Twelve days after the death of Gustave Flaubert in May 1880, the official death seals were removed from his door and an inventory of the contents of his rooms was made. Here are a few of his possessions left behind: In the bedroom on the first floor, panama hat top hat red silk cravat 5(…)
Next time a magnanimous impulse impels me to ask – “Can I help in any way?” – I should probably think twice. Here’s the situation: My niece (a personal as well as a world treasure) would be getting married to another (glinting) treasure on June 9th in upstate New York. Of course I wanted to(…)
It began at Ocean Terminal/Berth 46/47/Dock gate 4/Southampton, UK. Once the gangway was withdrawn, it became a universe, and – carelessly – a metaphor for …. well …. the circle of one’s entire life in seven nights and days. Stateroom 6066 rose and fell into the Celtic Sea. “Waves, large and florid as the tail(…)
Once the freshly washed laundry has been pulled from the washer and carried across the laundry room, it gets stuffed into a dryer. No big deal. Just now, though, as I loaded wet teal-blue sheets, underwear, dishtowels, socks, cloth table napkins and more, hand-over-fist, I gripped what felt like a scissors buried inside a twisted(…)
Your downy head against my cheek, your toasty bottom resting in the palm of my hand while your miniature fist surrounds my index finger all morning, all afternoon, until night falls face down across Los Angeles. Then, into evening. Awake. Asleep. Sometimes in between. A choo-choo train of gas toots, a tremulous sigh, your grip(…)
Dear Micah, I’m leaving tomorrow morning at dawn to fly to LA to (finally) meet you. You’re one month and seven days old. I’m … eight hundred sixty-eight months and three days old. In case we don’t find much that we have in common, we surely will find a few strong links to each other.(…)
It rained through the long night, the thirteenth longest night of the nearly discarded crumpled year. Polly didn’t put the kettle on. I did but couldn’t wait for the whistle so covered dry tea leaves with not-boiled-tap-water while listening to the swish/slosh of car tires; to pauses, to spatters, driblets, sprinkles, sprays, swash. In bed(…)
He drew the short straw. Blanched. His task unwelcome. She picked the long straw. Blushed. Her task uninvited. Poem by Samuel Beckett, translated by Samuel Beckett they come different and the same with each it is different and the same with each the absence of love is different with each the absence of love is(…)
re-reading Alan Bennett’s Untold Stories promoting NNJ, PE, TWWBMBFTD or EITLR finding Japanese publisher for ASF the gym the beach John Le Carré’s The Pigeon Tunnel going through cd’s, dvd’s, vcr’s, Playbills, maps weeding the garden polishing tarnished silver wear visiting the cashmere sweater shop in the center of the earth Georgi Gospodinov’s The Physics of(…)
