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William Gibson
I hesitated before untying the bow that bound this book together.
I hesitated before untying the bow that bound this book together. A black book: ALBUMS CA. AGRIPPA Order Extra Leaves By Letter and Name A Kodak album of time-burned black construction paper The string he tied Has been unravelled by years and the dry weather of trunks Like a lady's shoestring fromLouis Vuitton 2009 Handbags the First World War Its metal ferrules eaten by oxygen Until they resemble cigarette-ash Inside the cover he inscribed something in soft graphite Now lost Then his name W.F. Gibson Jr. and something, comma, 1924 Then he glued his Kodak prints down And wrote under them In chalk-like white pencil: "Papa's saw mill, Aug. 1919." A flat-roofed shack Against a mountain ridge In the foreground are tumbled boards and offcuts He must have smelled the pitch, In August The sweet hot reek Of the electric saw Biting into decades Next the spaniel Moko "Moko 1919" Poses on small bench or table Before a backyard tree His coat is lustrous The grass needs cutting Beyond the tree, In eerie Kodak clarity, Are the summer backstairs of Wheeling, West Virginia Someone's left a wooden stepladder out "Aunt Fran and [obscured]" Although he isn't, this gent He has a "G" belt-buckle A lapel-device of Masonic origin A patent propelling-pencil A fountain-pen And the flowers they pose behind so solidly Are rooted in an upright length of whitewashed concrete sewer-pipe. Daddy had a horse named Dixie "Ford on Dixie 1917" A saddle-blanket marked with a single star Corduroy jodpurs A western saddle And a cloth cap Proud and happy As any boy could be "Arthur and Ford fishing 1919" Shot by an adult (Witness the steady hand that captures the wildflowers the shadows on their broad straw hats reflections of a split-rail fence) standing opposite them, on the far side of the pond, amid the snake-doctors and the mud, Kodak in hand, Ford Sr.? And "Moma July, 1919" strolls beside the pond, in white big city shoes, Purse tucked behind her, While either Ford or Arthur, still straw-hatted, approaches a canvas-topped touring car. "Moma and Mrs. Graham at fish hatchery 1919" Moma and Mrs. G. sit atop a graceful concrete arch. "Arthur on Dixie", likewise 1919, rather ill at ease. On the roof behind the barn, behind him, can be made out this cryptic mark: H.V.J.M.[?] "Papa's Mill 1919", my grandfather most regal amid a wrack of cut lumber, might as easily be the record of some later demolition, and His cotton sleeves are rolled to but not past the elbow, striped, with a white neckband for the attachment of a collar. Behind him stands a cone of sawdust some thirty feet in height. (How that feels to tumble down, or smells when it is wet) II. The mechanism: stamped black tin, Leatherette over cardboard, bits of boxwood, A lens The shutter falls Forever Dividing that from this. Now in high-ceiling bedrooms, unoccupied, unvisited, in the bottom drawers of veneered bureaus in cool chemical darkness curl commemorative montages of the cLouis Vuitton Bagsountry's World War dead, just as I myself discovered one other summer in an attic trunk, and beneath that every boy's best treasure of tarnished actual ammunition real little bits of war but also the mechanism itself. The blued finish of firearms is a process, controlled, derived from common rust, but there under so rare and uncommon a patina that many years untouched until I took it up and turning, entranced, down the unpainted stair, to the hallway where I swear I never heard the first shot. The copper-jacketed slug recovered from the bathroom's cardboard cylinderGucci Replica Handbags of Morton's Salt was undeformed save for the faint bright marks of lands and grooves so hot, stilled energy, it blistered my hand. The gun lay on the dusty carpet. Returning in utter awe I took it so carefully up That the second shot, equally unintended, notched the hardwood bannister and brought a strange bright smell of ancient sap to life in a beam of dusty sunlight. Absolutely alone in awareness of the mechanism. Like the first time you put your mouth on a woman. III. "Ice Gorge at Wheeling 1917" Iron bridge in the distance, BeGucci 2009 Handbagsyond it a city. Hotels where pimps went about their business on the sidewalks of a lost world. But the foreground is in focus, this corner of carpenter's Gothic, these backyards running down to the freeze. "Steamboat on Ohio River", its smoke foul and dLouis Vuittonark, its year unknown, beyond it the far bank overgrown with factories. "Our Wytheville House Sept. 1921" They have moved down from Wheeling and my father wears his city clothes. Main Street is unpaved and