Spotlight on … Diane Williams Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine (2016)

 

‘“Water is a burned substance.” This strange line comes from nowhere to conclude Honoré de Balzac’s “Gambara,” one of the real-est short stories I have ever read about art. And the line is made mystifying by what we call Balzac’s realism: the material descriptions, psychological observations, and sociological inventions that conspire to submerge the reader in a world with depth.

‘You might also call them “familiarizing conventions” because, as writers like Tom McCarthy often tell us, realism is merely the set of such maneuvers (rather than a way of tapping into the real). But the immersion of the reader into Balzac’s “world” of literary depth halts when you read this final line. Eventually, it’s intelligible: water is a product of the burning of hydrogen, and the man who speaks the line is crying. The tears in his eyes as he speaks, then, are a product of his inner burning. Still, the effect of the encounter with the sentence, the way it defamiliarizes the world Balzac has created, lingers after its romantic metaphor dies on the page.

‘The death of metaphors, the pruning or framing of ridiculous language: much of this marks the fiction of Diane Williams, one of our most persistent side-eyers of realism over the last twenty-five years. This to say that where Balzac or Dickens — those paradigmatic authors of 21st century TV realism — go deep, Williams instead lingers on surfaces. Where they work to build houses for the reader to enter into and reside in, Williams works alongside them, constructing an edifice that estranges the neighborhood, a home that only looks familiar insofar as it has one window and a doorknob.

‘But after reading Williams’ collection of 44 stories — titled Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine — much of my above description feels inadequate. Words like “strange” and “unfamiliar” and “weird” aren’t altogether strange or unfamiliar or weird; just as bad is the lightly academic “defamiliarizes,” which appears to lean on some literary-historical authority but doesn’t. This because Williams’ anti-realism, or whatever you want to call it, tends to deflect description and summary; compare this to the rise of “Golden Age TV,” where the “recap” has become a common form. This also proves why Jonathan Franzen, the godhead of televisual prose, describes Williams’ fiction like this: “Her fiction makes very familiar things very, very weird.” He can’t stop himself from transcribing her work into comfortable, realist terms, but when he can’t pay the word “weird” a high enough wage, he has to bring in “very” twice to finish the job.

‘Just take the epigraph to Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine: “How long will Harry Doe live?..Who will win the war?…Will Mary Jane Brown ultimately find a husband?” This reduction of lives to plots marks non-art narrative across decades. Later, in the story “Head of the Big Man” (there are lots of heads-as-totems in these stories), she puts the lie to this form of narrativizing altogether, whether it’s a BBC drama or A Little Life, by redescribing it into absurdity:

‘None of this would have been possible without the involvement of morally strong, intelligent people who were then spent. Young farmers and rural characters, obstetrical nurses, scholars, clergy — all the rest! — will have their great hopes realized more often than not — unless I decide to tell their stories.

‘“[U]nless I decide to tell their stories,” she writes. In Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Williams doesn’t avoid telling their stories; nor does she always shy away from shrinking her subjects into types (of emotion, of occupation). Here, though, it’s usually a matter of abstraction, of making room for shocks of exacting emotional description that are all the more exact because they don’t always aim to conjure up the emotion itself. How often is greed the result of longing for some emotional memory? In a story called “Greed,” a character who wants to keep her mother’s diamond-sapphire ring explains her impulse like this:

‘I had to have it. It was phantasmagoria. I selected it after my mother’s death, not because I liked it, but because it offers the memory of my mother and of the awkward, temporarily placed cold comfort that she gave me.

‘There is something here more artful than contemporary realism. The cold comfort of a memory, of a mother’s disposition, of a phantasm, of a diamond-sapphire ring: they’re equalized. Instead of Franzen’s realism, or even Bolaño or Knausgaard’s flat, anti-rhetorical prose, we’re dangerously close here to the pure rhetoric of fiction, which is to say that if you’re not careful, your entire notion of fiction as an art that rejects easy answers may come to resemble a Diane Williams story.’ — Jonathon Sturgeon

 

