Prose

“I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling.” 
― Jack Kerouac, Dharma Bums

The Virgin Suicides

I finished this book over spring break but I just keep forgetting to make a post about it.
The virgin suicides almost has a greek tragedy type feel. From everything you know about greek tragedies and just from the title alone, it'd be assumed that this book is depressing, but it's actually a bit enlightening.  It's the 70's and an eclectic group of boys are highly affected by the are five Lisbon sisters. The girls live in a very strict household and no one understands how the highschool math teacher, and Mrs.Lisbon could've possibly made such beautiful girls. They have such grace and poise about them as they float down the school they've attended their whole short lives. The youngest one at age thirteen, first tries to kill herself by slitting her wrists in the bath but lives. She finally commits suicide by throwing herself out of the second story window onto their iron fence which pierces through her heart. Because of this the boys try to actually communicate with the girls whom they had always been intimidated by. The girls are up for no conversations and respecfully tell them "you don't have to talk to us." The highschool brings awareness of teen suicides and passes out green pamplets to the whole school and offers up an option to talk with a concilor, which the girls do. The school finds out the councilor actually has no schooling so she flees, being the only one that knows about the Lisbon girl's mysterious lives. Lux, the youngest child now, is chrismatic and is kind of the bad ass in the group. The msot popular guy in school, who is usually always chased by girls, tries to pursue Lux and after much convencing, the Lisbon parents allow the girls to go to the homecoming dance. After the dance the girls get home safely but Lux is no where so be found. She shows up in the wee hours of the morning, still a little tipsy from sharing drinks with her date. The house goes on crack down. The girls are taken out of school and Mr.Lisbon, going crazy from his youngest daughters death, is fired from his job since he is unable to teach well. The boys communicate to the Lisbon sisters with lights through their windows and little cards being passed back and forth. The girls call the boys on the phone and play music from their record player and the boys play rock and roll back to them (since rock and roll had been abolished in their establishment). The boys want to take the girls for a drive with their parents car and the girls agree. Lux invites them into the house telling them to be quiet since her parents are sleeping. She says they should take her parents car and that she'll be waiting for them in the garage. The boys go down into the basement and see a sister hanging by a rope around her neck from the cieling, they run up the stairs, scared to death, and trip over another sister dead from pills. The run out of the house and later find out the other sister stuck her head in the oven and Lux, waiting in the garage, killed herself with the carbon monoxide of the runing car. The boys, even 20 years later can't figure out the mystery of the girls saying they had all the pieces of the puzzle, but no way of going about putting it together. They take the photo albums out of the trash that the parents through out along with the rest od the house, leaving everything to be sold ina garage sale. Though the boys can never tell them, they love the girls. and miss them dearly.

After Work


The shack and a few trees
float in the blowing fog

I pull out your blouse,
warm my cold hands
on your breasts.
you laugh and shudder
peeling garlic by the
hot iron stove.
bring in the axe, the rake,
the wood


we'll lean on the wall
against each other
stew simmering on the fire
as it grows dark
drinking wine.

-Gary Snyder



Gary Snyder longs to get home to his wife. He needs to feel her skin on his and taste the sweet tang of the wine they share, along with their unrequitted love. He's working, working but not having his whole mind in it. Gary is day dreaming and is in nostalgia, hoping that when he gets home, all will be well. He is invisioning his happy wife 'laugh and shudder, peeling garlic by the hot iron stove" and this makes him hungry. His wife's cooking is such a good ending to the day. Even being with her is better than the work he has to get through to be home.

"And who am I?"


"I dunno, maybe you're Goat."

"Goat?"

"Maybe you're Mudface."

"Who's Mudface?"

"Mudface is the mud in your goatface. What would you say if someone was asked the question 'Does a dog have a Buddha nature?' and said 'Woof!'"

-The Dharma Bums

Every where you go, you leave a part of you. and you take a part of that place with you. The light shows where you've been, or maybe where you're heading. The path you're walking down. or walking back from.

Notes 2 & 3.

I've decided nostalgia is my topic. Simply because 'remembrance' was too hard to fulfill. A YouTube video that matches my topic is The Tree of Life-You Spoke To Me. click on the link to watch.

This video has such a beautiful, nostalgic feeling to it that you can't help but smile and be at peace. It shows a connection between both husband and wife, as it does to parents and their soon-to-be-born child. The parents reflect back to the days when their little boy was in the making; it was easier then. Unborn children fend for themselves in the warm, womb they call home. Once out in the real world, babies are prey to predators that the parents and guardians must protect them from. The choice of camera angles and sweet sounds incorporated into this scene is nostalgic in a way that you almost can't wait to experience this on your own, yearning to hold this feeling in your own heart.

The second artifact I decided to use was a song by Iron & wine:


"Give this stone to my brother

Cuz we found it playing in the barnyard

Many years ago

Give this bone to my father
He'll remember hunting in the hills
When I was 10 years old

May my love reach you all
I lost it in myself and buried it too long
Now that I come to fall
Please say it's not too late
Now that I'm dead and gone

Give this string to my mother
It pulled the baby teeth she keeps inside the drawer
Give this ring to my lover
I was scared and stupid not to ask
For her hand long before

May my love reach you all
I lost it in myself and buried it too long
Now that I come to fall
Please say it's not too late
Now that I'm dead and gone"


Each different verse makes separate people look back on their lives. This dying man makes sure that these people will remember old memories and he dies. Though death is near "please don't say it's too late now that I'm dead and gone." It gives a peaceful feeling to death saying that you don't have to say goodbye, you can live again in someones thoughts.