an electric streetlamp is slung high in the frame, centered above the tracked dust on a slack wire, suggesting the way it might pitch in a strong wind, the shadows that might throw. The house is heavy, unattractive, sheathed in stucco, not native to the region. My grandfather, who sold supplies to contractors, was prone to modern materials, which he used with wholesaler's enthusiasm. In 1921 he replaced the section of brick sidewalk in front of his house with the broad smooth slab of poured concrete, signing this improvement with a flourish, "W.F. Gibson 1921". He believed in concrete and plywood particularly. Seventy years later his signature remains, the slab floating perfectly level and charmless between mossy stretches of sweet uneven brick that knew the iron shoesReplica Bags of Yankee horses. "Mama Jan. 1922" has come out to sweep the concrete with a broom. Her boots are fastened with buttons requiring a special instrument. Ice gorge again, the Ohio, 1917. The mechanism closes. A torn clipping offers a 1957 DeSOTO FIREDOME, 4-door Sedan, torqueflite radio, heater and power steering and brakes, new w.s.w. premium tires. One owner. $1,595. IV He made it to the age of torqueflite radio but not much past that, and never in that town. That was mine to know, Main Street lined with Rocket Eighty-eights, the dimestore floored with wooden planks pies under plastic in the Soda Shop, and the mystery untold, the other thing, sensed in the creaking of a sign after midnight when nobody else was there. In the talc-fine dust beneath the platform of the Norfolk & Western lay indian-head pennies undisturbed Gucci bagssince the dawn of man. In the banks and courthouse, a fossil time prevailed, limestone centuries. When I went up to Toronto in the draft, my Local Board was there on Main Street, above a store that bought and sold pistols. I'd once traded that man a derringer for a Walther P-38. The pistols were in the window behind an amber roller-blind like sunglasses. I was seventeen or so but basically I guess you just had to be a white boy. I'd hike out to a shale pit and run ten dollars worth of 9mm through it, so worn you hardly had to pull the trigger. Bored, tried shooting down into a distant stream but one of them came back at me off a round of river rock clipping walnut twigs from a branch two feet above my head. So that I remembered the mechanism. V. In the all night bus station they sold scrambled eggs to state troopers the long skinny clasp-knives called fruit knives which were pearl handled watermelon-slicers and hillbilly novelties in brown varnished wood which were made in Japan. First I'd be sent there at night only if Mom's carton of Camels ran out, but gradually I came to value the submarine light, the alien reek of the long human haul, the strangers straight down from Port Authority headed for Nashville, Memphis, Miami. Sometimes the Sheriff watched them get off making sure they got back on. When the colored rHandbags Replicaestroom was no longer required they knocked open the cinderblock and extended the magazine rack to new dimensions, a cool fluorescent cave of dreams smelling faintly and forever of disinfectant, perhaps as well of the travelled fears of those dark uncounted others who, moving as though contours of hot iron, were made thus to dance or not to dance as the law saw fit. There it was that I was marked out as a writer, having discovered in that alcove copies of certain magazines esoteric and precious, and, yes, I knew then, knew utterly, the deal done in my heart forever, though how I knew not, nor ever have. Walking home through all the streets unmoving so quiet I could hear the timers of the traffic lights a block away: the mechanism. Nobody else, just the silenc2009 Designer Handbagse spreading out to where the long trucks groaned on the highway their vast brute souls in want. VI. There must have been a true last time I saw the station but I don't remember I remember the stiff black horsehide coat gift in Tucson of a kid named Natkin I remember the cold I remember the Army duffle that was lost and the black man in Buffalo trying to sell me a fine diamond ring, and in the coffee shop in Washington I'd eavesdropped on a man wearing a black tie embroidered with red roses that I have looked for ever since. They must have asked me something at the border I was admitted somehow and behind me swung the stamped tin shutReplica Handbagster across the very sky and I went free to find myself mazed in Victorian brick amid sweet tea with milk and smoke from a cigarette called a Black Cat and every unknown brand of chocolate and girls with blunt-cut bangs not even Americans looking down from high narrow windows on the melting snow of the city undreamed and on the revealed grace of the mechanism, no round trip. They tore down the bus station there's chainlink there no buses stop at all and I'm walking through Chiyoda-ku in a typhoon the fine rain horizontal umbrella everted in the storm's Pacific breath tonight red lanterns are battered, laughing, in the mechanism. Chanel Replica Handbags

