in scandi countries they do not have the term blind spot; it is called "the dead angle," and i love anything and everything that has to do with mathematical theorems. fuck scene at the end this time.
Christopher, I recognised this from May, but the second reading revealed things I had missed.
The shifting between Samuel and Charlie now feels crucial: Zazie is speaking to the man he became while still summoning the man she first loved. Likewise, the repeated language of mechanics, repair and broken machinery suggests that their tragedy is not simply that they cannot let go, but that each still believes the other holds the missing part needed to make them whole.
The “dead angle” also feels less like something unseen than something both deliberately avoid looking at. They know the relationship remains alive. What they cannot face is that desire may survive long after trust, safety and any workable future have disappeared.
That makes the final image of a world without dial tones especially painful. Nothing clearly announces that something has ended. The connection simply goes silent, leaving both people to decide whether the silence means separation—or merely another pause.
Carmelita once thought emotional relationships counted. For something. Cat, sober, laughed at her and said "I didn't MEAN anything by that." She can take a punch; she glued her broken trust back together. It held. He was cuddly and sweet, the aging street fighter and ran to her when he was drunk in the night and no one was watching. And Carmelita was a gambler. They continued to open up their souls to each other across the patio table. where the bounderies were safe and he smoked and drank. Until he picked a fight at the kitchen door and ranted at her like a man rants at his bitch. For the sake of his fuckee, you see, to make space for the girl in her lacy black thong to finally be... happy. As if anyone can change someone else's patterns! Men suck at assessing character when their dick enters the judge's chamber. all rise, the Honorable Judge Pito presiding. Court is now in session. Women are lousy at assessing character when they need anything in life more than they need self-respect. When Cat tried to sort through the goatheads on the dry ground and find and pick up the pieces of the broken emotional relationship and renew her with gifts and words, Carmelita accepted every one and smiled deeply into the blue clarity of his eyes, and wrapped them all around herself. and said ... nothing. "Disrespect is death, Cat; you understand that about men, why don't you see that in me? all-dead death, deader than a doornail death. " A Death he can never resurrect with kindness and apologies. Schade. Amen. And my pretty kitty friend is curled up against my bare foot bathing himself. Life is good, LC.
Pussy isn't any sort of judge's chambers; more often than not it feels like sticking your dick in a hearse when there's nothing behind it anymore. Sportfucking is a game best played in early youth. I have no time for aimless women and prefer the company of my own self to someone not up to the challenge of interring the [easy] knowledge that men are just...different. Respect is earned, not given. I have thrown more than one lady out on her ear for allowing her mouth to get ahead of her brains. There's no need for women who cannot behave properly anymore. Sex can no longer be withheld in escrow against us; pornography has grown far too good for that. We don't need anyone who cannot be kind. It's a buyer's market. There's no percentage in occluded female attitudes these days. I take what I want and leave the rest to wilt loudly against the outer doors. Anyone can get inside. The question is, do you have what it takes to stay? Or are you another lazy pollyanna, unreasonable; unaccountable, uncommunicative, unusable and obsolete?
Yes, convicted, I am indeed. totally lazy when it comes to investing in the damned hard work of relationships. Accountable only to my personal definitions of courage, honor and right action--my deity, my fulltrui. Some of my -- MOST of my best -- friends are men, dude. 😁 Accountable only to cats in the same measure with which I mete - you have your freedom, the door is open, I have mine. Let's eat.
PS - the diatribe was not directed at you, darling. Or even men in general. I don't play that game, my honor is MY own fight, not all women's "our honor" fight. The fact is I very seldom lay myself open as vulnerably in my writing as you so fearlessly do. This was to your honor, sir, that your writing inspired it of me. You dropped the bait of the "emotional relationship" that "doesn't count". I swallowed, hook line sinker. I'm not sorry. BTW. I just left you a message about Yeats, likewise inspired by this piece.
PPS - and, trust me. I DO understand that a person will be disrespected only to the extent that they have given the impression that they will tolerate it. Set your boundaries early and set em strong. I missed the memo that time. But, as Dmitry once dm'd to me when I complained about falling into a crypto scam perpetrated by a fake IT support person, "I never lose. I either win or I learn something." Amen.
PPPS. I love your kindness., LC You are not trying to establish the terms of respect with it though. You just are. "I told you once I love you. If I change my mind, I'll let you know." I mean, I told you already you are fearless and kind, or something like that. i.e. Magical.
The prose here is electric and the characterisation and the slipping in and out of memory and dialogue is handled wonderfully. The relationships feel dangerous and exposed, like late night conversations on a telephone. The work with the voices almost feels a bit like Eliot’s in A Game of Chess, where characters morph in and out of shot and have strange conversations full of symbolic meaning, dropping little pearls of wisdom of asides (like the Japanese legend). But yours are more fleshed out.
It’s rarely confusing and when it is, it’s to create a sensation of strangeness which I adore. What exists in our dead angles? Enough to fill a book I would wager.
I’m blathering on here. Very good, challenging and dense work that also feels propellant and engaging. Which is a rare quality. You nailed it.
(In France it is “Angle mort” which I always quite liked).
Christopher, I recognised this from May, but the second reading revealed things I had missed.
