Claire’s Reviews > M Train > Status Update

'We seek to stay present, even as the ghosts attempt to draw us away. Our father manning the loom of eternal return. Our mother wandering toward paradise, releasing the thread. In my way of thinking, anything is possible. Life is at the bottom of things and belief at the top, while the creative impulse, dwelling in the centre, informs all.'

This is so good, utterly compelling. Picked it up at a second hand booksale, starting reading, can not put it down. It's a meandering read, both of mind and of travel and literary references grounded by the ever present need to sit with a coffee, notebook and join dots between dreams, reality, ideas, people, places, memories, portals, giving talks, progessing projects whether that's an old house or a 100 line poem.

Changing Chanels
Upstairs. Objects hers, brothers, fathers, skips Thanksgiving, Xmas,New years eve, a hecatomb for Bolano, watch crime shows, 2 boxes of mail, replies to CDC, Continental Drift Club invite, Iceland 2007, search party Alfred Wegener, table from 1972 chess match Bobby Fischer v Boris Spassky, Bobby's strange request, singing

"...without a doubt, we sometimes eclipse our own dreams with reality"

Patti Smith has a morning ritual in a local cafe, black coffee, brown toast, olive oil, a corner table. From this place, she recalls a night dream, the cowboy, then a daydream, a beach cafe, then narrates a memory of visiting Suriname to collect stones from an old prison Jean Genet did not stay in.
Already mesmerised by the serene transition from one story to another, through fearless curiosity, coffee reflections.