Author: paulattinello
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Beautiful men
After a couple of weeks with a lot of teaching and students; and after a lot of promises to continue editing the anthology, and studying for my Jung-Institut exams – about half of those promises broken, but I do try to keep going; and after somewhat warmer (though not actually warm) weather; and after a…
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Brodkey
In an odd reflection of my blog entry a week or so ago, about Stefan Brecht… last night I was reading through John Sutherland's Lives of the Novelists, an enjoyable collection of sharply drawn capsule careers of writers; and I tripped over Harold Brodkey. Who, of course, whatever else he had been, eventually became a…
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Visceral
And so: since the chilly equilibrium reached at the end of my previous post, there has been a feeling of negotating the curves in existence, but with certain blinkers, or speed governors, removed from the engines, from the windshields… (Hmm, I wonder if my brother would appreciate the car metaphors. He'd probably manage them better.)…
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Brecht (no, I mean the other one)
Today I went to York for the second time, to my new analyst, S. I like her a great deal – and this might be a very good change for me: it feels as though my two major analysts, John and Mitch, have both been people who were fairly similar to me – which seemed…
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In-the-midst-of
A day that had one-thing-after-another in it: some are familiar, even long-repeated actions, some are new; there are pleasures, there are boring bits: and that quailty that has appeared in several (no: in a number) of my posts lately, of being transitional, of being sort of in-between. Liminal, perhaps. With students, cheerful or as though…
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Pieces
Experiences lately seem to come in defined, outlined, characterized pieces: like bits of a mosaic. But since the mosaic isn't seen whole (at least not by me), I am constantly surprised by huge shifts in the ground underfoot…. * A couple of weeks ago, at the acupuncturist, while lying pierced: a really astounding ecstatic experience,…
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Flash
Reading in bed, electronic on an iPad, Tove Jansson's story collection Traveling Light. I was very happy when it, with the other recent ones – especially Fair Play – were translated by a small London publisher; my intense attachment to the Moomin books, especially the eerie late ones, and to my old, beaten-up copy of…
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If we really…
At some point in the last couple of months, the often tangled clouds of dream and fantasy – the things that go on in the back of my mind, when I'm washing the dishes or walking to the bus, or… – those clouds have moved into something unexpected… If, when we die, there is some…
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For Jarman
In April 2010, I gave a presentation about Derek Jarman, where I worked through The Garden, Edward II, and Blue, showing the closeness to death in each film. Or maybe: not just showing. When I polished the presentation to give in New Orleans, I felt close to something…. I promised, last year, to turn the…
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Trove
A quiet holiday: if the theory was that I shouldn't go anywhere because I had three articles to finish and a collection to edit, what really happened was more typical – although I didn't travel I also didn't work much. Today I got back to it, though… But among all the holiday quiet (there's a…
Paul Attinello 