____
Further

Diane Williams @ goodreads
Book Notes – Diane Williams – “Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty” @ largehearted boy
How to read Vicky Swanky: A Baffled Person’s Guide to Diane Williams
A Dreamy Look: A Review of Diane Williams’s Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty
Queen of the Liminal
Five Very Short Stories by Diane Williams
Three Stories by Diane Williams
“BANG BANG ON THE STAIR”
Diane Williams interviewed @ Dalkey Archive
Misunderstandings in miniature
“Beauty, Love and Vanity Itself”
Now Find a Free Mind: A Brief Interview with Diane Williams
BEST BOOK OF 1921: THE TRIUMPH OF THE EGG BY SHERWOOD ANDERSON, by Diane Williams
WITCHCRAFT TODAY, by Diane Williams
THE BEAUTY AND THE BAT, by Diane Williams
The L Mag Questionnaire for Writer Types: Diane Williams
COMMON STRANGE
A fine look at love by Diane Williams
Pathos: Diane Williams
Buy FINE, FINE, FINE, FINE, FINE

 

____
Extras

The Art of the Short Story: Diane Williams

Diane Williams @ Franklin Park Reading Series

Celebrating NOON’s 15th anniversary

 

_____
Interview

 

THE WHITE REVIEW — How do you strike a balance between capturing the freedom of the spoken sentence while honing the craft of writing a sentence?

DIANE WILLIAMS — Often the spoken sentence is filled with remarkable poetry. This is especially the case if the speaker is passionate about her subject. One is lucky to have access to a trove of voices – to listen in to oneself and to others during these inspired moments and to remember! More often, I must manufacture text. And that is the task of being a writer – composition.

THE WHITE REVIEW — This intimacy between the words in the sentences you create is most definitely present, but your characters’ pursuit of intimacy is persistently challenged and subverted. What does intimacy mean to you?

DIANE WILLIAMS — The pursuit of intimacy is relatively hopeless in life and is also dangerous. But, I think in literature, as in all art, there is the opportunity to be deeply in life. I am always dreaming of the ideal fiction. In this free realm any subject can be addressed. Shame must not intrude.

THE WHITE REVIEW — Many of your characters feel as though they can’t necessarily fully express themselves, alienated in these domestic settings that you put them in.

DIANE WILLIAMS — You’re right, it’s exhausting to mask and to mute ourselves.

THE WHITE REVIEW — Most of your stories are based in domestic locations – what’s so attractive about such a setting?

DIANE WILLIAMS — I am usually in a domestic setting – sitting here doing my work. I should get out more. It’s also my own insufficiency; I’m not good with maps or finding my way around. I guess I reside in my mind most of the time – it’s just my temperament.

THE WHITE REVIEW — There is a line from a story in SOME SEXUAL SUCCESS STORIES – ‘This is when Nature itself has been stripped bare of its cosy personality and we all feel homeless in our own natures as well.’ I think this accurately summarises one of the prevailing aspects of your stories: despite most of the action being set in domestic spaces most of the time, your subjects never feel quite ‘at home’.

DIANE WILLIAMS — I don’t think I’d be happy if I were clear about everything that ends up on the page. I’d like to get beyond what I know as far as I can. I have a sentimental idea of home – it’s friendly and familiar. In my fiction I like to provide some mystery, a place to meditate, where I might be nearing a new insight, if in fact I haven’t reached it.

THE WHITE REVIEW — Infidelity is a recurring theme in your stories – particularly in the novella ON SEXUAL STRENGTH – and I find it interesting that in ‘Adultery’, Laura Kipnis says, ‘It means imagining – as adulterers so often do – that you can do it differently, that you can engineer through sheer will, a different moral and affective universe.’

DIANE WILLIAMS — Infidelity has been an inescapable subject for me. The fantasy of security is difficult to relinquish, as are the notions of invincibility and recklessness.

THE WHITE REVIEW — The physical movements, positioning and intricacies of the culturally and morally assumed ‘private parts’ of the body are frequently explored in your stories – bowel movements, vaginas that can talk, dogs wearing condoms, penises that women wish were in them all of the time. What draws you to these details?

DIANE WILLIAMS — I write about what I can’t speak about.

THE WHITE REVIEW — There is a recurring fluidity between objects and subjects in your stories that I am very interested in – husbands going through the laundry to find their wives, children needing to be chopped down like branches from a tree and clouds being full of pride. How do you view these relationships in your stories?

DIANE WILLIAMS — You’re right, there is blurring. I remember very early in life going forward toward a chair like this easy chair (she pats the chair she is sitting on), putting my face into it, and embracing it, and getting the kind of consolation that a person might expect in a parent’s embrace – my chair, my mother. The confusion prevails in our speech, too – I have to get my coffee. I want my mother. People and things are being scrambled. My mind’s quite messy.

THE WHITE REVIEW — In some of your stories you also turn to dogs and animals, the best example being the stories ‘The Dog’, followed by ‘The Man’. What kind of role do animals play in your stories?

