Double Door, 1976 by Lois Dodd (b. 1927)
. ( . ) — — , , , ; . , , . ; . ” , – , , , , , . ” — — . ” . * * * . . . ; . . ” — — ‘ . ” . * * * . . ; . . – , , . ” — — ‘ . , . , . , . , – . , . , . , . , . , . , . , . – – , . – – , . . ( – – ) . – – – , , . , , – , , , . . , , , ‘ , , , , , . , – , . , ; – ; , – , ; ; , , — — , – ! , ! ! – ; – , – , , , . — — , ! . ” . ” — — . ” ; . ” — — . ” . ” — — . ” ; . ” — — . ” , , , , , ; . ” — — . ” ‘ , , , , , . ” — — ‘ ‘ . ” : , . ” — — ‘ . ” , , . , . . . . , – , , . ” — — ‘ . ” . ” ” – , , . . . . , – , . . ” — — ‘ , . . . ” , , ‘ ( ‘ ) , , – , . ” — — . — — . ” , ! . ” — — . ” ‘ . ” — — ‘ . ” . ” — — ‘ . ” . , . ” — — . ” . ” ” . ” — — . ” . ” — — . ” , ‘ , ‘ , , , , ‘ . ” — — . ” , . ” — — . . ” , , , , . ” — — . . . . . ” ‘ . . . . ‘ , . ” — — ‘ . ” , — — ( , ) . ” — — ‘ . ” , . ” — — ‘ . ” , . ” — — . — — ” , , , ; , . ” — — . ” , . ” — — ‘ . ” , , , . ” — — ‘ . ” , , ; . ” — — ‘ , . ” , , . ” — — . ‘ . . ” , . ” — — ‘ . ” , . . – – – . . . . ‘ , . . . . , . . . . , . . . . . ” — — , . . . . ” ( ) , – , ( ) , , . . ” — — ‘ . ” – , , . ” — — ‘ . . . . . . ” ‘ . ” — — . . . ” , , , ; . ” — — ‘ , . . . ” . . . , . ” — — ‘ . ” , , . – , ‘ . ” — — . ” , , . . ” — — , . . ” , . ” — — . ” , , , . , . ” — — ‘ . ” , . , , , – , – , , . ” — — ‘ ‘ ‘ . ” , , , . ” — — ‘ . ” , , ? ” — — ‘ – . ” — — . ” — — . ( . ) ” ‘ , , , . , , . ” — — . ” : ‘ , . ” — — ‘ . ” , , , , . ” , , – , . ” — — , ‘ . ” , . ” — — ‘ . ( . ) ” – , ‘ . ” — — ‘ . ” . ” — — . ” , , , . ” — — ‘ . ” , , , , , , , ; , ; : ‘ , , , , , , , ‘ , , , , . ” — — ‘ . ” ! ! ! . ‘ . ; , . ” — — ‘ . ” , : — — — — ‘ – . ” — — ‘ . ” , ‘ . ” — — ‘ . ” , , . ” — — . ” , , ‘ , ” ; ” ; . ‘ – , ! ” — — ‘ . ” , . ” — — ‘ . ” ! . , ? ” , ” . ” — — ” , . ” , . , . ” , ; , , , , . ” — — . ” , , . . . . ” , , , . ” — — . ” , ; , ; ; , . . . . , , , ( ) , , , , . ” — — ‘ , . ” ” ( ) ” ” ( ) ” , , , , . ” — — ‘ , . . ” , ” – . ” ? ” . ” , . ” ” . ! ” ” , . ” ” – ! ? ” ” , ! ! ! ! ” ” ! ! ” ” , ! ! — — — — — — — — – – ! ” ” ? ” ” . ” ” ! ! . ” — — . ‘ . . ” – , , . ” — — ” , ” . . . . , ; ; . ” — — . ” , ” . , ” . , . ” — — ‘ . . , . . ” , . ” — — ” , ‘ ‘ , . ” . . . ” , ” , ” . ” — — ( ) , , . – . ” , , , , , – . ” — — ‘ . ” ; , ; , – . ” — — ” ” . ” – . , – – , , . ” — — . . . . . ” , , , . ” — — . ” , . ” — — – . ” ( ) . ” — — . ” , . . ” — — . ” ; , , . ” — — . ” ( ) , , , ‘ ” ( ) , ” . ” — — ‘ . ” ‘ ! ‘ , , , ; — — ‘ , ! ‘ ” — — . ” , , , ! ” — — . ” , , , , . ” — — . . . . — — — — , , . . ; , ; , ; , , ‘ — — , . . ; . . , , , . , — — . , . , , , . – . . , , , . ? — — , . ; – ; ; , . ; — — , , . ? ? ? ! , , . ! ; . . . — — — — . , , — — , , , . . , ? . ; . , , . . – — — , – , , . , , . , , . . , , , . ? , , ; , ; . , – . , – ‘ , , ‘ . , – – — — ? — — — — ! , ? , , , , ? , ? , , ? ? , ? . , , , . , . ; . , , , . , . , – — — — — ‘ — — , ; — — , ; , , Continue reading “Moby-Dick, but just the punctuation”
Impossible Body 2, 2022 by Adrian Ghenie (b. 1977)
“Space”
by
Mark Strand
