My new novel has fingernails now. I can feel it breathing as it reaches out and touches this and that; memories, or, every now and then, when something happens, i can hear it think: oh yes, that one's going in, and so, she's getting stronger. better defined. Of course, what it really needs are some bones, and i need to sit down and sketch it out. For now, here are some of its organs that are already developed:
____-its patron song is a Sunday Smile, by Beirut. Everything starts and ends there
____-it is about heritage, history, how i pay(receive) for other people's decisions- good and bad
____-its about death. which means its about life. which means, it's about everything, which is hard
____-it will have the constant feeling of something being missing of the puzzle. one piece who ought to be there
____-i have some neat typographical/formatting ideas for it
____-distinction will be made between people's minds and souls. (my soul occasionally needs to reassure my mind. my mind typically needs to bemoan my soul. this really happens. i know how to write it!)
____-ghosts, dreams, premonitions, moments of inspiration during prayer, moments of massive discontent, those little moments we die, death death death, rebirth, picking ourselves up, crying in the summertime sitting by pools breathing the summer chlorinated flower filled air- that's all there
____-it is a retelling of the Orestia.
____-it will make my mother cry, as everything does, when it reminds my mother how sad her son can be.get, and how disabled her daughter is
____-it is my novel about happiness. and where happiness lives, and how... silent and modest happiness really is, and how we can be happy for years without ever knowing we are, and all the terrible things that make us sad enough to break into happiness
____-it is about running (away)
____-it is about failure and victory
____-it is about decisions, and how we'll never ever ever know exactly which were wrong, and which were right
____-i saw pictures today. people i used to know. being happy. in a city i wanted to be happy in. i felt left out. small. tiny. uninvolved. unimportant. uninspired. unable. i feel like i am working on fixing everyone else's life, so that eventually, i can get started on mine. It will be about resentment. anger. furiosity. manic rage. uncontrollable stagnancy. desperation. sailing out towards the middle of the ocean, hoping never to return, and then, having to. naked. tired. apathetic.
____-it will be about me. (also Gatsby, who has everything to prove, doomed as it is from the beginning). it will be about me. also Leopold Bloom. (who is also me. who is also Hamlet) (who is also me) also Hamlet. (who is also Orestes) (who is also me) also Orestes. (who is also Odysseus) (who is also me) (who is also most of us) (but no one knows the trouble i've seen)
____-also it's a story about "love drunk crazies" who walked through Asia Minor to find youth prophets, who were then cut to strips and fed to dogs, who then started revolutions, and my great grandfathers who joined in, and were beaten black and smiling, and wore badges forcing them to drink from other water fountains, and eventually, the collapse of an Order, the rise of a diaspora, and a heritage of "love drunk crazies" that led my parents to Congo, me to Israel, and all of us to irreparable misgoodfortune.
____-it's about decisions, those we make, and those that make themselves around us, and lead us
____-it's about the way i felt on the rock beach, besides the graveyard of trees, where mermaids still live, with Martha on the Olympic Peninsula
____-it's a redemption song
____-it's about how much i hate noise. how i want to have children and move them to a small town in France, or Italy, where they'll know what real tomatoes taste like, and what real sun feels like on bare (unsunscreened skin), and what true silence means
____-it's about how Golriz, after teaching me to love rain, taught me to love sun. (and how LA is the only place where i can tolerate summer)
____-it's about hiding
____-it's about homelessness. homesickness. about drifting out to sea, with no way to come back
____-it's about the fear of the future
____-history is a nightmare of myself i'm trying to wake from
____-it's always about me (this time, my parents too. and my grandfather, who i hope still cares
____-it's about the bones of time that line the streets i walk on, the bones of time that sprout from the ground, and are the stems of yesteryear's tulips
____-it's a story about: help__please__fu&*__what now?
____-it's a story about taking now, and making it what i wish it was (could be) (might have been)
____-it's a story about if and if only
____-it's a story about photographs i knew i never should have looked at
____-and something's we're all too young to know
____-i want to explore spirituality from the inside, from the place where it boils, where fervor sprouts, what makes people smile towards their deaths?