DIANE WILLIAMS — Well, I may not know too much about that. I like those two stories you cite very much, and have often read the pair of them publicly. I did have a dear pet when I was girl… I admired him so much – his out-sized zest and craziness that I didn’t see advanced by anyone else.

THE WHITE REVIEW — Does consumer culture have an influence on how you present the subject to the reader?

DIANE WILLIAMS — Yes, but I wouldn’t want to imply that the influence is entirely negative. Objects can save us. I might need a certain trinket, for instance, and it may save me for a day, a month… Objects obviously have power.

THE WHITE REVIEW — How do you feel about this sense of ‘zooming out’, this acknowledgement of the bigger picture, the world outside the characters’ window? How important is it to you to create a sense of elsewhere?

DIANE WILLIAMS — I’d like to go back and forth in time and place and thought – to change perspectives, but, nonetheless, maintain coherence. I try.

THE WHITE REVIEW — Use of the negative also creates the sense of a bigger picture. By listing aspects that are not present the reader is forced to imagine these aspects existing elsewhere – just not where we are right now. Would you say that a presence of absence is integral to your stories?

DIANE WILLIAMS — This is and was a tactic of mine, to refute or to undo the given. Let’s just see what this is like.

THE WHITE REVIEW — Where does your fascination with language, particularly rhyme, stem from and what do you think it achieves?

DIANE WILLIAMS — What it achieves? It’s pleasurable. It’s human nature, I think, to enjoy echoes and refrains.

THE WHITE REVIEW — You often use idiomatic phrasing in your stories, for example, ‘for all intents and purposes’, ‘I’m going to give credit where credit is due’, ‘I lay no claim’. Can you tell me a little more about this fascination with habitual language?

DIANE WILLIAMS — Ah, clichés. I try to be vigilant, to police for these. I hope there’s a fresh context, when they invade. On the other hand such phrases as ‘let me tell you’ and ‘at any rate’ and ‘at length she’… I love these. While moving along new terrain, it’s nice to have comforting pauses along the way and to hear a kind voice – ‘Don’t worry. I think you’ve been here before. You’ll be able to manage.’

THE WHITE REVIEW — How important is it for you to make yourself known as the writer in your stories?

DIANE WILLIAMS — If I introduce my own name, this raises the stakes for me, causes a shudder. It’s frightening. Fright can be very productive. I work harder.

THE WHITE REVIEW — For a more experimental writer such as yourself, how do you find the current literary climate in America?

DIANE WILLIAMS — Marketers, sadly, need categories. I never use the term ‘experimental.’ I hate it. Literary art needs a more substantial welcome and protection in contemporary America. I founded the fiction annual NOON in 2000 to support serious writers. NOON is now flourishing and I am delighted.

 

___
Book

Diane Williams Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine, Fine
McSweeneys

‘The very short stories of Diane Williams have been aptly called “folk tales that hammer like a nail gun,” and these forty new ones are sharper than ever. They are unsettling, yes, frequently revelatory, and more often than not downright funny.

‘Not a single moment here is what you might expect. While there is immense pleasure to be found in Williams’s spot-on observations about how we behave in our highest and lowest moments, the heart of the drama beats in the language of American short fiction’s grand master, whose originality, precision, and power bring the familiar into startling and enchanted relief.’ — McSweeneys

 

____
Excerpts

To Revive a Person Is No Slight Thing

People often wait a long time and then, like me, suddenly, they’re back in the news with a changed appearance.

Now I have fuzzy gray hair. I am pointing at it. It’s like baby
hair I am told.

Two people once said I had pretty feet.

I ripped off some leaves and clipped stem ends, with my new spouse, from a spray of fluorescent daisies he’d bought for me, and I asserted something unpleasant just then.

Yes, the flowers were cheerful with aggressive petals, but in a few days I’d hate them when they were spent.

The wrapping paper and a weedy mess had to be discarded, but first off thrust together. My job.

Who knows why the dog thought to follow me up the stairs.

Tufts of the dog’s fur, all around his head, serve to distinguish him. It’s as if he wears a military cap. He is dour sometimes and I have been deeply moved by what I take to be the dog’s deep concerns.

Often I pick him up — stop him mid-swagger. He didn’t like it today and he pitched himself out of my arms.

Drawers were open in the bedroom.

Many times I feel the prickle of a nearby, unseen force I ought to pay attention to.

I turned and saw my husband standing naked, with his clothes folded in his hands.

Unbudgeable — but finally springing into massive brightness — is how I prefer to think of him.

