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668ffa5
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War is ninety percent myth anyway, isn't it? In order to prosecute our own wars we raise them to the level of human sacrifice, don't we, and we constantly invoke our God. It's got to be about something bigger than dying, or we'd all turn deserter.
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Denis Johnson |
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fe5a446
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WE'RE ON THE CUTTING EDGE OF REALITY ITSELF. RIGHT WHERE IT TURNS INTO A DREAM
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Denis Johnson |
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4820e9a
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When I reached the street I didn't know whether to go right or left. Soon I'd have to start acting like a person who cared about what happened to him.
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direction
left
life
meaning
person
right
street
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Denis Johnson |
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887dfe9
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If you like the fields we'd walk away from the road into the fields, or we'd go fishing, if that's what you like to do. The sun would set and we'd build a fire. The trees and rocks would shrink and their shadows would grow. People don't have eyes by the light of a fire. No, that's glib and pointless. It's all glib and pointless. In the worlds that live in these tears just as much as in the real world, I'd stare at you and have no idea who y..
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Denis Johnson |
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e821b61
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After a noticeable silence, he'd recently published a book of technically baffling poems, with line breaks so arbitrary and frequent as to be useless, arrhythmic. On the page they look like some of Charles Bukowski's skinny, chatty, muttering-stuttering antiverses. Impossibly, Mark's words make music, the faraway strains of an irresistible jazz. It's plain to any reader, within a few lines--well, go read the poems and see, Marcus Ahearn tra..
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jazz
klee
poetry
psychic-improvisation
writing
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Denis Johnson |
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a315360
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Incidentally, this is the only letter I'll send-- don't think I'll turn you in, don't think for a second I'd alert the authorities, I mean, fuck them, and certainly, of course, fuck you, but above everything fuck them. I've always stood for that. Admittedly not much else.
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Denis Johnson |
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5efc09d
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If illness didn't kill you, you died of bad luck.
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Denis Johnson |
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e64a9bb
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We can't always tell the whole story about ourselves.
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Denis Johnson |
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9063625
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Memories assailed him of how gently she had spoken, touched, and moved; of how she'd loved him fiercely despite his mistakes and obsessions and weaknesses. And the conviction descended on him that love like theirs couldn't possibly suffer any change.
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Denis Johnson |
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639b2e6
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After the film it was raining, a light steady rain. Ruthless neon on the wet streets like busted candy.
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neon
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Denis Johnson |
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958e952
|
After a noticeable silence, he'd recently published a book of technically baffling poems, with line breaks so arbitrary and frequent as to be useless, arrhythmic. On the page they look like some of Charles Bukowski's skinny, chatty, muttering-stuttering antiverses. Impossibly, Mark's words make music, the faraway strains of an irresistible jazz. It's plain to any reader, within a few lines--well, go read the poems and see, Marcus Ahearn tra..
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jazz
klee
poetry
psychic-improvisation
writing
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Denis Johnson |
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2f43e58
|
This wasn't the sea of the inexorable horizon and smashing waves, not the sea of distance and violence, but the sea of the etenally leveling patience and wetness of water. Whether it comes to you in a storm or in a cup, it owns you--we are more water than dust. It is our origin and our destination.
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Denis Johnson |
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4a4b6e6
|
I know they argue about whether or not it's right, whether or not the baby is alive at this point or that point in its growth inside the womb. This wasn't about that. It wasn't what the lawyers did. It wasn't what the doctors did, it wasn't what the woman did. It was what the mother and father did together.
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Denis Johnson |
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e2b2496
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I knew that, but he didn't, and therefore I looked down into the great pity of a person's life on this earth. I don't mean that we all end up dead, that's not the great pity. I mean that he couldn't tell me what he was dreaming, and I couldn't tell him what was real.
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Denis Johnson |
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98b3f6e
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The Past just left. Its remnants, I claim, are mostly fiction. We're stranded here with the threadbare patchwork of memory, you with yours, I with mine.
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Denis Johnson |
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1f42935
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Once in a while I lie there, as the television runs, and I read something wild and ancient from one of several collections of folktales I own. Apples that summon sea maidens, eggs that fulfill any wish, pears that make people grow long noses that fall off again. Then sometimes I get up and don my robe and go out into our quiet neighborhood looking for a magic thread, a magic sword, a magic horse.
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Denis Johnson |
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d9e9f91
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Glaciers had crushed this region in the time before history. There'd been a drought for years, and a bronze fog of dust stood over the plains. The soybean crop was dead again, and the failed, wilted cornstalks were laid out on the ground like rows of underthings. Most of the farmers didn't even plant anymore. All the false visions had been erased. It felt like the moment before the Savior comes. And the Savior did come, but we had to wait a..
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Denis Johnson |
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0d4c715
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The movie's not over till everybody's dead.
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Denis Johnson |
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4f7ac3e
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He was in his fifties. He'd wasted his entire life. Such people were very dear to those of us who'd wasted only a few years.
