Thanks for reading, you guys. Trout Fishing is a weird little book and RB was a pretty weird guy but I think it was worth the time. But now we find ourselves at the end of the summer and we're moving on.
I'm going to finish up with a little music from a band called Trout Fishing in America. They are 2 extremely gooofy dudes that sing silly songs to kids. Somehow, it's perfect.
Farewell Richard Brautigan. You wrote a bunch of books. Maybe we'll read another one sometime.
P.S.
Mayonnaise.
Showing posts with label brautigan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brautigan. Show all posts
8.28.2012
8.21.2012
One morning last week
"One morning last week, part way through the dawn, I awoke under the apple tree, to hear a dog barking and the rapid sound of hoofs coming toward me. The millennium? An invasion of Russians all wearing deer feet?"
pg. 94
pg. 94
That's the spirit
"Go on ahead and try for him. He'll hit a couple of times more, but you won't catch him. He's not a particularly smart fish. Just lucky. Sometimes that's all you need."
pg. 90
pg. 90
8.17.2012
The Surgeon
There's a chapter called The Surgeon about 2/3 through the book. The narrator is fishing and talking with a young surgeon who is bitter and frustrated and struggling to find happiness. He is moving around the country, searching for the ideal place to hunt & fish because he is tired of working. He's looking for a place to match the picture in his head and he becomes more and more disillusioned every time reality falls short of the ideal.
I think that's really what Trout Fishing in America is all about - RB's idea of America, how it clashes with reality as he experiences it, and how they, rarely but sometimes, line up perfectly.
The chapter ends like this:
"I talked to the surgeon a little while longer and then said good-bye. We were leaving in the afternoon for lake Josephus, located at the edge of the Idaho wilderness, and he was leaving for America, often only a place in the mind."
ALSO
Sturgeon is a fish and that's close to Surgeon, so...
ALSO
If you look at the word "surgeon" for too long it starts to look like it's spelled wrong even though it's not and I know because I checked.
I think that's really what Trout Fishing in America is all about - RB's idea of America, how it clashes with reality as he experiences it, and how they, rarely but sometimes, line up perfectly.
The chapter ends like this:
"I talked to the surgeon a little while longer and then said good-bye. We were leaving in the afternoon for lake Josephus, located at the edge of the Idaho wilderness, and he was leaving for America, often only a place in the mind."
ALSO
Sturgeon is a fish and that's close to Surgeon, so...
ALSO
If you look at the word "surgeon" for too long it starts to look like it's spelled wrong even though it's not and I know because I checked.
8.16.2012
8.14.2012
Gee, You're so Beautiful That It's Starting to Rain
I want your long blonde beauty
to be taught in high school,
so kids will learn that God
lives like music in the skin
and sounds like a sunshine harpsichord.
I want high school report cards
to look like this:
Playing with Gentle Glass Things
A
Computer Magic
A
Writing Letters to Those You Love
A
Finding out about Fish
A
Marcia's Long Blonde Beauty
A+!
Richard Brautigan
from The Pill Versus the Springhill Mine Disaster, 1968
7.30.2012
Maybe My Favorite Chapter in Trout Fishing in America
The Mayor of the Twentieth Century
"London. On December 1, 1887; July 7, August 8, September 30, one day in the month of October and on the 9th of November, 1888; on the 1st of June, the 17th of July and the 10th of September 1889...
The disguise was perfect.
Nobody ever saw him, except, of course, the victims. They saw him.
Who would have expected?
He wore a costume of trout fishing in America. He wore mountains on his elbows and bluejays on the collar of his shirt. Deep water flowed through the lilies that were entwined about his shoelaces. A bullfrog kept croaking in his watch pocket and the air was filled with the sweet smell of ripe blackberry bushes.
He wore trout fishing in America as a costume to hide his own appearance from the world while he performed his deeds of murder in the night.
Who would have expected?
Nobody!
Scotland Yard?
(Pouf!)
They were always a hundred miles away, wearing halibut-stalker hats, looking under the dust.
Nobody ever found out.
O, now he's the Mayor of the Twentieth Century! A razor, a knife and a ukelele are his favorite instruments.
