Happiness was the fact that he had existed. ― Albert Camus, A Happy Death

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Albert Camus.

 "The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."

"The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding."

 Don't lies eventually lead to the truth? And don't all my stories, true or false, tend toward the same conclusion? Don't they all have the same meaning? So what does it matter whether they are true or false if, in both cases, they are significant of what I have been and what I am? Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

What did it matter if he existed for two or for twenty years? Happiness was the fact that he had existed.”
― Albert Camus, A Happy Death

"Nothing is more despicable than respect based on fear."

hiRSCHwoRTH

Click here to read "Tonsorial Parlor"

http://hirschworth.com/tag/mark-zipoli/

[excerpted from "Tonsorial Parlor" published in Hirschworth, 10/20/2013]

“No salt,” said The Other Sal, having accepted a slice from Big Sal.  “Not enough pepper, and the carrots are hard.”

            “You don’t like anything my wife cooks,” said Big Sal.

            “Then why do you bring her stuff to me?”

            “Because she tells me to,” he shrugged, and brought the tips of his fingers together and upward.  These had been the first words spoken between the men in seven days.

            “You’re a grown man, Sal, an old grown man.  Why don’t you tell her to go screw?”

            “She’s my wife, Sal.”

            “Doesn’t change the fact your wife cooks like shit,” said The Other Sal.

            “Maybe.”

            “For thirty years I’ve been telling you this.”

            “Thirty years you’ve been telling me a lot of things.”

            “What’s that supposed to mean?”

            “Here we go,” Rhonda muttered as she put down her fork and took up her steno pad and pen.  She brushed her long dark hair back over her shoulders and perched sideways on her chair.

A small basket of Edna St. Vincent Millay.

As if from a garden of the mind, here is a small basket of Edna St. Vincent Millay.

     "Fontaine, Je Ne Boirai Pas De Ton Eau!"  (from Huntsman, What Quarry?)

I know I might have lived in such a way
As to have suffered only pain:
Loving not man nor dog;
Not money, even; feeling
Toothache perhaps, but never more than an hour away 
From skill and novocaine;
Making no contacts, dealing with light through agents, drinking
   one cocktail, betting two dollars, wearing raincoats in the
   rain;
Betrayed at length by  no one but the fog
Whispering to the wing of the plane.

"Fountain," I have cried to that unbubbling well, "I will not
   drink of thy water!"  Yet I thirst
For a mouthful of--not to swallow, only to rinse my mouth in
   --peace.  And while the eyes of the past condemn,
The eyes of the present narrow into assignation.  And...
   worst...
The young are so old, they are born with their fingers crossed; 
   I shall get no help from them.

Huntsman, What Quarry?   (1939)

 
     "Sonnet #XI," from "Fatal Interview"

Not in a silver casket cool with pearls
Or rich with red corundum or with blue,
Locked, and the key withheld, as other girls
Have given their loves, I give my love to you;
Not in a lovers' knot, not in a ring
Worked in such fashion, and the legend plain--
Semper fidelis, where a secret spring
Kennels a drop of mischief for the brain:
Love in the open hand, no thing but that,
Ungemmed, unhidden, wishing not to hurt,
As one should bring you cowslips in a hat
Swung from the hand, or apples in her skirt,
I bring you, calling out as children do:
"Look what I have!--And these are all for you."

Fatal Interview    (1931)

Millay's upstate New York home, "Steepletop"

 I'm still reading, although I'm close to the end, Nancy Milford's biography of Edna St. V. Millay, Savage Beauty.  Besides the other great things I learned so far from reading this bio, Edna was a friend and lover of Llewelyn Powys; a fan of Conrad Aiken; a visitor to W. Somerset Maugham. I love the fine print.

Why I Love John Fante #1

Why I love John Fante #1

John Fante as a young man

(excerpt of dialogue between mother and son, from the story "A Kidnapping in the Family"):

