moore on style - vissi d'arte.

please note, i have no idea how to actually pronounce that title. i thought it was french, but i thought wrong.

wdyl:two boys.

so since i just want to return lorrie moore's like life to the library soon, i will be posting my notes of the stories online.

moore on style. pun intended.

more on style (pun intended, i SWEAR.):

moore likes to give us stereotypes and cliche sayings, and just destroy them in an instant with some witty quip or observation. it's just lots of great. moore also likes to capitalize on The Exception. as shown by the quote from page 22. additionally, she likes to give beautiful details along with just absolutely hilarious comparisons to help us visualize what the character is seeing all the more (once again, no pun intended). see the quote from page 24. oh, the exception is back again! the main character uses a vibrator to stir her chocolate milk. this is a problem, because vibrators usually go into -body part- and said body part is not usually sanitary enough to drink chocolate milk. ...nor does any body part aside from the mouth drink chocolate milk. ever. lorrie the author (we're on the first name basis now. just kidding.) also likes to capitalize on ignorance. shown by ze vibrator incident and also the quote on page 30. and then moore likes to bring in previous details to make some slew of utter nonsense. like saying that the most expensive dish in a restaurant is $45, which costs as much as an oil-and-water bra! and then there are some rather riveting and interesting details like how sarah brink says the character's father's name (the quote on 35). 

a gate at the stairs:favorite lines.

edit: i think i just need to have this consistently open so i can add my favorite lines.

on fridays there were fish fries or boils at which they served "lawyers" (burbot or eelpout), so-called because their hearts were in their butts. (moore, 17)

all my books had fortunes protruding like tiny tails from their pages. you are the crispy noodle in the salad of life. [...] i had donated my plasma several times for cash, but the last time i had tried, the clinic had turned me away, saying my plasma was cloudy from my having eaten cheese the night before. ...it was so hard not to eat cheese. (moore, 19)

where were the husbands? "oh, at work," the women all said vaguely. all except the journalist, who said, "good question!" (moore, 22)

her hair was cropped short and dyed the fashionable bright auburn of a ladybug. her earrings were buttons of deepest orange, her leggings mahogany, her sweater rust-colored, and her lips maroonish brown. she looked like a highly controlled oxidation experiment. (moore, 24)

"the neighbors just put in that invisible fence," she said. "in november. i'm sure it causes ms or something." (moore, 30)

"...filets and cutlets sprinkled with lavender dust once owned by the pixies..." (moore, 34)

it startled me to hear my father's potatoes--kennebecs, norlands, pontiacs, yukon golds, somethe size of marbles, some grapefruits, depending on drought and digging times and what the beetles were up to--all summed up and uttered that way right here in her living room. [...] he was a... truck farmer, with no real acreage, just some ducks (who every fall raped one another in a brutal fashion we never got used to)...(moore, 35)

we had also once had an ebullient pig named helen, who would come when you called her name and smiled like a dolphin when you spoke to her. and then we didn't see her for a few days, and one morning over bacon and eggs, my brother said, "is this helen?" i dropped my fork and cried, "this is helen? is this helen?!" and my mother, too, stopped eating and looked hard at my father: "bo, is this helen?" the next pig we got we never met and its name was #wk3746. (moore, 36-37)

a gate at the stairs.

so i went to the librario today to get a lorrie moore book. she's written novels. so i got one of those instead of her short stories (oops?). and i can just instantly hear her voice in here--it's the same sort of thing as the ones that we've read in class. moore just goes in and says something, but doesn't really mean it. for example, from page 12 of a gate at the stairs:
i liked children--i did!--or rather, i liked them ok. they were sometimes interesting.

moore just has this great way of just not really being serious but then making us take her seriously (kinda like me? question mark? i don't even know.) with just everything else that happens. also, she just has great lines. like this one. page 13.
twice a week a young professor named thad, dressed in jeans and a tie, stood before a lecture hall of stunned farm kids like me and spoke thrillingly of henry james's masturbation of the comma.

see what i mean here? masturbation of the comma, oh my goodness. this is why lorrie moore is my favoritest author ever (besides sherman alexie) because she's just so wacky, zany, and just slightly insane and i wish to meet her in real life some day.

musica, and oh my goodness. oh, and how to become a writer and also a bit of you're ugly, too.

so addressing oh em gee first:
i stayed away from the blog the entire weekend! well... more like since friday. which is easily explainable really... i had internship and then got home, ate dinner, and then went to youth group. and then saturday i... actually did a whole lot of nothing and maybe some chem (and by some, i mean like none at all, for those who are super curious) but yeah. and then today, i went to work, got home and then cleaned my room for my new desk (yay! now while i don't have a new computer, it sure as heck seems like i have a new one.) and then finally started on my homework... blog, whatever. i should do hw. really.

musicas. yes. mui importante. (that's about the extent of my spanish knowledge, don't get your hopes up.) brooke fraser has a new single (well... relatively new) called "something in the water." it's really country-esque and i'm kinda addicted to it (diane can testify to this) and then taylor swift's album is coming out this month and it's just All Sorts of Awesome. really.

how to become a writer was just All Sorts of Hilarious and it was great. lorrie moore has just an amazing style and i love it because it's hilarious in a snarky way, and she's just really really great. and then you're ugly, too has some great lines. i think i texted them to kayla, and they were just really great non-sequiturs... as follows:

• i swear, if this fucking xerox machine breaks on me one more time, i'm going to slit my wrists.
• a painting like that, it just makes you shit. 

and yeah. :) i haven't finished reading it yet, so no spoilers plx. okay. i shall go study for psych now. D: