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Thursday, November 6, 2014

NO REWIND TO LIFE_A GHOST-EYE VIEW OF NANO & LIFE'S FLEETING MOMENTS



Dorothy Parker, Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway (their ghosts rather) and I were playing poker at my table at Meilori's.

Dorothy Parker took a sip of her whiskey and smiled at me. 



"If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style.

The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy.”




"Bah!" snapped Hemingway.  "The lemmings are throwing together words just as fast as they can to create hovels of novels."

Mark lit a cigar and grinned, 

"Well, I certainly believe in using the right word not its second cousin.  Hemingway, did you mean to rhyme?  Weren't you a poet, too, Dorothy?"

Dorothy bent down, grabbed a rubber doll whose throat was torn from ear to ear, and tossed it to her poodle -- 

who faithful even beyond death -- lingered beside her mistress.



"Ha! My verses. I cannot say poems. Like everybody was then, I was following in the exquisite footsteps of Miss Millay, unhappily in my own horrible sneakers.

 My verses are no damn good. 

Let’s face it, honey, my verse is terribly dated—as anything once fashionable is dreadful now. 

I gave it up, knowing it wasn’t getting any better, but nobody seemed to notice my magnificent gesture."
 

Fitz, as he liked me to call him, took a sip of his own champagne.  "Never confuse a single failure with a final defeat."

Hemingway gruffed, "We are all defeated in the end.  It is only the struggle that matters and why you struggle in the first place."

Hemingway glared at Ratatoskr (the Asgardian squirrel)

who scampered from ghost to ghost, looking at their hands and whispering in my ear.  "He's telling you our cards, isn't he?"

I shook my head.  "He's merely teasing you and telling me terrible jokes."

"How terrible?" frowned Twain.

I sighed, "What did Jay-Z call his girlfriend after he proposed?"

"What?" asked Hemingway.

 I answered, "FeyoncĂ©."

Dorothy groaned, "Ouch!"

I said to her, 

"It’s a popular supposition that there was much more communication between writers in the twenties. The Round Table discussions in the Algonquin, for example."

 {Dorothy and the rest of the Algonquin Round Table}

"Gertrude Stein did us the most harm when she said, 'You’re all a lost generation.' That got around to certain people and we all said, 'Whee! We’re lost.'

 Perhaps it suddenly brought to us the sense of change. 

Or irresponsibility. 

But don’t forget that, though the people in the twenties seemed like flops, they weren’t.  

Fitzgerald, over there and the rest of them, reckless as they were, drinkers as they were, they worked damn hard and all the time."

I asked, "Did the “lost generation” attitude you speak of have a detrimental effect on your own work?"

"Silly of me to blame it on dates, but so it happened to be. 

Dammit, it was the twenties and we had to be smarty. I wanted to be cute. That’s the terrible thing. I should have had more sense."

Fitz sighed, 

"At eighteen, our convictions are hills from which we look.  At forty-five, they are caves in which we hide."

Mark Twain nodded,

"Each day is like a coin.  We can spend it any way we like.  But we can only spend it once."

Hemingway lit his own cigar and puffed out the smoky words.  

"The living think they have more days than they do.  They look out at a thousand lives.  

At the end, they'll turn around and find only one --

and if they frittered away precious days investing in work that is inferior, that one life will be inferior."

Fitz looked into the shadows.   

"All good writing is swimming underwater and holding your breath, knowing it will not last."

Ratatoskr looked up at me from the table top.  "What do you think of this NaNo nonsense, Roland."

I smiled sadly.  "Some of my friends are for it.  Some of them are against it."

Dorothy asked, "And you?"

"I'm for my friends."

Ratatoskr groaned.



11 comments:

  1. Aww the wisdom of writers. I am...for my friends,too.

    You are awesomely entertaining. And when I am a writer ghost (not to be confused with ghost writer) , I should like to sit at your table, too.

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  3. T. Powell:
    As Milo James Fowler proved the other post or two ago: you don't have to die to visit Meilori's!

    Staying alive once there is the problem though!

    Thank you for the nice compliment. I have fun with my ghosts.

    Francene Lockett is narrating my GHOST WRITERS IN THE SKY: my volume of ghostly advice from my ghosts.

    Mark E. Kamish has already narrated My adventure with the ghosts of Mark Twain and Marlene Dietrich versus my own fictional worlds in GHOST OF A CHANCE.

    Shakespeare even tries to murder me in it since I murder his quotes!

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  4. As T. Powell said, you are indeed most entertaining, Roland my dear, and you are clearly for your friends. That said, I do like what Dorothy said about shooting her aspiring writer friends while they're still happy.

    Since you know I like ghosts, then you must know I really enjoy your visits with the ghosts of writers.

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    1. Thanks, Helena. Sorry for the delay -- the rainy weekend made driving my blood runs truly death-defying!!

      I'm glad you liked my ghost round table. :-)

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  5. Wow...best round-table ever. Any room for an optimistic existentialist??

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  6. Like OE said, a fun round-table. I yearn for the café society of Paris, too. To discuss writing and writers work warms a scribbler's heart.

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  7. Helena:
    Long ago it occurred to me that since I wrote of a haunted jazz club, wouldn't it be fun to talk with those I admired and enjoyed?

    One of the most fun ideas I've had. I am really glad you enjoy you like my forays into ghostly banter. :-)

    Keith:
    There's always room for you at my poker table. But watch out for Twain, he deals off the bottom! Thanks for the kind words.

    D.G.:
    Wouldn't you like to walk into the movie, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS? :-)

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  8. Thanks for letting me know about word verification. It is set to off, but I noticed it also when I looked at comments without being signed into Google. I have no idea what to do about it.

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  9. Hi Roland. Funny post. I especially loved Hemingway (well,I always love Hemingway). "The lemmings are throwing together words just as fast as they can to create hovels of novels."

    I'd hate dear Ernest to look over my shoulder to see the vomit spurting out on my pages as I pen my latest NaNo!

    And yes D.G., wouldn't I like to walk into Midnight in Paris...what a dream!

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  10. Inger:
    Perhaps you could write Blogger to see what you could do?

    It did not seem to lessen the # of your comments, so I would not worry. :-)

    Denise:
    I love to channel Hemingway. He plays a big part in my GHOST WRITERS IN THE SKY audiobook being produced where he and other great ghostly writers give advise on how to write -- also with more of my ghostly adventures with them, too!

    Be true to yourself is what he would probably advise you. Yes, MIDNIGHT IN PARIS would be a great adventure to walk into, wouldn't it?

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