I was raised in the company of dolls.

My mother the miniaturist,

made pies the size of dolls.

My father, the shadowboxer,

talked only to the dark.

No one here remembers

the love of a chair for its ottoman

or the privacy of a shut door.

Windows grieve in their sashes.

They burn with interior light,

like blood oranges.

Imagine: a dollhouse in every room—

in every room, another room,

in every girl, another girl

looking out a tiny window,

her face repeated on the glass.

As two who could not pretend

to love each other,

we stared through grief.

Pupil, poupée, little doll

orphaned by the iris of my eye:

what did you see, what did you see

but that other girl in me,

the door to whose post was nailed

the smallest coffin,

hiding the name of God inside

like the rust in the mouth.

Preface. Robin Ekiss. The Mansion of Happiness.

Why, young friend, do you say that happiness doesn't exist?

That love is only an illusion? If true, why say it? And why say it, since it is true?

Long ago, you loved a gracious and beautiful woman who lived on the other side of the oceans and mountains. And you suffered from it.

Well, in that distant Orient where she hoped to share memorable moments with you, she remains gracious and beautiful. Head lowered and smiling, she is waiting for you. And every time my eyes meet hers. I know that love causes madness and happiness.

- One eyed Paritus, in his "Message to a Student Who Is Frightened of Becoming Old"

(Photograph from the Electric)

Pictures were taken

and we'd like to see them now, because we were beautiful then. We'd like to be beautiful again, and in memory we will be.....

We're nearly ready, we're always almost ready and it takes only a little time for the vessels to flush and fill with memory, and then we can open our eyes, lift our heads, sit up in our beds, and turn to meet your gaze. We'll tell you what we remember;

Maile Chapman. Your Presence is Requested at Suvanto.

Only Disconnect

Sometimes an essay which comments on the dehumanizing effects of the digital age can produce some beautiful reflections, and beautiful writing.

I am becoming a different person — solitary where I was once gregarious; a content provider where I at least once imagined myself an artist; nervous and constantly updated where I once knew the world through sleepy, half-shut eyes; detail-oriented and productive where I once saw life float by like a gorgeously made documentary film. And, increasingly, irrevocably, I am a stranger to books, to the long-form text, to the pleasures of leaving myself and inhabiting the free-floating consciousness of another.....

....I dream of leaving, too. Heading upstate in the summer time with a trunk full of books, watching Roosevelt Island sweep by in a rainstorm, I wake up from the techno-fugue state and remember who I am, the 37 analog years that went into creating this particular human being. Upstate I will train for my vocation, novel-writing, by tearing through the Russian classics that gave me my start, reading up on those frigid lovelorn Moscow and Petersburg winters while summer ants crawl up my shins. In the meantime, I will start conjuring my next book, one that with any luck may still be read on paper by live human beings five years from now...

... With the animal safely in our stomachs, with single malts and beers before us, we can read or talk softly about what we’re reading, about the glory and sadness of finding ourselves this close to the middle of our existence (cue the Chekhov, cue the Roth) and as we do so the most important purchases we have ever made in our lives are snugly holstered in the pockets of our shorts, useless, as we commune in some ancient way, laughing and groaning, passing around lighted objects and containers of booze ...

New York Times.

July 9th 2010.

Essay - Only Disconnect

By Gary Shteyngart

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/books/review/Shteyngart-t.html?src=me&ref=arts#

wishlist

From Chapter E:

Westerners revere the Greek legends. Versemen retell the represented events, the resplendent scenes, where, hellbent, the Greek freemen seek revenge whenever Helen, the new-wed empress, weeps. Restless, she deserts her fleece bed where, detested, her wedded regent sleeps. When she remembers Greece, her seceded demesne, she feels wretched, left here, bereft, her needs never met. She needs rest; nevertheless, her demented fevers render her sleepless (her sleeplessness enfeebles her). She needs help; nevertheless her stressed nerves render her cheerless (her cheerlessness enfetters her).

Eunoia is the shortest word in English containing all five vowels - and it means "beautiful thinking". It is also the title of Canadian poet Christian Bok's book of fiction in which each chapter uses only one vowel.

mug shot

You sit here now on the hard chair and think about these things and you don't know whether you are happy or sad. And you wonder if you'll ever think some day about now, and if then everything happening now will be nice to think about.

Alvin Levin. Love is Like Park Avenue. New Directions.

McNally Jackson Books.

holiday over

it was a good one.

the bookshops i went to........