books and jacarandas
Jun. 13th, 2010 05:03 pmIt's a lovely summer weekend in LA, with the jacaranda trees dropping purple buds everywhere. Today I had a lovely brunch at Coffee Table with ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tesserae_--I had huevos rancheros, and later we split a piece of berry pie.
I just made a quick trip to Skylight Books. The parking gods smiled upon me, and I didn't have to waste any time circling around looking for a parking space. I bought Grace Paley's poetry book Fidelity, as I'm on a Paley kick.
I'm reading Whores on the Hill by Colleen Curran. This morning I finished reading Dodie Bellamy's essay pamphlet Barf Manifesto, which is marvelous and is a lot like talking to Dodie: "Professor X teaches a structural approach to writing a short story, with lots of shoulds and should nots. [I realize only now the deep subliminal connection my mind must be making with those 'knots,' the knots of mistake, that Bridget Riley told us about, encouraged us to put in our rugs, as it were--and here's that other word, the 'should nots,' of Professor X.] Students who'd worked with X turned in formulaic, dead stories--it's like they'd memorized a series of steps but were stomping around all rigid, like the zombie dancers at the beginning of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video. I'd come in and try to get them to tune in to the beat, to flounce around and sway their hips, and not worry so much about what their feet were doing--to get some kind of visceral connection going with their writing. So I said to Kevin, cattily, that Professor X destroyed students' souls..."
tesserae_--I had huevos rancheros, and later we split a piece of berry pie.I just made a quick trip to Skylight Books. The parking gods smiled upon me, and I didn't have to waste any time circling around looking for a parking space. I bought Grace Paley's poetry book Fidelity, as I'm on a Paley kick.
I'm reading Whores on the Hill by Colleen Curran. This morning I finished reading Dodie Bellamy's essay pamphlet Barf Manifesto, which is marvelous and is a lot like talking to Dodie: "Professor X teaches a structural approach to writing a short story, with lots of shoulds and should nots. [I realize only now the deep subliminal connection my mind must be making with those 'knots,' the knots of mistake, that Bridget Riley told us about, encouraged us to put in our rugs, as it were--and here's that other word, the 'should nots,' of Professor X.] Students who'd worked with X turned in formulaic, dead stories--it's like they'd memorized a series of steps but were stomping around all rigid, like the zombie dancers at the beginning of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller' video. I'd come in and try to get them to tune in to the beat, to flounce around and sway their hips, and not worry so much about what their feet were doing--to get some kind of visceral connection going with their writing. So I said to Kevin, cattily, that Professor X destroyed students' souls..."
