/lit/ - Literature

>>14577178
(2/?)

I mean, I had insurance (well, she did because it was her car, but I'm pretty sure I was included in the policy), and there was only a tiny little mark on the bumper that was visible, and only on their car, so I figured it was probably easier to just give them the hundred monies than get involved in some complicated insurance claim that would probably just wind up increasing her rates in the long-term.

I handed it over, and apologized, and they went on their way.

I guess it just goes to show that sometimes you just get held up by some dick in traffic.

>>>/b/
>>>/hm/
>>>/trash/

During my first year of college, I spent most of my nights in the city, pulling "hey, misters" (although I found that "excuse me, sir" worked way better) on the bums outside liquor stores so my roommate and I could get properly wasted on forties in an elementary-school playground that was hard to see from any major street.

One evening, standing outside the Grog-N-Grocery around the corner from the Castro Theatre, there was a man with slicked-back hair who wore a suit. He sounded like Inigo Montoya, and carried a briefcase. He had an "associate," who was a much larger man who spoke seldom and with much less refined dress (we're talking stains-on-wife-beater levels of refinement).

Against the usually better judgement of my roommate, I asked him if he wouldn't mind purchasing some alcohol for us in exchange for a forty. His only demand was a couple bucks more to get one for his associate. Clearly, we couldn't refuse.

For several hours, we drank in the schoolyard (which it turned out they frequented), our eyes burning holes into that briefcase - what did it contain? What secrets were held inside it?

Finally, after we had consumed our bottles, and were on the verge of having to find our way back to the dorm, a smile came across his face like an odd wind, and he reached for the briefcase.

"Gentlemen, help yourselves," he intoned as he unclasped the leather box.

Beer. Cans of beer.

"I have been homeless for over a year now, and I find that as long as you're wearing a suit and holding a briefcase, people treat you better. And you can carry a lot of beer in a briefcase."

>>14577215

What, you don't like telling stories?

What do you think Literature is?

Seems like some Judgy-McJudgerson needs to get the fuck over their false sense of importance and tell the story of what made them such a boring asshole.

Just don't make it too long; anecdotes are supposed to be sort of punchy.

When the business investments that allowed my dad to finance my first year of college dried up, he called me and said I'd have to come home.

Naturally, I was devastated, because I felt that I belonged there, somehow, like I was part of the city, even though I'd only just arrived.

They came to get me, and my sister and I managed to sneak away for an evening and leave my parents to the hotel room. Since she was 21, there was no need to ask homeless people to buy us booze, and we pretty much just drank in alleys and ate a couple of slices from Marcello's as I led her around my stomping grounds before she got sick and started throwing up in front of the theatre.

I saw her eyes widen in fear as a couple of homeless men approached us.

"Anon?" When he called me by my name, she looked at me with a mixture of fear and respect I had never seen before. "Is she okay?"

"Yeah, man. She's my sister. It's okay. Good to see you."

"Alright, cool. Nice to meet you, ma'am. We're going down to the park if you want to join us later."

"Probably not; but I'll catch you later."

As I helped her back to her feet so we could catch the train back to the hotel, I felt more like a man than I ever had while while beside her. I don't think my parents ever found out about it.

>>14577215

Like, it's not that hard.

Just think about things that you remember that you think other people will connect with somehow.

Maybe it's something that everyone has gone through, and therefore you appeal to the common emotions one experiences when undergoing it, or maybe it's something that not many people have encountered, but still want to hear about from those who have.

The only risk in telling a story is being told by your audience that it has no value, and you'd do better to stop talking.

I mean, that's a pretty big risk to anyone who thinks they have value and that what they've experienced is worth relating, but there's a caveat:

Not everybody thinks the same stories are valuable as everybody else.

Turns out that the great american novel is a meme, fren.

We're all just sitting around a fucking campfire and relating various anecdotes here.

>you can even tell the stories that people who are dead have told you, if you remember them well enough.

So, I was driving a jeep for the Signal Corps in World War II, and I was given some papers to deliver to another fort (we were in LeHavre over by Normandy), and I was planning to go over the bridge.

Suddenly, I came across a hulking shadow in the dark, and found myself within a few feet of a Sherman tank that was spinning its turret to fire, and I smelled the distinct odor of detonation charges in the air.

