The original intention of my last post was to do what I’m going to do with this one. But I lost the plot there and took a rather random journey. 
So here it is … what I was orginally going to post about.
Earlier this year I read an amazing book … “House of Leaves” by Mark Z. Danielewski. (‘House’ in blue because in the book everytime the word house appears it is in blue text – a little bit of a shout out.) A post-post-modern work that can be challenging and definitely fucks with your brain a bit. But so unique, pushing the boundaries and just … wow.
I want to share a few of my favourite passages. One because it is hysterically funny. Another because I found it quite zen-like. And two more because I found them very insightful and thought provoking.
(Karen Green, Will Navidson’s wife, shows the film of the freaky house to people and wants their take on it. She is interviewing Hunter Thompson – in the book not in reality. These are not Hunter Thompson’s words because there IS no film and this is fiction. But the thing is it is a damn good imitation and that is what makes it hilarious.)
“Setting: Giants Stadium.
Thompson: It’s been a bad morning.
Karen: What did you think of the footage?
Thompson: I’ve been staying with friends, but they kicked me out this morning.
Karen: I’m sorry.
Thompson: Your film didn’t help. It’s, well … one thing in two words: fucked up … very fucked up. Okay three words, four words, who the hell cares … very very fucked up. What I’d call a bad trip. I never thought I’d hear myself say this but lady you need to lay off the acid, the mescaline, or whatever else you’re snorting, inhaling, ingesting … check yourself into rehab, something, anything because you’re gonna be in a bad way if you don’t do something fast. I’ve never seen anything so goddamn fucked up. so fucking fucked up. I broke things because of it, plates, a small jade figurine of a penguin. A glass bullfrog. I was so upset I even threw my friend’s fishtank at their china cabinet. Ugly, very ugly. Salt water, dead fish everywhere, me screaming “so very very fucked up.” Five words. They threw me out. Do you think I could spend the night at your place?”
Then this (about Navidson toying with his coffee):
‘He adds sugar, milk, stirs it all up, stirs it again, and then as an afterthought adds more sugar, a little more milk. The liquid rises to the rim and then by a fraction exceeds even this limit. Only it does not spill. It holds – a bulge of coffee arcing tragically over china, preserved by the physics of surface tension, rhyme to some unspeakable magic, though as everyone knows, coffee miracles never last long. The morning wake-up call wobbles, splits and then abruptly slips over the edge, now a Nile of caffeine wending past glass and politics until there is nothing more than a brown blot on the morning paper.’
I felt something nearly zen-like for a milli-instant in that picture of the bulging coffee. A moment of absolute stillness. Just that moment waiting for the bulge to give way and the coffee to spill.
And on the meaning of passion:
“Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience. It is not about feeling good. It is about endurance. Like patience, passion comes from the same Latin root: pati. It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer.”
Ah and the one on passion so relevant to all things creative and “those” heavy posts. I love this one. Passion does indeed mean to work and suffer.
And lastly on killing time:
“Who has never killed an hour? Not casually or without thought, but carefully: a premeditated murder of minutes. The violence comes from a combination of giving up, not caring, and a resignation that getting past it is all you can hope to accomplish. So you kill the hour. You do not work, you do not read, you do not daydream. If you sleep it is not because you need to sleep. And when at last it is over, there is no evidence: no weapon, no blood, no body. The only clue might be the shadows beneath your eyes or a terribly thin line near the corner of your mouth indicating something has been suffered, that in the privacy of your life you have lost something and the loss is too empty to share.”
Wise, wise words from ‘House of Leaves’ by Mark Z. Danielewski