Portrait gallery

Occupied

To be continued...

legacy of loss

Last night I went to a writer's talk sponsored by Bromberg’s, a Swedish publishing house. Nicole Krauss, who was the guest of honor, said that she had very little contact with her readers and had therefore thought of putting a blank postcard at the back of her book, The History of Love, and asking readers to use it to share with her where they were when they read the book. She also mentioned a postcard pact she had with one of her readers and how she kept the card (which documented her promise to this reader to publish a new book every other year) on her desk while she was writing her most recent book, Great House.

During the pause, I had the opportunity to chat briefly with Nicole, mentioning that I didn't remember where I was when I read The History of Love, but that I did remember being so moved by it that I sent it to my 90-year-old mom in the US, and that it happened to be the last book my mom read, or rather had read aloud to her by my sister. I told her that I would never forget, however, where and when I was reading her first novel, Man Walks into a Room, because it was as I was sitting alone in a café in Stockholm on midsummer day 2007. An old friend (likewise a handsome actor and immigrant Jew in a white linen suit) walked in and sat down beside me, interrupting my reading only a minute or so before my brother called to say that my mother had just passed. Thus I was not alone when I learned of my mother’s death.

Interesting how literature can, like one writer's desk in Great House, serve as "a counterfeit world that offers comfort that life itself does not allow." Perfectly in keeping with the legacy of the literary imagination, and the reality of metafiction, Nicole touched my arm and thanked me for sharing. “As we grow older we draw more from experience than from what we have learned.” “Literature brings people together” were some more of what she said. Now I’ll never forget her big brown eyes, nor those of the man who walked into the café that midsummer.

March is a time

What ever happened to the February air
Did I not breathe you, did I not care?
Don’t tell me you were not by my side
the very chill in which I confide.
Lighter and brighter already the skies
Deepening the lines to my surprise.
Full of wisdom yet to learn
a crown that we can never earn
Cherries will blossom this I know
March is a time for bursting.

Rare flakes

Rare stud snowflakes. These travelers from a great height are formed only in very cold temperatures.

In New York, an autodidactic research scientist named Vincent J Schaefer created the first artificial snowflakes in a "cold box" into which he breathed. The moist air of his breath condensed into snow clouds. Later, he actually caused snow to fall in nature by using dry ice.

The reader is also referred to avalanche, glacier, hail, sleet, snow blindness, snow line, snowplow, and snowshoe.

Sundown 15.13 p.m. CET

All flares of rebellion soon tramped about
all suds of revolt quickly died out.
Left was a longing to come to terms
beyond tires of desire and retribution.

Are we not best when we crave
the good we are at a loss to brave,
beyond the pollution of this shoal,
pointing direction without a goal,
free from reckless strife?

Sundown 15.08 p.m. CET

(interpretation of Hades and Euclid II by Harry Martinson)

Hade’s oven fell
onto flat land
passing arbitrary judgments,
burning in brick huts
- superficial gravestones -
victims of shallow treatment,
without solace from above
without support from the depths,
regarded of no value
regarded without redress,
regarded without measure of eternity.
Their wailing meets with scorn,
and the crown of measure, Euclid,
cries out, seeking Chronos’ sphere.