Less Is More

Leave a Comment / By Paul Hughes / September 21, 2013

I don’t know.

What happened next?

So, so beautiful.

This is why.

You like me.

This is it.

Red White Blue

What the fuck?

What if we …

Why should I?

God is love.

Show me how.

I love you.

See you later.

Yes, yes, yes!

I’m leaving you.

Please don’t go.

I was wrong.

You were right.

I am sorry.

Nobody gets by.

I wonder why.

No, I can’t.

Do it again.

Who will go?

No — fuck you.

No, no, no!

It doesn’t matter.

Yes, I will.

Follow thou me.

I want that.

God is dead.

I hate you.

Write it down.

It was good.

From the top.

I don’t care.

Turn left here.

He is risen.

One more rep.

That’s not right.

Do it now.

What is truth?

I go, sir.

What’s on TV?

May I please?

Go to hell.

Fries with that?

Let’s go home.

Three strong words.

Recent

Coyotes and Christians

I am not saying Christians are like coyotes. [For that, some could cut caustically to coyotes are like Christians — tricksters, roaming in the dark, feeding on the dead … ] Simply noticed — somewhat in passing, as it’s said, having attained, apparently … achieved? … some kind of state where nearly anything I hear,

And Did Dostoevsky Say ‘Beauty Will Save’

Short answer: he did not. Neither did Prince Myshkin, that we know of. Likely both believed it. Beauty — in the person of Christ — will do so. And clearly D wrote of M in The Idiot to explore art and beauty and ugliness and salvation. But did he say it, and did he believe that

What I Recalled Watching Netflix

[Television is educational.] One Saying the same stuff over and over looks like you have different things to say. Two If you’re ever in a below-average film or streaming series, and you beat the tar out of a guy, in a house, and you gaze down in both some shock as also a certain

Seeking the King

A line everywhere misattributed to Chesterton reads thus: The young man who rings the bell at the brothel is unconsciously looking for God. This line is not from the great [several senses of the word] man who recently celebrated his 150th birthday, but the mid-century most unmodern novelist Bruce Marshall. The words — which do

Barbaric Yawn

One of the saddest things about Mildly Somnolent and Her Raging Nonesuch is she prolly thinks she’s transgressive, mayhap even original. Please. Madonna did it 30 years ago. Figure 15 more for Britney’s turn. Now it’s 15 again. See Ecclesiastes for explanatory of this clockwork snore — What has been is what will be, and

Idea: Inspiration

They asked Newton* how he did it and he’s supposed to have said, I thought about it all the time. * Yes, it’s Archimedes. Keep reading. Inspiration is for amateurs. Chuck Close You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. Jack London Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.

Closer

Norm’s is the kind of restaurant where across the street there is a long car wash, a 12-unit apartment building, a donut shop open most of the hours Norm’s is open, a strip mall with a “Luxury Day Spa” between the cigarette store and the cut-rate auto insurance broker: “Free SR-22 Filings!” the sign says. It’s

Events Full

Five weeks ago I gave six-weeks notice at the business journal. It came about five weeks in on the largest weekly increases in initial unemployment claims since the real estate recession. To date we’re just shy of 39 million in nine weeks, with, for me, one week to go. As at least one other person

Bread

“We’re sorry,” said the man, pointing. “We ain’t much here.” The woman, they guessed his wife by the way she puttered around, doing many small things but nothing really, was shaking her head. The two were indicating the table, which indeed was sparse: bread of some kind, though it looked fresh baked at least, with

Whispers and Words

My dad died in my sleep. 2:35 AM in an upstate New York hospice; 11:35 PM in a Southern California house. A text saying to call and two voice mails I still haven’t listened to and speaking was as a sunrise. New but not unexpected. * Who’s the dust in this scenario? Remember, O Man, that thou art but

Centurion Prayer Day One

Going to start a little experiment. Well, it’s not terribly small, given that it will take nearly a third of a year that’s already one-fourth done. I’m calling the idea Centurion Prayer. I already like the name, so don’t try to change my mind. The idea is 100 days of prayer, and it’s not a

Being That Guy

Once after one of my MFA professors had said the work we were reading was neither good nor original, the student who’d produced the pages wailed, But … but this actually happened! So what? He said. * I think François Truffaut said everyone in fiction is crazy, and the problem is to render this craziness

"Our Lord Christ speaks: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” Thus he says: You have no idea who I am and what I mean for you, have done and will do for you, if you do not look beyond this life to eternity. … If you want to understand me, you must go beyond the temporal to the eternal, for I am he who brings the kingdom of God to you. … To those who are satisfied with the world and the things of the world I will have nothing nothing at all to say except this: that they must go to their own ruin. But to those who have noticed that this earthly life in itself has no meaning but can receive its meaning only from beyond, to them I say: I guarantee you this goal; yes, even more: I am this goal. I am the resurrection and the life. "

— Emil Bruner

Shut up and deal