Beautiful Books:: The Elementals

Currently reading FLBs "The Elementals".

It had a slow start, I think, but I've fallen in love. Very pretty. Very ... relatable, if that's even a word. In fact, I find it more relatable than some of her other books. 

There's just something much more relatable and understanding about a girl entering college after traumatic setbacks and feeling lost, alone, and grasping onto the things she finally finds magical. 

 "That was when I started to run. I ran and ran as fast as I could along the pavement. Sweat poured down my face, mixing with the tears that had started to come. I could run fast. But you just can't run faster than time, not faster than death and, as I'd find out, not faster than love."

-- page 8

Weetzie Bat led a beautiful life, but it's not one everyone gets, or understands, or even necessarily wants. But Ariel is so real and complex in her fears and desires that I see myself behaving much the same way as her in many of the situations she faces. Her fear and anxiety and loneliness and desire to find her friend (and herself) definitely reflect me back at myself in a sad, beautiful way. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.

"I walked past groups of laughing frat boys in monster masks and sorority girls dressed as sexy cats, sexy witches or sexy fairies in accessorized leotards and tights. The homeless were out in full force as well but the Greek kids were ignoring them in the usual way, as if they were invisible, phantoms. But I saw. The woman with the wings held a skeleton mask over her face and her small companion was dressed head to toe in clothes that looked as if they had been dipped in blood. The man with dreadlocks had twisted them into horns. He approached me, mumbling and waving his hands. I froze. As he got closer he shouted, 'The end is near and the parallel universe is not near complete!' He kept walking past me and I resumed breathing. The air smelled of coffee and chocolate. I stopped at the corner and looked around. People were sitting in the cafe. It seemed so warm and cozy in there."

  -- page 29

It reminds me a little of Echo, in the searching, and Quakeland in its self aware anxiety, The Hanged Man in its views of life and the self, and Ecstasia in its lush sensory descriptions.

But all of these in a much more narrative, realistic, understandable way. I can see myself as Ariel in ways I couldn't with other characters. I don't aspire to be like her or in her life; I just could be. Anyone could be.

The story is part coming-of-age, part supernatural, and part crime mystery. It's lovely and touching and sad and scary, and reminds you of those times when you just want to run and jump and dance, dress up, play, light candles and kiss and write and sing and be alive as much as possible.

"Everywhere I went I imagined she was walking with me. I tried to see things through her eyes; it wasn't hard. I knew how she thought. The faces she would find beautiful or interesting, the scruffy and disabled dogs she would stop to pet, the jewelry she would life from black velvet on the street vendor's table, examining to see how it was made, the buildings she would want to live in."

--page 17

It's also incredibly grounded in its representation of love and fear and tragedy, and I swear it's a wonderful read, Teen-Fiction or not. 

It's amazing.

Beautiful Books :: Frenzy

The Frenzy

By Francesca Lia Block

(HarperCollins 2010)

"He would look into my eyes the next time I saw him ans sense that I had moved further away, become less like him." 

The Frenzy is s little different than the other FLB books I've read.
There's more of a plot, less imagery and metaphor/symbolism, and less steam of consciousness/quickly told sorry points. This one is slow -- a little repetitive-- and let's you admire the story-- one about love, loss, rage, being different, and finding yourself-- as it comes, without rushing you or overpowering your senses.

"May the river of peace flow through me. May the winds of calm blow anger from my mind. May love's fire burn away my pain. May the great mother protect me and may I know how to protect her as I go."

Plot-wise, I think this quickly became one of my favorites of hers, maybe just because after twenty-some books, little else but imagery and sensual writing, with light, airy plots--though usually steeped in an underlining layer of realism-- can get a little tiring, so a very straight forward, emotional, uniquely FLB, book like this was refreshing and lovely.

"The engine revved and roared like a beast as we took off into the night. Wind grabbed at my hair, flaring red strands around us. I held on tight to Corey's waist and I could smell his sweat-- a scent of adventure and hope and love."

Not to mention that throughout FLB's repetoiure of fantastical, lyrical, surreal and sensual texts, the characters in The Frenzy, somehow, felt the most real to me. The most solid.

"I let you down. I turned away from you. Without your love and acceptance... I could have been where you are now. Love is the only thing we have to save us."

 

Melancholy

I feel a sense of melancholy today. Quiet and reserved. With tiny, secret bouts of fury and terror and pain. I want to wish the world away and stand in sunshine. Sleep in warmth and dream of waves and skies and stars.

"What shall we do, all of us? All of us passionate girls who fear crushing the boys we love with our mouths like caverns of teeth..." -Blood Roses

My day job makes me too lazy for my freelance work, and I sit and waste the afternoon away.
I want to buy back my hours, the ticking seconds I didn't use. They make me feel useless. Wasted. Old. Every second another moment of my life gone to nothing but sitting here.

"But the Cyclops eye seemed like it could drill a hole right through her, so that in the pictures the tree tapping the window would show up where her heart was supposed to be." -I Was A Teenage Fairy

My medication hasn't taken away my depression or anxiety (yet?), but instead I have a sense of clarity within them. My depression comes in phases curled under the covers. Eternities of seconds staring at the ceiling in empty, quiet thoughts. Each individual anxiety eventually lost in a haze of moments passed. Forgotten with the simple, silent passing of time.

