#1
[account deactivated]
#2
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“we’re here sitting on a pole, man. we’re surrounded by an ocean and we’re not drowning. that’s something to be thankful for, but that makes a man damn scared of water.” the hands of the voice picked up the mug of coffee they’d payed for, lifted it up to the grinning mouth of the voice, drank it. the mouth received the necessary stranger, a liquid that anointed the mind with all sorts of substances, of which this particular cup of coffee had a good lot. it wasn’t no regular cup of joe. here was a shot of ristretto, the finest of todays roast. that batch had been selected by the stoker the morning previous, fine tuned to his own standards of good. he’d been the man to run this watering hole for what began as a point in time, then stretched on, first into a moment, then upgraded to a phase, blamed into being a mood, kicked around and rearranged into a condition, succumbed to being an era, and finally accepted as an epoch. at which point, he stopped giving a damn about what people wanted from him. he made it the way he wanted it. and if they too wanted it that way, they could come in and slap a fiver on the table, and have a cup of coffee his way. what they did with the rest of their day, that didn’t concern him. though, for some reason, what he did with his concerned them very much. namely this fellow here, again throwing we’s around. hey stoker, what are we going to do? where are we going with this business? how can we really hit the competitor where it hurts? to all these inquiries, the stoker had one response, which he thought they’d one day pick up as the exact same response he always had for such matters: he’d pick up the towel from underneath the bar and begin wiping the bar clean. even if it wasn’t dirty. meanwhile, he’d clench his teeth and hold back the words that bubbled up inside his sober kettle. but sometimes, a good analogy went a long way, even if it came from a poor schmuck that couldn’t get his engine started. that was the whole reason he kept his own engines churning. not for the money. what’s that but bare bones to hold the voice box. no, he kept it for those rare surprises, when a stranger would step foot through the door and bust out with a tale so plush, that it gladdened him to have provided that stranger with a stool and a good enough cup of joe, to anoint his brain with such a liquid so as to have him shed a drop or two of his guts onto the bar.

but this guy here, though he was one of the many that had already spilled the last of their guts, and spent himself doing his daily rounds through establishments such as this one, had stumbled upon a pretty metaphor. he must’ve read it somewhere.
“what’chu been readin?” asked the stoker.
“books ain’t where i got it from. it’s this desert, you see. though it’s the opposite of an ocean, it’s so very similar,” the gent replied.
“you sure you didn’t get that from some writer?” the stoker asked, perplexed at the regular’s sudden poetic depth.
“Hemingway. That old man, ya know who I mean, floated around for 40 days at sea, and that’s just as much a number as the years the Israelites spent in a desert, as did Jeezus.” The man paused, swirled the last of the dark water around in his cup, drank it dry. “Now I,” he continued, “I been here for 27 years, in this dead end town, and it feels more like a desert than the desert itself, and more like an ocean than the ocean. It’s just got that quality. Somethin’ about it. Real slow to change, ya know?”
“Would you rather be on the coast? Cause that’s a whole ‘nother tide. Just ask Santiago.” The stoker looked outside. This town really did resemble a desert, he agreed. Though in no way literally. It was in fact in the midst of the mountains, lush as a tropical rainforest. Yet the settlers hadn’t humbled themselves enough to actually sink deep and become one with the currents. They just bobbed above the water mark, never sinking, and rarely ever swaying to the wind. the words “sitting on a pole” really appealed to him. he adjusted his cap and took a deep breath. days like these gave him a nameless urge. an urge for a stranger. anything but another ... “cup of coffee, please.” A fresh patron scooted a stool up to the bar and spread his elbows wide. “Comin’ right up,” said the stoker. But before he could commence with the cloned motions, he held his step and looked the newcomer over. “How about a shot of ristretto?”
“You buyin’?” spoke the foreign voice.
“Yeah. Why not.”

Edited by parabolart ()

#3
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forty densely footnoted pages arguing against hiring discrimination by private employers against former bankrupts. it's dry as the gobi and certain death would be sweet release
#4
[account deactivated]
#5
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ive been writing english localisation for russian android chatbots, at £100 a job
#6
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the last one was answering a bunch of actual user questions, so i had to think of answers for a million variations of "i like ur booty"
#7
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final for chinese philosophy, term paper about gandhi, and a paper about the role of violence in breaking silence in the woman warrior

Edited by aerdil ()

#8
Poronto
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a thing on sharepoint access services and its limitations versus regular ms access. its less dull than it sounds
#9
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putting the finishing touches on my fictional biography of kobe bryant, writing the afterword, the second foreword, and contemplating on what is needed to flesh out the final stages of the story, though i have already written the ending. once this is done i'll take a small break of a week or so and then get to the arduous task of editing the book. i have long been considering taking a vacation from writing of a few months and then get into my next book or story or whatever, as i've been writing on an almost daily basis for more than two years straight
#10
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im researching nuclear power plants and the cuban revolution for my "scifi" (not really) novel. i hate researching, but it's necessary to make the plot more fleshed out at this point. i wish i could write every day after work but im really finicky, like i need to be in a special state of mind
#11
tardy on these heaters
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animedad posted:
im researching nuclear power plants and the cuban revolution for my "scifi" (not really) novel. i hate researching, but it's necessary to make the plot more fleshed out at this point. i wish i could write every day after work but im really finicky, like i need to be in a special state of mind



the more you write the more regular that state of mind comes. Just Do it. One love.

