“The picture he conjured now came back with special vividness, as if it had been cleansed of all dust by last night’s rain. Unease and expectation and fear scattered to the farthest corners of the spacious classroom, and hid themselves in the room’s many objects like cowardly little animals. Tengo was able to re-create the […]
“Life is so uncertain: you never know what could happen. One way to deal with that is to keep your pajamas washed.” ––1Q84, by Haruki Murakami, pg. 474 “What would the new countervailing power seek to accomplish? As a first step, it would reform the nation’s system of campaign finance in order to get […]
“Who can possibly save all the people of the world? Tengo thought. You could bring all the gods of the world into one place, and still they couldn’t abolish nuclear weapons or eradicate terrorism. They couldn’t end the drought in Africa or bring John Lennon back to life. Far from it––the gods would just break […]
“‘They can forget about it,’ Ayumi said. ‘I never can.’ ‘Of course not,’ Aomame said. ‘It’s like some historic massacre.’ ‘Massacre?’ ‘The ones who did it can always rationalize their actions and even forget what they did. They can turn away from things they don’t want to see. But the surviving victims can never forget. They […]
“Tengo knew that time could become deformed as it moved forward. Time itself was uniform in composition, but once consumed, it took on a deformed shape. One period of time might be terribly heavy and long, while another could be light and short. Occasionally the order of things could be reversed, and in the worst […]
“In elementary and middle school, Tengo was utterly absorbed by the world of mathematics. Its clarity and absolute freedom enthralled him, and he also needed them to survive. Once he entered adolescence, however, he began to feel increasingly that this might not be enough. There was no problem as long as he was visiting the […]
“A state of chronic powerlessness eats away at a person.” ––1Q84, by Haruki Murakami, pg. 132 “Freedom has little meaning without reference to power. Those who claim to be on the side of freedom while ignoring the growing imbalance of economic and political power in America and other advanced societies are not in fact […]
This is my fiftieth journal, which feels like an appropriate time to reflect on the origins of the words&dirt blog. When I began this project more than two years ago, I wanted to develop ideas about a way of life that was experimental for me. I wanted to step outside the traditional channels of education […]
“When I’m writing a story, I use words to transform the surrounding scene into something more natural for me. In other words, I reconstruct it. That way, I can confirm without a doubt that this person known as ‘me’ exists in the world.” ––1Q84, by Haruki Murakami, pg. 46
Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings is like the first computer my family ever owned: It took a long time to boot up, but did some pretty nifty stuff once it got going. This massive fantasy novel is the first in a series of ten planned installments, only two of which have been published. Committing […]