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Denis Johnson |
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6e84d80
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She took my heat. Traded it to the devil for some bauble.
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Denis Johnson |
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e36c0bd
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The lid, however, wouldn't shut. The mind held back the whole sky.
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lid
mind
sky
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Denis Johnson |
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05f2c19
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Talk into here. Talk into my bullet hole. Tell me I'm fine.
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Denis Johnson |
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d99cb59
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It was one of the moments you stay in, to hell with all the troubles of before and after. The sky is blue and the dead are coming back. Later in the afternoon, with sad resignation, the county fair bares its breasts.
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Denis Johnson |
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92d9045
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Living up the Moyea with plenty of small chores to distract him, he forgot he was a sad man. When the hymns began, he remembered.
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Denis Johnson |
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51b6dea
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Grainier still went to services some rare times, when a trip to town coincided. People spoke nicely to him there, people recognized him from the days when he'd attended almost regularly with Gladys, but he generally regretted going. He very often wept in church. Living up the Moyea with plenty of small chores to distract him, he forgot he was a sad man. When the hymns began, he remembered.
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Denis Johnson |
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6d4c3a9
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Though simple and obvious as an act of art, the drawing portrayed the silly, helpless tendency of fundamental things to get way off course and turn into nonsense, illustrated the church's grotesque pearling around its traditional heart, explained the pernicious extrapolating rules and observances of governments - implicated all of us in a gradual apostasy from every perfect thing we find or make.
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Denis Johnson |
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f0647e9
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All night the dreamer travels in this region and doesn't realize he's asleep. The differences between the logic of that world and the logic of this waking one are vast. But they feel the same. And isn't that how we recognize logic, by the way it feels?
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Denis Johnson |
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cf8db38
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It seemed the two held forth on parallel tracks, confident of meeting somewhere in infinity.
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Denis Johnson |
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9fc116b
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Write naked. That means to write what you would never say.
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Denis Johnson |
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c8bb9f5
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When we stopped in front of it and turned off the engine, we heard music coming from inside--jazz. It sounded sophisticated and lonely. We
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Denis Johnson |
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a5f0d3b
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First I put my lips to her upper lip, then to the bottom of her pout, and then I kissed her fully, my mouth on her open mouth, and we met inside.
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Denis Johnson |
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8997ad3
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She was a woman, a traitor, and a killer. Males and females wanted her. But I was the only one who ever could have loved her.
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jesus-son
love
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Denis Johnson |
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a89c7b8
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The man hanging out of the wrecked car was still alive as I passed, and I stopped, grown a little more used to the idea now of how really badly broken he was, and made sure there was nothing I could do. He was snoring loudly and rudely. His blood bubbled out of his mouth with every breath. He wouldn't be taking many more. I knew that, but he didn't, and therefore I looked down into the great pity of a person's life on this earth. I don't me..
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Denis Johnson |
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0869bbc
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If he died now, Grainier probably wouldn't know it until they came into the light of the gas lamps either side of the doctor's house. After they'd moved along for nearly an hour without conversation, listening only to the creaking wagon and the sound of the nearby river and the clop of the mares, it grew dark.
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Denis Johnson |
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7071e2b
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It felt like the moment before the Savior comes. And the Savior did come, but we had to wait a long time.
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Denis Johnson |
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52f9e5f
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But come to California. Come to these canyons if you want to be driven by sacredness into the air. If you dream of the true, clear silences, if you want those silences to sing - come to California.
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Denis Johnson |
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9b90437
|
I note that I've lived longer in the past now, than I can expect to live in the future. I have more to remember than I have to look forward to. Memory fades, not much of the past stays, and I wouldn't mind forgetting more of it.
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Denis Johnson |
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b1f9833
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Meaning can't change from person to person, and still be true
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Denis Johnson |
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d8e1714
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THE PEOPLE'S THIRST FOR FREEDOM HAS DRIVEN US TO DRINK BAD WATER.
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Denis Johnson |
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1a5d904
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Her midriff bare, like the denizen...of some pampering seraglio.
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Denis Johnson |
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cd4bdeb
|
My father is dead!" As soon as he'd said it, Fiskadoro saw he'd made it true again--again for the first time. Did it just go around and around? He began to see that his sorrow wasn't simple. It wasn't one thing, but a thousand things carrying him away to the Ocean: the work of a person's life was to drink it."
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Denis Johnson |
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c00dd67
|
It's a beautiful day" - by which we meant that the weather was good. But we never say, "The weather's good," "The weather's pleasant." We say, "It's a beautiful day," "What a beautiful day."
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expressions
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Denis Johnson |
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c8214d0
|
He'd come to war to see abstractions become realities. Instead he'd seen the reverse. Everything was abstract now.
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Denis Johnson |
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9e8210c
|
You've never felt good. Your suffering protects you. Pain is the ransom you have gladly paid not to be free.
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Denis Johnson |