tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52232812011-07-30T19:04:22.234ZA commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties. <b>Karl Marx, <i>Das Kapital</i></b>Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.comBlogger1121100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1126737115281521312005-09-14T22:30:00.000Z2005-09-14T22:31:55.286Z

How it could have been different. I still think of them. I wonder if they’re still alive, still together, still living out a wretched existence in a caravan, still in this country, still pissed, still using their own names. I never talk about them to anyone. I have told neither of my lodgers. Even in the middle of the night when I start awake and Stuart, if he has stayed with me, asks through the

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com56tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1126636481923756352005-09-13T18:34:00.000Z2005-09-13T18:34:41.930Z

Sirloin. What? What am it? Dozed off. Yes. Most people would have assumed I was dead by now and given up looking. (That one’s wearing a bit thin, matey, mentioning death every time you want to emerge from obscurity is just plain offensive to those that really are.) Though I’m not sure I’m not dead. I was never sure. At the age of six I wanted to be a physician. Then I’d have known. Mark that — a

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1114073191559325502005-04-21T08:45:00.000Z2005-04-21T08:46:31.560Z

At some point during my walk, between the mossy trunks of trees about to burst the sky with the fragmentary notes of spring, at some point between the early crocus heads, born weakly and curling as if still starved of light even in this fulgent afternoon, at some point before the garden wall was reached, before the thought itself became clear and tangible, before anything was even known, I said

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1113923842457924352005-04-19T15:16:00.000Z2005-04-19T15:17:22.456Z

With Laodicean approach and mournful dragging of heals, taking hold of the prayer book plates which he inherited from some cankerous spinster aunt who saw him as a needy ward misplaced in my care, he passes us thin slithers of cake with an indolent disregard to the time of day or to the fact that I have forewarned him of my companion's intolerance to gluten-based foodstuffs.We sit in his front

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1113601880527707372005-04-15T21:50:00.000Z2005-04-15T21:51:20.526Z

It seems too trivial to apologise for not updating this thing. Compared to the catastrophic silence which bridged an arc across the many months before this resumed, now seems too small to comment upon. I have grown tired and guilty, which is something I never thought I would become. Chris and Stuart are both out tonight. Whisky seems risky.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1109847800316443852005-03-03T11:02:00.000Z2005-03-03T11:03:20.316Z

We skulked last night in Chris’s room beneath a heady vapour of candle smoke and dishonour, listening to Reg packing his things into boxes. The smoke was due to an impulse purchase of two Baroque sconces that I discovered in a junk shop earlier that day. Returning home with them, I realised that the only place I had imagined them going in the house was in the room I had used last summer as a

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1109771056798834062005-03-02T13:43:00.000Z2005-03-02T13:44:16.800Z

Tolerate our indiscretions; shoulder our weeping and sanctimonious self-pity. Send flowers if you can. It was never claimed that living with us would be an easy business, which is why this morning Reg (my newest lodger) announced that he was leaving.We can respect that (we being myself and Stuart (my oldest lodger)) and some of us (being Stuart and Chris (my third and final lodger)) can even

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1109680859988313862005-03-01T12:40:00.000Z2005-03-01T12:40:59.990Z

Oh Christ! I’m alive!I mean I’d wondered. So, I’d like to thank the one person who has visited this site during my absence. You know who you are, checking my pulse, holding a mirror close beneath my nose and looking for the faint fogging of the glass. Well, I am sorry to disappoint you, but I am not dead. You’re just going to have to wait for your inheritance my dear. You should know anyway, it’s

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1109680121479746572005-03-01T12:27:00.000Z2005-03-01T12:28:41.480Z

Does she remember standing with me at the end of the pier watching an oil-tanker slip out of view as we opened our envelopes in resounding synchronicity, hers her test results (mine as it happened only a library fine, but in that unassuming manilla envelope it could have been anything more exciting) and me turning to her and saying, ‘bloody hell, four pounds seventy!’ and her looking at me

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1092671771660409552004-08-16T15:55:00.000Z2004-08-16T15:56:11.660Z

I've been very busy lately.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1090235597413575832004-07-19T11:12:00.000Z2004-07-19T11:13:17.413Z

Getting a grip. You see, many blogs have titles for their daily entries. Mine does not. If it did however, today’s would be ‘Getting a grip’. It is not very thoughtful, it is not profound, but it is there. Getting a grip. It should have been done before now; I do not think he will mind. The last thing he said to me was ‘Bugger off, I’m not coming back’ or something to that effect. It therefore

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1089814634089560622004-07-14T14:15:00.000Z2004-07-14T14:17:14.090Z

In days of drought and famine; in schoolrooms up and down the Westmoreland Road; in public lavatories, pretending to be nonplussed and antisocial; here, my dear reader I find my idle hours best spent. Whether engrossed in a good book, or else relaxing at home, perhaps perusing the many hobby magazines in my local newsagent, I am generally thought of as a pretty good-natured kind of fellow. I have