"'Let the pain wash over you,' she said. 'Let the pain teach you. If you can feel it then you can feel joy again...'" -Blood Roses (Changelings)

Only my anger remains. Surviving the ticking clock as my skin crawls and my mind twists with useless, mild rage. Curling through my thoughts like wisps of smoke, slithering snake temptations of hate.

"I wanted to destroy the body I was trapped in, become what she was, no matter what it took. No matter how much mutilation or pain." -The Rose and The Beast (Ice)

Even food is like work, and I ignore hunger pangs like unwanted advances, curling up to listen to the silence.
It comes and goes, this peaceful, empty melancholy. Some days the world is mine. The sun shines and music plays and work gets done my new apartment is its own world of possibilities and I am potential itself.

"We try on different dresses, different selves, but our souls are always the same-- ongoing, full of light." - Psyche in a Dress

Then the quiet days come. Empty but the buzz of the ac unit or the refrigerator drone. I listen to dogs bark and people climb the steps behind my bedroom, and think of nothing, or wish for everything, and sit with my nothingness.  

"I wanted him to call me darling. Tell me it would be okay. We'll take care of it." -Echo
 

I wait for the better me, as if she will crawl out of my own skin to make me dance and sing and smile. She will be beautiful because she is strong in herself. Not for others but for her. Lips tilted  upwards and heart open to the sky and the world. Unafraid of her own shadow and the voices of others. Unafraid of the blank page or the open door. She will be me. The right me. Born of my self.

"I will paint a Tarot deck-- my own.... I will be the Hanged Man, also the woman in the Lovers card, also the Queen of Cups. I will be Strength with her lion." -The Hanged Man

Om Mani Padme Hum

"I will be Strength..."

Behind

I've left behind a piece of my life tonight.

I think.

A feeling felt and held and cried over. Now found, and mourned

and

possibly

let go?

My life is not what I want it to be.

But this.

I want this.

To tilt my head back and laugh at the sky

like it is too big and too bright and it is perfect

but I am too.

Like the greatness of the thing

can no longer intimidate me.

The past behind, hope ahead.

Life ahead.

Love.

Smiles.

I want this.

"I have been young too

I have been Psyche, I have been Echo

I have been Eurydice

I have been Persephone, like you

I thought I was not a goddess..."

...

"But she was a goddess and a storyteller too. A soul in a new dress now."

~Psyche in a Dress

"Things are changing. You just must believe it, yes? You just must believe." 

~ Changelings {Blood Roses}

 

"I want to paint. I want to paint things that make people feel their pulse. Like drums. Like running. Like making love.

I will paint a Tarot deck-- my own."

~The Hanged Man

 

Worlds of Taste {5} :: Pink Smog

Worlds of Taste

Part {5} :: Pink Smog

(Francesca Lia Block, 2012)

"I got myself a bowl of Lucky Charms. The pink hearts, yellow moons, orange stars, and green clovers ached my molars as the milk turned rainbow colors." (1)

"...watching the clock and eating the lunch I'd made-- an apple and a pack of orange cheese spread and crackers." (5)

"I got a can of Tab, sleek and sweaty with cold. ... I drank my Tab. It tasted like sweet liquid metal." (11)

"I heated up some frozen mac and cheese for us and sat next to her..." (11)

"I brought her Brazil nuts and ginger ale and red licorice. I would have tried to cook but I always burned the grilled cheese sandwiches or let the rice bubble over. The only thing I could make was instant mac and cheese but she didn't want that and neither did I. I wished she had taught me to cook when I was littler and she was happy..." (25-26)

"... the cute waiter sand me Cat Stevens songs and brought me a Cobb salad and a piece of birthday cake." (29)

"They served veggie burgers and sprouts and hibiscus lemonade. Carney's was a hot-dog place inside and old train car. Butterfield's was a sunken garden at the bottom of the stairs, like someone's run-down mansion where you could have elegant brunches with quiche, fresh fruit, and champagne among lacy trees." (33)

"We ate little pieces of raw fish and candied ginger and my parents had cocktails and wine." (35)

"They stay in a tiny, lovely Victorian hotel on a steep hill and eat fettuccine at an Italian restaurant." (49)

"I ate my peanut butter and jelly sandwich and she massacred her apple. I offered her half a frosted Pop-Tart but she looked at it like it might bite back so I quickly returned it to my lunch box." (57)

"Bobby and I got ice-cream cones but Lily didn't want one and I didn't push-- she looked as if I were going to stab her with my swirly pink-and-white confection." (71)

"...afterward we made Pillsbury chocolate chip cookies and at the whole batch... I have to admit chocolate never tasted so good." (101)

"...we were home stuffing our faces with the 3 Musketeers bars Bobby had brought over for trick-or-treaters..." (123)

"...her mother was a professional housewife who liked to cook elaborate meals to entice her daughter into eating. The huge, fatty dishes only made Lily starve herself more." (132)

