I love these meandering and dreamy conversations you are having with us, Laurie. That David Hockney is a treasure. HE was a treasure and all the light-filled beauty he gifted to us. Thank you!
Thanks you. The technique is composed and intentional . . . something like writing music. If you would like to know more about it, please come to one of our Zoom conversations on writing technique, the next one is on June 27 from 3 to 4. Best, Laurie
I’ve been watching many BBC docs on Hockney. Here’s what I love - he absolutely decided to live his life to suit him AND he was a joy machine that everyone who wanted to could benefit from. That is the kind of math I get.
I love how one thing simply opens into another here, Laurie. Hockney leads to the city, Dorothy to all the misfits in the same bar, a stranger’s scooter to an old hurt, and somehow even the perfume before Zoom belongs to the same current. Nothing feels planned, but nothing feels accidental either.
“We are all rivers flowing into each other.” Yes.
Maybe that is why the smallest encounters follow us around for years. Someone lends us their glasses, trusts us with a scooter, gives something away without knowing where it will travel next….
Also: this made me want to go for a walk immediately.
I adore this comment. Please email me if you would like to attend the Zoom conversation on Saturday from 3 to 4 EST if you haven't already: lauriestone@substack.com We will definitely talk about the techniques in this piece and in this form of writing. I can explain the criteria that go into it.
Love CB Strike! There is a part of me that wishes you had not given up your NYC apartment, you could visit more often, but I do understand having given up an EV apartment when I just could not keep living that schikzo life.
I hope that Richard's 2nd operation is as successful as his first.
i love your parallel between the cowardly lion (burt lahr is the most!), tin man & scarecrow and the misfits of times square. auntie em for sure is a drag and figures they’d want dorothy to choose a life drained of color. fingers x’d for richard’s surgery! looking forward to the next zoom🩵
I love all of this. When I long for New York, which I do with regularity, what I miss is falling in love with strangers and all the conversations on the streets. Paris is not the same...
"When I cleaned out the space, it made me feel I was adding time to what I had left. I think what I was imagining is that tossing out boxes of this and that would make me lighter, and the thin rats have a better chance of succeeding in the tests they are run through." Indeed.
Your haunted drifting back and forth across the border between memory and fiction put me in mind of something Bob Dylan once told an interviewer:
"Sometimes the 'you' in my songs is me talking to me. Other times I can be talking to somebody else. If I'm talking to me in a song, I'm not going to drop everything and say, alright, now I'm talking to you. It's up to you to figure out who's who. A lot of times it's 'you' talking to 'you.' The 'I,' like in 'I and I,"'also changes. It could be I, or it could be the 'I' who created me. And also, it could be another person who's saying 'I.' When I say 'I' right now, I don't know who I'm talking about."
(So, okay: Dylan. Problematic to even bring him up sometimes and in many contexts. Even so, like they say, even a stopped clock is right a couple times a day.)
When my hearing got fuzzy it was the first time I understood what people meant when they said something was lost when talkies came along. It was a relief to drop the bandwidth in charge of following the plot and, as I suspect, screenwriters are getting a little extra help from computer programs and adding a filigree of twists, false endings and more twists which has started to feel like homework. I was content just listening to the emotion tone and having extra time to pay attention to the cinematography, costumes and sets....if my time comes I hope I'm as brave as Richard.....I too was surprised that I carried so little nostalgia for the city; only feel a pang about the Met. Glad we got to live a version of the Royal Tennenbaums when we lived with Ruth Messinger and her kids on 87th between Columbus and Amsterdam. I real lifesaver too. And healing for when I left the last time after wintering over twice with no place of my own, living by my wits. We were country mice looking for a school for the deaf for our first grader....Looking forward to the next zoom.
I love these meandering and dreamy conversations you are having with us, Laurie. That David Hockney is a treasure. HE was a treasure and all the light-filled beauty he gifted to us. Thank you!
Thanks you. The technique is composed and intentional . . . something like writing music. If you would like to know more about it, please come to one of our Zoom conversations on writing technique, the next one is on June 27 from 3 to 4. Best, Laurie
It’s lovely!! Thank you for the invitation.
A joy machine is a great way to describe your writing and my life with you. I like living it.
