Showing posts with label douglas coupland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label douglas coupland. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

i write tragedies

"on the way back from the post office, i stop at a bank of america atm and withdraw from my rapidly disappearing savings. i then convert my withdraw into a wad of low-denomination bills. i feel like a crack dealer. i have an idea.

your inability to achieve solitude makes you settle for substandard relationships. you don't believe magic is possible in lives lived within traditional boundaries.

i am writing a list of tragic character flaws on my dollar bills with a felt pen. i am thinking of the people in my universe and distilling for each of these people the one flaw in their character that will lead to their downfall -- the flaw that will be their undoing.

jasmine, anna-louise, daisy, mark, dan, stephanie, monique, kiwi, harmony, skye, gaia, mei-lin, davidson, pony, grandma and grandpa, eddie woodman, jim and lorraine jarvis -- everybody's here. even me. and more.

what i write are not sins; i write tragedies. and i am writing these tragedies in a manner that the recipients can easily absorb. and i won't say whose flaw is whose. i continue." ~ tyler johnson

shana was the first person to tell me about douglas coupland, sending me this book to start off with. i read it in two days, and then started it from the beginning, and read it again. i felt like i had found a voice of my generation. that he understood the ugly side of society, people, and families -- and saw the hope - albeit cloudy and dipped in the muck of everything - in all of it. for a good long while i wanted to quote his books in everything, and i went on to fall for many more of his books, and find an amazing group of friends who felt similar, if not the same.


365 loves: shampoo planet by douglas coupland

Sunday, January 6, 2008

currently reading: first paragraph


"a few years ago it dawned on me that everybody past a certain age-regardless of how they look on the outside-pretty much constantly dreams of being able to escape from their lives. they don't want to be who they are any more. they want out. this list includes thurston howell the third, ann-margaret, the cast of rent, vaclav havel, space shuttle astronauts and snuffleupagus. it's universal."