"I wanted to make her soup but I was a lousy cook and I knew she didn't want any either. ... He... came back with a large green apple and a cup of peppermint tea with lemon and honey." (133)

"I wanted to make pancakes, bacon, and scrambled eggs for dinner. Sometimes it cheered me up to eat meals at the "wrong times"." (134)

""We'll have pressed turkey and cranberry jelly and pumpkin pie under the cuckoo clocks, okay?"" (137)

"When I was little he liked to take me to Norms Coffee Shop for hamburgers and vanilla shakes that we ate in the vinyl booths,... or ...you could make your own toast at the toasters at your table. We had ice-cream cones at Wil Wright's.... Farrell's where they made a huge ice-cream birthday concoction called the Zoo that was covered in little plastic animals. ... We sat down under the wooden birds and ate the orange sticky buns the restaurant was famous for, as well as turkey dinners with pressed turkey and cranberry jelly and mashed potatoes." (145)

"In the same way I ate a double-scoop pistachio-and-cherry ice-cream cone and then had popcorn and a large Sprite at the movie theater..." (147-148)

"...bought ingredients to make pasta with pesto sauce and a spinach salad with walnuts and dried cranberries and balsamic vinegar..." (161)

"I was going to make turkey sandwiches, green beans with candied almonds, yams with marshmallows, and cranberry sauce." (161)

"...we drank the cold, bitter white wine from plastic cups and chewed Bubble Yum to take the edge off." (166)

"We hate gnocchi and ravioli, Indian curries and samosas, pork buns and chow mein. ... while we went to buy oranges, milk, and cornflakes at the corner market." (183)

The Worlds of Taste series here is a collection of all the mentions of food that occurs in the books of Francesca Lia Block. Sometimes accompanied by photos from the web, or sometimes just colored with glitter and shine, these posts remind me of the luxurious world of food within the FLB books. Read others at Worlds of Taste {3}: Weetzie Bat, or {4} : Ecstasia

Beautiful Books :: Pink Smog

Beautiful Books

Pink Smog

Francesca Lia Block

"I don't know if I can do this myself," I said, meaning everything, meaning life.

"Yes you can. You can do anything you put your mind to. You just needed a little help through adolescence..."

Ever wonder how Weetzie Bat became so slam glam fabulous and in love with the world? 

Well it turns out she wasn't always a life-loving city goddess, she was once just Louise Bat, a shy brunette who skated to school, got picked on, and never felt sure of herself.

But after her dad leaves home, Louise has to find a way to bring herself up to the top. There's a strange new family in her building, with a chic purple-eyed woman, a devilish girl who terrorizes Louise, and an Angel Boy who watches over her. At school the popular girls tease her and put gum in her hair. Her mother stays at the bottom of a bottle. And her dad is nowhere to be found. 

"I realized that mean people had their purpose, too. They brought you together. They unified you. They made you find your friends."

Now Weetzie has to figure out how to navigate through it all and make herself happy even when everything is going wrong.

"I had this city and I decided I had better fall in love with her again because she wasn't going anywhere and neither was I.

The black pavement, dark to hide the dirt, sparkled with diamond chips in the burning sun."

This quick novel isn't the burning, flashing, life-changing manifesto of life and love and beauty that the original Weetzie Bat book(s) was, but it is still amazing in its own way. 

We don't pop out of the box cool and glam like Weetzie Bat. And the more we struggle to "be like Weetzie", the more we tend to forget that. This story shows that even Weetzie didn't start out as Weetzie, she had to create herself. And we all start off as Louise, struggling to make sense of a world that is constantly against us. And seeing that transformation, from Louise to Weetzie, is a very simple but beautiful story that still manages to resonate with the reader who's been there; young and alone and unhappy.

"And smog is like sadness. It slips stealthily inside of you,  with every breath, poisoning you before you realize it..."

Hell, at 23, it resonates perfectly with me now. That empty, alone feeling that crawls into your stomach and up into your brain and whispers and scratches at you, reminding you of all the things that keep going wrong. That will always go wrong.

But Pink Smog reminds us that sometimes we need to push that feeling away, find the beauty in our lives, and even reinvent ourselves to find who we really are, and what we really want.

See Also: Beautiful Reading :: Wasteland, Beautiful Reading :: White Oleander

Forgetting

Currently reading Pink Smog! Definitely puts me back in a blogging mood.
Also, have been having minor success selling bracelets on Etsy, and I really really want to make Weetzie inspires ones! Any suggestions???

Worlds of Taste {4} :: Ecstasia

Worlds of Taste

Food in the world of Francesca Lia Block

Part 4 :: Ecstasia

(Francesca Lia Block, 1993)

Ecstasia is one of FLB's longer novels. It's a rich, complex story involving the lives of a group of friends in a sort of magical, post-apocoliptic LA, where only the young live above ground, dancing and twirling through a life of sweets and liquors and music and colors, while the old-- ashamed of their age-- go Underground to live out the rest of their lives in a haze of drugs and/or death. Those who choose neither chance the dessert around the city, while some find solace in the hallucinogenic drugs the Underworld has to offer.

