monochrome
I sit down, and stare hard at that keyboard. The paper. The pens and pencils.
"You're going to write."
Stare at the lamp's bare bulb until it burns my retina. Watch the ceiling fan rotate slowly, blades swishing like lazy goldfish swimming in the same fishbowl over and over and over again. Is it me or is the room darker than it usually is?
"Put the pen to paper. Make the magic happen."
Stare outside. Not a single thing in sight, not even an occasional bird. The gray overcast sky casts a pallid color over everything, and it feels like there has never been color here.
if there is no color then why waste time mixing the ink?
Lolita Film/Book Splice
The next instalment comparing books to their film adaptations
Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, written in English and first published in 1955 in Paris, in 1958 in New York City, and in 1959 in London. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the professor obsessed with the 12-year-old Dolores Haze, with whom he becomes sexually involved after he becomes her stepfather.
Lolita quickly attained a classic status; it is today regarded as one of the prime achievements in 20th century literature, though also among the most infamous. The novel was adapted to film twice, once by Stanley Kubrick in 1962, and again in 1997 by Adrian Lyne. It is to the latter adaptation that the comparison is to be made in this article.
Its assimilation into popular culture is such that the name "Lolita" is now often used to describe a sexually precocious girl, or one that adopts the childish costume roleplay and/or sexual power play games.
The classification of Lolita being an ‘erotic novel’ has often been disputed. Malcolm Bradbury writes "at first famous as an erotic novel, Lolita soon won its way as a literary one – a late modernist distillation of the whole crucial mythology." Samuel Schuman says that Nabokov "is a surrealist, linked to Gogol, Dostoyevsky, and Kafka. Lolita is characterized by irony and sarcasm. It is not an erotic novel".
The plot:
If you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last fifty or so years, you won’t have heard about Lolita. For those that have emerged, blinking and bearded into the literary light only now, here’s the plot.
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Read the rest of the comparison in the article later today on www.blog.theprose.com
Strong, silent type.
Magdelena.
Mary Magdelene.
Macdala.
Migdula.
McDonald’s.
McMuffin.
Mary.
These are a handful of things I’ve been called by people who don’t bother to learn how to pronounce my first name. I always felt ashamed of my name; it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Mig-DAH-li-ah, with a soft “g”. It rolls off my tongue but that’s because I say it several times a day to the patients I work with. I still need to correct the pronunciation with doctors who have worked with me for years.
My peers in elementary school bullied me because of my name. Kids would approach me and ask to order a McMuffin or would just call me McDonald’s. I’m laughing as I’m typing this but at the time, I was devastated. I begged my parents to change my name. Any trendy white name, like Tiffany, Ashley or Jessica. It wouldn’t be my only request to erase evidence of my ethnic background.
When I was in 7th grade I had an English teacher who made racist comments. We had a bilingual program for students who spoke primarily Spanish. When some of the boys were in the hall were being rowdy, my teacher announced that they needed to be “shipped back”.
I hated her. She was old then, so hopefully life saw it fit to stop her from being a c*** to anyone else. I don’t wish death on people...I just wish peace for the rest of us.
The first day of school was always the worst. I listened to the teacher read names off the list in alphabetical order and could always tell when mine was next. There would be a pause as the teacher’s eyebrows furrowed and lips pursed. This would lead to some variation of, “Okay, I’m going to kill your first AND last name.” Neither one was easy. I’d always volunteer the pronunciation. I was confident they were referring to me and can’t remember ever being wrong.
In the beginning of the school year, this teacher called me Mary Magdalene. I’d catch her laughing after she said it; I can only assume she was thinking of Mary Magdalene from the Bible. She must have thought she was so damn clever. Her smug face...I hated it. I was meek and never said anything to my parents or anyone else of authority.
Instead, I ignored her. If she called on Mary or Mary Magdalene to read a paragraph in our English book she would be met with silence. She’d repeat herself until she was yelling and red in the face. I’d make eye contact with her and insist, “That’s not my name.” On one occasion she admitted that she couldn’t be bothered to pronounce a name like mine and would continue to call me Mary. I shrugged and said, “I don’t answer to Mary.”
I was a quiet student but a stubborn kid. I was tired of fighting off assholes who couldn’t (or wouldn’t respect me enough to try) pronounce my name.
Towards the end of the year, this bitter old bitch lost her patience with Mary Magdalene. She called for Mary, did not get a response, and announced that she would get the guidance counselor to “straighten me out”. We sat in shocked silence; I was the student who never got in trouble. A couple Puerto Rican students in the class nodded their respect at me because they were frustrated with her racist comments as well.
The teacher returned and continued with her lesson as if she never left. I glanced at my friends sitting next to me and shrugged. She never called on me again and I was never approached by a guidance counselor.
Listen. I’m happy to respond to a nickname. But when you refuse to acknowledge me and my culture due to laziness (and possible racist undertones) then you can fuck yourself with a rusty dildo. All day.
R.R.I.P.M.B.
Something happened on the day he died. Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside. Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried. That place we hide deep down inside the darkest confines of our subconscious mind just may be intertwined with the superconscious or divine. I bet Bowie's soul's agreeing with that line more or less at this time. Let us remind ourselves to rewind the inner-hell to the chapter before that spell was cast, when all characters comprising this curious cosmic cast reveled in the inner-shelf of pure creative fun and formless, absolute Self. May Bowie's soul channel through these words that are wrote on this map aboard our boat afloat on the cosmic ocean of no-sin, just all-knowin' and absolute justice, omniscience and omnibenevolence, eternal return and primordial elegance. Let us keep rowing, and rest/rejoice in peace, Master Bowie.
Sidecar
My soul has a sidecar
But lacks a passenger
That's adventurous and daring;
Life's marvelous challenger.
Though the sidecar's pretty nice,
What's even better are the sights
That you and me would go and see
On those amazing star filled nights.
We'll drive for miles and miles
And have adventures galore.
We'd see all there is to be seen
And discover even more
Though we'll hit bumps and holes and such,
Maybe even pop a tire,
We'll fix it up and drive on through
Because we'll have what we desire.
And when our gas has all run out
And the engine's all but died
It will be alright, we won't fright
Because we'll be by each other's side.
vi.
he watched her in her deepest sleep;
for a moment he could swear he almost saw her breathe.
i. Before
1993: sitting at his step mother's house where she kissed him on the mouth and he almost touched her blouse.
ii.
1996: he kissed her neck and she cradled his head as she wrapped her legs around his waist and he laid her on her bed.
iii.
20 weeks: the house slept as her cancer repulsed and they sat together as her shoulders convulsed.
iv.
16 weeks: he remembered the dress she wore when her hair fell out in fistfuls to the floor and her mom said she was adorning; she burned that dress the next morning.
v.
8 weeks early: he clutched her hand and held her too close and she slipped away as her bones turned to shadows.
vi.
for a moment he could swear he almost saw her breathe.
