Post blogger Keith Hemstreet presents a second excerpt from his novel-in-progress, tentatively titled “Owl Farm,” the story of an aspiring writer who befriends Hunter S. Thompson during the last year of his life. “I tried not to look directly at Hunter,” writes Hemstreet, “as he was seated to my right, and to look at him required a ninety-degree turn of the head, not subtle enough to go unnoticed. The last thing I wanted was to be perceived as meddlesome. The lure, however, was too much. He was doing something at the counter, and I wanted to know what, so on occasion I would take a glance, acting as though I was adjusting the recliner, or scratching my ankle, just to see what was going on.”
Post blogger Keith Hemstreet offers an excerpt from his latest novel-in-progress, tentatively titled “Owl Farm,” the story of an aspiring writer who befriends Hunter S. Thompson in the last year of his life. “I met Hunter S. Thompson on a cold April night in 2004,” writes Hemstreet. “The moon was full, though muted, shining as a flashlight would through dense fog as we drove the winding road, navigating ice and an occasional elk, on our way to Thompson’s home in Woody Creek, Colorado, a fortified compound infamously known as the Owl Farm. My friend, Justin, moved to Aspen after college, found work as a physical therapist and through great luck or great or misfortune, depending on whom you spoke with, had taken Thompson as a patient soon after his hip replacement surgery.”
Post blogger Keith Hemstreet imagines the conversation that led two teens to dig up a grave to make a pipe from a skull. "I haven’t been sleeping much lately," he blogs, "which means I’ve spent countless hours in the hopeless dark thinking of the most ridiculous things imaginable. The sleep deprived mind, I’ve learned, is not a sane mind. Last night I could not stop thinking about a story I had read online. Two Houston teens, the story reported, were arrested for digging up a grave to make a pot pipe from a skull. The writer mentioned that he would love to hear the conversation that led to such a brilliant idea, so I figured I’d oblige him."
Posts filed under 'Fiction'
I tried, with great effort, not to look directly at Hunter, as he was seated to my right, and to look at him required a ninety-degree turn of the head, not subtle enough to go unnoticed. The last thing I wanted was to be perceived as meddlesome. The lure, however, was too much. He was doing something at the counter, and I wanted to know what, so on occasion I would take a glance, acting as though I was adjusting the recliner, or scratching my ankle, just to see what was going on.
Continue Reading June 7th, 2008
I met Hunter S. Thompson on a cold April night in 2004. The moon was full, though muted, shining as a flashlight would through dense fog as we drove the long winding road, navigating ice and an occasional elk on our way to Thompson’s home in Woody Creek, Colorado, a fortified compound infamously known as the Owl Farm.
Continue Reading May 31st, 2008
In 1903 an elephant was electrocuted. This was not an accident. You see, at the turn of the century elephants used to roam free in many parts of the United States. This was just about the time that Thomas Edison, the famous inventor, was experimenting with alternating electrical current. The Edison Estate had a slight elephant problem. It wasn’t uncommon to see a dozen elephants grazing in his back yard on any given day.
Continue Reading January 12th, 2008
Sometimes l like to detach from my physical self, to stimulate an out-of-body experience, so to speak, so that I may view my life much as a biographer would. This exercise helps me to analyze all that I do and determine whether or not I am on course to accomplishing my goals.
Such an exercise can be enlightening, but is only advised for those who can handle the realization that life is nothing more than big dreams caged by a somber reality. That being said, the best of us can use this exercise to motivate, refocus energies, be proactive and ultimately get something accomplished. The rest of us, by which I mean most of us, will simply spend more time on the couch, depressed by our futility, watching reality TV reruns and wishing our life could be half as successful as the contestants on “Dancing with the Stars.”
Continue Reading December 29th, 2007
The past, the present, the future. When you’re writing fiction, you have to be somewhere timewise, and many writers zip back and forth. I wanted to play with this idea as a way to create a structure so simple you can’t mess it up. Though you’re writing out of sequence—and jumping around like crazy—you have to be in one of the three: past, present, future. That’s the element of time combined with the element of play, or “chronologic displacement,” as Milan Kundera calls it. In my story, you know The Big House is going to fall early on, and you know The O’Kells will lose all—that part of the story is given away to open the door to what they will do about it. But the fact that you know the future informs everything you read. (Or one can hope.)
Continue Reading December 10th, 2007
November 25, 2007
Good morning! Two eggs sunnyside up in a crepe pan, divvied up and layered over two pieces of wheat toast at 45 calories apiece, all of it washed down with no-pulp OJ and stale coffee from Sumatra…
Why bother with the novel? I look at it this way: rather than thinking it’s dead, I’m convinced it’s about to come to life through audio, video, photography, text—you name it. In fact, over the last fifteen years, I’ve become more convinced than ever.
To give you a clue as to my confidence, consider this bit about the writer John Dos Passos from a piece published October 31, 2005, by George Packer in The New Yorker.
Continue Reading November 25th, 2007
I remember the day we went to Wimbledon—I’d never seen a grass tennis court before, and I haven’t seen one since. I look around for another poster of a familiar place and find an advertisement for “The London Dungeon—the world’s only medieval horror museum”—blood-red letters on black, with a blood-red skull to the right of the text. The dungeon’s not that scary—it’s kind of like a wax museum. They’ve draped a few stuffed bodies from rafters and packed wooden cages with Norwegian wharf rats—supposedly the species responsible for the Black Plague. I don’t think I’ll make it back.
Continue Reading November 17th, 2007
Say you had this crazy idea thirty years or just pre-PC. The idea is simple: wouldn’t it be great to combine all these forms and all this media in some fashion, and then to let everybody in the whole wide world see it? Pre-PC, that’s a certifiable idea. Pre-Web, you’re still pretty much in the land of Loony Tunes—Roger Rabbit without the rabbit.
Continue Reading November 17th, 2007
The upshot is the story now exists present, past, future in that order, with narratives that center on “we” then Terry, Sam, Matthew, and Gen constantly moving backward and forward in time, though the story is actually taking place on a single day, the Fourth of July, in The Big House.
Continue Reading November 11th, 2007
The escalator leads down several stories to the rail pit beneath the terminal. Apparently a train has just departed, for maybe a dozen people stand here on platform A. Probably twenty minutes before the next train arrives so I set my luggage down next to a bench and sit.
Platform A extends beyond my sight to both the right and left, but I see in both directions where the terminal ends and sunshine begins. This must be what it’s like to have tunnel vision. I know there is more to see than what’s before me, but I can’t know what’s out there unless I move.
Continue Reading November 10th, 2007
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