Actually, he said in these exact words: “I don’t like you very much and I don’t think you’re fascinating.” He put his clothes on, stepped out of the room.

I walked out, too, out onto the rim of our neighborhood — into the park where I saw a lifeless rabbit — ears askew. As if prompted, it became a small waste bag with its tied-up loose ends in the air.

A girl made a spectacle of herself, also, by stabbing at her front teeth with the tines of a plastic fork. Perhaps she was prodding dental wires and brackets, while an emaciated man at her side fed rice into his mouth from a white-foam square container, at top speed, crouched — swallowing at infrequent intervals.

In came my husband to say, “Diane?” when I went home.

“I am trying,” I said, “to think of you in a new way. I’m not sure what — how that is.”

A fire had been lighted, drinks had been set out. Raw fish had been dipped into egg and bread crumbs and then sautéed. A small can of shoe polish was still out on the kitchen counter. We both like to keep our shoes shiny.

How unlikely it was that our home was alight and that the dinner meal was served. I served it — our desideratum. The bread was dehydrated.

I planned my future — that is, what to eat first — but not yet next and last — tap, tapping.

My fork struck again lightly at several mounds of yellow vegetables.

The dog was upright, slowly turning in place, and then he settled down into the shape of a wreath — something, of course, he’d thought of himself, but the decision was never extraordinary.

And there is never any telling how long it will take my husband, if he will not hurry, to complete his dinner fare or to smooth out left-behind layers of it on the plate.

“Are you all right?” he asked me — “Finished?”

He loves spicy food, not this. My legs were stiff and my knees ached.

I gave him a nod, made no apologies. Where were his?

I didn’t cry some.

I must say that our behavior is continually under review and any one error alters our prestige, but there’ll be none of that lifting up mine eyes unto the hills.

 

Specialist

‘For a blue sky, that blue’s a bit dark, don’t you think? And the sea’s a bit too choppy,’ I said, ‘for that dog to be dashing into it.’

‘You mean the man threw something into the water?’ my son said, ‘–that’s why the dog jumped in?’

An hour passed. Why not say twenty years?

In the Green Room, I had fortunately ordered Frenched Chicken Breast – Chocolate Napoleon.

And at a great height – up on a balcony, as I readied to leave – a pianist began his version of Cole Porter’s ‘Katie Went to Haiti.’ I waved to him.

He nodded, likely pleased by the attention, but it was hard to tell – for only his radiant pate was made visible by a tiny ceiling light.

To my surprise, the air in the street was too hot to give pleasure and a cyclist was mistakenly on the sidewalk.

The cyclist hit me, and it’s vile after my life ends in the afterlife. Lots of incense, resin, apes, and giraffe-tails – all acquired tastes. I don’t like that kind of thing.

 

Beauty, Love, and Vanity Itself

As usual I’d hung myself with snappy necklaces, but otherwise had given my appearance no further thought, even though I anticipated the love of a dark person who will be my source of prosperity and emotional pleasure.

Mr. Morton arrived about 7 p.m. and I said, ‘I owe you an explanation.’

‘Excellent,’ he replied. But when my little explana- tion was completed, he refused the meal I offered, saying, ‘You probably don’t like the way I drink my soda or how I eat my olives with my fingers.’

He exited at a good clip and nothing further developed from that affiliation.
The real thing did come along. Bob—Tom spent several days in June with me and I keep up with books and magazines and go forward on the funny path pursuing my vocation.

I also went outside to enjoy the fragrant odor in an Illinois town and kept to the thoroughfare that swerved near the fence where yellow roses on a tawny back- ground are always faded out at the end of the season.

I never thought a big cloud hanging in the air would be crooked, but it was up there—gray and deranged.

Happily, in the near distance, the fence was making the most of its colonial post caps.

And isn’t looking into the near distance sometimes so quaint?—as if I am re-embarking on a large number of relations or recurrent jealousies.

Poolside at the Marriott Courtyard, I was wearing what others may laugh at—the knee-length black swim- suit and the black canvas shoes—but I don’t have actual belly fat, that’s just my stomach muscles gone slack.

I saw three women go into the pool and when they got to the rope, they kept on walking. One woman dis- appeared. The other two flapped their hands.

‘They don’t know what the rope is,’ the lifeguard said. ‘I mean everybody knows what a rope means.’

I said, ‘Why didn’t you tell them?’ and he said, ‘I don’t speak Chinese.’

I said, ‘They are drowning’ and the lifeguard said, ‘You know, I think you’re right.’

