Dance while we can
Yes, guilty, are happy. Today, lost none of our number. All still here. Will not be here forever. But all here now.
~ George Saunders, from The Moron Factory
This short story is written in a style that feels like text messaging. However, do not let that make you miss reading it.
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C’è un equivoco, in ciascuno di noi, anzi, una malattia: l’egoismo. Ma esiste anche una cura.
Siate dei pazienti di voi stessi, bravi, propositivi, anche un po’ disperati – cercate le medicine antiegoismo più efficaci, cercatele con energia, finché vivrete. Scoprite cosa vi rende più gentili ..
https://cctm.website/legoismo-e-inutile-elogio-della-gentilezza/
George Saunders
#bookstodon #literatur
Eine erschreckende Reise in die Welt von Dummheit und Lächerlichkeit, die von uns Besitz ergriffen hat, verdanken wir der Lektüre von #GeorgeSaunders #TagDerBefreiung (2024). Mehr darüber auf #PrekäreWelten:
https://prekaerewelten.org/2025/01/23/george-saunders-tag-der-befreiung-2024-rezension/
Schnoddriger Tonfall, aber klare Worte:
„Memo von Mutter Natur: Ich kann eine ziemlich durchgeknallte Lady sein. Geht mir nicht auf den Zeiger …“ (#GeorgeSaunders, #TagDerBefreiung)
#Literatur #bookstodon #LiebesTagebuch
Nach der Lektüre von #GeorgeSaunders Kurzgeschichten in #TagDerBefreiung (2024) drängen sich folgende Fragen auf:
Wann werden wir aufhören, von den politischen und gesellschaftlichen Dystopien (der Zukunft) zu reden? Wann endlich werden wir entdecken, dass die Katastrophen schon längst rund um uns eingetreten sind? Die apokalyptischen Reiter sind längst unter uns.
#bookstodon #literatur
Eine der bedrückendsten und präzisesten Kurzgeschichten über die us-amerikanische Gesellschaft, die ich in letzter Zeit gelesen habe: #GeorgeSaunders #TagDerBefreiung (2024)
„Gesellschaft ist in der Überzahl, ist durchtränkt vom Selbstbewusstsein des Reichtums, hat keineswegs vor, zu verlieren, denn schon vor langem hat man hier beschlossen, sich mit Überfluss abzupolstern und jeglichen Verlust auf Abstand zu halten.“
Marcus Reynolds @marcusbs.bsky.social
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Join the People Reluctant To Kill for an Abstraction (#PRKA)
The vibes have gotten awfully grim out there
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/low_concept/2004/08/manifesto.html
"I think, therefore I am wrong, after which I speak, and my wrongness falls on someone also thinking wrongly, and then there are two of us thinking wrongly, and, being human, we can't bear to think without action, which, having been taken, makes things worse."
#SundaySentence courtesy of George Saunders from A Swim in a Pond in the Rain.
#quote #GeorgeSaunders #epistemology
> I once heard the term "consensus reality" used to describe the set of things about the world that we all pretty much agree to be true.
Water is blue, birds sing, and so on. And although water is not simply blue and not all birds sing, and o call what some birds do "singing" approximates and undersells what they actually do, agreeing on this consensus view is natural and useful.
#buddhism #meditation #kindness #georgeSaunders
Check out Life and Work, from the Waking Up app:
https://dynamic.wakingup.com/course/CO515E3?source=content%20share&share_id=92EEB3DC&code=SCF32D115
Wow! I just read Lincoln in the Bardo by #GeorgeSaunders. I know I'm 7 years late to this party, but glad I showed up. Amazing....
The spell of words … a wonderful book in which a Booker prizewinner explains what makes classic short stories work so well.
This book is a delight, and it’s about delight too. How necessary, at our particular moment. Novelist and short story writer George Saunders has been teaching creative writing at Syracuse University in the US for the last 20 years, including a course in the 19th-century Russian short story in translation. “A few years back, after the end of one class (chalk dust hovering in the autumnal air, old-fashioned radiator clanking in the corner, marching band processing somewhere in the distance, let’s say),” he had the realisation that “some of the best moments of my life, the moments during which I’ve really felt myself offering something of value to the world, have been spent teaching that Russian class.”
Now Saunders has developed as essays some of the thoughts arising from those classes, and put them together into a book alongside the stories he’s discussing – by Chekhov, Tolstoy, Turgenev and Gogol. These essays aren’t anything like academic analysis. The questions that get asked in a reading-for-writers class are inflected differently from literary criticism – “Why did the writer do this?” rather than “How must we read this?” – even if they converge finally on the same points of appreciation, and the same questions of meaning.
Quelle: A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders review – rules for good writing, and more
For further reading here the link for a very nice interview with George Saunders about his new short stories collection „Liberation Day“ in the „Time“: https://time.com/6221432/george-saunders-liberation-day-interview/
What was it like to write stories after your intensive study of Chekhov, Turgenev, and other Russian greats?
There was a little bit of feeling inspired, because getting inside those stories really got me energized about the form—and also made me realize there were things within the form that I hadn’t tried yet. Those Russian stories are so good at creating feelings of confusion and ambiguity on the part of the reader, and at the end, they say, “All these things are true.” They just leave you in that space, going, “What am I supposed to believe?” And the story’s going to say, “Well, all of it.” So that’s something I’m trying to do.
In Liberation Day, it feels like you’re leaning even more into ambiguity, leaving space for the reader’s interpretation.
It might have to do with the times in which it was written, because the highest form of wisdom I could find to get through the last three or four years is to say something like, “Admit everything. Admit all sides of the issue. Admit my own confusion about what’s going on politically and with COVID.” And don’t try to do what I might normally do, which is to tilt toward optimism or a sort of facile accommodation. Life is complicated. Let’s leave everything in.
Sir Salman Rushdie zu Gast im Literarischen Quartett https://www.lesering.de/id/4914385/Sir-Salman-Rushdie-zu-Gast-im-Literarischen-Quartett/ #DasLiterarischeQuartett #GabrielGarcíaMárquez #WirsehenunsimAugust #BernardineEvaristo #TagderBefreiung #GeorgeSaunders #SalmanRushdie #DenizYücel #TheaDorn #JuliZeh #Zuleika #Fatwa #ZDF #TV #TV
"I bring in jugglers and a comedian and drinks!" - GEORGE SAUNDERS, Animals Die, People Ponder, This American Life #TAL #ThisAmericanLife #AnimalsDiePeoplePonder #InternationalJugglersDay #GeorgeSaunders
Huh. I have never"read" a short story collection as an audiobook. Not sure how that would be. I guess I should just try it.
Once again the air reeks of microwaved popcorn. Once again I am only who I am.
George Saunders
Offloading for Mrs. Schwartz
Second of two... based on a #GeorgeSaunders story "Sea Oak". Listen and read here: https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/songwriter-podcast/songwriter-podcast-george-saunders-craig-finn?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
This song was by Craig Finn and does such an amazing job of totally standing on its own as a song with no awareness needed of the original story while also being completely grounded in the story details.
#songwriterpodcast
#pastemagazine
#SeaOak
#penandink
#digitalart
#CraigFinn #HoldSteady
#musicvisual
#dcartist
#detroitartist
#writers
#writerscommunity
#multimedia
#MultimediaArt
First of two in more song visuals, these based on a #GeorgeSaunders story "Sea Oak". Listen and read here: https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/songwriter-podcast/songwriter-podcast-george-saunders-craig-finn?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
I really loved the song by @myheart with @viennateng and featuring more cock references than i think anyone expected... but totally appropriate for story. Anyway, fun to do.
