First, Jean-Marc Parent, whose career as a stand-up comic in Quebec took him waaaayy up, then waaayy down, then back again, and seems to have stabilized as a grizzled veteran of the scene. His latest show, Urgence de vivre, was partially inspired by his heart problems. This is what he had to say about life:
J'ai toujours aimé la vie, mais j'ai jamais eu confiance en elle. De toute façon, personne ne devrait avoir confiance en la vie. La vie, elle t'avale, c'est tout.
Then, a coworker lent me Shopgirl, the novel by Steve Martin. She said that there was something in the way he wrote that she thought would appeal to me, and she was right. I found him a keen observer of human quirkiness, taking a simple little story and weaving it into something unique.
A few things really leapt off the page at me:
However, Jeremy does have one outstanding quality. He likes her. And this quality in a person makes them infinitely interesting to the person who is being liked.
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Her penalty is that the men she attracts with her current package see her only from a primitive part of their brains, the childish part that likes shiny objects that make noise when rattled.
I can only hope that somewhere down the road, I'll be able to string together words like that. Not because they are these great exercises in eloquence, simply because of the basic truths they allow to shine through their simple word sequences.
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