"The Consummate Food and the Ultimate Music"
Saturday, July 5, 2008
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Sunday, June 1, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Saturday, April 5, 2008
The Maltese Falcon
Last night I took a break from my work and because I felt like reading for pleasure. I miss that. I don't get to do that a lot at Pencey because it's such hard work. I was up all night reading, and I finished it. It was a great story; I heard the movie was pretty good too. But what I liked best about it was this part that Hammett put in Chapter 7. After his partner Archer dies, Spade tells this story to Brigid O'Shaughnessy about a guy named "Flitcraft".
"Here's what had happened to him. Going to lunch he passed an office-building that was being put up- just the skeleton. A beam or something fell eight or ten stories down and smacked the sidewalk along side him. It brushed pretty close to him, but didn't touch him, though a piece of the sidewalk was chipped off and flew up and hit his cheek. It only took a piece of skin off, but he still had the scar when I saw him. He rubbed it with his finger-- well, affectionately- when he told me about it. He was scared stiff of course, he said, but he was more shocked than really frightened. He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him look at the works."
So I thought that was pretty crazy, and the best part about it is that the narrative completely pauses for Spade to tell this story. Directly, it has NOTHING to do with the rest of the novel. Then he goes on to talk about Flitcraft:
"Flitcraft had been a good citizen and a good husband and father, not by any outer compulsion, but simply because he was a man who was most comfortable in step with his surroundings. He had been raised that way. The life he knew was a clean orderly sane responsible affair. Now a falling beam had shown him that life was fundamentally none of these things. He, the good citizen-husband-father, could be wiped out between offive and restaurant by the accident of a falling beam.
It was not, primarily, the injustice that disturbed him: he accepted that after the first shock. What disturbed him was the discovery that in sensibly ordering his affairs he had got out of step, and not into step, with life. He said he knew before he had gone twenty feet from the fallen beam that he would never know peace again until he had adjusted himself to this new glimpse of life. By the time he had eaten his luncheon he had found his means of adjustment. Life could be ended for him at random by a fallen beam: he would change his life at random by simply going away. He loved his family, he said, as much as he supposed was usual, but he knew he was leaving them adequately provided for, and his love for them was not of the sort that would make absence painful.
He went to Seattle that afternoon, and from there by boat to San Francisco. For a couple of years he wandered around and then driftede back to the Northwest, and settled in Spokane and got married. He wasn't sorry for what he had done. It seemed reasonable enough to him. I don't think he even knew he had settled back naturally into the same groove he had jumped out of in Tacoma. But that's the part of it I always liked. He adjusted himself to beams falling, and then no more of them fell, and he adjusted himself to them not falling."
And that's it. Then it goes back to the rest of the story. At first it kind of bothered me because I felt like it was just Hammett putting out a soap box for himself to preach on. But the more I read it the more it really spoke to me. If things can just end that quickly, then why do we bother getting stuck in any patterns?
What do you think??
"Here's what had happened to him. Going to lunch he passed an office-building that was being put up- just the skeleton. A beam or something fell eight or ten stories down and smacked the sidewalk along side him. It brushed pretty close to him, but didn't touch him, though a piece of the sidewalk was chipped off and flew up and hit his cheek. It only took a piece of skin off, but he still had the scar when I saw him. He rubbed it with his finger-- well, affectionately- when he told me about it. He was scared stiff of course, he said, but he was more shocked than really frightened. He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him look at the works."
So I thought that was pretty crazy, and the best part about it is that the narrative completely pauses for Spade to tell this story. Directly, it has NOTHING to do with the rest of the novel. Then he goes on to talk about Flitcraft:
"Flitcraft had been a good citizen and a good husband and father, not by any outer compulsion, but simply because he was a man who was most comfortable in step with his surroundings. He had been raised that way. The life he knew was a clean orderly sane responsible affair. Now a falling beam had shown him that life was fundamentally none of these things. He, the good citizen-husband-father, could be wiped out between offive and restaurant by the accident of a falling beam.
It was not, primarily, the injustice that disturbed him: he accepted that after the first shock. What disturbed him was the discovery that in sensibly ordering his affairs he had got out of step, and not into step, with life. He said he knew before he had gone twenty feet from the fallen beam that he would never know peace again until he had adjusted himself to this new glimpse of life. By the time he had eaten his luncheon he had found his means of adjustment. Life could be ended for him at random by a fallen beam: he would change his life at random by simply going away. He loved his family, he said, as much as he supposed was usual, but he knew he was leaving them adequately provided for, and his love for them was not of the sort that would make absence painful.