____-it's a story about how i ceased to be a man.
____-it's not a story at all. it's a history. a hope. an aspiration. a chronicle. a fantasy. a 'could have been' a please, a shout, a crossroads, another of my failures, another of my victories (and as usual, i can't tell which from which)
____-it's a story about old men with blue eyes that hug us and teach us things
____-it's a story about the person i always wished i could be
____-it's a story about natural disasters
____
i guess all i need now is a plot, some time, and inspiration. (lots of inspiration)
____-its patron song is a Sunday Smile, by Beirut. Everything starts and ends there
____-it is about heritage, history, how i pay(receive) for other people's decisions- good and bad
____-its about death. which means its about life. which means, it's about everything, which is hard
____-it will have the constant feeling of something being missing of the puzzle. one piece who ought to be there
____-i have some neat typographical/formatting ideas for it
____-distinction will be made between people's minds and souls. (my soul occasionally needs to reassure my mind. my mind typically needs to bemoan my soul. this really happens. i know how to write it!)
____-ghosts, dreams, premonitions, moments of inspiration during prayer, moments of massive discontent, those little moments we die, death death death, rebirth, picking ourselves up, crying in the summertime sitting by pools breathing the summer chlorinated flower filled air- that's all there
____-it is a retelling of the Orestia.
____-it will make my mother cry, as everything does, when it reminds my mother how sad her son can be.get, and how disabled her daughter is
____-it is my novel about happiness. and where happiness lives, and how... silent and modest happiness really is, and how we can be happy for years without ever knowing we are, and all the terrible things that make us sad enough to break into happiness
____-it is about running (away)
____-it is about failure and victory
____-it is about decisions, and how we'll never ever ever know exactly which were wrong, and which were right
____-i saw pictures today. people i used to know. being happy. in a city i wanted to be happy in. i felt left out. small. tiny. uninvolved. unimportant. uninspired. unable. i feel like i am working on fixing everyone else's life, so that eventually, i can get started on mine. It will be about resentment. anger. furiosity. manic rage. uncontrollable stagnancy. desperation. sailing out towards the middle of the ocean, hoping never to return, and then, having to. naked. tired. apathetic.
____-it will be about me. (also Gatsby, who has everything to prove, doomed as it is from the beginning). it will be about me. also Leopold Bloom. (who is also me. who is also Hamlet) (who is also me) also Hamlet. (who is also Orestes) (who is also me) also Orestes. (who is also Odysseus) (who is also me) (who is also most of us) (but no one knows the trouble i've seen)
____-also it's a story about "love drunk crazies" who walked through Asia Minor to find youth prophets, who were then cut to strips and fed to dogs, who then started revolutions, and my great grandfathers who joined in, and were beaten black and smiling, and wore badges forcing them to drink from other water fountains, and eventually, the collapse of an Order, the rise of a diaspora, and a heritage of "love drunk crazies" that led my parents to Congo, me to Israel, and all of us to irreparable misgoodfortune.
____-it's about decisions, those we make, and those that make themselves around us, and lead us
____-it's about the way i felt on the rock beach, besides the graveyard of trees, where mermaids still live, with Martha on the Olympic Peninsula
____-it's a redemption song
____-it's about how much i hate noise. how i want to have children and move them to a small town in France, or Italy, where they'll know what real tomatoes taste like, and what real sun feels like on bare (unsunscreened skin), and what true silence means
____-it's about how Golriz, after teaching me to love rain, taught me to love sun. (and how LA is the only place where i can tolerate summer)
____-it's about hiding
____-it's about homelessness. homesickness. about drifting out to sea, with no way to come back
____-it's about the fear of the future
____-history is a nightmare of myself i'm trying to wake from
____-it's always about me (this time, my parents too. and my grandfather, who i hope still cares
____-it's about the bones of time that line the streets i walk on, the bones of time that sprout from the ground, and are the stems of yesteryear's tulips
____-it's a story about: help__please__fu&*__what now?
____-it's a story about taking now, and making it what i wish it was (could be) (might have been)
____-it's a story about if and if only
____-it's a story about photographs i knew i never should have looked at
____-and something's we're all too young to know
____-i want to explore spirituality from the inside, from the place where it boils, where fervor sprouts, what makes people smile towards their deaths?
____-it's a story about how i ceased to be a man.
____-it's not a story at all. it's a history. a hope. an aspiration. a chronicle. a fantasy. a 'could have been' a please, a shout, a crossroads, another of my failures, another of my victories (and as usual, i can't tell which from which)
____-it's a story about old men with blue eyes that hug us and teach us things
____-it's a story about the person i always wished i could be
____-it's a story about natural disasters
____
i guess all i need now is a plot, some time, and inspiration. (lots of inspiration)
2 comments:
Sounds like it could be a great read.
-Anon2
a few things:
how exciting!
i l-o-v-e Beirut!
can i read this one too when it's finished?
these elements sound amazing!
Post a Comment