The world is vivid and rich, and while I had trouble getting through it the first time (it's more dense than her others, and takes a little longer) it is so beautiful it's hard to forget.

I'd actually read the sequel first (Primavera) and got through it easier, but they're both so wonderful it doesn't even matter. Lovely writing, lush descriptions. Most of the descriptions show food in it's relation to luxury/pleasure. The youth Above eat and drink to celebrate life, but to the main characters it eventually feels shallow and fleeting. I wasn't sure how these descriptions felt, when here out of context, but they still hold that sort of... cynical...longing tone, which I think is interesting.

I felt the words should be dark and glittering, like stars dancing.

As I was going through the text, I felt like the words should be thick, black, dreamy. And the food of Elysia-- cakes, candy, sugar, champagne-- would be shades of pink, while the food of the dessert-- fruits, vegetables (life)-- would be their own appropriate colors..

"...where a mechanical doll with clocks set in her eye sockets served fluorescent drinks." (5)

"Huge oval mirrors in frames of silver roses reflected the tapestry cushions and the urns holding candy,..." (5)

"..swallowing the chocolate-mint liqueur from a bottle, licking his lips." (6)

"...to paint herself like an opal, eat cakes, to dance all day." (8)

"'He says he's addicted to Elysia. To all the sugar-things. He's a sugar-head,' the girl said." (10)

"The water will shine over their bodies, will fill their mouths. They will lose themselves in flowers and eat fruits that drop into their hands." (13)

"'Knocking myself against those sparkling glass windows to get inside to the champagne and the champagne-colored light.'" (15)

"Your father and I drank plum liqueur, and we watched the fireworks..." (18)

"You taste better than all the wines. You taste like crystal nectar. And you glow like wine in a glass." (27)

"Some people dressed in frilled baby costumes drank alcohol from nippled bottles." (31)

"This is the taste of longing-- like pomegranate. A thin film of translucent sweet coating the tiny, hard, white cores." (36)

"...as he drank from a big bottle of raspberry liqueur, thick with fruit." (44)

"'We could go eat or dance or get a drink. Dessert? Everything?'" (44)

"Lily ordered angel hair pasta, summer squash soup, persimmon salad, strawberry shortcake, a champagne cocktail. 

'You know how to order,' he said. 'Most girls I know seem scared of food.'" (45)

"Calliope took the cake layers out of the oven and began to spread them with jam." (52)

"'Does she eat enough?' His sister was swirling the pale chocolate cream onto the cake." (53)

"Lily pour two glasses of water from a carafe. The candle flames reflected in them." (56)

"Paul walked by eating fluorescent candy." (58)

"We would drink the coffee

swallow it all up

until the night was gone

leaving bare white dawn

the bare white cup..." (66)

"...where couples sat eating cake, drinking champagne, pouring champagne on their cake." (74)

"Some pretty stuff for a while, some sweet stuff, some spirits in a bottle..." (98)

"...veiled women dancing, lynx cats striding, reclining men lifting flasks of nectar to their lips." (98)

"If only I could take away the bottle that stains your lips. You say I am your wine. Let me be your wine." (99)

"...Paul's eyes across the table, cool, starry as the eyes of the luminous, looming dolls, while he ate his cake and ice cream. 'What happened to Rafe-sugar-head?' Paul asked one afternoon when Rafe ordered only sparkling water. 'I'm trying to quit.'" (110)

"Paul pushed aside the piece of layer cake drowning in chocolate ice cream." (111)

"They had eaten pastries for dinner..." (121)

"They don't want to give up all the circuses and cakes to work. To live." (132)

"He reached into his pockets and took out a handful of candy stars. The lights seemed to flash to the beat of the music that drifted up through the streets as Paul stood, eating his candy."

"Only when I drank the wine they slipped me at the long gold table did I forget. We all forgot." (141)

"...I was addicted to the glass garden and the fountains and the platters of iced rum cakes." (143)

"'Candy?' 

Calliope reached into her pocket and took out some of the chocolate wafers Dionisio loved. The little girl popped them into her mouth and closed her eyes for a moment, like an addict who has finally retrieved the drug. She skipped away singing to herself, 'Butterfly flutter by, sweet meat meat sweet, sugar pie, pie in the sky.'" (153)

"Will you grow up gnawing on candy, addicted to the sweetness you savored in your mother's milk?" (153)

"...past a bar where people dressed in kimonos and high black wigs sat on pillows drinking sake and staring out the glass walls..." (154)

"And he was cracking open the blood-colored husk of the orb. And he was prying apart the insides. And he was ripping the small, bright kernel from the honeycomb sheath..." (160)

"He only needs to hold out his hand the the plums will drop-- the color of his curls and the flavor of his lips." (160)

"This sky of leaves, plums, peaches, grapes, apple blossoms." (161)

"...he would take me with him to get ice cream and give me dolls..." (165)

"I will.... eat the cakes and drink the champagne and go below when I am supposed to go below." (168)

"...hallucinations of gaping-mouthed plums are taunting him." (172)

"Dionisio and Paul will feed her wine and jams and sugared violets." (173)

