Monthly Archives: October 2009

five dials. hamish hamilton.


You may have heard of a place in London called Seven Dials, a well-known junction near Covent Garden where seven streets converge. At the centre of the roughly-circular space is a pillar bearing six (yes, six) sundials. By the eighteenth century Seven Dials had become one of the most notorious slums in London and when

air and angels


Twice or thrice had I lov’d thee, Before I knew thy face or name; So in a voice, so in a shapeless flame Angels affect us oft, and worshipp’d be; Still when, to where thou wert, I came, Some lovely glorious nothing I did see. But since my soul, whose child love is, Takes limbs

the original of laura. nabokov’s posthumous finale.


Virgil asked that Aeneid be destroyed upon his death. Augustus decided to save it for posterity. Kafka wanted a friend to burn a collection of manuscripts on his decease. The friend ignored the request. The Trial and The Castle resulted. Now to Nabokov. On his deathbed, Vladamir Nabokov asked his wife, Vera, to destroy a

the chekhov cave


The Chekhov mood is that cave in which are kept all the unseen and hardly palpable treasures of Chekhov’s soul, so often beyond the reach of mere consciousness. — Constantin Stanislavski I’ve talked before about The Sister and how we’re really crushin on our Russians right now. She’s heavy on her Tolstoy and keeps reminding

autumn movement


I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts. The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman, the mother of the year, the taker of seeds. The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes, new beautiful things come in the first spit

the temper trap. sweet disposition.


Listening to The Temper Trap. Sweet Disposition. Beautiful. Apropos to nothing, I love that my sister loves Tolstoy. That we can talk about things that get lost in translation. And that we don’t have to explain why we are the way we are. Because we know. Even when we don’t. And I love her too.