Crish was not so innocent as to believe that perfectly requited love was the only kind that lasted. As counselor he had listened to a hundred tales of one-way love, unilateral love, hopeless love. Of course there were love stories with happy endings and there were love stories that never seemed to end at all (for years after Chris's mother died, his father went on loving her memory), but Chris knew that love for some was a continual giving without getting, love spilling from the heart like water from a hillside spring, love bubbling up from a vast reservoir and coursing off as unrestrained as a river to the sea.
-Jon Hassler, The Love Hunter
Albert Einstein (the physicist not the blogger) summed it all up: Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not. So each is inevitably disappointed. The party was a big hit with everyone and even Eva seemed happy after navigating her way through the crush of partygoers outside the venue. This was the evening of a particularly alcoholic night out with the spirit of Charles Bukowski. This was very generous of Buk. Nights out like books are not isolated artefacts. It is written in context. A cultural milieu. A sort of a sociology-of-work context, only creative writing, art, for which the writer might not ever be paid. A labor of love. How do you put a price on a labor of love? How do you put a price on your spouse, or significant other's labor of love? There is also a book before it and a book after it in the catalog. The fact is that numbers are the perfect way to dehumanize tragedies, to make us cling to imaginary patterns in the chaos, and to draw emotion out of exiled life. A raw nerve had been struck: love-chasing literature
One of the problems I had... I was a writer. And it has taken me the longest time to arrive... Because it was a dilemma. My friends... There were friends of mine who were in jail because they had made bombs and had planted them. There were friends of mine who had to run for their lives into foreign countries Courageous pessimism
Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: New York: Right before your eyes
Abhorred by the chefs who cook it and the waiters who serve it, overrun by Times-toting diners willing to endure hour-long waits to O.D. on cholesterol and carbs, brunch tends to disappoint - manifesto on all things superlative
Bars hidden behind unmarked doors are the faux-grunge counterpart to bottle-service clubs. Back Room, which fronts as a closed toy shop—you creep down an alley to find the entrance—is really no more of a mystery than its rumored investors, Tim Robbins (who’s been tending bar) and Mark Messier, but its devotion to the concept is charming. Drinks are served in teacups to foil “the bulls” (as the police were known in thirties gangster movies), the front door has a peek-and-speak hole, and a sliding bookcase reveals a second bar.
• The best local watering hole for wherever you live. Walking to bars is extremely dangerous. I wouldn't do it, but it's slightly safer than driving Bars in the Hood and Back Room [The secret clubs and back-room deli-slash-dive-bars where the city's most enjoyable carousing goes down. We all love NY even if we never walked the streets; While in Sydney this contagiously friendly swimming pub is a neighborhood hangout in a neighborhood where people don’t really “hang out.” People know each other by name, but they’re always willing to learn a new one. This blessedly undiscovered clifftop boîte is also the picture of romance. It remains a refuge for lost singleton souls and poor writers. This is without any doubt the last place, dear Margaritas, your husband will come looking for you and if he does we shall straighten him up ;-) Iceberg swimmers and flirt summer and winter without fail: Time that went easily, time that was a pleasure to do as you give what you can, and you take what you need. Good writers shouldn't really have the time for very active sex lives. Even if a wall of flesh is after them Which Swimming Shoes Would You Make Love In? ; Thoughts are pure, words aren't -- I say that somewhere in The Quorum: What's the point of being a writer? Prague Pill: Having Sex With Women Who Wear Glasses ]
• · Women On Writing: Review: I have no script. The story is me and the people around me. It's there, it's real life and there is no other. I'm not carrying any other story. There is little suspense. There is little violence. There is little drama. I'm interested in the celebration of life and irony. I have always regarded myself as transnational author. There are many different routes into the film-making industry – and many of these involve luck and chance. There is no set path that will guarantee you success, but there are definitely a number of things you can do to prepare your story for the best chance. Start blogging ... Cold River: The Cold Truth of Freedom ; It might have become easier to locate hard-to-get books, pictures and maps Tome raiders : but you will not find Cold River by JI in Australia True! as at 11 March 2006 AD
• · · I will be talking about my life in football and other things as well. There will be a few surprises in there ;-) My first 249 months by W Rooney ; Translators of fiction are like priests who stand between us and the literary gods. We need them even as we pine for direct contact Novels found in translation ; Can sexual inadequacy or deprivation turn angry young men into killers? Extremism: the loser's revenge ; What do commercial fishermen, holocaust rescuers, mall shoppers, tax payers, blood donors, nuns, serial mercy killers, John Dillinger, and people who obey traffic laws all have in common? Looking for Kindness in Most of the Wrong Places; Expect Saint Martin’s summer, halcyon days, Since I have entered into these wars. Glory is like a circle in the water, Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself Till by broad spreading it disperse to nought. In reality weird sex is a billion dollar business and it wouldn't make billions unless it was completely normal like toilet paper or milk The Absinthe Literary Review Short stories, poems, poetics and essays ; A New York buzzing with the scandal of James Frey is a picquant location to interview Peter Carey ... It's trite to say it, but the US is a country run by liars going to war on a fantasy, so it's interesting to see people getting self-righteous about James Frey Peter Carey: Fakes, frauds, lies and hoaxes
• · · · It surprises and pleases me that strangers still want to have sex with me, because I have two children and am 37 and am completely out of the closet as a mental wreck. Drugs are Nice ; This is really stupid, to fall in love with every person that you sleep with Sex With Emily ; Breaking up is hard to do. Once the relationship is over - get over it. Besides, if things were so great, you'd still be together, right? How to survive a breakup
The genius who painted the Sistine Chapel was also rude, puerile and a tad pornographic. Another figure I touched while the restorers’ backs were turned was a biblical character called Booz, who appears in the Old Testament as a kindly Jew who marries a much younger woman, Ruth, from a different tribe. The Michelangelo code
• · · · · As soon as people step out of poverty, they become potential Media Dragon customers ... Searching for the invisible man: Economics rediscovers the entrepreneur ; Puzzles over her illogical longings ; Shopping, cooking, eating, washing dishes... it's all such a time-sucking, distracting chore. Best to wrap it all up in plastic and hurry it along, lest lost time eat at you. Pot, this is kettle... I thought this was a forum for pop opinions ; Tits and giggles, really, when it comes right down to it, and perhaps more tits than giggles. Metaphorically speaking, it's tits that make us want to buy something, whether it be a journal or a car or a handbag or a sweater for a baby ... if tits can be made to stand in for the quotient of glamour, or the promise of effulgence, or the metronomic catapult of image saturation: one eye on the tit back at the tit back at your eye. Tits equals extra. Tits equals vibration. Tits equals fiction! Tits equals valley and leverage, glen and demonstration. Tits equals hot food for the rest of your life Tits and giggles: round, probably warm
• · · · · · How did a 40-year-old woman fool the world into thinking she was teenage prostitute and wunderkind author JT LeRoy? As a punk rocker, porn writer and phone sex operator, Laura Albert had been inventing herself for years. She is JT LeRoy ; Right, like Nixon. Whenever he got a question he didn't like, he'd say, "I'm glad you asked that," and then he'd change the subject... and then we had sexual intercourse, if you know what I mean The Naked and the Dead; Samuel Johnson might have said, "It is hard out here for a pimp, Sir, and there's an end on it" Picking Up the Lyric but Missing the Beat