"This man has dark curls and smells of fruit and smoke." (175)

"...mechanical dolls serving parfaits and exotic drinks with parasols to the beautiful children." (188)

"They were always hungry for fruits, vegetables, grains, thirsty for fountains, pools, lakes..." (192)

Related Posts: Worlds of Taste {1} Echo and {2} The Hanged Man and {3} Weetzie Bat

Worlds Of Taste {3} -- Weetzie Bat

Worlds of Taste

Food in the world of Francesca Lia Block

Part Three :: Weetzie Bat

(Francesca Lia Block, 1989)

(these page numbers are from the Dangerous Angels edition, published 1998)

The one that started it all.
Though this isn't the first FLB book I read, it is the one that got me hooked. The descriptions of (and just using) food are delectable, and everything is just kind of delightful. And it's pretty much constant. Every page has food. This post will probably be dangerously close to copyright infringement because there's food on like every page! I'm surprised this wasn't the first post I ever wrote.
One of the things I love about it is that a good amount of the food is healthy food. At some point in her life, Weetzie becomes a vegetarian, but throughout her life, she doesn't eat crazy terrible food. There are hamburgers and ice cream and lots of wine and champagne, but there's also sushi and veggies and avocado sandwiches. I mean...yum, people!

I felt the the text here should be bright and bubbly, like Weetzie. If only I could make it bubbly...

"...[you could buy] the wildest, cheapest cheese and bean and hot dog and pastrami burritos at Oki Dogs; that the waitresses wore skates at the Jetson-style Tiny Naylor's; that there was a fountain that turned soda-pop colors... and all-night potato knishes at Cantors..." [3]

"They drank beers or bright-colored canned Club drinks in Jerry and told each other how cool they were." [5]

"After the shows, sweaty and shaky, they went to Oki Dogs for a burrito." [5]

"...they... had strawberry sundaes with marshmallow topping at Schwab's, or went to the beach. ...got tan and ate cheese-and-avocado sandwiches on whole-wheat bread and slept on the beach." [5]

"...a sweet, powdery old lady who baked tiny, white, sugar-coated pastries for them..." [6]

"...they gave him pizza pie for dinner instead of that weird meat Weetzie's mom, Brandy-Lynn, tried to dish out..." [6]

"Dirk poured rum from the little bottle he kept in his jacket pocket into the Cokes." [7]

"They went to Canter's for bagels, which comforted Weetzie because she had teethed on Canter's bagels when she was a baby. While they ate, a cart of pickles wheeled by..." [10]

"Weetzie's dad ordered two turkey platters with mashed potatoes, gravy, and cranberry sauce. The white-haired waitress served them canned fruit cocktail, sugar-glazed rolls, and pink sherbet before the turkey came. They had apple pie afterward.

'Does your mother ever feed you?" Weetzie's dad asked between the fruit and the rolls." [12]

"They drank tequila sunrises and bathed in gin." [14]

"...took her to the delis for pastrami sandwiches and Cel-Ray tonic, bought her hot pretzels on the street." [15]

"...they had to walk up nine flights in the dark carrying the lox and bagels and cream cheese and bonbons..." [16]

"...Weetzie and Dirk brought Grandma Fifi tomatoes from the Fairfax market and prune pastries from Canter's." [17]

"...when Dirk came up and offered to buy him a beer." [22]

"They had barbecues and ate hamburgers and watermelon." [23]

"They all lived together and wore red and ate plantain and black beans, or wonton soup and fortune cookies... They took her to the Kingston 12 to hear reggae music and drink Red Stripe Jamaican beer..." [25]

"'Coffee, black,' he said. It was a Sunday morning at Duke's." [26]

"...pulled a bottle of pink champagne out of his trench coat." [28]

"A kiss about apple pie a la mode with the vanilla creaminess melting in the pie heat. A kiss about chocolate when you haven't eaten chocolate in a year.... trailing pink clouds when you drive down the Strip sizzling with champagne...." [29]

"...in the land of skating hamburgers and flying toupees and Jah-Love blonde Indians." [30]

"They had enough to go to Noshi for sushi whenever they wanted (which was a lot because Weetzie was addicted to the hamachi, which only cost $1.50 an order). They also ate guacamole tostadas at El Coyote... putting the toppings of guacamole, canned vegetables, Thousand Island dressing, and cheese into the corn tortillas that were served between two plates too keep them warm." [33]

"...and were eating canned smoked oysters and drinking red wine from real glasses..." [33]

"His eyes looked like glasses of gin."

