Starry Starry Nights

Ann Demeulemeesterr

“The city is loveliest when the sweet death racket begins. Her own life lived in defiance of nature, her electricity, her frigidaires, her soundproof walls, the glint of lacquered nails, the plumes that wave across the corrugated sky. Here in the coffin depths grow the everlasting flowers sent by telegraph. In the vaults below the river bed the gold ingots. A desert glittering with mica and the telephone loudly ringing.

In the early evening, when death rattles the spine, the crowd moves compact, elbow to elbow, each member of the great herd driven by loneliness; breast to breast towards the wall of self, frustrate, isolate, sardine upon sardine, all seeking the universal can opener.”

Henry Miller, Black Spring (1936)

Southern Gothic

I finally started reading Flannery O'Connor - A Good Man is Hard to Find & Other Stories.

umm... terrifying, I didn't know what hit me. I'd thought them to be witty and sardonic until the savagery began. I do love the dripping southern colloquialisms - and the character names - June Star, Bevel, Pointer. In an odd way theses stories remind me of J.D Salinger's Nine Stories. The precocious children, alcoholic mothers and bitter endings.

Ladies

People are always telling me that I would love LA - in the same way that they might not care for a movie but think I would love it - thanks. I haven't been yet but there is an invitation to a very luxe wedding in May, may be difficult with the baby...
Anyways, while doing a search for Flannery O'Connor I came across these two bloggers - Tarnished Lady & The Moldy Doily - who would be my ideal friends if I lived in LA. They represent to me the combo of smarts with the I don't take myself to seriously mystical magicality fun of an invented oasis.

I was searching for Flannery O'Connor as I read an excellent quote by her (pointed out by my friend Heather M) in our last book club book Out: "The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience..."

The book Out was a gory but good read, I would not have picked it out or read any crime fiction if it weren't for book club (why I love book club). I now feel as though I too have been a dreary woman working in a depressing boxed lunch factory in Japan who has both murdered and been an accomplice to murder - Natsuo Kirino is good with the details.