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1084967717797250082004-05-19T11:54:00.000Z2004-05-19T11:55:17.796Z

Halfway up, and the whole thing seems to unravel itself, pulling at the wallpaper and splitting elm when the entire banister gives way to my misadventure. Post has arrived and turned grey with mould where the letterbox has leaked upon the doormat. Newspapers (the kind without any news but a series of hardly disguised advertisements for prostitution services and half-price carpet sales) form

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1083948012208443312004-05-07T16:37:00.000Z2004-05-07T16:44:32.873Z

I agree; it did for some time appear that that was the case. It was not. Moss grew. I wasn’t sure why it was happening, but moss grew. It bent its tiny saturated heads in prayer and examined slowly its emerald feet. Moss grew. We did not move, did not punctuate our days with shopping trips or sections read from newspapers. We did not explore anywhere beyond our tiny home, cluttered with thoughts

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1083947663166201532004-05-07T16:31:00.000Z2004-05-07T16:38:43.920Z

I agree; it did for some time appear that that was the case. It was not. Moss grew. I wasn’t sure why it was happening, but moss grew. It bent its tiny saturated heads in prayer and examined slowly its emerald feet. Moss grew. We did not move, did not punctuate our days with shopping trips or sections read from newspapers. We did not explore anywhere beyond our tiny home, cluttered with thoughts

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1079349049864129142004-03-15T11:10:00.000Z2004-03-15T11:14:00.623Z

‘And I mean, absence and all that,’ she says coughing from the corner of her mouth a long plume of ginger-coloured smoke. I watch it as it grows entangled amid the feathers of her hat, that hat again, the edges somewhat battered now as she has been using her hat boxes also to transport books and various half-empty bottles of gin. ‘I’m feeling well, though,’ I say, ‘rested.’ ‘But absence my dear

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1077556021497768482004-02-23T17:06:00.000Z2004-02-23T17:09:45.530Z

She has teeth I am told although I have never seen them, never got close enough I suppose. The rumour is however that she can break a cricket ball in two by placing it between her knees. I am looking forward to her coming round tonight. [Current dwelling place: A 1950s caravan, amusingly titled “Penguin”] It's something not disimilar to this: http://www.dovedale-caravans.co.uk/

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1076343750276816052004-02-09T16:22:00.000Z2004-02-09T16:24:54.780Z

Somehow peace suffuses the brickwork, which should cry out a dismal death-call of ‘not now, not here, oh for heaven’s sake not here!’ And yet, peace is obscurely the definition of this place, between the heavy brown UPVC, the identikit cars, the double garages and (Oh the glory, the glory!) of net curtains, real and gauzy, hung behind a pampas-grass screen. There is a hymn of silence to the

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1076076277479883012004-02-06T14:04:00.000Z2004-02-06T14:06:58.123Z

Tremulous breath, the exchange of glances back across the style, all these and yet more unforgivable betrayals of her heart; signs that Olga is having doubts.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1075899244494895052004-02-04T12:54:00.000Z2004-02-04T12:56:21.716Z

Monroe suspends his views between lamp posts, hoping that they will be heard, like an omnipotent Greek Chorus of the modern age, elusive and yet known. Northamptonshire was decided upon. It appears that this was a choice met with approval largely on the merit that it was not Oxford. ‘To many faces in Oxford, Alexander.’ (Monroe) ‘They’ll have heard about you walking out of your job. Actually

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1075736884283714582004-02-02T15:47:00.000Z2004-02-02T15:50:19.310Z

There. We have arrived. I have updated the blog. More to follow.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1075736827973413652004-02-01T01:42:00.000Z2004-02-02T15:49:23.013Z

I awake to find that we have left the road, and am immediately reminded of that awful television advert in which the women describes waking up to discover they have had a crash. Suddenly I feel a little silly for laughing at her. It turns out however, that we have not had an accident at all. “Up against a tree” is merely Monroe’s idea of parking.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1075736587076066282004-01-31T15:42:00.000Z2004-02-02T15:45:22.170Z

I am writing things down on the backs of envelopes, because we are moving once more. Kent is behind us and we are heading north. No real idea where. Simply aiming not to be anywhere that people know us, or we know people. I will update “The trouble” when next I reach civilisation.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1075736379793188532004-01-30T15:38:00.000Z2004-02-02T15:41:54.903Z

Every time he began to write the letter, a terrifying sensation would rise up through his body as if this very act of putting into words the truth, (as he saw it) was physically wrong, something to be avoided not simply out of kindness for his friend, but in a very real, almost pathological way. He lay the pen down upon the desk, and stared out at the narrow yard beyond. Leaves clustered around

