faulkner raze "he had a word, too. love, he called it. but i had been used to words for a long time. i knew that that word was like the others: just a shape to fill a lack; that when the right time came, you wouldn't need a word for that any more than for pride or fear." 131114 ... raze INTERVIEWER: some people say they can't understand your writing, even after they have read it two or three times. what approach would you suggest for them? FAULKNER: read it four times. (from an interview with the paris review) 131203 ... raze "always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. try to be better than yourself." 170111 ... unhinged we wrote a blues song based on a faulkner book he was reading he left town without even speaking to me when i decided not to respond to his email about wanting me to record with him for free before he left town to pursue whatever, woman, social climate, continent his spoiled existence deemed more interesting is that faulknerian? i've actually never read any faulkner 170112 ... raze i think in a william faulkner book he would have shown up sometime later, unannounced, and dragged you against your will to a county fair, where he would have acted like a total shitheel while having a long internal monologue that laid bare all the feelings he wouldn't dare try to articulate to anyone but himself. then he would go on to build some massive business empire and achieve incredible financial success, but he would wither away into a sick shell of a human being, isolating himself from everyone, eventually losing his fortune and dying alone in his decaying villa. after his death, an estate sale would uncover a secret cache of love letters he wrote you over a period of decades, all of them unsent. 170112 ... e_o_i Ha. Excellent. 170112 ... kerry we were at trackside, which was where everyone ended up after all the other bars were closed because back then last call in atlanta was 2am and in decatur it wasn't until 4am. it was right by the apartment where i lived with jo and mary and iz. i hadn't seen john in several years. in high school i had a crush on him, especially in the summer when i was finally part of a posse which was something i realized i'd always craved, and we all (john included) wore converse and baggy jeans and band t-shirts. he and will and daniel went to a different high school and he and will were a grade above me and this made me feel cool, because when you're young the years are longer. i couldn't tell anyone i had a crush on him because jo announced it first, her crush, and she would pine for him and wonder if that tiny thing he said or that smile meant anything, and i'd have to say "maybe." when i ran into him at trackside it startled me, seeing how he'd gotten balder and wider even though he was only 22. and i could also see that his once-endearing social awkwardness wasn't endearing anymore, maybe it had been a put-on even in high school. but he couldn't pull it off anymore, not really. he was just... awkward. and drunk. and he'd graduated from brown and i was starting on my senior project, my thesis, so i asked about his, and he said it was about faulkner. i asked what about faulkner, and he just repeated "faulkner." one time in dr. kr's AP english class we were sitting in a circle talking about "the sound and the fury" and i was so tired from staying up late fighting with danny on the phone that i fell asleep with my eyes open during class. but i liked the book. i still like faulkner. i said to john that i'd recently read "the wild palms." he just said "cool" and continued to look uncomfortable and awkward. for some reason this interaction still bothers me, like i wish i'd had the opportunity to finally talk to john about something interesting, and i knew he'd been to this fancy school and probably read so many great things and taken courses on things it would never even occur to me to study, and after all those fun nights in high school and all four years at brown all he had to say to me was "faulkner" and "cool." 220825 what's it to you? who go blather from