If it weren't for that tank, I might have just driven onto the bridge before detecting it, but I quickly decided to take the longer route, and my life was saved for it - I heard that bridge go out not thirty seconds later.

>>14577468
>I smelled the distinct odor of detonation charges
What kind of charge and what smell? Also, the terminology just does not bring the story to life.

For the most part, /lit/ seems to be more about discussing the worth and meaning of things other people write more than actually sharing anything original.

I mean, what does anyone hope to gain from posting some "should I bother with [author]?" post?

Like, do you really think there's some sort of objective consortium that could determine the inherent value of an author's writing?

It's really complicated, after all.

And it seems like this board is full of elitist blowhards who seem to believe that their particular hierarchy of value in terms of what makes "good" writing is somehow endowed by whatever kind of omniscient force would have to exist in order to be able to asses objective value to writing.

I get it, though - there is some atrocious writing out there - but if you have a problem with something written, then write about it. Expound on it. Elucidate the glaring errors and the logical missteps that the author so grievously made.

Saying you don't like something without being able to explain why is basically no more informative than saying you have an allergy to it.

>>14577178
I was hoping for something more substantial, op. You were off to a great start.

>>14577531
Be the change that you want to see.

>>14577468

>"imagine the smell"

Yeah, I mean, I can't, really, but if I were to it would be sort of a sharp sort of acidic tone offset with a certain thickness that any large mass of powder might have.

I'm not sure that knowing exactly what the charge would be referred to as (this is what Google gave me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satchel_charge)) would really help the story, though. I mean, throwing in that it was a Satchel charge or an M37-Demolition-Kit sort of seems like the unnecessary detail that takes the listener out of the story simply for the reason of reminding them of your ethos, or position as storyteller.

If you're telling another person's story, however, then there's only so much detail you can give.

That's why the best stories are told by the people who have lived them, either directly or through whatever imaginative powers they might have.

I mean, otherwise we're just reciting copypasta, aren't we?

>>14577533
There's something I like about your writing in your college stories, but the stories themselves are boring and quickly fall flat on their noses. Did all that actually happen? Because of it did, therein lies your problem. Don't limit yourself to what "really" happened. Sure, if you're a good storyteller, you could recount taking a shit and make it a worthwhile read. You're not quite there yet, so make something up. If it is made up, then make up more.
This is all meant as encouragement so, more anecdotes, please.

>>14577531
>I was hoping for something more substantial, op.

"Follow me." He pulled away into the Deli lot.

They seated him immediately, even though there was a line that stretched almost to the door. I glanced at the potato salad as we strode past the counter. It looked good.

I ordered a Harold's Special. The waitress had to go back to the kitchen to make sure what it was. She came back and said one of the cooks remembered. This seemed to impress them.

"You seem to want to... umm, rectify this situation without involving any insurance companies or... err, mitigating influences, is that correct, Mr. Anon?"

"You could say that. It was a mistake. There was a dick-pic." The driver's eyebrow raised, and the girls giggled.

"A... dick-pic, you say?" He seemed amused, but his partner was stone-faced. Our drinks arrived, along with the latkes, served with both sour-cream and applesauce, which are a delightful pairing with the hard-fried potato pancakes generously imbued with a blend of onion and spices.

>>14577580
And what's a forty? Forty dollars? You paid someone 40$ to buy you some drinks? What was the price of the actual alcohol?

This one time when I was a child I threw a rock this one time in a small wooded area. When I threw the rock it was a long time ago when I threw the rock was when I was a child. when I throw rock as child the rock went through trees. i hear glass break after throwing rock through trees i remember now a dream from last night in my dream from last night i bought a ragged book in my dream the book was house of leaves but why did i buy the book house of leaves in my dream in the trees i looked out in the trees where i threw the rock in the trees the broken glass was broken by the rock i threw in the trees the broken glass was a car window that broke but why did i buy house of leaves

>>14577586

"See, in this country, there are men who send unbidden photographs of their penis to strangers who identify as female, even though they have no idea if this person even exists, much less identifies with any sort of gender. It's sort of like whipping your dick out in public, I imagine, but with the added assurance that whomever you're showing your dick to won't be able to actually track you down unless you want them to. It's a strange and disturbing behavior, and my wife was sent one, which she showed me, and sufficiently distracted me enough to not see the brake lights of your Mercedes-Benz S-Class."