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1074700921180711722004-01-21T16:01:00.000Z2004-01-21T16:04:00.810Z

There was this sound, like the air being released from a tyre across a ballroom (I suggest a ballroom, for one noted a pitched reverberation from the noise, as if it were affecting the surface of an immense, sprung wooden floor) rattling the glasses that stood upon the many linen-white tables and causing the great red curtain at one end to move – momentarily – and then fall still. It was this

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1074256796625219162004-01-16T12:39:00.000Z2004-01-16T12:41:49.123Z

Enter the publican: He is wearing pale leather gloves and a hat made out of brown felt. He is not in truth a publican, but carries the air of one due to the alarming green silk handkerchief protruding, nay flourishing from the pocket of his blazer. We esteem him thus: MONROE: Publican, may we beg a room for the reading of letters, and drinking of ale? PUBLICAN (For it is he): You want a room?

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1073642203087455722004-01-09T09:56:00.000Z2004-01-09T09:58:26.686Z

We spent New Year in a new town telling people that we were Italians and were travelling the world. Despite many people commenting on the fact that we did not look very Italian, I like to think we were getting away with it until Damian, a boy back to his hometown from university, began speaking to us in flawless Italian. Monroe decided to deal with this young upstart by replying (also in Italian)

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1071837853009302212003-12-19T12:44:00.000Z2003-12-19T12:45:28.610Z

Portré was built half way up a mountain, a curiously unstrategic to place a village in the middle ages. The town museum detailed a series of attacks, first from enemies rising out of the valley, then by enemies descending from atop the hill. In the late fifteenth century the church was severely ransacked by an angry horde which surprised everyone by actually coming around the side of the

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1071836098665338432003-12-18T02:14:00.000Z2003-12-19T12:16:14.530Z

Ich grolle nicht, und wenn das Herz auch bricht, Ewig verlornes Lieb! ich grolle nicht. Wie du auch strahlst in Diamantenpracht, Es fällt kein Strahl in deines Herzens Nacht. Das weiß ich längst. Ich sah dich ja im Traum, und sah die Nacht in deines Herzens Raum, Und sah die Schlang, die dir am Herzen frißt, - Ich sah, mein Lieb, wie sehr du elend bist.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1071835670848097162003-12-17T12:07:00.000Z2003-12-19T12:09:06.763Z

“Some days just don’t want to play ball,� she says kicking sand at Monroe - spitting violently, like lava - into the sea. “Some days,� she says, “some days don’t want to be real.� [I have heard this before, or rather read it in tiny letters etched around the silver face of a clock she keeps with her at all times] We spell our names in the sand. Monroe has found a stick, a brave

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1071064086758428202003-12-10T13:45:00.000Z2003-12-10T13:49:10.326Z

It is quite possible that what we have previously expressed here as no more nor less that “trouble” was in actuality simply a ruse, a jest, a quip, an underdeveloped prose account of what we imagined to be “trouble”. These things happen you see. But when Trouble makes itself known, when it opens its arms and parades itself with trumpets, claxons and merry whistles found wrapped in tissue paper

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1070553250477244282003-12-04T15:53:00.000Z2003-12-04T15:55:06.186Z

And so now I have now been to Kent. Strictly, that is not true, for to have ‘been’ one supposes that one must have thereby left, and I am still undoubtedly in Kent. Since Monday I have reached a level of sobriety on four occasions. These moments have been shocking and somewhat terrifying. The situation is at best, horrific. Olga, myself and Monroe are lodging in a cottage somewhere near

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1070294464712259482003-12-01T16:00:00.001Z2003-12-01T16:01:57.233Z

Oh dear.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1070294436920389402003-12-01T16:00:00.000Z2003-12-01T16:01:29.450Z

Within the last twenty four hours, my life has radically changed. Like a flock of starlings rising radically before the sun at the close of day, and other moments of sudden but transitory change, seemingly this fortells some greater moment but infact reveals little but the steady ticking of the clock. Nonetheless, I am typing this upon my laptop sitting in the back of a hired car speeding along a

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1068655572259947052003-11-12T16:45:00.000Z2003-11-12T16:46:38.390Z

Years ago, on our first meeting, she was not there. It was cold, and wet, and far too early in the morning to be dealing with someone's distraught parents, but there they were waiting for me outside my office door. Her mother was a small, ruddy-faced woman, her father tense and shrewish. "She's never done anything like this before." her mother said. As I say, this was, as far as I was

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1067011657020697362003-10-24T16:07:00.000Z2003-10-24T16:07:38.593Z

Dorothy is dead.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1065105861669688182003-10-02T14:43:00.000Z2003-10-02T14:44:21.423Z

