13 Aphorisms

George Murray August 20, 2010 A selection from George Murray’s new book, Glimpse.

  1. After happy hour, things get back to how they were—an overpriced sadness, or acceptance, which is just sadness without regret.
  2. Second to none does not mean the best, unless you believe in absences.
  3. All writing is a bit like wearing a toupée—those who can get away with it do,  but those who can’t look like fools. Poetry, in turn, is like jogging in a toupée.
  4. Being in one’s element means, essentially, being alone.
  5. Luck: being born with two lazy eyes that wander the same way.   
  6. Rubble becomes ruin when the tourists arrive.
  7. Both” is the choice of kings.
  8. Looking is grooming from a distance.
  9. If Noah came today, he’d be hard-pressed to find two of each of us.
  10. There’s nothing like the unexpected divorce of friends to remind you you’re not watching closely enough.
  11. DNA rhymes with T and A.
  12. Until you’ve seen some sign of your prey, you’re not hunting, you’re walking.
  13. You holiday with death for awhile, then it’s back to work.

Related on maisonneuve.org:

—Interview with George Murray
—Shooping Cart Songs
—The Bookworm, the Mousy Translator and the Uptight Professor

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Tenth Anniversary: Spring

ISSUE 43 Tenth Anniversary: Spring 2012

online content:

also in this issue:

  • Face the Music

    by Tim Falconer How can someone who passionately loves music also be a terrible singer? Tim Falconer takes up voice lessons—and discovers the surprising science of tone deafness.
  • The Big Job

    by Deni Y. Béchard As a teenager, Deni Y. Béchard went to Vancouver to live with his father, an ex-con with a penchant for telling tall tales. He met a man desperate to forget the past.
  • The Homesickness of Astronauts

    by Johanna Skibsrud "She felt a great sadness. She would remember next to nothing of this, even soon."
  • [see full issue contents]