The Act of Killing has just been nominated for an Academy Award. Congrats to Joshua Oppenheimer and the entire crew. I am reposting the following message that came to me from Joshua Oppenheimer, director of The Act of Killing. I write about the film for Guernica here. Continue reading
Author Archives: Caroline M Cooper
Being Comptroller
Drive Your Own Red Whale
Take good and extra precautions when wiring money from Jakarta, Indonesia to New York. Ensure everything is signed off, declared, stamped. Pressure Javanese officers for assurance and make telephone calls from one Batavian landline to another that will be picked up when the phone rings in Manhattan. Make the phone ring in Manhattan.
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Pick Me Up When I Get In
A 10 pm departure. Only a half hour out of Kunming and already the windows displayed a repetitive wheel of blackness. The 66 hard beds in car five were half full. Families with small children, students, some middle-aged business men in button down shirts, the ubiquitous black leather shoe of the Chinese male.
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The ‘Best of Fiction’ Issue
I am delighted to report my short story, New to America, was selected for This Great Society’s 2013 Best Of Fiction Issue. Via This Great Society, read more
Take a Page Out of Zora’s Book
I have recently completed a draft of something long and feverish and I intend to send it out soon with my heart in my throat where it belongs and always does, I believe, its best work. At night I will tuck myself in and listen for the frozen thrum of snow on the panes. It is best to be alone.
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You Break Up All the Time
My birthday, and the Hong Kong guy gave me a card. This is what it said:
“Sixty six days ago you were on the other side of the planet.
Fifty one days ago we met.
When Ducks Are Actually Tape
The woman is a very thin woman.
She wears a severe black coat.
The woman hastily enters the train.
She moves between the people like an eel, slithering toward a seat.
The woman glowers into a book.
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On Material
The nearby paddy fields deepened into an evening glow and I became newly aware I was walking in Bali with an old friend by a beautiful beach. I probably couldn’t be happier. So this is it, I thought. My happiness peak. This is as good as it gets. And I have no end in sight, no plans to leave.
Letting the whole world go
The beach at five in the morning was deserted. Sometimes another surfer went by, lean and heading for the water. A red flag with a scull and crossbones marked the “No swimming” area. I hiked up my board and walked out , deep enough, pushed forward and was on. I began to paddle. Smaller waves came in. I met them at the nose, pushed up and then crested. They rolled on behind me.
Caroline M Cooper 