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It all started at Shoop's. The thing between Kyle and me. He (Kyle) was busy taking aim with one of those slender tipped red darts, Louis Vuitton Bagsrocking it back and forth in his hand, squinting real hard at the dartboard, so you really couldn't tell if he was aiming or too drunk to see what he was shooting at. He had the dart clutched kinda funny in his fingers, too, like he was aiming for the floor, but it was this trick he did with his handsGucci bags to make the dart fly straighter. I'd almost forgotten about it. I watched as the dart left his fingers and thunked into the bullseye. "Not bad," I said, smirking a little. Kyle walked over to retrieve the darts with that slow walk of his. I reached for the pitcher again and refilled my glass. Behind me, chalk scraped on the blackboard as Kyle tallied up his points. "Your turn," he said, in that dead tone of voice he always uses. I could barely hear him. Even without the background noise in Shoop's, Kyle had a real quiet voice. He didn't look at me when he passed the darts off to me. He just pulled a pack out of his shirt pocket and tapped out a cigarette, fishing in his pants for his lighter with his other hand. "You smoke too much," I said, trying to coax him out a little. Nothing. I shrugged, took the first dart between my fingers and waited, focusing on the dartboard. Out of the corner of my eye, Kyle gave up on the lighter and had snagged a book of matches on the table. There was a flicker as he struck it against the book flap, and just for a second, it lit up his face. I took a quick look. I always do. You see, Kyle's got this thing that makes him kinda difficult to pin down. He's got what you'd call a "poker face," I guess. Where you can't really Replica Bagssee what's going on beneath the surface. And there's his eyes. Girls love 'em. Some guys figure Kyle's distance is what gets him women, but I got a cold bet it's those green eyes. Kyle's got sharp green eyes, like they'll make you bleed if you look at them too long. Kyle looked dangerous. Not physically, but dangerous. You can't see far in Shoop's 'cause of all the smoke, but I could see enough. His eyes glittering, suspended over that cigarette. Stubble on his face. I turned back to the dart board, the tip of the cigarette burning in my eyes. Kyle smoldered. The first dart plowed into the dartboard, burying its point all the way up to the red shaft. Off to the left, Kyle took a drag on the cigarette and the tip flared. The second dart was a little off. It sunk into the outer rim, and I cursed. Once your aim's off, at least mine anyway, it takes forever to get reoriented. I'm also a poor-ass player compared to Kyle, and he knows it. "Macy had to go visit her folks," I said, not really caring whether Kyle heard me or not. I relaxed my grip on the third dart and let it hang from my fingers. "So I called you." Kyle didn't say anything. I let the third dart fly and shook my head. "I'm so fucking glad I ain't living with her. Sometimes she makes me sick." I passed off the darts to him, but he didn't make eye contact. "So what about you, hunh?" I hit him lightly on the shoulder. "What's up with you? I'm the one doin' all the talkin' here. What's up in your life?" "Nothing much." Bullshit. "�Nothin' much,'" I said, slurring my voice and trying to fake his deadpan look. "Somethin's gotta be new with you. I ain't seen you, in what, a month? I heard you were goin' out with some girl." "We weren't going out." "Coulda fooled me. I didn't even fuckin' hear from you while she was around. Not even one call." I know it's hard keeping in touch and shit, but I hadn't even heard one peep out of Kyle for the past few months, and we used to hang out all the time, either going to Shoop's or fucking around in the 'Burg doing crazy shit till we were too drunk off our asses to do anything but pass out on somebody's lawn. We'd known each other since high school, and I don't really remember a time when we wasn't doing something...if we were bored, or if I was bored, I guess, since Kyle never came out and ever said he was bored, it was kinda unspoken between us that we'd get together and do something. We didn't always go out, sometimes we'd just talk about stuff on the phone...or walk around a while, talking about shit, nothing in particular. I