One of my favorite quotes is that "it's not what you look at, but what you see." Today I explained how active words such as "listen" and "look" are different from passive words such as "hear" and "see." The gold dress and the worldwide conspiracy to revive Yanni's career are perfect examples of people looking and listening to the same things but seeing and hearing very differently.
Now I'm reading these essays about the great Philip Roth, supposedly the last "literary lion." Well, that one's up to the readers. I first heard of him in my first creative writing class at 19. Our professor said that he and John Updike were the greatest living American authors. He was right about Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson being the greatest poets in American history, MLK Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech being the greatest speech in American history, and Abraham Lincoln being the greatest speech writing president. These weren't necessarily controversial opinions, but it was important that he directed our young minds to such legendary style, talent and wisdom.
Even though I learned of him when I was 19, I didn't get around to reading Roth until I was 23. I was living in Queens, just past the halfway point during my first three year experience in New York City after graduation. I'd just attempted to write my first novel. I used my imagination to make it fiction and told those who asked as much, although it was based on everything I had experienced in my first few years as an adult. "Write what you know" as my professor told us. I recently read that Roth was very true to that adage in his material. I've only read one of his novels, which was Portnoy's Complaint. When people read his title, I doubt the word "magic" comes to mind, but it does for me. It's not what you look at, it's what you see.
When I think of that novel, I think of the afterword to the 25th anniversary edition I'd happened to reserve from the New York Public Library. There was a story called "Juice or Gravy." I've read since that people think it was all an allegory for his life's work, but I like to think it's real. He tells a story about being 23 years old, going to this cafeteria, and finding this piece of paper that someone had left there. It had 19 sentences in a paragraph, and none of them appeared connected at all. He left it there, but found it again later. Eventually he took it, and supposedly made no effort whatsoever to hold onto it. Even so, he kept finding it at the strangest times. So he decided those were the first sentences to 19 novels he had to write, and he completed the task in 1994. He said it was evidence of something larger than him that he couldn't control, something everyone intuits the first time they are aware that they're sitting on a toilet. He says that all his training with rationality and logical reasoning had him rule out the supernatural, but he couldn't explain it. I don't know the validity of the tale, but I love his story anyway, because it reminds me of that photo that called out to me near the 101 freeway. He gave me hope that someone else understood the magic. Have you found any lately?
I was just scrolling through some files and came upon these words I wrote four years ago on May 22:
Now I'm reading these essays about the great Philip Roth, supposedly the last "literary lion." Well, that one's up to the readers. I first heard of him in my first creative writing class at 19. Our professor said that he and John Updike were the greatest living American authors. He was right about Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson being the greatest poets in American history, MLK Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech being the greatest speech in American history, and Abraham Lincoln being the greatest speech writing president. These weren't necessarily controversial opinions, but it was important that he directed our young minds to such legendary style, talent and wisdom.
Even though I learned of him when I was 19, I didn't get around to reading Roth until I was 23. I was living in Queens, just past the halfway point during my first three year experience in New York City after graduation. I'd just attempted to write my first novel. I used my imagination to make it fiction and told those who asked as much, although it was based on everything I had experienced in my first few years as an adult. "Write what you know" as my professor told us. I recently read that Roth was very true to that adage in his material. I've only read one of his novels, which was Portnoy's Complaint. When people read his title, I doubt the word "magic" comes to mind, but it does for me. It's not what you look at, it's what you see.
When I think of that novel, I think of the afterword to the 25th anniversary edition I'd happened to reserve from the New York Public Library. There was a story called "Juice or Gravy." I've read since that people think it was all an allegory for his life's work, but I like to think it's real. He tells a story about being 23 years old, going to this cafeteria, and finding this piece of paper that someone had left there. It had 19 sentences in a paragraph, and none of them appeared connected at all. He left it there, but found it again later. Eventually he took it, and supposedly made no effort whatsoever to hold onto it. Even so, he kept finding it at the strangest times. So he decided those were the first sentences to 19 novels he had to write, and he completed the task in 1994. He said it was evidence of something larger than him that he couldn't control, something everyone intuits the first time they are aware that they're sitting on a toilet. He says that all his training with rationality and logical reasoning had him rule out the supernatural, but he couldn't explain it. I don't know the validity of the tale, but I love his story anyway, because it reminds me of that photo that called out to me near the 101 freeway. He gave me hope that someone else understood the magic. Have you found any lately?
I was just scrolling through some files and came upon these words I wrote four years ago on May 22:
The better you become at finding it, the world knows you’re
(1:01) becoming skilled at finding it, and it makes itself easier to be found
in more and more ways. It wants to be
found by those who love to find it.
Listen to the wind, do you hear?
"LOOK... SEE... TOUCH... FEEL... TASTE... MAKE... DO... while you are still magic"
(This link added on May 26, having just read The New Yorker: "A full human being strong in the magic")
(This link added on May 26, having just read The New Yorker: "A full human being strong in the magic")
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