Our eyes were on the surface of the water—the wobbling patterns of diagonals. It was a hash—nothing to look at—much like my situation—if you’re not going to do anything about it.

 

 

*

p.s. Hey. ** Dominik, Hi!!! And hi to your brain cells!!! Welcome back. I think you’d like them: the Clarke films. No particulars, I just watch whatever pet rescue video shows up, even though they’re all exactly the same: find an abandoned puppy/kitten, take them to the vet, get them fixed up, plan to give them some animal rescue place but fall in love and keep them. Strange. I do have a big thing for acts of kindness. That really gets to me. Your into-ness with ‘Reservoir Dogs’ is highly understandable. And love has relieved you of your back pain by now, I would sure hope. Love wishing he could magically know how to play a cello, G. ** _Black_Acrylic, Yeah, why are Clarke’s films so offsite in the UK? Oscar down below just informed me that a lot of those imbeds to his full films are blocked in the UK. Weird. May Leeds United win all three games and get themselves and you your just rewards under the circumstances, ** Bernard Welt, Well, hello. Do I know you, ha ha? Oh, yes, I remember you did that Schuyler event. Every time I ever met Doug Crase he looked at me like he thought I was going to stab him. May 20th is practically tomorrow! Sabrina told me you were entering here/us. Great, obviously. Yeah, I think I’m obligated to do something at the Flanagan event too. Read an poem or two of his, I guess? Uh, I’m actually not very up on lit journals du jour, strangely, I guess. I don’t know if online is good enough for those arbiters, but online journals are most likely to get you out there quickly. You can use my name liberally and in whatever fashion you choose. And I’ll try to think about journal suggestions. Of course you can put work up here on the blog. We’d just have to do it in a way that makes it look and somewhat act like a blog post, which shouldn’t be hard at all. So, yes, of course. I’ve been approached to do something at that AWP, and I’m trying to figure out if I want to and can. I don’t think I qualify as any generation of New York School sadly, but I think you guys are definitely third generation. Coffee, guacamole, etc., etc., yes. I don’t know Kristoffer Borgli’s work, but I’m down to do a post about him/it, yes. Zac and I need to go to LA to show the film to the cast/crew. We were supposed to have done that by now, but our producers are hamstringing us on the literally last three days of work needed to finish it, so it’s possible that trip could occur during your stint here. So, I might have to dip away for a bit of your visit. I don’t know, we’ll see. Fun! Love, me. ** Minks, Hi, Minks! Lovely to meet you! I do know Kembra Pfahler’s work at least a bit. Mostly the ‘Voluptuous Horror’ work. And of course I like it mightily. I think she’s still doing her thing, so you could get lucky. I’m not sure if she’s still doing it at the same intensity. Anyway, hi. What’s up with you? ** Joseph, Ha ha. ‘I Saw The TV Glow’ is something like two weeks in the future for us over here. But it’s probably on my favorite illegal streaming site. I’ll check. If it is, shall I hook you up? That Publishing Genius book is of course of interest, and I’ll hunt info about it. Thanks, J. Have a better Monday than the Mamas and Papas apparently did. ** Tyler, Hi, Tyler. I’m okay, and you too, I hope. Thanks for the tip/link. That looks great! Everyone, Tyler tips us off to a new horror anthology called LIZARD BRAIN, published by the mighty tragickal, and featuring work by a bunch of writers beloved of this blog (and me) like Blake Butler, Sean Kilpatrick, Gary J. Shipley, David Kuhnlein, and others. Sounds like a must have. Check it out and get it here. Take care. ** Joe, Hey, man! Glad you caught it. In agreement with you about Clarke, naturally. I’m good. Our film is mere days from utter completion and is currently submitted to two big festivals, and we’ll see. Doing last things re: a little book of mine that’s coming out in July. Working in the new script. Like that there. And you, what’s up? ** Misanthrope, You should read him. Your and my tastes diverge often enough, so you could love his stuff. Well, glad Alex is deflating facially. Parents talking like a 1950s sitcom sounds kind of romantic to me only because mine certainly didn’t. I believe you about the low-carb cheesecake, but not about ‘Saltburn’. See, diverging tastes, what did I just say? xo. ** Steve, Hey. Here’s a message from Uday if you didn’t see it: ‘Steve: The movie is called Jesus, You Know. Link here‘. Indeed about old British TV as far as I can tell. Same story on French TV, I am told. ** Gaaah!, Hi. Oh, no, you’re Gaaah! again. Sorry. Although you seem totally like your old Harper self. I’m glad to hear you’re sane