Quotes from Famous Authors (3 of 5): Vladamir Nabakov

"You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style."

We have been considering writing a satire of "Reading Lolita in Teheran" called "Reading Naked Lunch in Rock Hill, South Carolina" but we haven't gotten around to it quite yet!

Off the Beat and Path Quotes (3 of 6): William S. Burroughs

Today, for our second quote of the day, we go to the late, great author William S. Buuroughs who penned "Naked Lunch" and once resided in Lawrence, Kansas:

"Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer."

In Honor of Banned Book Week: Passages from Six Books (not all of them were banned)

WARNING THIS ENTRY CONTAINS ONE VULGAR WORD.

Books by William S. Burroughs, Jim Thompson and Bret Easton Ellis are among the books we will be citing here. Banned Book Week concludes tomorrow. Of the books cited, we are pretty sure "Junky" by Burroughs (pictured top) and "Motorcycle Diaries" by Che Guevara were once banned. The other authors have each written controversial novels, including Ellis, who is best-known for "American Psycho," but we quip a sentence from "Glamorama" (pictured bottom) here.

For this project, we are taking the fifth sentence from page 52 of each work. The answers will be at the very end of this entry:


1. "She pulled her mouth away from his and pushed it against his neck, then pushed one of her hands down between them and the buckle of his pants."

2. " 'Uh-hah,' he nodded: "Miss Ruth told me she thought you might be here, but you was already gone when stopped by. Got you a job, eh?"

3. "He sounds terrible."

4. "How long this present order, based on an absurd idea of caste, will last, I can't say, but it's time governments spent less time publicizing their own virtues and more money, much more money, funding socially useful projects."

5. A gambling-house dealer from East Saint Louis was describing a method for cooking the carbolic acid out of a phenol, seet oil and tincture of opium script."

6, "No myths. M-y-t-h-s. Like a fag was gonna introduce you to Miss America, what would he say?"




1. "The Graduate" by Charles Webb (yes, it's the novel that was made into a Dustin Hoffman movie)

2. "Savage Night" by Jim Thompson (pictured middle)

3. "Trainspotting" by Irvine Welsh

4. "Motorcycle Diaries" by Che Guevara

5. "Junky" by William S.. Burroughs

6. "Glamorama" by Bret Easton Ellis (yes, that has our one vulgar word).


http://www.nocturnalguy38.blogspot.com (Our sister blog)

http://www.regulatorbookshop.com/ (bookshop in Durham, NC)

http://www.kramers.com/index.html (book store in Washington, DC)

http://www.tatteredcover.com/ (book store in Denver, Colo.)

http://www.richmondpubliclibrary.org/ (Richmond Public Library, Richmond, Va)

http://www.provlib.org/ (Providence Public Library in Providence, Rhode Island)

http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/

Quote of the Day- Jose Saramago

Today, we conclude our quotes from famous figures associated with each of the 16 countries represented in the Euro Cup 2012 with a quip from the Portuguese novelist Jose Saramgo (1922-2010).

Portugal advanced to the quarterfinals today with a 2-1 win over Denmark; they will join Germany who defeated the Netherlands 2-1 in advancing from the dreaded group of death.

Saramago was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature, which in recent years has gone to Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk and the late British playwright Harold Pinter.

The Portuguese writer was a communist politically which forced him to live a portion of his life in exile in the Canary Islands, joining the likes of the late Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet, who lived in Russia, and the late American novelist William Burroughs, who lived in Morocco (but lived the later years of his life in Lawrence, Kansas)  as writers who lived in exile for either political or personal reasons.

Saramago's most famous novels include "Baltasar and Blimunda" (1982), "The Gospel According to Jesus Christ" (1991), which was very controversial, and "Blindness" (1997).

Here is his quote:

"As citizens, we all have an obligation to intervene and become involved_ it's the citizen who changes things."

Status Update_ I Want to Work on 'The Novel' Again

Yes, I want to work on 'the novel' project, which I actually somehow completed in first draft form earlier this year. Of course, when a writer who hasn't had a single piece of fiction published, one may scoff: "So, you are trying to be Ernest Hemingway?" I've decided to respond to these people by saying: "No, I want to be the next William Burroughs." They then say something like: "Who the heck is that?" I say: "The guy who wrote 'Naked Lunch.'" I then see a puzzled look on their face, which abruptly ends the annoying conversation. So, there you go!

Top Ten Places to Move to if Sarah Becomes Prez

My good friend Debbie Collins, a public librarian in Bethesda, Md., (pse- see other blog) has told me that if Sarah Palin becomes the next president, she will leave the country for The Land of Blue Frogs (Costa Rica).

I made a similar list in October on our other blog "The Daily Vampire," in which I named Iceland as my top choice, but Ms. Collins is inclined to go with warmer weather.

Interestingly enough, Mrs. Collins picked two Muslim countries in Morocco (she told me she's always wanted to go to Tangiers, the setting of William Burroughs's cult novel "Naked Lunch") and the United Arab Emirates (she said: "I hear there's lots of money in Dubai). She is not Muslim herself.

Two cold countries, Canada and Denmark, made her list, but she professed I was nuts for putting France on my top ten 'Escape from Sarah' list (it was number six on my list).

Canada was also one of three countries to make both of our lists, along with Argentina and Greece.

Here is her list, if you have one of your "Escape from Sarah" lists, email me at tango74@aol.com

1. Costa Rica

2. Greece

3. Brazil

4. South Africa

5. New Zealand

6. Argentina

7. Canada

8. Denmark

9. Morocco

10. United Arab Emirates

The Last 10 Films I've Seen

Since this blog only got nine hits yesterday, and my other blog "The Daily Vampire" got 3,000, (how is that possible??!) I will keep this fairly brief!

I recommend Michael Moore's documentary "Capitalism: A Love Story" to my Republican friends. Ironically, they might agree with the film's premise more than I did (I am a Democrat) because as a political realist I was actually in favor of the federal bail out!

A star denotes films that I saw for a second time. A dash indicates if a film was based on a book. It should be noted that got this idea from "Film Comment" magazine, which Gavin Smith does an excellent editing:

1. "In the Loop"
2. "Zombieland"
3. "Where the Wild Things Are"#
4. "Audition" (Japan)
5. "Death at a Funeral"
6. "Bright Star"
7. "Capitalism: A Love Story" (doc)
8. "Naked Lunch"*#
9. "There Will Be Blood"*#
10. "Cold Souls"