TESTStoneslide

by James Mitchell

Ian had become a wave. This was how it worked: he loved Sandra so much that it had melted his heart, and then melted his body and his limbs to water. The body is roughly two-thirds water, and it does not take a lot for the other third to catch up. He had longed for her so much he thought he would cry, and then before he knew it he was crying. Crying into his pint, and crying into his sink, and crying into his bath. And in the blink of an eye, the bath was full up with Ian.

Ian did not even notice; he was too busy thinking of the time they’d painted the wall lime green and decided to keep it that way anyway, and the time he’d picked sweet popcorn because she didn’t like salt, and how he had grown to love it. So he was quite taken by surprise when he found himself dribbling through the overflow, down a rusty Whitechapel pipe and into the Thames. He knew it was the Thames because his vision was full of a green shade that no Londoner can mistake. [Read more…]

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Resilience and consuming drive to produce are critical to writers. So is determination to stand tall before truths one confronts. A writer who wants to do work that lasts must be equal to the power of observed truth. Poet Robinson Jeffers was one of those writers.

But in great writing, no truth is simple. The words contain all the sensation, all the emotion, and all the cogitation of the writer’s lived experience—whether those elements be immediate in the text or not. We have uncovered the story of how Jeffers composed the stirring lines that bring on the end of the poem “Hurt Hawks,” and we believe this new context adds to the prismatic splendor of the poetic image.

The Stoneslide Corrective occasionally studies early drafts of writings, in order to learn, to instruct, to grow, and sometimes in order to explore for the sheer enjoyment of compositional exploration. Consulting the work of scholars, archivists, biographers, librarians, private foundations and repositories, and, when appropriate, consulting the writers themselves, we re-create the process through which a work was brought into being, often including the many drafts writers go through.

Note: All historical work is verified by HistoriRight, Inc.

Unless you’re at church, temple, mosque, or a court proceeding, do feel free to turn up the volume of the device you’re using to read this (except your brain, of course; please don’t turn up that device’s volume).

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The Stoneslide Corrective saw a bumper sticker the other day that read, “Kids who hunt, fish, and trap don’t mug little old ladies.” We wondered briefly if this claim was true. But the research to prove or disprove the claim exceeded our attention span, and we accepted the generalization in the way we accept so many generalizations each day to keep from overloading our brains with rowdy thoughts. Since we saw this sticker on a car parked on a busy street in a densely urban area, clearly the intent here was to warn passersby to be on their guard against kids who don’t hunt, fish, and trap, since those are the likely muggers. So, when you’re walking through the city streets, seek children carrying rifles, fishing rods, and steel-toothed spring-loaded traps, and stay close to those children. Then we started wondering if there might be a better bumper sticker—one with even broader usefulness. What other warnings drawn from generalizations might prove helpful? We came up with, “Kids who mug little old ladies don’t grow up to crash the world financial system.” We’ll have to get that printed, stat.

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pay it.

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recognize its wisdom, taste, and intelligence.

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I’m standing at the sink, peering into the mirror as I draw the razor up my face, erasing a line of white shaving cream. My five-year-old daughter reaches around me to put her hand under the running faucet. She brings the handful of water up to the top of her head, then draws her hands out to the side, flattening the hair. She repeats this grooming gesture a few times.

“What are you up to?” I ask.

“I’m wetting my hair. That way it’s easier to wear.”

“Makes sense, I guess.” I go back to dumbly shaving.

“That’s a line, Daddy,” she says. “I’m wetting my hair/ So it’s easier to wear.”

“Okay.”

She skips out of the bathroom. “I’m wetting my hair/ So it’s easier to wear.”

She accelerates into an elliptical run. “Mommy! Mommy! Hear my line! I’m wetting my hair/ So it’s easier to wear!”

And there we have a complete example of how life becomes art. At the beginning is the mystery of inspiration. [Read more…]

Books & Magazine

The Stoneslide Corrective No. 1

Gracious Living Without Servants

Shock to Equilibrium