Realities, Interrupted

I walked through this tunnel nearly every day, five days a week, for four years during my undergrad stint at NCSU (I rarely made it over to that part of campus when I was getting my MA in English). I once saw a section of wall peel downward in thick sheets of layers of paint that had accumulated for years. It always struck me that if people continued to paint over the top of what already existed, the tunnel would continue to narrow until it became unidirectional. penamerican: The Free Expression Tunnel is the longest, widest, and most heavily used pedestrian tunnel under the railroad tracks at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina (also goes under Yarbrough Drive). The special aspect of the tunnel is that anyone is permitted to decorate its walls, ceiling, and floor. — Wikipedia

I walked through this tunnel nearly every day, five days a week, for four years during my undergrad stint at NCSU (I rarely made it over to that part of campus when I was getting my MA in English). I once saw a section of wall peel downward in thick sheets of layers of paint that had accumulated for years. It always struck me that if people continued to paint over the top of what already existed, the tunnel would continue to narrow until it became unidirectional.

penamerican:

The Free Expression Tunnel is the longest, widest, and most heavily used pedestrian tunnel under the railroad tracks at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina (also goes under Yarbrough Drive). The special aspect of the tunnel is that anyone is permitted to decorate its walls, ceiling, and floor. — Wikipedia

(Source: rasheenroo)

Neil Gaiman: ON WRITER'S BLOCK

neil-gaiman:

I’ve seem to be hitting writer’s block far too often now. My grade in my creative writing class is suffering because i don’t turn in anything because i’m never really satisfied with anything i do. all my good ideas seem to turn into bad ones once i write it down. How do you get pass writers…

Literature duplicates the experience of living in a way that nothing else can, drawing you so fully into another life that you temporarily forget you have one of your own. That is why you read it, and might even sit up in bed till early dawn, throwing your whole tomorrow out of whack, simply to find out what happens to some people who, you know perfectly well, are made up.

—Barbara Kingsolver (via thisisartinterpretation)

(via bookladysblog)

I had a teacher I liked who used to say good fiction’s job was to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. I guess a big part of serious fiction’s purpose is to give the reader, who like all of us is sort of marooned in her own skull, to give her imaginative access to other selves.

—David Foster Wallace, in an interview with Larry McCaffery for The Review of Contemporary Fiction (vol. 13, 1993) (via davidfosterwallace)

Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.

—Voltaire  (via finisterre)

(Source: kari-shma, via finisterre)

kyledaley: Following the March 11, 2011 earthquake in Japan, this terrified giant panda grabs the leg of a policeman.

kyledaley:

Following the March 11, 2011 earthquake in Japan, this terrified giant panda grabs the leg of a policeman.

(via joshsternberg)

A truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone.” -Jo Godwin

—(via tatteredcover)

courant: from “A Field Guide to Surreal Botany” by Janet Chui, Jason Erik Lundberg: The editors and publishers take no responsibility for injuries that may result from seeking out the plants detailed in this field guide; also, all characteristics of the plants may have been true at the time of documentation, but are subject to change. 

courant:

from “A Field Guide to Surreal Botany” by Janet Chui, Jason Erik Lundberg:

The editors and publishers take no responsibility for injuries that may result from seeking out the plants detailed in this field guide; also, all characteristics of the plants may have been true at the time of documentation, but are subject to change. 

The original is unfaithful to the translation.

—

Jorge Luis Borges

(via asymptotejournal)

Forthcoming in June 2011: Red Dot Irreal by Jason Erik Lundberg

In June 2011 (only five months from now), Math Paper Press, the independent press run by Kenny Leck and Karen Wai (aka the amazing proprietors of Singapore’s best and quirkiest literary bookshop BooksActually), will publish my debut collection of short stories, Red Dot Irreal!

The book collects many of my fantastical short stories set in Singapore and one in Bali, what I’m calling Equatorial Fantastika. With Math Paper Press, Karen & Kenny have begun branching out into publishing, and will be bringing their considerable talent for design and presentation (not to mention bookselling) to my little volume.

More information, including the proposed table of contents, can be found at http://jlundberg.livejournal.com/650013.html The book will naturally be sold at BooksActually, but should also be available at Select Books and Kinokuniya as well.

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

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