Tim Burton's: The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories

I found this short book lying around on the internet. Having seen "Corpse Bride" for the oomph time I wanted something more from Tim Burton. And I got it!! ^_^ It's a sad tale about the dangers and pitfalls of having a heart:

Pray, please do enter...

I wrote a letter to Wayne (who put the book online), but the mail got returned (the site is from 2002, well...) I'll just put my message to Wayne here, as way to say "thanks". Maybe he'll see it, who knows (lol) ^_^

«Dear Wayne, first of all let me tell you how grateful I am for your effort in putting this book on line. I would most probably never read it wasn't for this (I live in Portugal and it is rather complicated to get an english book around here - I don't have much money too ^_^).

In any case I do feel grateful, I saw "Corpse Bride" and "The Night Before Christmas" several times and Tim Burton is certainly one of my favorite directors. The book gave me a different perspective on him.

to tell you the truth, I'm not very interested about the heart, my heart is so fluffy (more like a sparse cloud in the sun) that all these pins would just come and go, they would not stick. But I see people suffering

"For if someone gets
too close
the pins stick farther in."

and we all get attached, through desire, and we get so much intensity out of these passions... and then this prison of desire also gets us suffering: when its fruits are no longer ripe, or we no longer care, and the other side of the Ocean seems so much better now. And there we go again, surfing in the ways of Desire, suffering for ecstatic beauty once again. There's a price to be paid.

I'm all this too of course. But perhaps because I know it so well, it doesn't make me suffer, neither in myself nor in seeing others passing through it. It all seems so voluntary and richly experienced. It seems more like a gift, to have a heart, even if it's bleeding it's a trampoline.

In any case I think it is important that, in our society so full with glee and high society dreams, there should be a word for the sufferers that we all are, only in this case will we be able to sit closer to one another and deal with care with the pins sticking in. Otherwise we won't even see them! ^_^ ...»