guess what we said wasn't really that important. I waited for him to go on, but he didn't say nothing. Just sat there at the table, not touching the pitcher at all. "You can have some of that, you know." He shook his head, and I started getting a little irritated. The thing had cost me a few bucks. Least he could do was humor me. I watched, like in slow motion, as he tapped the cigarette against the ashtray. Macy smoked, too. But her smoking was different. Louis Vuitton 2009 HandbagsThe thing with Macy had all been an accident. I slept with her once during a party over the summer; I'd been drinking and gotten horny as shit; I think I woulda fucked anything. Well, the experience, what little I remember of it, was nauseating. Macy would make these noises, and grab me and shit and it was all I could do not to throw up when she was rubbing against me. Sex ain't gotten much better since then, plus, there's always that condom shit".The first time, at thatLouis Vuitton party, I did it raw, Macy missed her period and I thought I'd have to fucking marry her or something, but she'd just gotten "hysterical" or some such shit and wasn't pregnant, and she didn't know until two months after she'd gotten her hooks in me. I still think it was some kinda trick of hers, but she says it wasn't. All I know is that she'd said her pregnancy test had come out positive, and all of a sudden it wasn't anymore. She said the test must have been defective. Whatever. I watched the ash from2009 Designer Handbags Kyle's cigarette gather in the bottom of the ashtray. When Kyle smoked, it had a certain style to it. Macy would grind her cigarette into the ashtray. Something about the way she did made me angry. But it was more than that. During that fake pregnancy shit, we used to have these fights, mostly about me and Kyle doing something...oh, but it was okay if she Gucci Replica Handbagscame along, if she was hanging with us, but then, well, that changed things. She was always forcing herself between us, so me and Kyle never saw each other as much because Macy was always there, wanting to do something. Sure, me and Kyle talked every once in a while, over the phone, but we didn't do things. Eventually, Kyle and me stopped talking. And up a few months ago, I ain't even heard a sound from him. So I decide to give him a call and see what's going on. I felt like doing something, shooting darts, and I thought about Shoop's, and me and Kyle when we used to go down there and talk until we were shit-faced. As I felt the phone ring, I felt kinda funny, especially what Macy had said about Kyle and this girl, but before I chickened out, he answered the phone, like he was asleep or something. We had this short talk, I asked him if he wanted to head out and do something, shoot darts. He didn't say much during the call. He said he'd come, though. I was kinda hoping things might go back to normal when we got to Shoop's, but there were too many people around. I shifted in my seat. No matter where I sat, I felt uncomfortable. Kyle still hadn't touched the pitcher. "So," I said. "What happened between you and this girl?" This time I pressed it. "Come on, we're supposed to be pals, right? Friends and all. What happened?" "Nothin', Dave." "She was a whore, wasn't she? Man, they all are. Macy is. And dumb as a fuckin' stone." I shook my head. I felt the edge of the dart and stared hard at the board like I didn't give a shit. "She was a whore, wasn't she, this girl, I mean?" I turned, because I didn't hear anything. When I turned, he was looking at me, Gucci 2009 Handbagsdead in the eyes. Without meaning to, I got mad. I flung the darts on the table, where one of them rolled to a stop by the pitcher, leaving a trail of spilled beer behind it. "Don't want to play anymore? Why, sure," I said. "Good time to stop while yer ahead, right? Sure it is." Kyle didn't say anything when I sat down, and after a few minutes, another couple of guys asked for the darts and started up another game behind me. I finished off the pitcher and ordered a bottle for myself from the waitress, seeing as Kyle wasn't drinking anything. I watched him take another drag from his cigarette, smoke trailing from the tip. A few weeks ago, I finally figured out what was up with Kyle, why I hadn't heard from him. I found out from Macy, of all places. Go figure. She's laying on the couch one night, stuffing herself with popcorn, when she up and says that Kyle been seeing some college girl. She said it really low, like some kind of fifth grader telling a secret. It surprised me to hear it, so much so I didn't get mad at Macy at first. I was curious, I guess. I mean, Kyle hadn't dated much. This girl had to be something