Same, loverboy.
I’ve been watching many BBC docs on Hockney. Here’s what I love - he absolutely decided to live his life to suit him AND he was a joy machine that everyone who wanted to could benefit from. That is the kind of math I get.
Me, too. I am trying to be a joy machine, too. xxL
Your essay was fun. I felt like I was looking at the people you described.
A respite from the “real world. A treat.
Later I thought you are the one describing the real world.
Cheers.
Yes, I am describing a world that is real. Don't let the muthafuckers drain your life force and attention.
"Day for Night" -- what a great movie!
So good. The butter!
This is such a beautiful piece.
I love how one thing simply opens into another here, Laurie. Hockney leads to the city, Dorothy to all the misfits in the same bar, a stranger’s scooter to an old hurt, and somehow even the perfume before Zoom belongs to the same current. Nothing feels planned, but nothing feels accidental either.
“We are all rivers flowing into each other.” Yes.
Maybe that is why the smallest encounters follow us around for years. Someone lends us their glasses, trusts us with a scooter, gives something away without knowing where it will travel next….
Also: this made me want to go for a walk immediately.
I adore this comment. Please email me if you would like to attend the Zoom conversation on Saturday from 3 to 4 EST if you haven't already: lauriestone@substack.com We will definitely talk about the techniques in this piece and in this form of writing. I can explain the criteria that go into it.
Oh Laurie, yes -- I’d love to come.
I’d already spotted the Zoom in the post and was doing a bit of schedule Tetris, so your reply made me grin. I’m emailing you now.
Love CB Strike! There is a part of me that wishes you had not given up your NYC apartment, you could visit more often, but I do understand having given up an EV apartment when I just could not keep living that schikzo life.
I hope that Richard's 2nd operation is as successful as his first.
Onward.
m
Let’s plan a visit to you in N Adams after R is recovered from second surgery. ❤️
i love your parallel between the cowardly lion (burt lahr is the most!), tin man & scarecrow and the misfits of times square. auntie em for sure is a drag and figures they’d want dorothy to choose a life drained of color. fingers x’d for richard’s surgery! looking forward to the next zoom🩵
I love all of this. When I long for New York, which I do with regularity, what I miss is falling in love with strangers and all the conversations on the streets. Paris is not the same...
Paris is definitely not the same.
"When I cleaned out the space, it made me feel I was adding time to what I had left. I think what I was imagining is that tossing out boxes of this and that would make me lighter, and the thin rats have a better chance of succeeding in the tests they are run through." Indeed.
Series recommendation: The Danish 7 part Families Like Ours. (Not what it sounds like.)
Your haunted drifting back and forth across the border between memory and fiction put me in mind of something Bob Dylan once told an interviewer:
"Sometimes the 'you' in my songs is me talking to me. Other times I can be talking to somebody else. If I'm talking to me in a song, I'm not going to drop everything and say, alright, now I'm talking to you. It's up to you to figure out who's who. A lot of times it's 'you' talking to 'you.' The 'I,' like in 'I and I,"'also changes. It could be I, or it could be the 'I' who created me. And also, it could be another person who's saying 'I.' When I say 'I' right now, I don't know who I'm talking about."
(So, okay: Dylan. Problematic to even bring him up sometimes and in many contexts. Even so, like they say, even a stopped clock is right a couple times a day.)
When my hearing got fuzzy it was the first time I understood what people meant when they said something was lost when talkies came along. It was a relief to drop the bandwidth in charge of following the plot and, as I suspect, screenwriters are getting a little extra help from computer programs and adding a filigree of twists, false endings and more twists which has started to feel like homework. I was content just listening to the emotion tone and having extra time to pay attention to the cinematography, costumes and sets....if my time comes I hope I'm as brave as Richard.....I too was surprised that I carried so little nostalgia for the city; only feel a pang about the Met. Glad we got to live a version of the Royal Tennenbaums when we lived with Ruth Messinger and her kids on 87th between Columbus and Amsterdam. I real lifesaver too. And healing for when I left the last time after wintering over twice with no place of my own, living by my wits. We were country mice looking for a school for the deaf for our first grader....Looking forward to the next zoom.