"It is a nice car, isn't it?"

"Well, since this is the late 2000-s, it's top-of-the-line, yes."

I think this was somewhere around 2009, but it might have been a few years later, but I'm not really sure. I drink a lot. Also, it might not have been a Mercedes-Benz. But it was a shit-ton nicer than my wife's Jetta, that's for sure.

"So, you like looking at dicks, anon?" The driver's eyebrow arched again, while his partner continued to stare at me like he was watching paint dry.

>>14577625

"What?! No - but like, if your wife gets sexually assaulted by some anonymous fucker online, then it's sort of your job to support her however you can, and if she wants to share the picture, then you gotta say yes, right? Like, you gotta say yes, even though it might be some giant schwantz that puts yours to shame, and she's showing off the kind of giant dicks that she could get, and you're triggered because you're always scared that you're not big enough... why are you laughing?"

"I'm just fucking with you, anon. We're hauling huge amounts of cocaine in our trunk, and we just need to know you're cool with not ratting us out to any sort of authorities like insurance or police or anything. Tell you what - we'll cover lunch, and you just carry on about your weird random dicks. Sound good?"

It sounded as good as the potato salad when you spread it onto a triple-decker rye sandwich with pastrami, brisket, and tongue with cole-slaw and thousand-island dressing.

>>14577580

>the stories themselves are boring and quickly fall flat on their noses

I mean, how much detail do you need as a reader?

Does adding that make it less boring?

>The wind in July isn't nearly as bad in San Francisco as the Winters, but there was a surprising chill cutting through the air as my family arrived in the large black van. It would be my last night in the city before being dragged back to the pedestrian life I had been trying to escape, but found myself conscripted to like a soldier facing orders.

>>14577589

>what's a forty?

Kek - that's actually what I asked my roommate the first night I met him, and he said he was about to head out with his friend for some forties.

They laughed at me and then explained that it was a forty-ounce bottle of beer.

So I asked for Bud Light.

Then they laughed at me again, which I only later realized was absolutely the appropriate response.

They did find one, though, whose existence surprised them as much as it did me.

I haven't priced them recently, but a forty in the mid-nineties would cost you approximately two dollars, and if you could manage to get your hands on three of them, you'd be guaranteed to get completely schnackered.

Usually, the purchase of a 40 implied Malt Liquor, which had a higher ABV (alcohol-by-volume) than most beers, and included brands like Mickey's (4-leaf clover), King Cobra, Old English 800 (or "Old-E"), and St. Ides (or "Crooked-I", due to the weird wiggling font they used for the "I" in "Ides").

Generally, you'd buy a homeless person a forty as what they call "bum tax," because they were capitalizing on the fact that you weren't old enough to purchase alcohol, and you were capitalizing on the fact that once someone leaves a store having purchased something, what they do with it is up to them.

It was generally symbiotic.

>>14577733

>It was generally symbiotic

Except for this one time when we were in this city in East Bay where this guy was on a pay phone (it was like 1995 so this was normal) outside a liquor store, and we hesitated before approaching him, but then decided to and he was really nice and agreed to get a few forties along with his Mad Dog 20/20, just as long as we'd walk home with him.

It wasn't until the first streetlight we hit that I realized he had a tattoo of Adolph Hitler wearing Doc Martens on his forearm, and a Swastika on his shoulder.

"You guys are lucky you're white, you know that?" he said.

He led us into the woods. He tried to explain to us how there's some sort of anti-white conspiracy while drinking his Mad Dog, and apologizing for having to go so quickly, but he was getting a delivery of heroin from his friend he had to meet up with, which he's really ashamed of because it's a "black drug."

While walking through a gas-station, we happened across a man, visibly black.

The guy waved and said "what's up?" and the other guy nodded in accord and said "hi."

"See, as long as they know their place, and don't cause any trouble, I'm fine with them."

We saw him to his house and left as soon as possible.

I'd never been afraid of zombie movies until then.

>>14577733
>they were capitalizing on the fact that you weren't old enough to purchase alcohol
See, that's what gives the whole story a surreal air, to me. The concept of not being able to buy alcohol because of age is alien to me. I was a kid 7-8 yrs old when my dad would send me to the corner store to buy him cigs and beer or brandy. This was in the 80s but I'm not sure things have changed much here in my corner of the second-and-a-half world.
Also, I've never had malt liquor in my life. This is unknown here or maybe available as an exotic novelty in some hipster yuppy pubs and priced accordingly. From what I gather it's just a cheap get-drunk-quickly drink in burgerlandia, right?