special. Macy said the girl's name was Casey. I took a swig from the bottle. It was getting warm in Shoop's. Me and Kyle sat in silence for a minute, me drinking, Kyle smoking and then he says something, which I don't catch at first, so he repeats it. "You know why I came out with you tonight?" Kyle said, slowly. He didn't make eye contact. "No." I snapped, then paused. "To whip my ass in darts?" I added quickly. "No," Kyle tapped the cigarette against the edge of the ashtray and I watched the little red flecks sink to the bottom. Kyle had left the book of matches next to the ashtray. "I was hoping we could talk." "Okay," I said. "Go on, then." I took another drink from the bottle, but I didn't want it. Kyle shook his head and took another drag on the cigarette. His eyes were embers. "Does she know?" There was a slight pause that made me uncomfortable. His voice dropped, and it sounded like it was coming from underground, buried. "Macy. Does she know?" "Know what?" I tried to give him �the what the hell are you talkin' about' glance, but it got lost along the way, so I just said it. "What the hell are you talkin' about?" He snorted, and smoke curled from his nostrils. Only half of his face was visible beneath his hair. "What?" I wiped my mouth and set the bottle down on the table. I had a sudden urge to shove him. "Never mind," Kyle flipped open the matchbook and pulled out another flimsy cardboard match. He dragged it (slowly) across the back, and let the sputtering flame touch the edge of his cigarette. Smoke curled from his nostrils out onto the table, like some kinda dragon. "No, come on," I smiled, but it was losing whatever bit of friendliness it had to begin with. "You say something like that, you gotta back it up." I felt my cheeks grow hot. "Come on, what?" There was a moment of silence, real weird like, and I swear, Shoop's kinda faded out, like someone had turned down the background noise. "Is it about that girl yer seeing? Is that it?" Kyle shook his head. "I feel sorry for you, Dave." The room froze. "Get outta here," I said, sneering at him. "Yer the one I feel fucking sorry for. Whoever this college bitch you been seein', she shore as hell didn't know you. Go figure, a smart girl like that thinkin' she can score with a faggit like you." The second I said it, I regretted it. My hand was shaking on the edge of the table, real close to the beer bottle. "I mean, come on. You didn't fuckin' like her, did you?" I said. "What? I thought you hated women, ain't that right?" My face was warm. "What made her so fuckin' special, anyway?" Kyle snorted, and when I heard it this time, it got me. It was like fire. I watched the smoke trail across the table again without it really registering. There was just Kyle, his eyes locked on me, and I started getting hot, in a mean kind of way. And there was that beer bottle, sitting right there. He looked at me, with those fucking eyes. "You can't even admit it, can you?" Kyle took another drag on the cigarette. "Why can't you just be honest with yourself for one time in�" I grabbed the beer bottle. Before I knew what was happening, the table had been turned over, and there was breaking glass, and there was this hot feeling all around and hands grabbing me, pulling me off Kyle, while I was screaming, Replica Handbagstrying to hit him and the beer bottle was broken on the ground, and there was all this smoke, and I was calling him all these names, faggit and a whole buncha shit. He was holding the side of his face, his eyes closed, breathing real hard, Handbags Replicabut not saying nothing, and as the guys were pulling me away, Kyle just faded out into the smoke in Shoop's. Next thing I know, I'm catching my breath outside, mist coming out of my mouth. A bunch of guys from the bar were with me, some just watching, others asking me if I was okay. My shirt felt too tight, and I was kinda hunched over, like I was going to throw up or something. I didn't see Kyle anywhere. I told 'em I was fine, I didn't need no fucking help, it was just a misunderstanding is all, and they let it go. I remember walking home, kinda dazed. I ain't seen him in a while. Kyle, I mean. I sure as hell don't call him anymore. Macy used to ask me what happened, but you know, she wouldn't understand shit like that. So I just tell her it ain't none of her business and let it go. The thing at Shoop's, it was between Kyle and me.

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As I understand criticism it is, like philosophy and history, a kind of novel for the use of discreet and curious minds. And every novel, rightly understood, is an autobiography. The good critic is he who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.