He went to Seattle that afternoon, and from there by boat to San Francisco. For a couple of years he wandered around and then driftede back to the Northwest, and settled in Spokane and got married. He wasn't sorry for what he had done. It seemed reasonable enough to him. I don't think he even knew he had settled back naturally into the same groove he had jumped out of in Tacoma. But that's the part of it I always liked. He adjusted himself to beams falling, and then no more of them fell, and he adjusted himself to them not falling."
And that's it. Then it goes back to the rest of the story. At first it kind of bothered me because I felt like it was just Hammett putting out a soap box for himself to preach on. But the more I read it the more it really spoke to me. If things can just end that quickly, then why do we bother getting stuck in any patterns?
What do you think??
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Last Day
Last day in Florida. This morning I woke up to see the sun rise on the beach. Sean was out cold in his bed so I didn’t worry about waking him when I made noise searching my drawers for a sweater. I had to bring a sweater because it was really windy on the beach and I had that shaky, cold feeling that comes when I wake up too early.
It was still dark and the tide was way in. I walked down a ways to this little sand dune that the water couldn’t reach, sat on top of it and closed my eyes. When the first light began to break, I noticed there was a woman doing yoga a few hundred feet to my left. It scared me that I'd passed her by in the dark; I could have stepped on her had she or I been less lucky. The clouds boomed with orange and purple, and the ocean reflected bright turquoise. I felt privileged because these were the types of colors that you just don’t see during normal hours.
The sun still hadn’t risen when I noticed that the woman finished her yoga. She looked over at me and smiled, then turned back to the sun. As relaxed as I had been before, she suddenly made me very nervous. I smiled back. When I looked at her again, I noticed that she was pregnant. I lay back into the sand and wondered what the rules were for starting conversations with people at sunrise. Being as we were the only two people sitting on the beach, I felt I had some responsibility to make a connection. You know, just in case something went wrong with the sunrise and we were the only two there to see it.
“How far along are you?” I called to her. I regretted it the moment the words came out of my mouth. (What if she wasn’t pregnant?!)
“Seven months”, she called back.
“Boy or girl?”
“Boy.” She seemed to agree that it was important for us to acknowledge each other.
“Ah.” I was relieved. As crazy as I imagined myself in my mind, when I finally opened my mouth, normalness came out!
“Picked a name yet?”
“Yeah. We’re thinking Adam.” I smiled and nodded my approval.
“Adom. Earth.” I replied. As if it mattered.
“I was thinking more, the first man”, she said with a smile.
“That too. Good name.” I turned back to the horizon and felt her do the same. The tip of the sun broke in a bright green flash like a scaly iguana in the sunlight-- just for a split second, I had the horrible thought that on this day the sun might rise green. To my relief, almost immediately after the green flash, the real sun appeared reassuringly and began to rise. I released my breath, threw off my shirt, and jumped in the ocean one last time. When I came back out, the pregnant lady was gone.
It was still dark and the tide was way in. I walked down a ways to this little sand dune that the water couldn’t reach, sat on top of it and closed my eyes. When the first light began to break, I noticed there was a woman doing yoga a few hundred feet to my left. It scared me that I'd passed her by in the dark; I could have stepped on her had she or I been less lucky. The clouds boomed with orange and purple, and the ocean reflected bright turquoise. I felt privileged because these were the types of colors that you just don’t see during normal hours.
The sun still hadn’t risen when I noticed that the woman finished her yoga. She looked over at me and smiled, then turned back to the sun. As relaxed as I had been before, she suddenly made me very nervous. I smiled back. When I looked at her again, I noticed that she was pregnant. I lay back into the sand and wondered what the rules were for starting conversations with people at sunrise. Being as we were the only two people sitting on the beach, I felt I had some responsibility to make a connection. You know, just in case something went wrong with the sunrise and we were the only two there to see it.
“How far along are you?” I called to her. I regretted it the moment the words came out of my mouth. (What if she wasn’t pregnant?!)
“Seven months”, she called back.
“Boy or girl?”
