every character in the story is named Fanshawe and one of them dies of plaid. it's absolutely ridiculous, and my dad would just cackle reading it out loud to us. having someone read out loud to you is so lush. I keep the tab open to remind me how much my dad shared with me and the things that made us laugh--no one else in the family got it like we did and it just shows me how alike we were. now he's gone but I still read Fanshawe. we've got the magazine in his office somewhere with his little post-it bookmarking the page...kind of like my open bookmarked tab.
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Moving in a cold way, funny in a dry way. Re-read it today with the transition from young adult to just Adult weighing on me, whatever that means, if anything. Fans of Larry David might enjoy
βHeβs a nice little fellow. When I first met him, he barely spoke. I determined that he liked words but in isolation, as individuals. He didnβt like them gathered together. He seemed to feel they got dumber gathered together.β
βI was with you when we moved in, Dad. His mother brought over that awful fudge.β
βCanβt recall the fudge.β
βTo welcome us to the neighborhood. It was just awful.β
βWeβre talking about fudge?ββ
Mar 20, 2025
β
this is my favorite book. it's challenging to parse (people describe it as stream of consciousness, which is only kind of true, but between the characters' accents and faulkner being a wordy fella sometimes it's really hard to tell what's going on) but there are passages from it that i think about multiple times a day. the way some of the characters experience alienation from their bodies and/or reality is so tangible. it is kind of a black comedy about a family carrying their mother's dead body to her chosen resting place, hijinks ensue.
Apr 8, 2025
Part of Salinger's Glass Family series (and one of the pieces originally published in the New Yorker that eventually appeared in Nine Stories -- yes, Lisa Loeb's ["Stay (I Missed You)"] backing band was named after the 1953 book). IMO this is where Salinger's debt to Papa Hemingway is laid bare -- the spare, simple prose; the occasional sweary moments (where the protagonist, Seymour, calls a woman he meets a "goddamned sneak"); the somewhat sudden, surprising and macabre ending. I find people typicially have no middle ground for Salinger that isn't "Catcher in the Rye" -- they either love it or loathe it. I'm in the former camp.
Dec 5, 2024
Top Recs from @brooks
because no one ever said you have to put your fruits and veg in plastic bags. you wash them anyway, right?
Apr 11, 2025
when the day didn't exactly go your way and you crack an egg for dinner and you get a double yolk, it's like someone's looking out for you ππ
6d ago
I can legitimately say I would not be the same person I am now if I had never seen Amelie. there's this episode of This American Life called "Spark Bird" - the bird that first sparks someone's interest in/obsession with birding - well I like to refer to "spark movies" and Amelie was it for me. it showed me what cinema could do. I had never seen a movie that encapsulated my worldview but also how I wanted the world to be and look. seeing it as a teenager probably had a lot to do with it - the longing, the quirkiness - but the visual/artist part of me realized movies could do and express things I never thought possible and never had words or images for. it was like a floodgate opened, it was my gateway drug to more movies, art, music, and the way I experienced myself in the world. it was so formative for me it's like my brain soaked it up and I can't help that it's always there permeating everything with more whimsy, flair, and color β¨
Mar 13, 2025