Of course, it would have to be a ukelele. Nobody else would have thought of it, pulled like a plow through the intestines."
"London. On December 1, 1887; July 7, August 8, September 30, one day in the month of October and on the 9th of November, 1888; on the 1st of June, the 17th of July and the 10th of September 1889...
The disguise was perfect.
Nobody ever saw him, except, of course, the victims. They saw him.
Who would have expected?
He wore a costume of trout fishing in America. He wore mountains on his elbows and bluejays on the collar of his shirt. Deep water flowed through the lilies that were entwined about his shoelaces. A bullfrog kept croaking in his watch pocket and the air was filled with the sweet smell of ripe blackberry bushes.
He wore trout fishing in America as a costume to hide his own appearance from the world while he performed his deeds of murder in the night.
Who would have expected?
Nobody!
Scotland Yard?
(Pouf!)
They were always a hundred miles away, wearing halibut-stalker hats, looking under the dust.
Nobody ever found out.
O, now he's the Mayor of the Twentieth Century! A razor, a knife and a ukelele are his favorite instruments.
Of course, it would have to be a ukelele. Nobody else would have thought of it, pulled like a plow through the intestines."
7.24.2012
The Labels on the Crate for Trout Fishing in America Shorty
GLASS / HANDLE WITH CARE / SPECIAL HANDLING / GLASS / DON'T SPILL / THIS SIDE UP / HANDLE THIS WINO LIKE HE WAS AN ANGEL
"He was the cold turning of the earth; the bad wind that blows off sugar."
7.17.2012
Things mistaken for trout streams
"At a distance I saw a waterfall come pouring down off the hill. It was long and white and I could almost feel its cold spray. [...] The waterfall was just a flight of white wooden stairs leading up to a house in the trees. Then I knocked on my creek and heard the sound of wood."
"I remember mistaking an old woman for a trout stream...
- Excuse me, I said. I thought you were a trout stream.
- I'm not, she said."
From pg 4-5
"I remember mistaking an old woman for a trout stream...
- Excuse me, I said. I thought you were a trout stream.
- I'm not, she said."
From pg 4-5
7.10.2012
Richard Brautigan - An Introduction
Richard Brautigan was a sometimes sad sometimes joyful grumpy counterculture icon who was perhaps unfairly labeled as the "last of the beats." He was writing mostly in the 60s & 70s and he killed himself with a bullet in 1984.
According to the New York Times, Brautigan was "a committed sensualist and prototypical hippie, a man who wore floppy hats, granny glasses, love beads and a droopy mustache that made him look like General Custer at an acid test." The Times recently reviewed a big new Brautigan biography titled "Jubilee Hitchiker" - You find the review here.
He is probably most famous for the book we are reading now: Trout Fishing in America. I would describe this book as an attempt to distill, define, and even anthropomorphize Americana itself. He was also a poet and this is his most famous poem:
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.
I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.
Most importantly, doesn't he look a lot like Larry Bird??
According to the New York Times, Brautigan was "a committed sensualist and prototypical hippie, a man who wore floppy hats, granny glasses, love beads and a droopy mustache that made him look like General Custer at an acid test." The Times recently reviewed a big new Brautigan biography titled "Jubilee Hitchiker" - You find the review here.
He is probably most famous for the book we are reading now: Trout Fishing in America. I would describe this book as an attempt to distill, define, and even anthropomorphize Americana itself. He was also a poet and this is his most famous poem:
All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace
I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.
I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.
Most importantly, doesn't he look a lot like Larry Bird??
6.28.2012
2 More Days
Today is June 28th and we have two more days with Mr. O'Brien and The Third Policeman. I hope some of you out there read it! I think I'm going to send a copy to my brother if I ever find myself with an extra $10.
On July 1st we'll be starting "Trout Fishing in America" by Richard Brautigan. It should be a nice breezy summer read, only about 100 pages, but it's also what you might call "literature" maybe even bordering on "prose poetry" if you want to be all stuffy about it.
On July 1st we'll be starting "Trout Fishing in America" by Richard Brautigan. It should be a nice breezy summer read, only about 100 pages, but it's also what you might call "literature" maybe even bordering on "prose poetry" if you want to be all stuffy about it.
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