Writing like there's no-one reading

Move along, there's nothing to see here.

[mentaldispersions]

In the end, the only really interesting books are the ones read by the police.

Tomatoes. Natalie Quintaine

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His wife seemed to have grown in stature while she insulted him with elegance and precision.

Germinal. Émile Zola.

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What's money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.

- Bob Dylan.

Via GQ.

[mentaldispersions]

A path through the great books.

In case you have a spare decade or two of reading time...

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popular pin-ups, playboys, millionaires and actresses with the bodies of gods and goddesses and the morals of ferrets

Lord Hailsham.  Relating to the Profumo affair.

[mentaldispersions]

When disparaging others, take a healthy attitutde towards others in leaving no euphamism behind.

[mentaldispersions]

Train your heartbeat, make it sufficiently slow, and you can go anywhere. Guards will cease to see you. Walls will let you pass. Former lovers will not recognize you, even face to face, close as hands. Train your heartbeat, slow it down, and nothing is impossible any more. You can turn into salt.

- Sean at Said the Gramaphone.

[mentaldispersions]

Sundays

A slow day.  With snowflakes tumbling down, melting on impact with the just-too-warm earth.  A day for watching the world go by even as it refuses to budge.  We rise early, luxuriating in being better people for it, take the dog out for morning ablutions and then take a couple of hours to make breakfast.  Nothing fancy, but lots of it.  Coffee, and coffee, and coffee.  We listen to some music, pretty much at random, and then contemplate going out and hiking.  But that can wait until after lunch, which is now almost upon us. 

Some reading, some sex, some whines from the dog downstairs who knows we're not taking her out again any time soon, but hopes for it nonetheless.  Were she outside she'd just sit in the snow and watch the world go by.  Unfortunately, for technical reasons, that's not possible right now.  I read to her, from a book of short stories by an author that I admire for his writing, but ultimately despise for the content of his stories.  I can't place why I can't stand him, but I think it may have to do with the smallness of his canvas. Every story plays a single note, at varying speeds and volumes, until it's point is made.  Every story is so true, and yet so unimportant. Truisms.

We take ourselves, and the happy puppy out for a walk in the woods, through a couple of feet of fresh snow.  The world is still.  It's too early in the year for there to be many birds around: much of the forest is deciduous so there's not even the cover of spartan firs to provide them protection from the biting northeasterly winds that whistle up the valley.  The occasional squirrel scampers across our path, but only the adolescents who mistakenly believed that last week's warm snap was the beginning of mating season.  They clearly hadn't been following coverage of Philip.

Back home three damp bodies warm themselves in deep chairs and contemplate another meal to come.  Two of them contemplate a drink, then maybe another.  Suddenly, night has fallen and the house resounds to the tones of chopping knives and the gas in the oven firing in bursts.  Three warm bodies cluster around the heater in the corner of the house and as sleep falls heavy we work our way upstairs to bed. Someone realises that tomorrow they will have to be somewhere - it will be Thursday.