Blazing World

2006-03-12T13:33:00.000Z

chrestomathy: Sodomy & Prayer “You see marriage for Melodia was what it must have been for Elizabeth Taylor and Barbara Hutton, no big thing; and in Melodia's case, a natural consequence of sodomy and prayer.”August Kleinzahler Cutty, One Rock Farrar Straus & Giroux, New York, 2005-- --

2006-02-11T18:14:00.000Z

chrestomathy: Alone in a Meaningless World ‘Cynthia was saying “I just can't accept so much, you know, Donna, and I feel, I really feel this, that my capacity to adapt to what is has been exceeded. I—”“Cynthia,” Donna said. “We're all alone in a meaningless world. That's it.OK?”’Joy Williams Honored Guest,Knopf, New York, 2004-- --

2006-01-11T13:54:00.000Z

aphorism: Questions That Need an Answer Why is it that women in sofa adverts never wear shoes? It is as if these adverts form a distinct class of their own — what we might call pseudo-pornography: pornography that dares not mention sex.-- --

2005-12-18T11:29:00.000Z

chrestomathy: The Obvious Places "She was beginning to feel that everything of interest was hidden. And none of it in the obvious places; don't, for example, look in trousers."Hilary Mantel Beyond Black, Harper Perennial, London, 2005-- --

2005-05-01T15:35:00.000Z

chrestomathy: Accidents or Visions "Life runs in very narrow sterotyped channels, until it is interrupted by accidents or visions."A.S.Byatt: 'Body Art', Little Black Book Of Stories, Vintage, London, 2004

2005-03-04T00:56:00.000Z

fiction: Man, standing in background.I have no photograph albums: there could only be blank pages filled with all the pictures I have never taken. There is another collection, however, that exists in the form of a ghost. It is the collection of all the photographs I have taken of other people with their own cameras, souvenirs of the times I have been stopped in the street by strangers, standing

2005-02-18T15:39:00.000Z

poem: A Curse (for two lovers in a café)You smile at each other,as lovers do,so suffocating-sweetI half expectthe milk to curdlein the cup.Do not get me wrong,for you I will wisha life together,the days of it measured outin front of you.So much so, I wouldhave them happen all at once:your life played outin front of this audienceyou have made of us.(We sit

2005-02-17T20:57:00.000Z

lexicon: from Agyiomaniato UltramontaneAgyiomania: 1. An abnormal interest in streets. 2.An excessive desire to be on the streets; especially, busy ones.Exoteric: ordinary or simple (the opposite of esoteric).Plenilude: the time of the full moon.Ultramontane: relating to that which is situated beyond the mountainsThese come from a list of definitions found amongst some papers. Judging from the

2005-02-14T15:21:00.000Z

lexicon: DecumbencyDecumbency: Staying in bed.found in Leigh Hunt. 'Getting up on Cold Mornings'. The Indicator, 1821 reprinted in George G.Loane. Selected English Essays. J.M Dent, London, 1921

2005-01-29T13:02:00.000Z

chrestomathy: TV Dinners "She says all the English do these days is watch TV chefs and read recipe books. She asks me why we have all retreated into our kitchens? What happened to all the bad sex we were supposed to have in our bedrooms?"Deborah Levy: 'Conversations with Famous Artists I have Known', Pillow Talk in Europe and Other Places (A Lannan Selection), Dalkey Archive Press

2005-01-29T01:49:00.000Z

poem: MothThat night you dreamt yourself a cocoon:white cotton sheets bandaging themselves to you,heavy with sweat. You struggled to be released,answering an urge that would not define itself;with every movement, splitting, then dissolvingyourself into a new definition.A fresh shell hardening around you,you stopped your fretful movements, surrenderedto the soft blur of sleep. A steady washinside

2005-01-25T01:21:00.000Z

lexicon: Biblia AbibliaBiblia Abiblia: Books that are not books (Victorian scholarly term).

2005-01-24T23:58:00.000Z

aphorism: On Deadlines We all know that if we walk over a cliff we will fall. Some people, however, need to look over the edge to experience the full force of vertigo. A select few cannot stop there: we must go further; we tread the air like cartoon characters, willing it to be solid.

2002-03-12T13:37:00.000Z

apothegm: Beckett on Failure "Fail again, fail better."

2002-03-08T05:42:00.000Z

story: Man or Dog? I should perhaps note that I am not in the habit of eavesdropping, but given the promenade of the drunk, the forlorn and the merely homeward bound that pass underneath my window, at certain hours of the night, it is hard to avoid. Inevitably much of what you overhear consists of the plaints of those spurned in love, the squabbles of those supposedly in love and the

2002-03-06T02:21:00.000Z

book: Blindness by Jose Saramago Blindness is a dark and bleak allegory of the nature of evil and humanity, by the Portuguese winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Jose Saramago... A man goes suddenly blind at a set of traffic lights, his conditions spreads rapidly and mysteriously. In response the authorities start interning the victims in a hospital cut off from the outside world. Inside

2002-03-01T01:07:00.000Z

chrestomathy: Aphania "...[it] is a peculiarly literary country. There is a special statute-book for literary offences, and a Court of Letters presided over by six judges receive huge salaries for their necessary abstention from literature. Any person found guilty of borrowing from the works of other writers is sent to the treadmills for three years. Adaptions from the French are contra-band, and