A beautiful woman stood at the roof-edge of one of New York’s tall midtown apartment houses. She was on the verge of jumping when a man, coming out on the roof to sunbathe, saw her. Surprised, the woman stepped back from the ledge. The man was about thirty or thirty-five and blond. He was lean, with a long upper body and short, thin legs. His black bathing suit shone like satin in the sun. He was no more than ten steps from the woman. She stared at him. The wind blew strands of her long dark hair across her face. She pulled them back and held them in place with one hand. Her white blouse and pale blue skirt kept billowing, but she paid no attention. He saw that she was barefoot and that two high-heeled shoes were placed side by side on the gravel near where she stood. She had turned away from him. The wind flattened her skirt against the front of her long thighs. He wished he could reach out and pull her toward him. The air shifted and drew her skirt tightly across her small, round buttocks; the lines of her bikini underpants showed. “I’ll take you to dinner,” he yelled. The woman turned to look at him again. Her gaze was point-blank. Her teeth were clenched. The man looked at her hands which were now crossed in front of her, holding her skirt in place. She wore no wedding band. “Let’s go someplace and talk,” he said. She took a deep breath and turned away. She lifted her arms as if she were preparing to dive. “Look,” he said, “if it’s me you’re worried about, you have nothing to fear.” He took the towel he was carrying over his shoulders and made it into a sarong. “I know it’s depressing,” he said. He was not sure what he had meant. He wondered if the woman felt anything. He liked the way her back curved into her buttocks. It struck him as simple and expressive; it suggested an appetite or potential for sex. He wished he could touch her. As if to give him some hope, the woman lowered her arms to her sides and shifted her weight. “I’ll tell you what,” the man said, “I’ll marry you.” The wind once again pulled the woman’s skirt tightly across her buttocks. “We’ll do it immediately,” he said, “and then go to Italy. We’ll go to Bologna, we’ll eat great food. We’ll walk around all day and drink grappa at night. We’ll observe the world and we’ll read the books we never had time for.” The woman had not turned around or backed off from the ledge. Beyond her lay the industrial buildings of Long Island City, the endless row houses of Queens. A few clouds moved in the distance. The man shut his eyes and tried to think of how else to change her mind. When he opened them, he saw that between her feet and the ledge was a space, a space that would always exist now between herself and the world. In the long moment when she existed before him for the last time, he thought, How lovely. Then she was gone.
Sunday, 19 July, slept, awoke, slept, awoke, miserable life.
From Diaries, Franz Kafka; trans. by Joseph Kresh.
Picked up two on Friday—
I’ve been wanting to read Natalia Ginzburg for a while, and when I saw a used copy of her novella The Dry Heart (translated by Frances Frenaye), it seemed like a good entry point. It was really the description on the back that grabbed me:
The Dry Heart begins and ends with the matter-of-fact pronouncement: “I shot him between the eyes.” As the tale—a plunge into the chilly waters of loneliness, desperation, and bitterness—proceeds, the narrator’s murder of her flighty husband takes on a certain logical inevitability. Stripped of any preciousness or sentimentality, Natalia Ginzburg’s writing here is white-hot, tempered by rage. She transforms the unhappy tale of an ordinary dull marriage into a rich psychological thriller that seems to beg the question: why don’t more wives kill their husbands?
I read NYRB’s collected Moderan a few years ago, but I couldn’t pass up this Avon Bard mass market paperback.