The shifting between Samuel and Charlie now feels crucial: Zazie is speaking to the man he became while still summoning the man she first loved. Likewise, the repeated language of mechanics, repair and broken machinery suggests that their tragedy is not simply that they cannot let go, but that each still believes the other holds the missing part needed to make them whole.
The “dead angle” also feels less like something unseen than something both deliberately avoid looking at. They know the relationship remains alive. What they cannot face is that desire may survive long after trust, safety and any workable future have disappeared.
That makes the final image of a world without dial tones especially painful. Nothing clearly announces that something has ended. The connection simply goes silent, leaving both people to decide whether the silence means separation—or merely another pause.
As always your work is truly amazing.
Carmelita once thought emotional relationships counted. For something. Cat, sober, laughed at her and said "I didn't MEAN anything by that." She can take a punch; she glued her broken trust back together. It held. He was cuddly and sweet, the aging street fighter and ran to her when he was drunk in the night and no one was watching. And Carmelita was a gambler. They continued to open up their souls to each other across the patio table. where the bounderies were safe and he smoked and drank. Until he picked a fight at the kitchen door and ranted at her like a man rants at his bitch. For the sake of his fuckee, you see, to make space for the girl in her lacy black thong to finally be... happy. As if anyone can change someone else's patterns! Men suck at assessing character when their dick enters the judge's chamber. all rise, the Honorable Judge Pito presiding. Court is now in session. Women are lousy at assessing character when they need anything in life more than they need self-respect. When Cat tried to sort through the goatheads on the dry ground and find and pick up the pieces of the broken emotional relationship and renew her with gifts and words, Carmelita accepted every one and smiled deeply into the blue clarity of his eyes, and wrapped them all around herself. and said ... nothing. "Disrespect is death, Cat; you understand that about men, why don't you see that in me? all-dead death, deader than a doornail death. " A Death he can never resurrect with kindness and apologies. Schade. Amen. And my pretty kitty friend is curled up against my bare foot bathing himself. Life is good, LC.
Pussy isn't any sort of judge's chambers; more often than not it feels like sticking your dick in a hearse when there's nothing behind it anymore. Sportfucking is a game best played in early youth. I have no time for aimless women and prefer the company of my own self to someone not up to the challenge of interring the [easy] knowledge that men are just...different. Respect is earned, not given. I have thrown more than one lady out on her ear for allowing her mouth to get ahead of her brains. There's no need for women who cannot behave properly anymore. Sex can no longer be withheld in escrow against us; pornography has grown far too good for that. We don't need anyone who cannot be kind. It's a buyer's market. There's no percentage in occluded female attitudes these days. I take what I want and leave the rest to wilt loudly against the outer doors. Anyone can get inside. The question is, do you have what it takes to stay? Or are you another lazy pollyanna, unreasonable; unaccountable, uncommunicative, unusable and obsolete?
"Goddamn it, you've got to be kind."
-Kurt Vonnegut
Yes, convicted, I am indeed. totally lazy when it comes to investing in the damned hard work of relationships. Accountable only to my personal definitions of courage, honor and right action--my deity, my fulltrui. Some of my -- MOST of my best -- friends are men, dude. 😁 Accountable only to cats in the same measure with which I mete - you have your freedom, the door is open, I have mine. Let's eat.
PS - the diatribe was not directed at you, darling. Or even men in general. I don't play that game, my honor is MY own fight, not all women's "our honor" fight. The fact is I very seldom lay myself open as vulnerably in my writing as you so fearlessly do. This was to your honor, sir, that your writing inspired it of me. You dropped the bait of the "emotional relationship" that "doesn't count". I swallowed, hook line sinker. I'm not sorry. BTW. I just left you a message about Yeats, likewise inspired by this piece.
PPS - and, trust me. I DO understand that a person will be disrespected only to the extent that they have given the impression that they will tolerate it. Set your boundaries early and set em strong. I missed the memo that time. But, as Dmitry once dm'd to me when I complained about falling into a crypto scam perpetrated by a fake IT support person, "I never lose. I either win or I learn something." Amen.
PPPS. I love your kindness., LC You are not trying to establish the terms of respect with it though. You just are. "I told you once I love you. If I change my mind, I'll let you know." I mean, I told you already you are fearless and kind, or something like that. i.e. Magical.
opps!! Dead angle, not twilight garden. Mixed up the titles in my message today about Yeats' poetry tooo. DEAD angle.
PPPPS - CAT picked the fight, it wasn't Carmelita's mouth. Not that time it wasn't.
So good!!!
Thank you much, @20th Century Fox!
The prose here is electric and the characterisation and the slipping in and out of memory and dialogue is handled wonderfully. The relationships feel dangerous and exposed, like late night conversations on a telephone. The work with the voices almost feels a bit like Eliot’s in A Game of Chess, where characters morph in and out of shot and have strange conversations full of symbolic meaning, dropping little pearls of wisdom of asides (like the Japanese legend). But yours are more fleshed out.
It’s rarely confusing and when it is, it’s to create a sensation of strangeness which I adore. What exists in our dead angles? Enough to fill a book I would wager.
I’m blathering on here. Very good, challenging and dense work that also feels propellant and engaging. Which is a rare quality. You nailed it.
(In France it is “Angle mort” which I always quite liked).
You always make me sound smarter than I actually am. I never know what to say. Thank you, brother. Your support speaks worlds.