"Weetzie felt as if she were turning into steam and milk and honey." [36]

"At Noshi, they ordered hamachi, anago, maguro, ebi, tako, kappa maki, and Kirin beer. They were buzzing from the beer and from the burning neon-green wasabe and the pink ginger and from the massive protein doze of sushi." [36]

"She felt like... an Easter basket of pastel chocolate-malt eggs and solid-milk-chocolate bunnies, and yellow daffodils and dollhouse-sized jelly-bean eggs." [38]

"...bitterness was like a liqueur burning in her throat and dripping down slowly into her heart." [41]

"...Weetzie brought him more aspirin and vitamin C, and made him drink grapefruit juice and herb tea..." [45]

"...and being terrorized by Cherokee, and eating up all of Duck's Fig Newtons..." [50]

"They drove around in the T-bird eating ice cream and filming." [53]


"...they went to Chinatown and ate squid and broccoli and hot-and-sour soup. Then they wandered through the angled streets that smelled meaty and peppery." [55]


"...on the way home, he bought cannolis in Little Italy for all of them." [55]


"Charlie took them out for Italian food and French food and Jewish deli and lobster. He bought them strawberries and whipped cream... among the peachy marble columns..." [56]


"Now they were in Sylvia's, eating eggs and grits and biscuits and sweet potato pie.
'I'm okay,' Charlie said. He was on his third cup of coffee and hadn't touched his breakfast." [56]


"We have pancakes at Duke's, and dinners at the Tick Tock Tea Room." [57]


"...and have a Schwab's and have a hamburger and a milkshake for dinner, and I'd swivel around on the barstool reading Wonder Woman comics..." [60]


"She kissed him and packed bags and picnic baskets and thermoses and Spiderman lunch pails full of bagels, string cheese, chocolate-chip cookies, milk, apples, and carrot sticks." [64]


"He stopped at McDonald's but kept thinking of the cows and ordered a Filet o' Fish and a milkshake." [65]


"...he smelled the cold, bread baking, gasoline." [65]


"...looking at the faces of the men eating ice cream as if it would ease some pain." [66]


"Everyone looked drunk under the old Coca-Cola signs in the rooms that smelled of meat, onions, and sawdust. ... how they had held hands the whole time they ate their hamburgers..." [66]


"They stopped for all-you-can-eat pea soup..." [68]


"...they would take a trip to Mexico and drink tequila and lie in the sun..." [68]


"That night, they all ate linguini and clam sauce that My Secret Agent Lover Man made, and they drank wine and lit the candles." [69]

Related posts: Worlds of Taste {1} Echo & {2} The Hanged Man

World of Tastes {2} The Hanged Man

Worlds Of Taste

Food in the world of Francesca Lia Block

Part Two: The Hanged Man

(Francesca Lia Block, 1994)

I love The Hanged Man. It's one of my favorites. The descriptions are light and ethereal and beautiful. Harsh beauty full of pain and fear. There's a surprising amount of food mentioned, considering it's about a girl struggling with anorexia. But maybe that's the way it really is. Maybe when you deny yourself food, all that's left to do is think about it. To see it everywhere. Either way the images are strong and full, and the emotion connected to them deep and pure. 

I love this book. For this one I started coloring the food words with the colors I thought of when I heard them. Cake...pink or blue...Ginger...gold...wine...purple...red.

***

"...he says hello and his voice is the best thing-- it cracks like ice when you pour the liquor over." [4]

"Past the canyon market where I worked last summer, packing bags full of yogurts, avocados, peaches, and wine for the canyon people..." [7]

"...where Claudia and I drink coffee (mine black, hers sugary and milky brown)..." [7]

"I go into the kitchen and put some plums and a slice of buttered, home-baked bread onto a blue and white plate from Holland. I fill a glass with water and squeeze some lemon in. I put everything on a tray with the real butterflies pressed under glass." [9]

"My mother is cooking and cooking. She buys turkeys and reaches inside of them and takes out what is there and rubs the flesh all over with garlic and stuffs them with vegetables and bakes them in the oven....The kitchen smells of garlic and animal and yeast from the breads my mother bakes. My mother bakes breads and she makes them in the shapes of women with breasts, or mermaids with braids, of fat animals and moons with faces." [13]

"But I won't eat all that candy Hansel and Gretel ate. I will be thin and pure like a glass cup. Empty. Pure as light. Music." [14]

"Claudia buys a piece of pizza. The rich smell of scalding cheese. "You should eat," she says. But I don't take a bite." [18]

"The clown paints Claudia's dreams on her face. He paints crescent moons and pomegranates and crosses." [19]

"..."Houdini's cook has served some broiled rabbit, champagne, cake and ice cream. Pistachio. Served in top hats."..." [22]

"They are feasting on animals and wines and liqueurs and flaming cakes..." [28]

"The girl gave us ginger beers. Ginger beer burns your mouth and throat but it is dark and sweet." [36]

"After, we ate barbecued chicken and black beans and fried bananas ~plantain~ in a little shack at the base of the falls." [38]

"...I swayed on the balcony with the fireworks and the champagne in our heads exploding." [43]

"I imagine the pasta was made with basil and garlic and the courtyard was sunny and filled with flowers and herbs." [50]

"We buy watermelons, pineapples, cantaloupes, honeydew, strawberries and cut them up and put them on platters and my mother makes her punch. It is citrus-greenish-yellow color and it smokes." [58]

"He bought me pink spun-sugar candy and I wanted a dress like that." [72]

""...the colors, and stars like powdered sugar donuts and my head was a bubble of glass."" [75

"...leaving me hungry for chocolate ice cream. Everything was chocolate ice cream and kisses and wind." [78]