Opening track:
“THINKING BACK (OUR GOD IS A HELPING GOD!)”
by
David R. Bunch
FLESH seemed doomed that year; death’s harpies were riding down. The once-beautiful, sweet and life-sustaining air was tinged with poison now, and man drank at his peril from the streams that had once been pure. He prayed to a God that was said to be in all things good, true and beautiful, but especially was thought to be all sternness and goodness, justice and loving-care, in some milk-white place far away, “On High.” And those prayers if answered were answered very obliquely indeed. For the air got deeper in poison from the tinkering with lethal things the flesh-man indulged in when not praying, and the water got fuller with danger as each new explosion pounded the bomb-fevered air. There was talk of the End; great discussions were handled in great halls across the land. Treaties were signed among statesmen to help the air get better, to allow the streams to recover and run pure once again. But even as the flesh-hands grasped the pens to scrawl the marks of good faith in some countries, fear lashed at capitals in other countries. Arsenals were tested anew. Things done were undone. The air got sicker; the streams ran not pure but pure danger—There seemed no chance for flesh-man, and his God seemed entirely silent wherever He was, wherever His white throne was. The HOPELESS signs were out everywhere. Little children asked that they be allowed to go quickly and not grow up hurting and maimed. Adults in what should have been the full flower of brave manhood and fair womanhood quaked, looked heavenward for some hopeful sign and, finding none, fell down and cried bitterly. The aged ones, quavering and whining now, finally decided that yes, truly they were most glad that they were so very old. The flesh billions courted at the Palace of Danger so ardently had turned against them and the mass wedding of Death and Destruction seemed now all but assured.
And then—and then this chance! Offered to all. It came first as small hope, the rumor of it, a faint faint breath of a chance seeping through the flesh-fouled metropolises. And then it was confirmed as glowing fact when the tour went round that year, year of the Greatest Darkness. And yet—and yet they scoffed, scoffed by the billions at this man working his hinges and braces, would not believe his heart was an ever-last one, had no credulity for his new wonderful lungs that could breathe him a forever-life even in bomb-tainted air. When they saw that his hands were steel they yelled robot! robot! When they saw that his eyes were wide-range, mechanism-helped, and that he’d a phfluggee-phflaggee button on his talker that he pressed from time to time to aid in his speech expression they laughed and yelled . . . Continue reading “Bunch’s Moderan/Ginzburg’s Dry Heart (Books acquired, 14 July 2023)”
Page from The Goddess, 1990 by Moebius (Jean Giraud, 1938–2012)
“The Wayfarer”
by
Robert Coover
I came upon him on the road. I pulled over, stepped out, walked directly over to him where he sat. On an old milestone. His long tangled beard was a yellowish gray, his eyes dull with the dust of the road. His clothes were all of a color and smelled of mildew. He was not a sympathetic figure, but what could I do?
I stood for a while in front of him, hands on hips, but he paid me no heed. I thought: at least he will stand. He did not. I scuffed up a little dust between us with the toe of my boot. The dust settled or disappeared into his collection of it. But still, he stared obliviously. Vacantly. Perhaps (I thought): mindlessly. Yet I could be sure he was alive, for he sighed deeply from time to time, He is afraid to acknowledge me, I reasoned. It may or may not have been the case, but it served, for the time being, as a useful premise. The sun was hot, the air dry. It was silent, except for the traffic.
I cleared my throat, shifted my feet, made a large business of extracting my memo-book from my breast pocket, tapped my pencil on it loudly. I was determined to perform my function in the matter, without regard to how disagreeable it might prove to be. Others passed on the road. They proffered smiles of commiseration, which I returned with a pleasant nod. The wayfarer wore a floppy black hat. Tufts of yellow-gray hair poked out of the holes in it like dead wheat. No doubt, it swarmed. Still, he would not look at me.
Finally, I squatted and interposed my face in the path of his stare. Slowly—painfully, it would seem—his eyes focused on mine. They seemed to brighten momentarily, but I am not sure why. It could have been joy as easily as rage, or it could have been fear. Only that: his eyes brightened; his face remained slack and inexpressive. And it was not a glow, nothing that could be graphed, it was just a briefest spark, a glimmer. Then dull again. Filmy as though with a kind of mucus smeared over. And he lost the focus. I don’t know whether or not in that instant of perception he noticed my badge. I wished at the time that he would, then there could be no further ambiguities. But I frankly doubted that he did. He has traveled far, I thought. Continue reading ““The Wayfarer” — Robert Coover”
Pan, 1895 by Joseph Sattler (1867-1931)
Thunderstorm with the Death of Amelia, 1784 by William Williams (active 1758-1797)
Hermit Thrush, 2022 by Alan Bray (b. 1946)
In Search of a Portrait B, 1974 by Samuel Bak (b. 1933)
Biblioklept 