Category: Living

(with apologies to Fyodor)

I watched him walk through the lobby entrance and take a seat at the top of the horseshoe, and as he sat down, he asked if I knew how to make a Corpse Reviver.  I asked him number one or number two, and he said “you passed, barman” and after the briefest of pauses he said “number two, if you please” and I got to work.  

He was clearly of the retired political type: well dressed, in the kind of suit that isn’t quite tailored, but it’s at least been fitted properly.  Someone who had to look good on television, not just a backbencher type glad-handing the farmers on weekends.  I vaguely recognized him but not enough to remember what for; it nagged at me.

Continue reading “Four rusty nails”

In addition to (infrequently) writing essays for The Essence of Water, I have another blog, The Deckle Edge, where I write about books, authors, and ideas. Last fall I added a podcast to The Deckle Edge where I interview writers to learn about their backgrounds and how and why they do their work. Its an excuse for me to have an extended conversation with interesting people, while helping them promote their work. It has been an enormous and unpredicted joy. Early on I invited guests whose books I enjoyed and reviewed or who I knew had a new book being released. These were engaging discussions and I began learning the craft of how to interview writers. As the podcast developed, I began asking guests “who should I be reading?” and “who would make a great guest?” That has afforded me warm introductions to authors and poets I might not have otherwise encountered or who might not otherwise have given me the time of day. It’s been a delightful surprise and the guest list has evolved in a serendipitous way. It has also made me feel part of this community of writers, like I’ve somehow pierced a veil into a previously hidden world.

Continue reading “Supply and Demand”

On the strength of a book review, I recently bought a copy of David Hinton’s translations of the poetry of Du Fu, a late Tang Dynasty gentleman. “Gentleman” is, really, the best way to describe him – the poet, I mean; like most semi-wealthy Chinese men of the 8th century AD (wow, that’s an inappropriate calendar to use), he was an administrator with the late Tang dynasty imperial court, and as part of that, was expected to have mastered the poetic arts and to have a refined skill and taste in music, painting, and gardening. Interestingly, Chinese poetry was originally meant to be sung, but music was viewed as a differential art; no pop music in that era, I guess. To me, Du Fu – at least in translation – is an exceptional poet, although Chinese poetry, I’ve come to realise, is both written differently than Western poetry, and serves a different purpose in its local society as well.

Continue reading “Bad poetry reading”

This week, I have been thinking about Dante Alighieri, who died seven hundred years ago in September 1321, after contracting malaria while travelling from Venice back to Ravenna, where he lived in exile.  In 1300, he had been caught up in one of those violent Florentine factional conflicts that erupted periodically, a fate that was to befall Niccolò Machiavelli two hundred years later.  In Dante’s case the White Guelph party, of which he was a member, were thrown out of power by the Black Guelph party, working in collusion with the King of France’s brother.  Dante was travelling back from Rome, after an unsuccessful diplomatic mission to the Pope, when he heard the news of his banishment, and he never again set foot in the city of his birth.  In Canto XVII of Paradiso, written fifteen years later, he makes this prophesy to his younger self:  Thou shalt by sharp experience be aware / how salt the bread of strangers is, how hard / the up and down of someone else’s stair.

Continue reading “Stasis”

I’m fascinated by the question: ‘Who gets to exist?’ Here, I don’t mean in the biological sense; for I’m well aware of the coupling of a particular appendage with/in a particular receptacle which must precede the conception of a human being. When I ask this question, I’m thinking more broadly about the experience of ‘existence’ for a recursive, culturally-embedded human being: you, me, all of us individually and collectively.  

Continue reading “First Preface to the ‘Subject of Existence’”