“Boy.” She seemed to agree that it was important for us to acknowledge each other.
“Ah.” I was relieved. As crazy as I imagined myself in my mind, when I finally opened my mouth, normalness came out!
“Picked a name yet?”
“Yeah. We’re thinking Adam.” I smiled and nodded my approval.
“Adom. Earth.” I replied. As if it mattered.
“I was thinking more, the first man”, she said with a smile.
“That too. Good name.” I turned back to the horizon and felt her do the same. The tip of the sun broke in a bright green flash like a scaly iguana in the sunlight-- just for a split second, I had the horrible thought that on this day the sun might rise green. To my relief, almost immediately after the green flash, the real sun appeared reassuringly and began to rise. I released my breath, threw off my shirt, and jumped in the ocean one last time. When I came back out, the pregnant lady was gone.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Long Kiss Goodnight
Slept funny last night. I had a crazy couple of dreams—first, this one where I was hooking up with this girl in my composition class. Actually, she’s hideous so it was more of a nightmare.
But then I this a dream about a serial killer. He wore a bandana and he came in while Sean and I were sleeping. He leaned over Sean’s bed and stared for a second. Then suddenly he opened his mouth and shrieked-- shrill, like a really high scream, and I jumped up, shaking in my sheets. I tried to yell to wake Sean up but Sean kept sleeping. Then I tried to stop the killer but I was frozen. He leaned closer and closer to Sean and pulled the sheets back. I watched in horror as he drew his knife, and raised it high into the air. Then he began to slash Sean, all over his belly and chest. I watched in amazement; as much as he was slashing away, there was not so much as a drop of blood that fell from Sean. When the killer finally finished, he dropped his knife on the floor and left. Then Sean woke up. He turned slowly and gaped at me in horror. I followed his eyes downward and noticed blood all over my sheets. Then on my hands, and finally I looked down and saw my whole body slashed and bleeding where Sean’s wounds should have been.
I prefered the dream about the girl in my composition class.
Just heard Sean come in-- he was out tonight at a club on the beach with some girl... now he's gonna tell me all about it.
But then I this a dream about a serial killer. He wore a bandana and he came in while Sean and I were sleeping. He leaned over Sean’s bed and stared for a second. Then suddenly he opened his mouth and shrieked-- shrill, like a really high scream, and I jumped up, shaking in my sheets. I tried to yell to wake Sean up but Sean kept sleeping. Then I tried to stop the killer but I was frozen. He leaned closer and closer to Sean and pulled the sheets back. I watched in horror as he drew his knife, and raised it high into the air. Then he began to slash Sean, all over his belly and chest. I watched in amazement; as much as he was slashing away, there was not so much as a drop of blood that fell from Sean. When the killer finally finished, he dropped his knife on the floor and left. Then Sean woke up. He turned slowly and gaped at me in horror. I followed his eyes downward and noticed blood all over my sheets. Then on my hands, and finally I looked down and saw my whole body slashed and bleeding where Sean’s wounds should have been.
I prefered the dream about the girl in my composition class.
Just heard Sean come in-- he was out tonight at a club on the beach with some girl... now he's gonna tell me all about it.
Monday, March 17, 2008
Hypnotized
Sean is really starting to send me over the edge, more than ever before. Today was insane. I can’t be sure how insane it actually was because I’m still a little bit high. The couple times I’ve gotten high I just lose all points of reference.
This one time Sean convinced me to prank call the Falafel King, and order 100 falafels for delivery. So I did. And when the delivery guy showed up, Sean answered the door wearing a bright red dress with a crown and said he was the Falafel Queen. We owed four hundred dollars for the falafel, but at the time it was hilarious and completely worth it. Of course the next day mom went insane when she saw the 96 falafel sandwiches in the fridge.
I blame myself because when I get high I get lost in my own head.
With that in mind, I’m still not sure how much what happened today bothered me but as I come down from the high, I’m starting to feel more and more upset.
The day began when Sean and I cooked an ungodly amount of pot into Nutella and spread it on those butterfly crackers with peanut butter. We ate them, and then went running on the beach. Oh yeah-- I forgot to mention that we’re in Florida right now! Spring BREAK!! Key West. It’s picturesque. It makes sense that Hemmingway loved it so much here. I’m trying to grow a beard but it’s not silver.