#12
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babyfinland posted:

animedad posted:
im researching nuclear power plants and the cuban revolution for my "scifi" (not really) novel. i hate researching, but it's necessary to make the plot more fleshed out at this point. i wish i could write every day after work but im really finicky, like i need to be in a special state of mind

the more you write the more regular that state of mind comes. Just Do it. One love.



yes, this is true, minus the peace sign

#13
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Two first degree murder briefs, a second degree murder brief (an irl matricide), an agg batt w/firearm brief, and a supreme court pla on an agg uuw case that went against us.

About half way through my summaries for the qing zhong economics chapters of the guanzi. I leave for aus on the 21st, so I'm going to post everything I've done up to that point before I hop on the plane.when I get back I'll try to finish the rest.

Edited by Lykourgos ()

#14
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im writing a thread for tHE rHizzonE but i cant focus on anything that doesnt involve physical labour for more than 10 minutes
#15
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when're you back from australia grumble
#16
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January fourth, if you're still here we ought to grab a drink somewhere
#17
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Lykourgos posted:
Two first degree murder briefs, a second degree murder brief (an irl matricide), an agg batt w/firearm brief, and a supreme court pla on an agg uuw case that went against us.

About half way through my summaries for the qing zhong economics chapters of the guanzi. I leave for aus on the 21st, so I'm going to post everything I've done up to that point before I hop on the plane.when I get back I'll try to finish the rest.



are u going to australia to pick up the body of ur dead drunk dad? if so u better get a good airline

#18
penitent
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the Great American Novel.
#19
penitent
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i'm in new york by the way. also, drunk
#20
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what is the great american novel anyway?
#21
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im thinking of writing something about like the methods that have been used to dismantle the scandinavian welfare models, because its really p. interesting just how sneaky and indirect a lot of these methods are, and its also important to underscore that you cant somehow escape the corrosive forces of Coercive Capital just because you have polar bears dancing down the god damn streets like a lot of idiot liberals seem to think.

idk, i might post it here when im done if anyone's interested.

Edited by Tinkzorg ()

#22
[account deactivated]
#23
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Lykourgos posted:
January fourth, if you're still here we ought to grab a drink somewhere



oh cool that works perfectly. i'm leaving on the 9th.

#24
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trying to finish an undergrad thesis on the moral panic of the burqa in australia. horrible topic with barely any redeeming qualities.
#25
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my woman warrior essay reads like the scum manifesto lmao im trying to imagine my professor reading it
#26
[account deactivated]
#27
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its like 8 pages long of turgid academic prose about one novel and the surrounding scholarly articles about it, no one wants to read it
#28
[account deactivated]
#29
[account deactivated]
#30
el area metro
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I'm working on my contest essay which is a critique of the works of Frank Fairfield, Old Man Luedecke, (and maybe the Carolina Chocolate Drops), contemporary old-time musicians.
#31
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babyfinland posted:
the more you write the more regular that state of mind comes. Just Do it. One love.


one love. i'm progressively trying to wake up earlier and earlier to write because i like drinking coffee and writing in the semi-comatose -> lucid transition, but it's hell on my ~social life~ (ahhaha)

#32
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animedad posted:

babyfinland posted:
the more you write the more regular that state of mind comes. Just Do it. One love.

one love. i'm progressively trying to wake up earlier and earlier to write because i like drinking coffee and writing in the semi-comatose -> lucid transition, but it's hell on my ~social life~ (ahhaha)


thanks for the advice houellebecq.

i've actually never given this a try though... one of these days i should

#33
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Impper posted:
thanks for the advice houellebecq.

i've actually never given this a try though... one of these days i should


haha yeah that's where i got the idea. seems to work pretty well for me on the weekends but on the weekdays I'm still struggling. f*ck work

#34
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aerdil posted:
its like 8 pages long of turgid academic prose about one novel and the surrounding scholarly articles about it, no one wants to read it

yeah just edit down the superfluous bits and keep the best passages. That's what I'm gonna do ( I don't expect to win the prize though)..

#35
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aerdil posted:
are u going to australia to pick up the body of ur dead drunk dad? if so u better get a good airline



Is this a reference to a movie I haven't seen? I really fucking hope so

#36
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reference to LOst, son. LOST> motherfucker. fuck u bitch give me a cigarette,
#37
north pole
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The Great American Novel is something you will never write because first you must be Great and American
#38
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i just finished writing my 3rd book a few hours ago. congratulations, me. im drunk. i feel like this was a very amateurish and poor effort, though i just read the foreword and it's oddly readable. i was tentatively happy about my 1st, and actually proud of my 2nd; maybe this means this one is actually good since i feel bad about it?

#39
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i might actyually get around to reading ur 2nd book this month impper. hi five. yeah,
#40
penitent
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im writing an analysis of dubstep based on, the culture industry, by, theodor adorno