Life's Looking Good

"Life's looking good, like a chopping block should." This blog name is drawn from some graffitti I encountered on the toilet wall of the women's toilets in the Union building at Melbourne Uni. Amidst the calls to the sisterhood, political statements and sexual confessions was this small piece of black philosophy. I liked it and it's one of the few things that has stuck from my time at Uni. I want to write a blog which is about what I am reading, looking at and doing. This is my first entry on the day after I have turned 50.

I am a little inspired at the moment by the writer Amy Hempel who I heard on Radio National yesterday (9/7). I haven't read any of her writing. She was talking about brevity and cited Gertrude Stein who once wrote a 4 word short story titled Longer:

She stayed away longer.

Given what I have read of Gertude Stein, I can hardly believe this economy. And then Amy read one of her own short short stories (a one sentence story) Just Once In My Life:

Oh, when have I ever wanted something just once in my life?

They are like little haiku. My friend Julie shared this great haiku with me:

Writing a haiku

With seventeen syllables

Is very diffic

Amy can be found here: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2294505.htm.

So just to finish, the mention of Gertrude Stein reminded me of this all time funny threat. In an episode of The X-Files called "Bad Blood", the character Fox Mulder warns his partner, Dana Scully, that if she goes to prison, "your cellmate's nickname is gonna be Large Marge, she's gonna read a lot of Gertrude Stein."