The crackers were really good; I couldn’t taste the weed at all. Cooked them for 15 minutes, just like Tywan told me to. Oh, that’s news too: Tywan called me! Just out of the blue, he called me up. Apparently he’s still living in Brooklyn. We didn’t talk about mom, though I was dying to ask, but he told me how to make these pot desserts and wants me to come down and visit him when I get back to Pencey. His voice was exactly as I’d expect it to sound after all these years, just deeper. Anyway, of course Sean was down with the pot dessert idea. It’s a good thing to do on vacation; of course I would never do it during school.
Speaking of which, mom got me the new Lupe Fiasco album for the vacation: The Cool. I’ve been listening to it this whole trip, it’s fantastic. Good for running too. Sean got the Wu Tang album, The 8 Diagrams.
Flashback to noon today-- we’ve been up for six hours because we watched the sunrise and then had a huge breakfast (which Sean skipped)-- I wasn’t that hungry for lunch, but he should have been. I don’t know how the dude survives, being so skinny and working out so much.
So we’re running down the beach, and Sean starts drifting off. I knew because a couple of girls were trying to skim board but I could tell they were just looking for an excuse to block our way and talk to us. So I start to point them out to Sean and then I realize that it had hit me too. Not as hard, but enough so that when we got to the girls they gave us a really weird look. I think I had a huge, stupid smile on my face.
Usually, Sean and I have this perfect system where we both kick our game and play off of each other. Sean’s the show off who picks them up and I’m the smart, quiet one who keeps the conversation going. Works almost every time. Like yin and yang.
But this time, when Sean noticed the girls he just ran past them. I chased after him, but of course Sean starts sprinting when I start catch up to him. Never lets me win. Too bad I’ve always been slightly faster (I know how that pisses him off). So when I finally did catch up to him, I tackled him into the sand. I was laughing but when I got up Sean looked like he was crying. Then he rolled over and started to try to bury his head in the sand like an ostrich. Of course it didn’t work, and a giant wave washed over him. I dragged him back on to the beach a little bit and he started screaming, “Make them stop! They’re licking me up! With their eyes!” The girls were laughing at us from a little further down the shore, and I tried to calm him down but he pulled me down with him. “Who?” I asked. Sean pointed back at the girls. We’re both lying there like idiots and then he started saying even weirder things. I don’t remember all of them, I should have written it down then. What stuck out the most, though, was when he started talking about our mom. He kept saying, “I wanna go back inside. I want to start over.” I asked him why and he shook his head really hard so that his eyes watered even more and I still couldn’t tell whether he was crying or just really upset. “Don’t ask me that”, he said. “You can’t come! That’s the one place you can’t follow me to!”
I got up and tried to survey the situation. In retrospect, those girls down the beach must have thought we were retarded, what with Sean lying there, trying to burrow into the sand while I stood above him staring out at the ocean.
Shit I forgot about that! I remember becoming completely transfixed with the waves for god knows how long. I watched as one would form, and then followed it as it would curl and break, wash ashore, and then recede back into the water. I felt this profound excitement as I watched each one form, as if I was making a new friend or falling in love. Then, as it broke and washed back out, I could have cried. It was some American Beauty shit. I felt like that dude with the video camera and the plastic bag. But I didn’t care; I’d follow the foam back into the ocean and find another wave as it was forming. Like watching a whole lifetime happen in three seconds.
The two of us probably stayed that way for an hour. When I finally realized where I was, I looked down and found Sean sleeping at my feet. He looked really dehydrated so I carried him back up the beach a ways until we found this little crab shack. That’s where I’m writing this right now, on the back of the paper menu. I’ve already made Sean drink a glass of water and he has an orange juice on the way. I got a fish n chips and a Piña Colada. Shit, the food’s coming, gotta go---
This one time Sean convinced me to prank call the Falafel King, and order 100 falafels for delivery. So I did. And when the delivery guy showed up, Sean answered the door wearing a bright red dress with a crown and said he was the Falafel Queen. We owed four hundred dollars for the falafel, but at the time it was hilarious and completely worth it. Of course the next day mom went insane when she saw the 96 falafel sandwiches in the fridge.
I blame myself because when I get high I get lost in my own head.
With that in mind, I’m still not sure how much what happened today bothered me but as I come down from the high, I’m starting to feel more and more upset.
