There's a dog on the way down to the Field of Dreams Flat Space - he's not one of the usual enormous killer dogs that fling themselves at gates as you walk by. He is enormous, but he's doleful. He's the saddest looking-dog ever. He lies curled up on a patch of dusty ground and looks through the fence at the outside world, where there's freedom to play.
As I was passing by I thought, maybe I'll treat him to some dog biscuits. My mind spiralled, and I pictured me in a supermarket queue internally chanting, "Don't eat the biscuits don't eat the biscuits". For I treasure Jonathan Carroll's blog, you see...
CarrollBlog 4.21
Waiting on line at the checkout counter, the woman in front of me is holding only a very large colorful box of dog biscuits. The man in front of her is buying many things. So it takes a while for the cashier to add up the cost of his purchases. In the meantime, the woman opens up the box of biscuits and starts to eat them. She doesn't take out one, nibble a corner to see what a dog biscuit tastes like, and then put the rest back into the box. No, she takes out a handful and eats them as if they were potato chips, one after the other. The biscuits are about mid size and she eats three very quickly. I smile at first but then stop smiling when she sticks her hand back in the box, takes out more, and eats these too. She moves forward in the line. Handing the open box to the cashier, she puts the last biscuit she's holding in her mouth and chews. From the bored look in her eye, the cashier seems unaware that this customer is eating the dog biscuits she's buying. For one second I think I've imagined the whole thing. Maybe I'm going nuts! Turning to the man behind me, I see him smiling. He raises his eyebrows and says quietly "Woof woof."
I haven't dared to go shopping. It would just end up with someone blogging about the crazy lady guffawing as she bought dog biscuits.
PS - for the long-overdue revamped website, see here.
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5 comments:
Isn't Jonathan Carroll's daily blog wonderful? The astounding thing to me is that he writes it almost every day and 9 out of 10 times it's superb. Plus he's been writing it for years! The blog is as good as his books, only in a completely different direction.
Ethan
Like the new site! Cool Fly sunglasses you're wearing there :-)
Ethan: yep, Jonathan Carroll is fantastic (and Sean - sandwiched in between us - is a fan too). Years ago in college, we had him over for a reading/signing - he was as soulful and funny and clever in real life. I just treasure his words.
Sean: why thank you kind sir; we aim to please!
I once saw Carroll read at the Harvard bookstore in Cambridge. The place was absolutely packed-- there must have been four hundred people there. He was beautifully dressed in a black suit and it would have been easy to mistake him for a business executive. But he was a wonderful reader and the crowd-- mostly women-- went crazy when he was done. I noticed afterwards how kind he was to the people who wanted their books signed. He talked to them all and seemed genuinely interested in what they had to say.
Ethan
Sounds fabulous. It's great when that happens. Too often there's a chasm between writers and their words.
I went to a John Irving reading years ago, and it was a bleak experience. He seemed quite dismissive of the questions, and wasn't engaged with the people who had come to hear him. Maybe he was having an off-day (or maybe we were a rubbish audience), but I sat there thinking, 'Where's the vivacity and energy and tenderness and humour that I find on the page?' There was no hint of it.
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