I Know This Much Is True
The artist is learning a special language in which to reveal truth. If you write, write from the heart, yet carefully, objectively. Never pose. Write little things which you think … Continue reading
Yes, I Believe We’ve Already Met
I get a kick out of meeting someone who is a cliché embodied. It produces a pleasant feeling of a world completed, of everything arranging itself without any of my … Continue reading
Happiness. Snacks.
One of the secrets of the happy life is continuous small treats, and if some of these can be inexpensive and quickly procured so much the better. -Iris Murdoch. The … Continue reading
Can I Get This To-Go?
So sorry! I collected one really amazing moment of life in Austria this morning. You’ll have to wait until Wednesday, though. (There will be jumping jacks involved.) In the meantime, … Continue reading
On Your Way
You know, my dear child, that one cannot find peace in word or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one’s soul. –(From the Mother … Continue reading
PTI. The Chicken Truck
Novi Sad, Part II on Monday. First, this chicken truck in Grünwald, Germany and a line from the brilliant Flannery O’Connor. This is on my mind today. * Blick’s Feed … Continue reading
Summer, Childhood, Shades
“I know what’s wrong with me,” he told the doctor. “Acute nostalgia. I want to be young again. Is there a cure for that?” –Antal Szerb. Journey By Moonlight … Continue reading
Pretty Much Every Love Story
She wanted things to be somehow as they had been, or as they had never quite been but might have been, or might be if only things were different which … Continue reading
How Was Your Day?
I have discovered that most people have no one to talk to, no one, that is, who really wants to listen. When it does at last dawn on a man … Continue reading
Wednesday Strategy Session
Some people have a great dream and don’t accomplish it. Still others have no dreams and likewise don’t accomplish them. –Fernando Pessoa. The Book of Disquiet (immortalized in Lisbon graffiti)
Dreaming Unfinished Stories (Vienna Edition)
There were so many stories to write about that Miss Willerton never could think of one. That was always the hardest part of writing a story, she always said. She … Continue reading
The Same
There is no great difference in reality between one country and another, because it is always people you meet everywhere. They may look different or be dressed differently, they may … Continue reading
Skip the Map
If you find yourself asking: How did I get here? Isador once said, that probably means you are living a life worth living. –Aleksandar Hemon. The Lazarus Project (yes, AGAIN. … Continue reading
On The Move
Whenever he was en route from one place to another, he was able to look at his life with a little more objectivity than usual. -Paul Bowles. The Sheltering Sky … Continue reading
Spring Resolutions
Meanwhile nostalgia in reverse, the longing for yet another strange land, grew especially strong in spring. –Vladimir Nabokov. Mary. Photos from an Istanbul spring to inspire further restlessness. Are you … Continue reading
Uncanny
A full-blooded American, she was…She was routinely kind to other people, assumed they had good intentions; she smiled at strangers; it mattered to her what they thought and felt. She … Continue reading
(Nearly Forgot You, Friday)
Next week we’ll go back to Europe. For now, let’s pick something up from to Georgia, USA. * Her prayers, when she remembered to say them, were usually perfunctory but … Continue reading
But It’s a Lovely Sea
And I remember seeing a mess of leaves suddenly go skittering in the wind and into the creek, then floating rapidly down the ocean towards the sea, making me feel … Continue reading
There’s No Place Like The Last
Basically, like nine-tenths of humanity, I always wanted to be somewhere else, in the place I have just fled from. -Thomas Bernhard. Wittgenstein’s Nephew.
Scrawling On…
An author’s fondest dream is to turn the reader into a spectator. -Vladimir Nabokov. Despair.
The Nice Thing About Strangers 