mystery and manners
bibliomancy forecast for the week of july 28
the ace of pentacles and an excerpt from Flannery O’Connor’s Mystery and Manners:
“Conrad said that his aim as a fiction writer was to render the highest possible justice to the visible universe. That sounds very grand, but it is really very humble. It means that he subjected himself at all times to the limitations that reality imposed, but that reality for him was not simply coextensive with the visible. He was interested in rendering justice to the visible universe because it suggested an invisible one.”
the aleatory
Starts they're looking at the unmarried men in the area. Starts they're talking to all the ones who never left home and live in the basement with a radiator. Starts they're thinking small, home-grown, local. Pissstained bed sheets and that kind of thing. Halo of light in the photographs. Sexy sexy crime scene kind of thing. Starts they're thinking, well sure. They take her to the post office and have her look at the picture of the offenders. She spins the brass arrows on the PO boxes. Starts they take off with no leads, total complete nowhere goddamn spooky time stolen textbooks, pink milkshake straws, pouring grease in the crick out back from the fryer. Starts with a piece of wrinkled hair found in one of her creases. Just like you're thinking. Always just like that.
the forecast
Something new and good is coming. But you can presently only see its shadow.
writing prompt
Write a geometrical proof to establish some justice which you believe in strongly. Such as that you should be allowed to take a nap, or your parents never loved you. Don’t leave anything out. Show your work.
a chune
“I Spy” by Pulp
I don’t know what this says about me, but my earliest crushes in order were 1) Encyclopedia Brown 2) Robin Hood, the cartoon fox in Disney’s Robin Hood 3) Jack Nicholson 4) Jarvis Cocker. You can imagine how awkward it was when my friends asked me which New Kid on the Block was my fave and I was like … is Joey one of them? How was I supposed to know? Nothing like Jake Gittes in Chinatown. I really would have been thrilled if I could have been abducted into a movie of some kind.
credits: small spells tarot deck by rachel howe
Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Connor
Different Class by Pulp
dear diary, I do believe that art is about justice. But not in a way that would make anybody happy. XS
I got to hear Jarvis Cocker sing live on his 61st birthday (Hollywood Palladium) and sang him happy birthday with thousands of people. I think it may have been the turning point for my lifelong depression; the next week I lost my job and I haven't been unhappy since.