Stubborn and falling, quick excuse for breath, the brick minstrels of desire, pennants trembling open mouthed; she, and they, and all, and what becomes the. It was never quite this way, never quite the way that it now is, in the autumn cold of rooms brick-fast to obscure the sun; the industrial glimmer of life upon the recess. Open and closed, valves whisper their content and reach for the

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1064829627163063502003-09-29T10:00:00.000Z2003-09-29T10:00:27.353Z

Thanks also to Peter for the lovely plug for the quiz, which I would like to point out has only received one entry so far, which managed to get everything delightfully wrong: Answer 7 most certainly is not "Rufus Sewell." Given the competition, it's probably worth entering even if you only know one answer. I mean, who could turn down that as an incentive? Eternal glory, that's what I'm offering

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1064828714810819332003-09-29T09:45:00.000Z2003-09-29T09:45:14.553Z

I would like to appeal to anyone reading this for some information about a most baffling thing that has just happened. Now, I would readily admit that I am very behind the times when it comes to technology, mostly my endeavours find their way on a basis of trial-and-error, but something has just happened that I cannot find a possible reason for, so would like someone to explain why it happened.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1064764659615804182003-09-28T15:57:00.000Z2003-09-28T15:57:39.826Z

And suddenly as if the day were not enough, as if time were not enough a master, she stands up straight upon the chair, and tells the earth to stop its turning in no uncertain terms; she raises her hands towards the Palladian plaster ceiling, fingers outstretched like immense, gaunt sparrow feet, each spindle twitching - stirred only by the force of the tendril muscles which by now must each have

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1064748964630159202003-09-28T11:36:00.000Z2003-09-28T11:38:25.150Z

This made me laugh alot.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1064485929062832552003-09-25T10:32:00.000Z2003-09-25T10:35:59.900Z

1. For whose marriage was the following supposedly written? Capped arbiter of beauty in this street That narrows darkly into motor dawn, You, here beside me, delicate ambassador Of intricate slain numbers that arise In whispers, naked of steel; religious gunman! Who faithfully, yourself, will fall too soon, And in other ways than as the wind settles

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1064482147192073862003-09-25T09:29:00.000Z2003-09-25T09:29:06.996Z

“The last thing we would want to do in this situation is sack you,” our glorious head of department is saying to him and I am sitting there thinking, “If only they knew.” But of course they do know, and they’re happy knowing as long as nobody says anything out loud about it. Ever. Only Rick does talk about his affairs, endlessly, and it has created a lot of very bad feeling. Whilst there has not

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1063274966731314442003-09-11T10:09:00.000Z2003-09-11T10:09:26.756Z

Exhausted. Last night Olga, Monroe and I sat up until three, under the pretence of “What should be done with Dorothy”, but despite our best intentions, none of us can bring ourselves to actually invite her to stay with us. She has been prescribed anti-depressants, and the night involved much hand ringing before Monroe introduced us to a bottle of 1973, Mouton Rothschild Bordeaux that he had “

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1063195689863196352003-09-10T12:08:00.000Z2003-09-10T12:08:09.863Z

Apparently I did not lock my office door last night, which is why (or rather, ‘how’) Dorothy is sitting on my window ledge when I arrive at nine. She looks like the dark figure of a crow that has stolen access to the room, and perched there unable to escape. She has taken a copy of Lucretius’ On the Nature of the Universe from my shelf and is flicking through it, obviously looking for something

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1063112013901670732003-09-09T12:53:00.000Z2003-09-09T12:53:33.763Z

Theoretically, I have just installed a comments section to my site. This fills me with an unspeakable sense of pleasure, which if I examine closely, I may discover to be vanity. So, I will not examine it. No, no, no, merely enjoy its presence, and perhaps worry that I have positioned it in a mildly ludicrous place and made it black for no discernable reason. I think I might try to change that

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1063101094176779662003-09-09T09:51:00.000Z2003-09-09T09:51:34.173Z

So begins the day. The casting up of windows imperceptible to both the gods and the passengers of the street, the hammer-tongued wash of traffic scoring undulating webs of sound across the rain-painted macadam; it all entwines, all forms this concept of the day’s first breath – the opening eyes of the late day lily – all signifies the start, renaissance, small and tender as it is. My post

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1063034223850703332003-09-08T15:17:00.000Z2003-09-08T15:17:03.943Z

She winds herself around my bell-push, claws it back and lets it fly. The clapper jangles loudly as if to say, “Olga’s here, and something’s wrong, she never comes by day. You always visit her.” Monroe lets her inside and she comes up to the library where we had both been sitting. She is dressed in a suit of dark tweed and on her head is a hat made from blackish-bluish feathers. During her visit

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1062769022055662452003-09-05T13:37:00.000Z2003-09-05T13:37:01.986Z

