Lars Iyer is the author of the novels Spurious and the newly released Dogma. I talked to him earlier this spring about friendship and writing. Click HERE for the interview.
Loafer
shoes + books
Ada took a sip of her pink wine. She took a drag off her cigarette. I know this is an awful thing to say about your kid, but she looked good with a cigarette. I thought this, even knowing how my brother fell into long coughing fits every morning. And coughing fits throughout the day. Bronchitis every winter. But when a young person smokes it is different. It just underlines their excess in life. It looks appealing and reminds you they feel as if they have life to spare. They have such luxury of time that they can flirt with lethal addictions. They have plenty of time to heal and repair later. A young woman like Ada would eventually discard these things. When you are old, like Nik, when it is a very old habit, smoking looks mostly like a reckless delusion. But for Ada it was an abundance, a kind of fun, a kick off of a shoe, a sip of pink champagne.
Walking through snowy woods this evening, I was remarking to myself about how one of the things Vermontians have going for them is a knack for choosing really whacky colors (in an effort to stave off season affective disorder?) to paint their houses when (as if the Vermontians could hear me thinking) I came across this petite chalet!
Out and about before the minks this brisk Thursday morning at the Vermont Studio Center feeling like Lars Iyer’s W. (Dogma) “He’s up before anyone else, he knows that, but there’s still no chance of thinking. Not a thought has come to him in recent months; not one. He’s stalled, W. says. There’s been an interregnum. But when wasn’t he stalled? When wasn’t it impossible for him to think? No matter how early he gets up, he misses his appointment with thought; no matter how he tries to surprise it by being there before anyone else.”
Thank you Alex for the Bells hat! Thank you Molly Prentiss for The Marriage Plot! Thank you Jeffrey Eugenides for “She started seeing Leonard after that. She saw him crossing the green one afternoon, hatless in winter drizzle. She saw him at Mutt & Geoff’s, eating a messy Buddy Cianci sandwich. She saw him, one morning, waiting for a bus on South Main. Each time, Leonard was alone, looking forlorn and uncombed like a great big motherless boy.”
