Bit by Bit

I think my blog is having an identity crisis. I was just reading through the last month of posts and I'm not sure whether this is my beatnik poetry roundup, a place to expel the angst of my life, a place to dissertate on the doings of online journalistic outlets, or just a place to review my various literature endeavors.

In the past I have been happy with it just being a place for angst-dumping. But bit by bit, I think it is transforming, or I am transforming it, into something more. So for today's slog, here are some exceptional quotes from a book I read this week, Blue Plate Special:

"I know the truth sets you free, but it isn't exactly a comfortable independence."

(At a poetry reading in LA.)
"'Sometimes there is a mist in the air in Los Angeles that transforms the way things look. Gray, opaque, like sulphurous plumes, floating. Yet below the mist there is Technicolor, there is substance.'
My two o'clock burrito is backing up on me. I stifle a burp, shift in my chair, and wonder what the hell this woman is talking about."

"Naomi says having a therapist untangle my emotions is like having a doctor reset my bones after an accident. There is no real difference between the two. Things need to be examined and put back into place before they can really start to heal."

"The noon sun is warm and it feels more like a day in early June--hopeful, with the whole summer stretched out like a canvas waiting to be painted on."

"You never imagine that the casual snapshot, which on another day you would have thrown away, could become a crystal ball into the past. You sit and stare at the face, the expression, the scene around her, and try to relive that moment. You try to reconstruct the conversation, his reaction to being photographed, and why you took the picture to begin with. Every time I look at an old spontaneous shot, I can't help but take that journey. It has that kind of power over me."