On In Watermelon Sugar:

-to me its this blurry thing somewhere between story and poem, this gorgeous meditation by Richard Brautigan, on death and mourning, but also living simply, seeing things simply. There are all these little charming things dotting its surface, it has a shimmer to it, and makes things that are completely unreal -- bridges made of watermelon sugar, rivers two inches wide -- take on meaning, and kind of resonates as if these are things that I would recognize from my dream life.

I think what has affected me the most is a line about a woman who kills herself. "It's for the best .... Nobody's to blame. She had a broken heart."

The fact that I was listening to Band of Horses at the time probably contributed to the moment. But also I think I've been looking to understand something about suicide. And I think Richard Brautigan could say something real about it because he killed himself too.

When I imagine someone whose heart has been broken by mother, father, sister, lover, friends, whose life is seen as an unending string of heartbreaks, and it goes unhealed for long enough, I could see how someone might do this.

There are a few great artists that I can think of quite easily that committed suicide, Elliot Smith, Nick Drake, and we tend to think there is something special about their art, their character, their sensitivity, because they were suicidal, and I honestly can't comment except to say I've fallen into that trap a few times. I know I'm doing the same here. But I think when I read the mourning in this book, I feel like I can sense the author mourning, quite deeply, which in turn moves me. He makes death seem so beautiful. Though, the living in this book is beautiful too.