>>14577789
>The concept of not being able to buy alcohol because of age is alien to me

That's fascinating. Where I'm from, selling alcohol to anyone under 21 can get you anything from a large fine and loss of your liquor license to time in prison.

Not that it was particularly enforceable except for the occasional shutting-down of some bar that had become well-known enough for it to serve as some sort of example to the many other various establishments that had been doing the same thing.

Also, yes - I don't know where you are, but if you can get your hands on malt liquor, you absolutely should if you like getting drunk.

In particular, chugging any number of forties of St. Ides is an experience you will absolutely regret, because waking up after passing out on the sidewalk next to the train you had intended to catch, but stopped running just before you got there is like a nightmare of light and pain, but you'll totally learn something from the things you did and the conversations you had with others, so like totally do it.

What's the second-and-a-half world, anyway?

Is that like those pockets of human existence who are large enough to be their own country, but exist within the borders of some other country or countries who have to be dicks about it?

Because I don't know if I'm in one of those or not.

>>14577789
>exotic novelty in some hipster yuppy pubs and priced accordingly

I mean, the day I see a yuppy pub selling Old-E or the Crooked Eye as a novelty and pricing it like some sort of fine wine is the day I know I'm not in the universe I was born in.

But lulz tho.

I can't imagine where you are...

>>14577594

>Mark Z. Danielewski detected

No, but that's a pretty fucking awesome book, though. Gotta read the lower corner of like five hundred pages just so you can get to the bottom of what may or may not be pertinent to the narrative you've barely been capable of piecing together before falling down this fucking rabbit-hole, and you find yourself having to use multiple bookmarks to keep track of the whole story, which at some point just starts to feel like some practical joke by the storyteller, who is never going to give you the big payoff that you expected upon deciding to hear their story because so many people have been praising it.

And same for Infinite Jest.

If you have to have a certain level of patience and attention to be able to finish reading something, then it's either a religious text or a distraction, neither of which are worth reading.

Last year I drove past the waterfront in down town portland. It's a grassy tree covered park bordering the willammete river with a road parallel on its flank, and crossed by several bridges, and on the other side of this road, rows of tall buildings

A place where Holliday events and weekend markets are regularly held.

Turns out this day the Patriots for prayer are having an event and a bunch of other protestors.

Traffic was thick this time of day and at a near stand still.

I have my music playing loud, tech n9ne I believe.

As I approach the location of the prayer thing I see several armored personnel carriers and probably about 80 fully riot armored police, and there were probably more nearby.

As I approach I reach to turn down my very loud music so i could get a better read on what's going on around me.

This row of armored cops was across the opposing lane only about 15 feet from my car so I was curious.

as I did so I noticed I could hear a large rabble of protestors with random signs for various things lining the opposite side of the street. hundreds of them.

I turned the music up and rolled my windows down for a cigarette and blasted some nasty profane tech n9ne in stand still traffic 5 feet away from the dozens of people near me.

They actually shut the fuck up for a couple minutes as I passed. I don't think they could hear their own chants.

>>14577871

I mean, how many fucking explorations of the human mind do we need?

James Joyce allegedly wrote "Finnegan's Wake" with the attempt to write every thought of a man during a 24-hour-day, and it even had the added bonus of ending in an incomplete sentence that was completed by the first sentence in the novel - which began midway through; I mean, that's some pretty amazing stuff in terms of human production, and yet if you've never read any James Joyce or a single page of anyone whose name might be on the spine of a book...

It doesn't matter.

Like, as disappointing as it is, we all know people who couldn't give less of a shit about reading "other people's diaries" (or however they imagine the history of human writing) and they're stupid as shit, but like, they get to do everything we want to do despite not seeming to even have to bother to work to get it, and it makes us want to rage against whatever cruel universe would allow such an injustice to happen.

Is reading "Ulysses" going to get you what you want?

Fuck if I know - do you want to read "Ulysses"? If so, then yes.

So why are you reading this and not "Ulysses"?

>>14577879

FUCK YASS. That was a very good anecdote, anon.

You got the gift of the blarney stone, I tells ya.