We’re both sitting in my library at home, he by the window reading something for his course; I’m indulging myself with a lovely small edition of George Darley that I found last night amid Gillespie’s boxes, “Wail! Wail ye o’er the dead! Wail! Wail ye o’er her! Youth’s ta’en, and Beauty’s fled, O’ then deplore her!” That’s from the high-camp Sylvia of 1827. It is so particular of its time, five

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1062603677789327992003-09-03T15:41:00.000Z2003-09-03T15:41:17.683Z

During a walk through the park he says to me: ‘What will happen when term starts again?’ I point at a squirrel as if that will make him forget he has even asked the question. He persists, we discuss it, the importance of keeping it quiet, not letting anyone know, but the thing is, everyone does know, it’s all a matter of covering my back when it comes to marking.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1062074161281465722003-08-28T12:36:00.000Z2003-08-28T12:36:01.293Z

I haven't updated this for a few days. Things have been getting along quite nicely thank you, much to report, but much otherness to get along with too.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1061556525592776502003-08-22T12:48:00.000Z2003-08-22T12:48:45.653Z

“So you’re one of Alex’s students?” Olga asks, looking over her steel-rimmed pince-nez as if he is a fish that has jumped far from its bowl and landed uncomfortably at the table. “Yes,” says Steve, “I’m just starting the second year.” “I see.” Says Olga, curtly. “Who’d you have in the first year?” asks Paul, and I realise how glad I am that Paul and Liz are here. Two mortals amid the gods. Steve

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1061543827088192112003-08-22T09:17:00.000Z2003-08-22T09:17:07.080Z

It would have been so much simpler had I let him, there and then. But rather, I hesitated and said, ‘Why don’t we have dinner tonight, at mine?’ or perhaps I said, ‘Why don’t you come over for dinner tonight, at mine?’ There is a difference between the two, a subtle one, and certainly I was intending to use the first option, but as it transpired we ended up with the second. We both left the bar

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1061477104682972672003-08-21T14:45:00.000Z2003-08-21T14:45:04.680Z

I meet him in a small bar in the city centre. Has he eaten? No he has not. I order us both food from the bar and he has a bottled beer and I, a glass of the remarkably awful house red. He is impeccably turned out as he was last week. A different T-shirt with a different retro image printed upon the front, the old-fashioned, looking trainers, shabby to just the right degree. It is all very knowing

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1061374890792026022003-08-20T10:21:00.000Z2003-08-20T10:21:30.796Z

Marvellous.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1061374211097406362003-08-20T10:10:00.000Z2003-08-20T10:10:11.133Z

Due to some crushing moment that occurred during his adolescent years, he has always made a rule never to drink in front of women he admires or respects. Not alcohol, or rather not specifically alcohol, but any fluid substance for fear of evoking the appalling ‘Jenny Tisbury Incident’ all over again. I had not realised this, but caught him today pouring his cup of coffee behind his back into one

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1060866240414113192003-08-14T13:04:00.000Z2003-08-14T13:08:36.373Z

Upon the cobbles depressed into concrete that surround the National Westminster Bank, he roles a cigarette of elegant proportions and places it between the feint pencil lines of his lips. His suit has been pressed by the Scottish lady who lives in the flat above his own. He told her last night that he had an interview today, and gave her a small bottle of vodka by way of payment. When he tells me

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1060769280081962062003-08-13T10:08:00.000Z2003-08-13T10:12:50.436Z

This interested me today. I suppose it is a progression along that Kantian inspection of the object and how it relates to our self. Particularly revealing is perhaps his production of dioramas (here and here), which are to some extent the reduction of space and locality itself into object form; it is a subtle difference, but I think a very real one. Post Marxian theorists would perhaps commercial

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1060692228469257662003-08-12T12:43:00.000Z2003-08-12T12:43:48.313Z

And that’s how it happens, one day, quite suddenly all of it lifts and he feels himself free, able to breathe for the first time in a year. He makes breakfast on a tray that morning, and cuts a selection of claret roses from the garden. He enjoys his bus journey in, and at the office finds the greatest pleasure of all his life – he finds himself able to write.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1060258384566856672003-08-07T12:13:00.000Z2003-08-22T12:59:13.136Z

Standing outside the front door, flanked by those two trunks of granite that branch into a ludicrous swag of ham-fisted baroque ornament, he lights a cigarette, drops the match to the floor (where it positions itself neatly alongside the previous ten-day’s matches) and throws himself eagerly out into the world. This sense of passing forward – almost blind, to the symmetry of trees and angular

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1059997211764883422003-08-04T11:40:00.000Z2003-08-04T11:40:11.640Z

I have always had an issue with my name. Whilst the double initial thing is good, generally, and the fact that both are As (which gets me first on most lists) the one problem that my parents apparently did not foresee was the troublesome repetition of ‘and’ which sounds ridiculous when spoken aloud. It happened just now when the bank phoned me. “Hello, is that AlexANDer ANDer-ews?” the little

