of Updike is this sense of a recipe, chunks of narrative all filled with their elements, above all rich descriptive passages that sometimes wag the dog. Perhaps like Joyce Carol Oates it’s too much reliant on knowing the ending first and writing backward, so that the writing of the novel may be a kind of…
Read moreFirst Updike
After a few months of listening to the audiobook of “Rabbit, Run” while washing dishes, finally finished tonight. About halfway through I started to understand the accomplishment. Very good. And such an influence I see so many other places, “The Graduate”, all the work of Tom Perotta (sub-par in comparison) etc. So Updike was good…
Read moreon news of an old friend having kids
she thought of some obscene growth he let happen and left to pollute the world…that’s what kids were to her, offspring of old lovers she felt only anger toward anymore
Read moreApple Map of Brooklyn
View Apple Trees in Brooklyn in a larger map
Read morea soulless person
is one who you either don’t understand or understand too well
Read moreShaggy to Smooth
History as the progression from shaggy local to universal smooth. How could a mediaeval man have perceived a quasar – immensity smooth ball with tolerances of millimeters.
Read moreCommunion
Hart is a communer with joy, a connector instinctively. Withholding isn’t natural to him.
Read moretrue observers
Guy’s idealized version of his family, astute unraveling of mysteries out of clues witnessed of people they see at airport. Kids passionate sleuths. The reality slothful and otherwise.
Read moreMovie: The Pick-up Artist
Finally saw after 20 some years. Interesting they shot in Coney Island same year I shot Pearls Before Swine. Lame movie. Toback is all panache, but can’t pull off the drama of a Scorsese and can’t passionately pursue a story without getting sidetracked with his own brilliance. Molly Ringwald, what horrible casting, and pretty much…
Read morethe thicket of cliches
how much writing will I need to do to get a view through it, standing on my hindlegs in the savannah grasses have passed through the journeyman phase and the lure of writing for money. so now to it, and what remains of it.
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