Does Your House Have Lions?

"One day in the late sixties, I was on the phone with Rahsaan and mentioned to him that just that day I bought a house.
He responded by asking, "Does your house have lions?"
I said, "What?"
He said, "Lions, you know like in front of a museum or the post office. You know, concrete lions. My house has lions. Get a house with lions."

--Joel Dorn

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Geoff Dyer at the Texas Book Festival

Yay!  I get to sneak out to the Texas Book Festival this weekend.  It's a great event--hundreds of authors gathered at the state capitol giving readings and signing books.  Geoff Dyer, who wrote the gorgeous, incredible jazz-inspired book, "But Beautiful" is going to be there and I hope to catch him.  Here's a passage from it:

"He arranged everything and then blew, blew, blew--one arm squirreling up and down the keys, the other hanging limp at his side, dangling there like something irrelevant, heaving and puffing like he was trying to keep death itself at bay....A blind man who had risen from the dead.  Watching him, Mingus felt the red ice of his blood tingle in numb hands."