about in-process feedback. I wish I was sometimes. One time I made the mistake of reading part of a novel I was working on at an event, and people seemed to love it, and that freaked me out so much that I stopped working on the novel for a year. I doubt it will surprise you that I think you flummoxing and silencing the people in your class and your lecturer is only a very, very good sign. When you’re writing something new, that downsizing/categorising of what you do always happens at first, I think. It took me publishing two or three novels until people stopped saying I was a Burroughs or Genet knock-off. It’s frustrating, but don’t sweat it in other words. I don’t remember the last episode of ‘Berlin Alexanderplatz’. I need to watch ‘BA’ again. It’s been ages. Fassbinder, yeah, what can you say. Big up! ** Thomas H, Hi! I agree. How are you? What’s going on? ** Corey Heiferman, You made it back! Stuff’s fine here, no new news. Sounds like you maxed out what London is capable of providing to short term visitors at its best. Good. Cool: your film! I’ll hit when I’m not reading and responding to the comments with such concentration. Everyone, Corey made an experimental film clip called ‘Eurostar Sunset’, and I think you need to join me in imbibing it, yes? It’s only 33 seconds long, and it’s here. ** 🇨🇦 Guy, Hi, Guy aka Gol! I’m doing alright, what about you? I think I saw you’re reading somewhere? Missed you too! ** Justin D, Hi. Ace about your weekend. Mine was … lowkey for the most part, it seems. Uh, wow, you watched that ‘Frisk’ mess. I think you probably know I dislike it very much. When it was optioned? I was curious and excited at that point. I was promised it was going to be very different film than it turned out to be. Very different. So it was all a big plunge downhill from there. But at least I learned never to option my novels so naively again. Thanks for sorting out my cameo. Was your Monday promising? ** Bill, Hi. There’s a Collected Poems of Bob Flanagan book about to come out, and the event is the Paris launch of that book. Enjoy Omar. Give him a hug for me. ** Nicholas(Nick), Well, there you are! It’s been so less shimmery here without you. That new project of yours sounds and looks killer! Whoa! Eyes peeled. Let me … Everyone, Nicholas(Nick) has launched a fascinating looking/seeming project that I’ll let him describe. N(N): ‘I’ve been being hot and sane and working on idea this I’ve decided to market called MuseMenaceTV which will incorporate everything I love (art, gay porn, occult practice, and some cult recruitment and a lot more!)’ Sounds pretty seeable and doable, doesn’t it? Find it here. I’m just doing the last things on our film and prepping for a new book of mine and writing and enjoying the parts of the days when it isn’t raining which isn’t too often. xoxo. ** Uday, Thanks for the news to Steve. I passed it along to him in my re-comment up above. Me too: walking, stairs, … that’s it for me and movement. I remember Boston being beautifully gloomy the two times I was there. I don’t think my mind can conjure up that smell, but, gosh, I sure wish I could, it sounds very eventful. ** Oscar 🌀, Wow, an embarrassment of riches! Thank you! I’m shielding and peeling my eyes simultaneously. So weird about that blocking. But the UK is so weird, no? I’m sorry, but it seems pretty weird when watched from afar. I think France seems obnoxious and irritating from afar, but not weird. I guess ultimately that’s a kind of backhanded compliment to the UK. I always immediately wonder what animals are thinking. Always. Even pigeons. A bunch of pigeons live near my window, and they sit there for hours just turning their heads, and I always wonder they’re thinking because they must be thinking even if it’s just ‘yes’, ‘no’, ‘maybe’, ‘no’, etc. I just read the other day that fish can not only think, they also are self-aware about what they are. Apparently that’s a big discovery. Thank you, I might even have three coffees today. What about you? Do you drink tea? ** ellie, Hi, ellie! When I’m feeling very or overly emotional I always try to remember how much I wish I could feel emotional when I’m feeling bored and numb. I trust you’ll find the appropriate distance between yourself and that extremely bad news person. Great about affording the SAIC program! And your consequently fine weekend. Mine was sort of just time passing, I think. One big annoying incident with our film producers, but that was absolutely nothing new. Oh, I did see a great friend and collaborator for the first time in over a year, and we’d had kind of a falling out, and now we’re not fallen out anymore, so actually that was pretty good. xoxo. ** Right. Today I direct the blog’s spotlight at a wonderful book by the prose stylist maestro Diane Williams, and have a look, won’t you? See you tomorrow.