The day began when Sean and I cooked an ungodly amount of pot into Nutella and spread it on those butterfly crackers with peanut butter. We ate them, and then went running on the beach. Oh yeah-- I forgot to mention that we’re in Florida right now! Spring BREAK!! Key West. It’s picturesque. It makes sense that Hemmingway loved it so much here. I’m trying to grow a beard but it’s not silver.
The crackers were really good; I couldn’t taste the weed at all. Cooked them for 15 minutes, just like Tywan told me to. Oh, that’s news too: Tywan called me! Just out of the blue, he called me up. Apparently he’s still living in Brooklyn. We didn’t talk about mom, though I was dying to ask, but he told me how to make these pot desserts and wants me to come down and visit him when I get back to Pencey. His voice was exactly as I’d expect it to sound after all these years, just deeper. Anyway, of course Sean was down with the pot dessert idea. It’s a good thing to do on vacation; of course I would never do it during school.
Speaking of which, mom got me the new Lupe Fiasco album for the vacation: The Cool. I’ve been listening to it this whole trip, it’s fantastic. Good for running too. Sean got the Wu Tang album, The 8 Diagrams.
Flashback to noon today-- we’ve been up for six hours because we watched the sunrise and then had a huge breakfast (which Sean skipped)-- I wasn’t that hungry for lunch, but he should have been. I don’t know how the dude survives, being so skinny and working out so much.
So we’re running down the beach, and Sean starts drifting off. I knew because a couple of girls were trying to skim board but I could tell they were just looking for an excuse to block our way and talk to us. So I start to point them out to Sean and then I realize that it had hit me too. Not as hard, but enough so that when we got to the girls they gave us a really weird look. I think I had a huge, stupid smile on my face.
Usually, Sean and I have this perfect system where we both kick our game and play off of each other. Sean’s the show off who picks them up and I’m the smart, quiet one who keeps the conversation going. Works almost every time. Like yin and yang.
But this time, when Sean noticed the girls he just ran past them. I chased after him, but of course Sean starts sprinting when I start catch up to him. Never lets me win. Too bad I’ve always been slightly faster (I know how that pisses him off). So when I finally did catch up to him, I tackled him into the sand. I was laughing but when I got up Sean looked like he was crying. Then he rolled over and started to try to bury his head in the sand like an ostrich. Of course it didn’t work, and a giant wave washed over him. I dragged him back on to the beach a little bit and he started screaming, “Make them stop! They’re licking me up! With their eyes!” The girls were laughing at us from a little further down the shore, and I tried to calm him down but he pulled me down with him. “Who?” I asked. Sean pointed back at the girls. We’re both lying there like idiots and then he started saying even weirder things. I don’t remember all of them, I should have written it down then. What stuck out the most, though, was when he started talking about our mom. He kept saying, “I wanna go back inside. I want to start over.” I asked him why and he shook his head really hard so that his eyes watered even more and I still couldn’t tell whether he was crying or just really upset. “Don’t ask me that”, he said. “You can’t come! That’s the one place you can’t follow me to!”
I got up and tried to survey the situation. In retrospect, those girls down the beach must have thought we were retarded, what with Sean lying there, trying to burrow into the sand while I stood above him staring out at the ocean.
Shit I forgot about that! I remember becoming completely transfixed with the waves for god knows how long. I watched as one would form, and then followed it as it would curl and break, wash ashore, and then recede back into the water. I felt this profound excitement as I watched each one form, as if I was making a new friend or falling in love. Then, as it broke and washed back out, I could have cried. It was some American Beauty shit. I felt like that dude with the video camera and the plastic bag. But I didn’t care; I’d follow the foam back into the ocean and find another wave as it was forming. Like watching a whole lifetime happen in three seconds.
The two of us probably stayed that way for an hour. When I finally realized where I was, I looked down and found Sean sleeping at my feet. He looked really dehydrated so I carried him back up the beach a ways until we found this little crab shack. That’s where I’m writing this right now, on the back of the paper menu. I’ve already made Sean drink a glass of water and he has an orange juice on the way. I got a fish n chips and a Piña Colada. Shit, the food’s coming, gotta go---
mic check 1 2 3
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen...
I'm Christopher Wallace, and this is my journal.
I'm Christopher Wallace, and this is my journal.
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