Eternity is a long time stay in one place sucking lemons and pretending everything’s benissimo.
(from Vampires in the Lemon Grove)
I study her neck as she says this, her head rolling with the natural expressiveness of a girl. She checks to see if I am watching her collarbone, and I let her see that I am. I feel like a threat again.
These aren’t the emo glitter-suckers of Twilight or the gnarly, ravenous virals of The Passage. The vampires in this lemon grove are kinda old-school: worldly but trapped everywhere they go, civilized but driven by embarrassingly brutish apetites, imortal and unhappy. There are some twists, of course — Clyde and Magreb abate their thirst by sinking their fangs into lemons — and Russell’s uniquely suave and thoughtful prose takes the myth into interesting philosophical places. I’d almost forgotten how confident and lovely her sentences are, how comfortable they are in their own skin. I know what I mean.
You can read the story here.
Sir Rapa. In Lemon Grove, California, just east of San Diego is their City sign…”Welcome to Lemon Grove..Best Climate on Earth.” It was. Long story short is …I stumbled on a piece in the most wonderful City Paper you wrote about Frank Blank. It was touching. Frank reviewed my one and only album, Nerveracking, in ’85′. Actually, it was my brother Joe’s money. He raved. Even compared my vocals to Neil Young and John Fogerty..”only more forcefully sung”. I had just returned to Philpa from Lemon Grove. I was sucking on the lemons of Taylor Guitars orchard and feeling lucky I finally escaped Hollywood. Living in Appalachia the last thirty years has kept me out of touch. I see you’ve progressed since the Frank piece and probably have your own desk now. I’ll keep in touch. I have a few good stories you can jump on. Warmest regards..Dave.