Author: paulattinello
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Magic, Inc.
Words from a favorite passage of a favorite novel came to mind today. In the midst of a modern, slangy conversation about a dangerous situation and what to do, the tone changes: "Jedson said suddenly, 'White prevails over black.' She answered, 'Certainly.' 'Everywhere?' 'Everywhere, since darkness is the absence of light.' He went on, 'It is…
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Last days
It is – probably – the second-to-the-last day of real summer; tomorrow is probably, as it were, the closing firework display of good weather. Pleasant that it will be a Sunday, after Rumana's big party tonight. Of course the weather forecast from Monday onwards, and knowledge of how North Sea weather goes, gives just a…
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Turning points
The truth is: all points these days feel kind of like turning points. Somewhere between August and September; between summer and fall. Between the expected weather for this part of the world, and this gloriously sunny day, when we sat out in a lovely Italian garden restaurant, and where the warmth and food were almost…
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Wings
A sudden and amazingly heavy rain fall: plus a lot of hail – that strange sense of buckets of water and ice falling, and for a considerable while. The usual fragments of thought about climate change and problem weather, combined with the visceral excitement of it all, which is fortunately happening on the other side…
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The Gap
[This was written some days ago, in a dark mood… a mood partly generated by some of my experiences this last trip to Zürich; not because anything bad actually happened, but instead because of the combination of wrestling with certain concepts, and also working my way through unexpectly painful exercises where I wrote about things…
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A leaf falls
While I was in Zürich, back in Newcastle a friend died, basically of a heart attack. David H. was one of the old-timers in our HIV patient group – one of the six men (five gay, one straight) who appeared in a meeting room in the middle of Newcastle on June 30, 2003. We spent…
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Cross-communication
My last night in summery Zürich: the men are sunburnt and muscly, cafés are busy. There are no doubt some women around here also. The other Jung-Institut students and teachers have left – as usual I stay one or two days later, this time to see Patricia up in Thun on Sunday, then just to…
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Island
[From a workshop, where we created things – almost everyone else painting or clay or drawing, but I swerved over to my comfort zone: writing. With, yes, one small picture drawn in the corner of the original….] When I came to the island, it was late afternoon. Houses rose up from the water, from the…
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Mathis
It is late, so I won't go on long… a really excellent, deeply passionate performance of the Hindemith's opera Mathis der Maler here in Zürich. Thomas Hampson as Mathias Grünewald, and Gatti conducting in his last season before leaving, were especially good; but everyone was excellent. For some reason I'd recalled hearing a recording of…
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Contests
My last exam, in analytic implications of fairy tales, passed – at least in this group: that is, four, of the eight for the first half of the training. Dramatic: facing one of the most famous living analysts, a third-generation student of von Franz. The pleasant look – she likes me, we have talked –…
Paul Attinello 