"Something did happen!  What happened?"
"Nothing happened!" she said in exasperation.  "Your uncle told me who your father was, and we shook hands.  And that's all."
"Is that all?"
"That's all."
"Didn't anything else happen?"
"Your father courted me, and after a few months we were married.  That's all."
But I didn't like it that way.  I hated it.  I wouldn't have it.  I couldn't believe it.  I wouldn't believe it.
"No sirree!" I said.  "It didn't happen like that."
"But it did.  Why should I lie to you?  There's nothing to hide."
"Didn't he do anything to you?  Didn't he kidnap you, or something?"
"I don't remember being kidnapped."
"But you were kidnapped!"
She sat down, the broom between her knees, her two hands clutching it, and her head resting on her hands.  She was so tired, and yet the fatigue melted from her face and she smiled vaguely, the ghost-smile of the lady in the picture.
"Yes!" she said.  "He did kidnap me! He came one night when I was asleep and took me away."
"Yes!" I said.  "Yes!"
"He took me to an outlaw cabin in the mountains!"
"Sure!  And he was carrying a gun, wasn't he?"
"Yes!  A big gun.  With a pearl handle."
"And he was riding a black horse."
"Oh," she said.  "I shall never forget that horse.  "He was a beauty!"
"And you were scared to death, weren't you?"
"Petrified," she said.  "Simply petrified."
"You screamed for help, didn't you?"
"I screamed and screamed."
"But he got away, didn't he?"
"Yes, he got away."
"He took you to the outlaw cabin."
"Yes, that's where he took me."
"You were scared, but you liked it, didn't you?"
"I loved it."
"He kept you a prisoner, didn't he?"
"Yes, but he was good to me."
"Were you wearing that white dress?  The one in the picture?"
"I certainly was.  Why?"
"I just wanted to know," I said.  "How long did he keep you prisoner?"
"Three days and nights."
"And on the third night he proposed to you, didn't he?"
Her eyes closed reminiscently.
"I shall never forget it," she said.  "He got down on his knees and begged me to marry him."
"You wouldn't marry him at first, would you?"
"Not at first.  I should say not!  It was a long time before I said yes."
"But finally you did, huh?"
"Yes," she said.  "Finally."
This was too much for me.  Too much.  I threw my arms around her and kissed her, and on my lips was the sharp tang of tears.

John Fante's mother and father, Mary and Nick

Print copies are now available of the October 2013 issue of Writing Tomorrow. Therein you will find my short story, "Odysseus in Woodside."

October 2013 issue of Writing Tomorrow is now available.  And in it, you will find my short story, "Odysseus in Woodside."  I encourage you to check out this magazine.  And perhaps purchase a copy.

Print copies are finally available from the website. Go to:
 http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/627557



Here is the into paragraph from Writing Tomorrow's website:

Odyssey: A long walk home for a boy facing life without his mother; the blink-of-an eye flight a coercive father and his lethargic son share; a grandson’s life of atonement; a drug run to Mexico, an awkward dinner at Grandma’s…journeys where characters don’t merely move between two points, but are moved by their experiences. Like every good story we are not shaped by our destination, but by the journey.

Welcome to the October 2013 issue of Writing Tomorrow, featuring our first WT  Short Story Award winner and the honorable mentions.

For immediate gratification, click HERE and enjoy a free PDF. To support Writing Tomorrow and this month’s contributors, purchase a print or ipad/electronic copy.

Orhan Pamuk says #9. We write to go in search of that strange voice inside us, and to make it heard, first for ourselves, and then for others, so that readers, all readers, can hear it.

Orhan Pamuk

[It has been some time since I posted what Orhan Pamuk says, so I thought I'd catch you up with a selection from Mr. Pamuk's speech at the Frankfurt Book Fair, October 14, 2008, in Frankfurt, Germany.  The full text can be read at www.orhanpamuk.net]

Istanbul street at night

…We writers do not write our books thinking about the millions of other books in the world, nor do we write them to confirm our humility or our dreams of brotherhood; we write to go in search of that strange voice inside us, and to make it heard, first for ourselves, and then for others, so that readers, all readers, can hear it. 

That is why we know that we must look into the depths of our souls, until we arrive at the place of difference. That place owes its otherness to our soul, our body, our home, our family, our street, our city, our language, our history. All this reminds us that the urge to sit down and write has something to do with our identity – what others call our ‘national identity’.

Pamuk crossing an Istanbul bridge

…The novelist speaks with conviction about the poetry he sees in his personal life, or the shadows that darken it, but critics and readers read his books as expressions of a country’s poetry, and a country’s shadows. Even the novelist’s most private imaginings and creative idiosyncrasies are taken as descriptions of an entire nation, even as representations of that nation.

Ideas about identity and character may change from person to person, and from country to country; what is constant is the preoccupation with being misunderstood by the rest of the world.