my next project

i would move to russia to meet nabokov.
i would go through the trial in the beginning of Xenocide to hang with orson scott card.
i'd become a devout bokonist to be vonnegut's friend.
i would marry seymour glass to be closer to buddy.
i'd be a milk-white mountain if neruda would write a poem using me as a metaphor.
i'd give up my name for jhumpa lahiri.
for yeats i'd be a little silver trout.
for e.e. cummings, i'd be nobody.
for phil ochs, i'd be the landlord's daughter.
i would be the darkness on the edge of town for bruce.
i'd be a wind-up bird for murakami.

the above is a list of things i wrote in my diary years ago that i add to every so often. i just added one and i wanted to tell you. if you've never read haruki murakami...read him. he's awesome. his translation unfortunately always sucks (not that i speak japanese...but sometimes you can just tell) but he shines through like a light at the bottom of a pool.

i haven't seen it in the states, but there's a collection of short stories by him called "after the quake" that is vastly superior to many of the things i've read in my lifetime. i'm just now beginning on "the elephant vanishes" (more short stories) and "norweigan wood" (novel) and they are both thrilling the way fitzgerald is thrilling. somehow, he just always says the most basic thing that much better, and you not only love him for it, you somehow love the world that much more, just imperceptibly, the way you feel when the sun comes out from behind a cloud for just an instant and slices into your vision, warming everything.

i have no conclusion. beat on, boats against the current.