DEVIN ASARO

Amateur marginalia
-Joseph Mallord William Turner, The Slave Shipe (1840) “That night Glanton stared long into the embers of the fire. All about him his men were sleeping but much was changed. So many gone, defected or dead. The Delewares all slain. He watched the fire and if he saw portents there it was much the same to him. He would live to look upon the western sea and he was equal to whatever might follow for he was complete at ever hour. Whether his history should run concomitant with men and nations, whether it should cease. He’d long forsworn all weighing of consequence and allowing as he did that men’s destinies are given yet he usurped to contain within him all that he would ever be in the world and all that the world would be to him and be his charter written in the urstone itself he claimed agency and said so and he’d drive the remorseless sun on to its final endarkenment as if he’d ordered it all ages since, before there were paths anywhere, before there were men or suns to go upon them.” -Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian (1985)

-Joseph Mallord William Turner, The Slave Shipe (1840)

“That night Glanton stared long into the embers of the fire. All about him his men were sleeping but much was changed. So many gone, defected or dead. The Delewares all slain. He watched the fire and if he saw portents there it was much the same to him. He would live to look upon the western sea and he was equal to whatever might follow for he was complete at ever hour. Whether his history should run concomitant with men and nations, whether it should cease. He’d long forsworn all weighing of consequence and allowing as he did that men’s destinies are given yet he usurped to contain within him all that he would ever be in the world and all that the world would be to him and be his charter written in the urstone itself he claimed agency and said so and he’d drive the remorseless sun on to its final endarkenment as if he’d ordered it all ages since, before there were paths anywhere, before there were men or suns to go upon them.”

-Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian (1985)

Jack B. Yeats,The Steep Way to Town (1951) ~ MRS BREEN You were the lion of the night with your seriocomic recitation and you looked the part. You were always a favourite with the ladies. BLOOM (squire of dames, in dinner jacket with waterdsilk facings, blue masonic badge in his butthonhole, black bow and mother-of-pearl studs, a prismatic champagne glass tilted in his hand) Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ireland, home and beauty. MRS BREEN The dear dead days beyond recall. Love’s old sweet song. -James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)

Jack B. Yeats,The Steep Way to Town (1951)

~

MRS BREEN
You were the lion of the night with your seriocomic recitation and you looked the part. You were always a favourite with the ladies.

BLOOM
(squire of dames, in dinner jacket with waterdsilk facings, blue masonic badge in his butthonhole, black bow and mother-of-pearl studs, a prismatic champagne glass tilted in his hand) Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ireland, home and beauty.

MRS BREEN
The dear dead days beyond recall. Love’s old sweet song.

-James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)

My first print article just arrived in the mail #proxart #pm8 (Taken with instagram)

My first print article just arrived in the mail #proxart #pm8 (Taken with instagram)

Dad and Gramma in Arizona (Taken with instagram)

Dad and Gramma in Arizona (Taken with instagram)

Bush on Google

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen any good Bush bashing, so here’s an old gem, for nostalgia’s sake. When asked in a 2006 interview whether or not he used Google, George Bush responded with this:

Occasionally. One of the things I’ve used on the Google is to pull up maps. It’s very interesting to see — I’ve forgot the name of the program — but you get the satellite, and you can — like, I kinda like to look at the ranch. It reminds me of where I wanna be sometimes.

[Column] The Weight of Ambition

You can find my most recent column in the latest issue of Proxart Magazine. It’s about how I learned to stop digging with overly ambitious authors — namely Joyce, Pynchon, Conrad, and David Foster Wallace.

Proxart is a great organization of dedicated and creative people. They just launched their new website, Proxart.co, where you can find the latest issue of the magazine and tons of other regularly updated content.

The magazine is available as a pay-what-you-want download, and in print through MagCloud. Please support Proxart, and consider becoming a contributor.

Enjoy the magazine!

For most of her career, Flannery O’Connor was functionally incapacitated, restricted to her home because of fatigue due to systematic lupus. At her diagnosis, she was given a life expectancy of five years. She made it fourteen. During those years, O’Connor was unable, for the most part, to leave her ancestral home, except during brief stints as a lecturer on creative writing. She used her writing as a means to escape the doldrums of rural home life, using fiction and correspondence as her primary means of access to society. While it proved a great escape for her, the act of writing did not come easily. She had little else to do, but she still struggled to find the energy and motivation to write. Boredom and frustration can be great motivators, but they are also the number one culprits of writer’s block. Writing, especially when one is writing with writer’s block, can be incredibly tedious and depressing. It is easier to write about experience than imagined experience, and after 1951, O’Connor was left to rely mostly on the imaginary. The key for O’Connor was to always write, no matter what. She made it a point to write at least two hours every day, regardless of whether or not she felt inspired. It was this way that she managed the two novels and twenty-odd short stories written during her illness, among them A Good Man is Hard to Find, and Everything That Rises Must Converge, surely the best collections of her career. There is always an excuse not to write. The point is to do it anyway.

For most of her career, Flannery O’Connor was functionally incapacitated, restricted to her home because of fatigue due to systematic lupus. At her diagnosis, she was given a life expectancy of five years. She made it fourteen.

During those years, O’Connor was unable, for the most part, to leave her ancestral home, except during brief stints as a lecturer on creative writing. She used her writing as a means to escape the doldrums of rural home life, using fiction and correspondence as her primary means of access to society. While it proved a great escape for her, the act of writing did not come easily. She had little else to do, but she still struggled to find the energy and motivation to write.

Boredom and frustration can be great motivators, but they are also the number one culprits of writer’s block. Writing, especially when one is writing with writer’s block, can be incredibly tedious and depressing. It is easier to write about experience than imagined experience, and after 1951, O’Connor was left to rely mostly on the imaginary.

The key for O’Connor was to always write, no matter what. She made it a point to write at least two hours every day, regardless of whether or not she felt inspired. It was this way that she managed the two novels and twenty-odd short stories written during her illness, among them A Good Man is Hard to Find, and Everything That Rises Must Converge, surely the best collections of her career.

There is always an excuse not to write. The point is to do it anyway.

- Edward Manet, The Balcony (1868) My first magazine article comes out on March 5th in Proxart Magazine. I couldn’t be more excited and nervous to finally see my writing in print. In the meantime, take a look at this article I wrote last month for Proxart’s website about the peculiarities and irony of my life in San Francisco. Also, I have a new website, which houses my blog, portfolio, and professional information. Take a look, if you feel so inclined. Hope that you are having a wonderful Valentine’s day. Sorry for the self-promotion. I feel terrible.

- Edward Manet, The Balcony (1868)

My first magazine article comes out on March 5th in Proxart Magazine. I couldn’t be more excited and nervous to finally see my writing in print.

In the meantime, take a look at this article I wrote last month for Proxart’s website about the peculiarities and irony of my life in San Francisco.

Also, I have a new website, which houses my blog, portfolio, and professional information. Take a look, if you feel so inclined.

Hope that you are having a wonderful Valentine’s day. Sorry for the self-promotion. I feel terrible.