EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED
Jonathan Safran Foer
"There were parts that I did not understand, but I conjecture that this is because they were very Jewish, and only a Jewish person could understand something so Jewish. Is this why you think you are chosen by God, because only you can understand the funnies that you make about yourself?"
"I'm looking for my voice... I want to do something I'm not ashamed of."
And then, in one of his moments of mental clarity, Shalom-then-Kolker-now-Safran called to her through the wall: I'm still here, you know. You promised you'd pretend to love me until I died, and instead you're pretending I'm dead.
____________________
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
STEPHEN ADLY GUIRGIS
Jesus Hopped the A Train
ROOFTOP:
I useta go home and have nightmares 'bout gettin' stuck up inside a whale--my pops useta beat my ass wit' a slipper talkin' about "Ain't no whales in Harlem, fool, go back to sleep, this is a workin' family!"
_________
ROOFTOP:
The real question here ain't "Do I think I'm more important?" The actual fuckin' question is, "Do YOU think I'm important ENOUGH?"
____________
MARY JANE:
...I sat Angel down and informed him that the D.A. had filed for first-degree felony murder and that the charge carried a mandatory sentence of "Life without the Possibility." And Angel looked at me, and said, "Without the possibility of what?"
_________
MARY JANE:
What's God's plan for you?
ANGEL:
Chicken wings and beer.
_____________________________________
Jesus Hopped the A Train
ROOFTOP:
I useta go home and have nightmares 'bout gettin' stuck up inside a whale--my pops useta beat my ass wit' a slipper talkin' about "Ain't no whales in Harlem, fool, go back to sleep, this is a workin' family!"
_________
ROOFTOP:
The real question here ain't "Do I think I'm more important?" The actual fuckin' question is, "Do YOU think I'm important ENOUGH?"
____________
MARY JANE:
...I sat Angel down and informed him that the D.A. had filed for first-degree felony murder and that the charge carried a mandatory sentence of "Life without the Possibility." And Angel looked at me, and said, "Without the possibility of what?"
_________
MARY JANE:
What's God's plan for you?
ANGEL:
Chicken wings and beer.
_____________________________________
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
SAVAGES
Don Winslow
Dope is supposed to be bad, but in a bad world it's good, if you catch the reverse moral polarity of it. Chon refers to drugs as a "rational response to insanity," and his chronic use of the chronic is a chronic response to chronic insanity.
__________
Elena knows that love makes you strong
And love makes you weak.
Love makes you vulnerable.
So if you have enemies
Take what they love.
__________
Chon: "In my world, there's only he do or he don't ism because when it comes down to a man getting it done, either he do, or he don't."
___________
"I've accepted Christ as my personal savior."
"--it didn't turn out that well for the guy. You know, the crucifixion thing and stuff."
______________
"Are you going somewhere?"
"I'm thinking France."
"What's in France?"
"I dunno, French stuff. The French."
___________
An electronically altered voice says, "Let me speak with Mr. Let's Cut the Shit."
"I'm here."
"Let's cut the shit, shall we?...."
"No problem.
"Really? Because it was a problem before."
"It's not now."
"Good. Now let me speak to Mr. Fuck You."
___________________________
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
BETWEEN TWO WORLDS
Zainab Salbi
Early on in Saddam Hussein's reign, a woman could occasionally express a contrary opinion as long as she joked, cried, or sounded like a bit of an airhead.
...though [Saddam Hussein] legalized honor killings in the 1990s...
I remember hearing about a businessman who had been executed for raising his prices in violation of a law no one understood. The amazing part was not his murder, but the act that the Mukhabarat had apologized to the family afterward, saying they had made a mistake because he hadn't violated the law after all.
"He charms people, he seduces them, and then he harms them."
Uday, the elder of Amo's two sons, would later become infamous worldwide for his "rape palaces" where he raped and tortured women. ... Uday invited the daughter of a friend of my mother's out on a date, and her parents were so upset they arranged overnight for her to be married to a cousin in Dubai. She left the country almost immediately.
Between the world of right-doing and the world of wrong-doing there is a meeting ground.
_______________________
Zainab Salbi
Early on in Saddam Hussein's reign, a woman could occasionally express a contrary opinion as long as she joked, cried, or sounded like a bit of an airhead.
...though [Saddam Hussein] legalized honor killings in the 1990s...
I remember hearing about a businessman who had been executed for raising his prices in violation of a law no one understood. The amazing part was not his murder, but the act that the Mukhabarat had apologized to the family afterward, saying they had made a mistake because he hadn't violated the law after all.
"He charms people, he seduces them, and then he harms them."
Uday, the elder of Amo's two sons, would later become infamous worldwide for his "rape palaces" where he raped and tortured women. ... Uday invited the daughter of a friend of my mother's out on a date, and her parents were so upset they arranged overnight for her to be married to a cousin in Dubai. She left the country almost immediately.
Between the world of right-doing and the world of wrong-doing there is a meeting ground.
_______________________
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
My Father's Body
by William Matthews
First they take it away,
for now the body belongs to the state.
They open it
to see what may have killed it,
and the body had arteriosclerosis
in its heart, for this was an inside job.
Now someone must identify the body
so that the sate may have a name
for what it will give away,
and the funeral people come in a stark car
shaped like a coffin with a hood
and take the body away,
for now it belongs to the funeral people
and the body's family buys it back,
though it lies in a box at the crematorium
while the mourners travel and convene.
Then they bring the body to the chapel, as they call it,
of the crematorium, and the body lies in its box
while the mourners enter and sit
and stare at the box, for the box
lies on a pedestal where the altar would be
if this were a chapel.
A rectangular frame with curtains at the sides
rises from the pedestal,
so that the box seems to fill a small stage,
and the stage gives off the familiar
illusion of being a box with one wall torn away
so that we may see into it,
but it's filled with a box we can't see into.
There's music on tape and a man in a robe
speaks for a while and I speak
for a while and then there's a prayer
and then we mourners can hear the whir
of a small motor and curtains slide
across the stage. At least for today,
I think, this is the stage that all the world is,
and another motor hums on
and we mourners realize that behind
the curtains the body is being lowered,
not like Don Giovanni to the flames
but without flourish or song
or the comforts of elaborate plot,
to the basement of the crematorium,
to the mercies of the gas jets
and the balm of the conveyor belt.
The ashes will be scattered,
says a hushed man in a mute suit,
in the Garden of Remembrance,
which is out back.
And what's left of a mild, democratic man
will sift in a heap with the residue of others,
for now they all belong to time.
______________
by William Matthews
First they take it away,
for now the body belongs to the state.
They open it
to see what may have killed it,
and the body had arteriosclerosis
in its heart, for this was an inside job.
Now someone must identify the body
so that the sate may have a name
for what it will give away,
and the funeral people come in a stark car
shaped like a coffin with a hood
and take the body away,
for now it belongs to the funeral people
and the body's family buys it back,
though it lies in a box at the crematorium
while the mourners travel and convene.
Then they bring the body to the chapel, as they call it,
of the crematorium, and the body lies in its box
while the mourners enter and sit
and stare at the box, for the box
lies on a pedestal where the altar would be
if this were a chapel.
A rectangular frame with curtains at the sides
rises from the pedestal,
so that the box seems to fill a small stage,
and the stage gives off the familiar
illusion of being a box with one wall torn away
so that we may see into it,
but it's filled with a box we can't see into.
There's music on tape and a man in a robe
speaks for a while and I speak
for a while and then there's a prayer
and then we mourners can hear the whir
of a small motor and curtains slide
across the stage. At least for today,
I think, this is the stage that all the world is,
and another motor hums on
and we mourners realize that behind
the curtains the body is being lowered,
not like Don Giovanni to the flames
but without flourish or song
or the comforts of elaborate plot,
to the basement of the crematorium,
to the mercies of the gas jets
and the balm of the conveyor belt.
The ashes will be scattered,
says a hushed man in a mute suit,
in the Garden of Remembrance,
which is out back.
And what's left of a mild, democratic man
will sift in a heap with the residue of others,
for now they all belong to time.
______________
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