"and she is eating a piece of sweet potato pie that makes her voice sound thick and sweet." [84]

"My mother is cooking and cooking. She is scrubbing beets and peeling the beets and scrubbing them again....She peels the flesh off the chicken and rinses the naked breasts and legs and wings...and bakes them with pearly onions and lemons and herbs. She bakes cakes that overflow...nightmarish chocolate cakes, wicked with nuts and sugar and the chocolate that people say has the same chemical that your body releases when you are in love. She bakes these wicked love-cakes and the chocolate heats and drips and the smell fills the house." [94]

"She scrubs the vegetables; she keeps crystals in the kitchen. She chants sometimes." [95]

"When we sit he orders margaritas and tostadas. He says, "You should eat this," and he starts to put the tostada filling into the tortilla in his hand, piling on lettuce and cheese and guacamole. I watch him and drink some of my margarita. Icy and salty and sharp-sweet and making me feel that way you feel just as you're about to fall asleep... 

I realize how hungry I am, how my stomach feels like an empty hand making a fist... 

"You should eat," he says...

I take a slow bite looking down. The guacamole kisses my mouth. My throat feels tight but I swallow. Then I drink some more of the margarita." [99]

"...takes out a container of strawberry ice cream, a plastic spoon and a bottle of champagne. "Happy Birthday," he says." [100]

"He smells of the crushed mint from below my window." [123]

"The ground is littered with hot-dog wrappers, popcorn boxes, crepe paper." [128]

"My mother comes up to my room with a tray of strawberries and plain yogurt, a piece of fresh-baked bread spread with honey." [131]

"I imagine sitting in a plaza at twilight eating pasta and drinking wine, the marble statues gleaming,..." [132]

***

Also see :: Part One: Echo

Server Girl :: the big question

I've been a waitress (server) for going on seven months now. I love working at a sushi place, but I really hate the job. What I (think I) really want is a boring job where I have a tiny desk, fetch somebodies coffee five times a day, answer the phone and file paperwork. A job where I get paid by the year, not by the customer.
There are good nights as server; nights like tonight when I work six hours and make about $120, which comes out to $20 an hour-- more than I would as an office assistant. But most nights this isn't the case. Most days I make minimum wage or less, and generally speaking I make $50 per shift. The worst days are the ones where I work my ass off but customers still only pay me one or two dollars per person.

(If you weren't aware, servers don't actually get paid by the restaurants they work at. Not usually anyway. I get paid about a dollar an hour by the restaurant-- after taxes-- my boyfriend doesn't get any money from his. It all goes to taxes, tips are all we get to keep. For the majority of servers, the individual customers are the ones that actually pay the server. What you leave as tip is all we get paid for serving you. Which is why 10% is never an acceptable tip, unless you got your food to go. Soap box over.)

But what's bugging me most isn't the money. It isn't (completely) the fact that I've been broke for a full three months now. It isn't that my boss keeps cutting my hours so in a few weeks I'm going to be struggling to make ends meet.
It's that at this job it seems that I'm pretty much always miserable. I like the other servers I work with, I like that--other than putting up with crazy people and the like-- my job is mostly easy. And I even like the food where I work, even though I don't get to eat it more than once a month.

But I hate that this is what I'm doing. 

I'm not traveling, I'm not moving up any corporate ladder, I'm not creating things or doing something interesting, I'm not building my future or living in my present, and I'm not doing something I love. 

I'm working a crappy job just to get by and I'm not even doing things I like in my spare time. All I ever do is wait to go back to work so I can get more money to pay my bills and buy groceries. I watch tv, I pour over job sites for a real job, and I wish I had money so I could replace my five year old jeans or fix our car.

I've tried thinking of creative things I could do to make money, but nothing ever pans out, even when it seems like a good idea in the beginning.

I keep telling myself that I'll be better. That I'll spend more time on my Bible and find the inspiration I need to do all the things I want to. I tell myself I'll clean and finish editing my novel and create things and be happier. That I'll be more active and treat myself to things once and awhile and I'll do more things that I love and want to do.

But every day I still wake up late and I still end up on the couch watching tv because nothing feels worth starting. I'm stuck in a place where nothing looks like it's going anywhere at all. This whole up-coming year feels like a great big stretch up stuck-ness, nothing like what I want it to be. Because my manager doesn't like me (for some reason she won't actually tell me) my hours continue to drop at work, and the process of finding another stupid restaurant job makes me cringe and sink even further into the couch. Because apparently real jobs don't want me, even with two degrees and a decent resume. I have applied to so many local and national companies for all kinds of work that I'm actually kind of qualified to do, and I haven't received a single call back. Not a single request for an interview. It makes everything seem so useless.

But this is a lot of me complaining, and that isn't my point. I don't want to whine and be boring.

What I've been thinking a lot about is Weetzie. For a while, Weetzie Bat was a waitress at a diner. It's where she meets My Secret Agent Lover Man. From there everything seems to pick up for her. But there isn't a note about Weetzie being unhappy during her work there. And all I can think is, How? I feel so trapped here in my post-grad going-nowhere too-qualified-but-not-qualified-enough life in the same damn town but with no money and no friends, I can't imagine Weetzie being happy during that time in her life. How did she handle it?!