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1059745240021181382003-08-01T13:40:00.000Z2003-08-01T13:40:39.896Z

Oh little things. They take too much time.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1059648182707197202003-07-31T10:43:00.000Z2003-07-31T10:43:02.593Z

With wedding cakes, and other objects of sentimental confectionary, she always shared a tendency to dissolve into some hopeless, saccharine solution when left in roadside cafeterias or rejected by lovers at stations in the rain. Her propensity to do this perhaps left her single for longer than the majority of her friends, but meant that she invested the inheritance, that might have paid for her

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1059563822101734992003-07-30T11:17:00.000Z2003-07-30T11:17:02.063Z

Received a disgruntled letter from Olga this morning, which hurt quite a lot, and fired me up into replying, until I thought, 'no, this is her problem.' So I've stuffed it into a drawer in my office so that it can upset me another day. Rereading 'The Unguided Novel' yet again, just to make sure what I think. At one point in the notebooks he begins calling it To Wander Blindly which is a much

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1059563365009115112003-07-30T11:09:00.000Z2003-07-30T11:09:24.996Z

This place is a strangely beautiful one. No, over here, this place here... The bit that's underlined. Yes that's it.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1059489220546747002003-07-29T14:33:00.000Z2003-07-29T14:33:40.463Z

The majority of his life’s work appears to have been a progression towards the writing of what he termed ‘The Unguided Novel’, an exercise aiming to remove the inferred autocracy of the writer from the form of the work. The Novel, he suggested should be able to suspend the reader, in a state of actual discovery, able to read and discover the ideas as in life, rather than have them depicted before

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1059130299442224932003-07-25T10:51:00.000Z2003-07-29T14:31:07.036Z

Torn amid the spume and sacrificial statements I think I am beginning to recognise myself amid the hoary faces of the world. Last night I took a walk in the rain, achieving nothing, achieving not even the sound confirmation of Lear, I came home and felt the most distant I possibly could have done from anything; distant even from Monroe, then I felt fine again -- ridiculously so. Such extremes of

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1058962627225925592003-07-23T12:17:00.000Z2003-07-23T12:17:07.166Z

No, that wasn't it at all. Turns out that I'm getting cake so long as nobody else wants it. Which is a bit cruddy.* *I've never used that word before. Probably won't do again. Sounds a bit too Wannabe-80s-retro-cool, for my liking.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1058958196397561622003-07-23T11:03:00.000Z2003-07-23T11:03:16.356Z

Oh, he's just emailed.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1058958159609113032003-07-23T11:02:00.000Z2003-07-23T11:02:39.570Z

He leaves a message on my voicemail to say 'I've got news. Not the best news, but good news. I'll email you.' I've been waiting for this news since the entry about Ruddy Cake, the other day. So I'm waiting for him to email as he said he would. But it's been half an hour now. He clearly isn't going to. I don't want to ring, however, because I know what the news is. It's pretty mediocre news, that

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-105895270016001092003-07-23T09:31:00.000Z2003-07-23T09:31:40.126Z

Cocooned and warm and folded amid these sheaves of work; spill mornings upon the carpet squares and watch verdurous images of the avenue dance. So dark is that narrow lane, lime-treed by Edwardian civic architect and city planner that outside my window the streetlamps never extinguish in the summer shade. What is this for? What is any of this for? Again Caitlin’s site draws out of me hidden

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1058885424758706302003-07-22T14:50:00.000Z2003-07-22T14:50:24.723Z

I like this site. It begins to concern me, that this site is very very different from what 'The Trouble with Wearing Shoes' was in paper form. The sense of conspiracy is gone. I miss that. I don't want it to be a diary, and also I have to stop feeling guilt when it does not get written. Those are the main things. It does not matter if it does not get written, for it does not therefore get read,

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1058885013890214092003-07-22T14:43:00.000Z2003-07-22T14:43:33.726Z

We’re sitting across the table from one another in the hotel where we first met, or at least she informs me that we first met there, although it is quite apparent that I was hopelessly drunk and offensive to her, and her friend who looked (or so I thought) like the older sister of Hillary Washman, the actor I used to swan around with in Portré. I have until this moment, forgotten almost

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1058872234769604082003-07-22T11:10:00.000Z2003-07-22T11:10:34.750Z

The head cold got rather dreadful and only just appears to have passed. I am waiting for news, and therefore mightily agitated. I type with ferocity but to little effect. I want answers and definite results, but all of this is out of my hands. Blow it.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1058264577562719332003-07-15T10:22:00.001Z2003-07-15T10:22:57.513Z

I have just made myself feel a lot better having fun with this which I found here. Ah, particularly funny on colleagues personal pages. I know what I'm doing for the rest of the day.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1058264554745744002003-07-15T10:22:00.000Z2003-07-15T10:22:34.700Z