There is no such thing as objective criticism any more than there is objective art, and all who flatter themselves that they put aught but themselves into their work are dupes of the most fallacious illusion. The truth is that one never gets out of oneself. That is one of our greatest miseries. What would we not give to see, if but for a minute, the sky and the earth with the many-faceted eye of a fly, or to understand nature with the rude and simple brain of an ape? But just that is forbidden us. We cannot, like Tiresias, be men and remember having been women. We are locked into our persons as into a lasting prison. The best we can do, it seems to me, is gracefully to recognize this terrible situation and to admit that we speak of ourselves every time that we have not the strength to be silent.
To be quite frank, the critic ought to say:
"Gentlemen, I am going to talk about myself on the subject of Shakespeare, or Racine, or Pascal, or Goethe subjects that offer me a beautiful opportunity."
I had the honor of knowing M. Cuvillier-Fleury, who was a very earnest old critic. One day when I had come to see him in his little house in the Avenue Raphael, he showed me the modest library of which he was proud.
"Sir," he said to me, "oratory, pure literature, philosophy, history, all the kinds are represented here, without counting criticism which embraces them all. Yes, the critic is by turn orator, philosopher, historian."
M. Cuvillier-Fleury was right. The critic is all that or, at least, he ought to be. He has occasion to show the rarest, most diverse, most varied faculties of the intellect. And when he is a Sainte-Beuve, a Taine, a Jules Lemaître, a Ferdinand Brunetière, Gucci 2009 Handbagshe does not fail to do so. Remaining definitely within himself he creates the intellectual history of man. Criticism is the youngest of all the literary forms: it will perhaps end by absorbing all the others. It is admirably suited to a very civilized society with rich memories and long traditions. It is particularly appropriate to a curious, learned and polite humanity. For its prosperity it demands more culture than any of the other literary forms. Its creators were Montaigne, Saint-Evremond, Bayle, Montesquieu. It proceeds simultaneously from philosophy and history. It has required, for its development, an epoch of absolute intellectual liberty. It has replaced theology and, if one were to seek the universal doctor, the Saint Thomas Aquinas of the nineteenth century, of whom would one be forced to think but of Sainte-Beuve?...
According to Littré a book is a bound bundle of paper sheets whether hand-written or printed. That definition does not satisfy me. I would define a book as a work of magic whence escape all kinds of images to trouble the souls and change the hearts of men. Or, better still, a book is a little magic apparatus which transports us among the images of the past or amidst supernatural shades. Those who read many books are like the eaters Gucci Replica Handbagsof hashish. They live in a dream. The subtle poison that penetrates their brain renders them insensible to the real world and makes them the prey of terrible or delightful phantoms. Books are the opium of the Occident. They devour us. A day is coming on which we shall all be keepers of libraries, and that will be the end.
Let us love books as the mistress of the poet loved her grief. Let us love them: they cost us dear enough. Yes, books kill us. You may believe me who adore them, who have long given myself to them without reserve. Books slay us. We have too many of them and too many kinds. Men lived for long ages without reading and precisely in those ages their actions were greatest and most useful, for it was then that they passed from barbarism to civilization. But because men were then without books they were not bare of poetry and morality: they knew songs by heart and little catechisms. InReplica Handbags their childhood old women told them the stories of the Ass's Skin and of Puss in Boots of which, much later, editions for bibliophiles have been made. The earliest books were great rocks covered with inscriptions in an administrative or religious style.
It is a long time since then. What frightful progressHandbags Replica we have made in the interval! Books multiplied in a marvelous fashion in the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. Today their production has increased an hundredfold. In Paris alone fifty2009 Designer Handbags books are published daily without counting the newspapers. It is a monstrous orgy. We shall emerge from it quite mad. It is man's fate to fall successively into contradictory extremes. In the Middle Ages ignoranceReplica Bags bred fear. Thus maladies of the mind reigned then which we no longer know. To-day, through study, we are hastening toward general paralysis. Would it not be wiser and more elegant to keep some measure?
Let us be lovers of books and let us read them: Louis Vuittonbut let us not gather them with indiscriminate hands: letLouis Vuitton Bags us be delicate: let us choose, and, like that lord in one of Shakespeare's comedies, let us say to our book-seller: "I would that they be well-bound and that they speakLouis Gucci bagsVuitton 2009 Handbags of love."