost, untraceable after it occurs. like your body, but vanished, like a love, but without you or me. And so how can one say? How can one not love?"

Duras, Writing

[old kentucky shark]

I'm gonna bring this thread back.

Tell me, says Bill, and his lips form the exact contour of a particular abhorrent circumference, and his vocal cords leap to the supply, and his tongue is ready at the dock and flicks and casts out this word that Wendell has never asked to know, a terrorist word in the ears and heart of little Wendell all through his formative years, Bill intones this word with great gravity, the cumulative weight of usage of this word for generation after generation, weight under which Wendell has nearly been crushed and that seems to still be heavy in the near sky at all times, and to which Wendell hopes to add and fears adding his own weight; and the sundry modern pilot-fish of this prehistoric shark of a word tickle and gum him as the great word feasts; and Wendell's spilled blood draws other words, words that have swum centuries seeking this very bar tonight. And hovering in the air just above Bill's head is a cartoon devil perched on a leather-backed chair that floats in a cloud of blackness, a splotch of some sunless cranny in a specialist's library, red leather, brass rivets, dark polished wood with the initials of dead lovers deep-engraved with the blade-points of knives with bejeweled handles, ceremonial blades, instruments of measurement, a chair donated in memoriam with a bronze plaque with his own surname etched in ornate slopes. I have seen photographs of this chair! Bill pronounces the word that Wendell cannot see or hear without teetering fundamentally, Bill draws out the complex, full-bodied syllables and weaves in the air connections between things that do not exist. A magnificent souffl/(c) of reason. Psychology so subtle it begs Uzi fire. Tell somebody something and it always flies back in your face. Completely irrelevant!

"Lemon" by Lawrence Krauser. It is delicious.

[Bernard]

Nice! I'd never heard of Lawrence Krauser before. I'll keep an eye out for him. Does he write novels, or short stories? Or something else?

[old kentucky shark]

I think he's mainly a playwright or something, and this is his one novel. More or less it is about a fellow who falls in love with a lemon.

[Bernard]

And he'll be back he'll be back he'll be back

One night when you least expect it. the moon will crack like an egg. and sliding down that long gold stream will be no easter chick ...

It will be Houdini! Harry Houdini. with a wave a flourish and a smile that willbreak the heart of every locksmith in America.

(the irrepressible Patti Smith, from ha! ha! houdini!)

[Tripewriter]

"Spring was moving in the air above and in the earth below and around him, penetrating even his dark and lowly house with its spirit of divine discontent and longing."    

Kenneth Grahame, Wind in the Willows

[moje]

"Gimme a bottle of anything and a glazed donut, to go."
    -David Lee Roth