I have just made myself feel a lot better having fun with this which I found here. Ah, particularly funny on colleagues personal pages.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1058263500025617232003-07-15T10:05:00.000Z2003-07-15T10:04:59.996Z

It is too hot to work. Olga has taken up needlepoint, and sits in my garden before a vase of delicate sweet peas evoking them in silks upon some fabric. She says that in the end it will be a shawl. It is pretty and I am envious. Feeling a little under the weather today. Rather cruel invasion of head cold. Went to the top of the cathedral with Monroe first thing, as he has a theory that there you

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1057775118070026502003-07-09T18:25:00.000Z2003-07-09T18:25:18.063Z

So I’m sitting here, reviewing the extracts. Martini at my side, not shaken, not stirred, just vermouth and gin, poured in almost the correct measures onto some crushed ice with a less than fresh olive. Some would barely call it a Martini. Those people are shits. They are the same people who smoke filter-tips but call them ‘cigarellos’. Well, maybe they are. I am not a smoker, how should I know?

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1057320838945737192003-07-04T12:13:00.000Z2003-07-04T12:19:24.203Z

And then unexpectedly, life hands you a rather large, delicious piece of cake on a somewhat horrifically patterned piece of Coalport china (perhaps with roses in sentimental hues of some strange, invented summer) and you shy away from taking it at first, considering that a cake on such a plate must indeed have a rogue item contained behind its carefully baked exterior, but then the yells of “TAKE

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1057160934192434632003-07-02T15:48:00.000Z2003-07-02T15:48:54.020Z

Dining Room Update: Dorothy tells me she has just seen Monroe wheeling the handcart past her window laden with books. Excellent news… as long as they are the same books…

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1057160701435089132003-07-02T15:45:00.000Z2003-07-02T15:46:40.313Z

Of many moments, of this one and single moment, the ventricles probe themselves further, expanding further. He has given up, again, and yet again; he has given up, again and twice again. Envelopes arrive for him and he refuses to answer, to open, to unfold or cut the paper with a knife. He jots a verse or two on the back of the telephone directory. Some such rhyme, some such therefore. Some such

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1057143193770872522003-07-02T10:53:00.000Z2003-07-02T10:53:13.580Z

Noticing that ‘Eastland’, a rather grand Victorian park villa, is not being demolished after all, but refurbished in someway, marks the bus ride in today. I pass it each day, and wonder at what point its roof fell in, when its walls were blackened with smoke and the briars enveloped its windowsills. It has been a rather romantic structure, but in the past few months, has begun to look as if it

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-1056981461945588462003-06-30T13:57:00.000Z2003-06-30T13:57:41.910Z

That physical assault, that mounting pendulous fear that once brushed away; returns, projecting you beyond the curtains and out, out into somewhere silent and dreadful. I am, it appears, keeping afloat - just - with the work for the new and scandalously arranged conference that will bring to the city some of the finest minds in my field, but gradually, as this goes on, I realise that it is not my

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-960104202003-06-25T09:27:00.000Z2003-06-25T09:27:55.786Z

It is the last day of the library’s annual recall of staff loans today, so I’m in work. Having handed in my books already, I’m at a bit of a loose end; so I’m sitting by the window of my office, watching a series of elderly academics each with an untidy pile of books, attempt to enter the library for the first time in a year. During this year, the entry system to the library has altered somewhat;

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-960101652003-06-25T09:11:00.000Z2003-06-25T09:11:05.716Z

Monroe has decided that we should take a holiday. Last night he said that we were “minted” from the sale of a few of Gillespie’s books. I never thought I should hear Monroe say, “minted”, no that is not quite what I mean; it just never occurred to me that Monroe would ever use the word “minted”. But “minted” he did say, and “minted” we apparently are, so a holiday does appear to be in order.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-959772962003-06-24T11:21:00.000Z2003-06-24T11:21:06.533Z

She planned paragraphs shaped around the systematic loop of the ring road that coursed the edge of her town. She spent days wondering why many of her friends had not seen the films that most suitably matched their personalities. She wrote short stories that were intricate parodies of the Victorian Sensation Novel, but set them in the bruised underworld of 1980s suburban Belgium. ‘Oh, those were

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-959413762003-06-23T10:46:00.000Z2003-06-23T10:46:35.050Z

"...And as for peeping Tom...." This little hand-slap [June 20th, 2003. Small print] I really feel quite wretched. I suppose the nature of bile is that it should remain internal; I recoil to my corner licking my wounds.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-959412222003-06-23T10:37:00.000Z2003-06-23T10:37:42.770Z

It has reached that time of the year again when we are asked to submit our titles for the Palgrove Lecture Series in September. I hate it every time. The eager and efficient members of our dour little department have already theirs on the list in Muriel’s office. “Professor P. L_____: Ereignis in twelfth century religious texts”, “Dr. M. L. Mc_______: Despair and the foundation of the Other.”