Ok, ok, she's fictional. I know this. She stayed happy because that's the way she was written. Happy and optimistic and loving.
But in my (off and on) quest to live a life more like her, I've continued to make excuses on why I'm not doing it. "Because life isn't that way", I'll say. But isn't that the point? To be like Weetzie in the real world? To be like this brilliant, fun, happy character (and other FLB characters like her) in a world that is hard and boring and poor and unpleasant and unforgiving and so un-magical in day to day life? Those who see magic and love and life every day are lucky, and I want to be that way but too often I want too much and do too little.

So then I'm back to the beginning. In this place in my life, stuck in between what I was and what I'm trying so hard to be (( student->server---assistant?, content->miserable---happy?, etc)), how do I look at where I am and smile and just be happy with what's around me, instead of only waiting for the things I'm searching for? Or just be happy with where I am while I try to create the life I want?

How do I buck up and actually live my life instead of just waiting for it?

I know I need to change myself before I can change my life. But how do I get to that point?

How would she?

Beautiful Reading :: Wasteland

Book: Wasteland
By: Francesca Lia Block

"But the way I saw you was pieces refracting the light, shifting into an infinite universe of flowers and rainbows and insects and planets, magical dividing cells, pictures no one else knew."

-pg 4

I've only gotten half way through this book, and I'm still a little confused about it, but the words are still beautiful, just like FLB books tend to be. Like the quote above, images of light and music and the world around the characters, Marina, Lex, and West.
From what I've read in reviews, the story is a blend of a (controversial) romantic relationship between siblings Lex and Marina. From what I've read, this story falls behind, mentioned, implied, and described through the strange, building relationship between the two. But it's not the primary focus, which actually seems to be Lex's untimely, mysterious death, and classmate West's attempts to help Marina get through it.

"You remember the ones who die when you're a kid. You remember them because it's so out of control and it reminds you that it's not just old people even though you feel in a million years nothing could happen to you."
-pg 30

Like I said, I'm only half way through, and the plot is a definitely a little confusing, the point of view and timeline changing often, making it hard sometimes to tell what is going on, who is talking, and when it's happening. I'm thinking this may work better on a second reading, after I've been through the text and soaked in the story.
But the emotion is raw and beautiful, and the descriptions, as would be expected, are amazing. I'm not sure this will be among my favorite FLB books, but I definitely won't regret it, turning each page with a solemn ache in my heart for Marina's pain.

"My mind is like the Valley- this vast barren waste. Car lots. Malls.  Tract homes. I know there are other worlds beyond it-- of canyons full of coyote and monarch butterflies, squirrels, bunnies, purple and yellow wildflowers, of magical boulevards lined with palatial movie theaters and movie-star haunted mansions, of parks and palms and palisades, especially, especially, especially of the ocean, where it all ends and everything begins."

-pg 11

PS.

Are you ready for Christmas? If not an Xmas person, what other Holidays do you celebrate this time of year?

Wednesday

The wind is so cold it's like ice is caressing my face and pulling at my clothes. I pass the days without work, which are many this month, reading a girl's journey through the world without hope, written in beauty.

My Bible has lain stagnant, but I'm working to renew my inspiration and fill it with beauty and hope and life.

My totems are a pair of pink striped plastic heart earrings, a delicate silver heart necklace a family friend gave me a long time ago (to remind me to love myself), and a TokiDoki heart and crossbones necklace Dan gave me for my birthday (to remind me that I am loved by others).

College is officially done, and I have no desire to return in the coming years for a higher degree. Two bachelor's degrees are adequate for now.
But jobs aren't easy to come by, and without proper connections I can't imagine getting a real (good) job in the publishing world.
I'm looking though, and there are days when I come very close to praying to the gods I don't believe in.

I got two new FLB books this week. One-- Blood Roses-- bought off Amazon after a few weeks of considering, the other-- Wasteland-- stumbled upon at the local used bookstore. With the temperature creeping in through the foggy windows and nothing much else to do but clean, I'm sure I'll have them done soon.

Christmas is coming, and all of my presents are bought except for Dan's. The simple act of wrapping colored paper around boxes and books makes me feel busy and artistic and wonderful. I'd wrap everything in shiny paper and plastic bows if I could.
Every time I glance around my bland, beige apartment I consider buying more christmas lights-- some to string across the walls and wrap around the lamps like little colored reminders of theoretical happiness. But just the idea of going out into the night's 18 degree weather makes me curl up into a ball and go back to my books.

It's strange being content, yet still unhappy. Something about the world, or myself, right now leaves me unsatisfied
I want to write a new list of "How to Be Happy", a winter edition that takes into account frigid gusts of wind and foamy cups of cocoa and hot buttered rum. Lovers and Puppies cuddled on the couch, hiding from the cold.

"Just like any woman,...we weave our stories out of our bodies. Some of us through our children, or our art; some do it just by living. It's all the same.."               ~Francesca Lia Block