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-958621692003-06-20T13:50:00.000Z2003-06-20T13:50:57.440Z

There are no bridges in the Bible. Improving her stance by the steady, grey grain of logicless glass, Olga waits, watching for me to come. Her flat is cold today, despite the warmth outside, and she has laid out the tea-things that once belonged to her Mother, arranging them with dour geometry upon a small rosewood table. ‘It’s cold in here.’ I say to her, and she smiles and says: ‘It is warm.’

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-956853472003-06-15T14:40:00.000Z2003-06-15T14:40:58.056Z

Things I have enjoyed during this weekend with Olga: i) Returning to forgotten places. ii) Selling four of Gillespie’s “reproductions” for obscene amounts of cash. iii) Riding on Olga’s motorbike (which I did not look forward to) iv) Being away from Monroe for a while. v) Reading this. vi) Listening to Olga play the piano. vii) Whisky.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-956852252003-06-15T14:34:00.000Z2003-06-15T14:34:57.393Z

The avenue is fronted by the Tudor-style houses of 1930s England. Lime trees, barks bright green with moss, castrate the road from pavement; baronial lodges hang their half-beam walls with clear wisteria constellations seen from other peoples’ gardens. Leaded pains dark and bowed with age clothe dust-sheeted parlours. These are not the castles, but the rectories, of their age. The upholders of

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-956850652003-06-15T14:27:00.000Z2003-06-15T14:27:53.893Z

Before I lived in the house that I currently do, I shared a flat for a year with a man called James, a chap I knew through someone at the university. James could have been a hugely successful academic, but chose not to. Instead he idled away years of his life saying that he wanted to ‘find himself’ – which generally involved sitting on the sofa in his underwear. His lethargy was painful. I spent

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-956272092003-06-13T13:07:00.000Z2003-06-13T13:07:38.700Z

It is a glorious day, so Monroe and I take the laptop to work outside into the garden. It is a long time since we have done this, alone, together. Following the sale of Gillespie’s place Monroe has moved the entire library, and various other oddments into my dining room and scullery, which he promises to sort in time. Until then I am unable to entertain, or use either room (which in the case of

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-955447432003-06-11T11:32:00.000Z2003-06-11T11:32:43.830Z

We sold G's house yesterday. I have arranged a vague plan to visit Ann's parents. That might be horrific.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-946782492003-05-21T10:06:00.000Z2003-05-21T10:06:08.443Z

This does not bode well. Gillespie, it transpires has been ill since March last year. Properly ill. We take him to Manchester where his family are from. There is just one sister now. She does not want to know. It always seems like that with relations of people you deeply admire. They never seem to bare any similarities. She has children. They have never met Gillespie. We persist. Monroe gets

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-922222322003-04-08T14:23:00.000Z2003-04-08T14:23:59.670Z

Time passes. Ann is sorted, things move on. Anger Monroe's brother who leaves from a trip early. The book nears completion. Monroe wants to read it. Perhaps he will. It opens in the bedroom, between the cramped walls of high-distemper and the chipped wooden furniture, and is then forgotten, for a second at least, because at the very same moment a commotion occurs in the street outside. Observe

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-919075972003-04-03T11:35:00.000Z2003-04-03T11:35:31.013Z

Ann's husband has just left me a voice mail, asking me to give him a call. I still refuse.

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-919073122003-04-03T11:25:00.000Z2003-04-03T11:25:38.670Z

Ann, she that must be obeyed, as much as I try to forget her existence, has been ringing Gillespie. She wants me to give her a call. The thing is, I’m not too pleased with Gillespie either, for passing the message on to me. Gillespie and I have our own business to discuss, I do not need him to act as a message pad between Ann and myself. It is the fact that she is being so worried about what in

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-919066982003-04-03T11:03:00.000Z2003-04-03T11:03:38.296Z

Tears fall amongst the shreds of torn paper. Dorothy and God have fallen out. She hates the sight of the torn edges of her work upon the earth, but turning to the sky feels as if He has left her and all is lost. She feels betrayed by the minister, she feels betrayed by herself. All feels balanced in this worldly antithetic. Sky against earth. Man against woman. When Dorothy was sixteen, she

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5223281.post-918393642003-04-02T12:40:00.000Z2003-04-02T12:42:47.000Z

ONE LAST FRAGMENT: The opening entry of the original journal came loose a few months ago, and lay at the bottom of my desk drawer. This, I have just remembered, and reproduce it again here: "It opens in the bedroom, between the cramped walls of high-distemper and the chipped wooden furniture, which shed crisp threads of veneer like the bark from actual trees. Each knock remembers a moment, the

Alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12534474593888677778noreply@blogger.com0