Author: paulattinello
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Refound
An unexpected rediscovery…. A new masters student wanted to talk about archetypes and music – she is composing a set of songs, she came over on her bike today, when it was cold and windy, when trash had blown onto my front porch. I showed her a pile of books and gave her a video…
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Alternates
A night when, wakeful from minor physical discomforts, I think of different paths, different ways my life might have gone. I’ve done this before of course – as someone who spent a lot of time reading science fiction and fantasy when I was younger, the idea is utterly familiar. The most important alternative path was…
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Bernstein
The prospect of the new Bernstein film is dislocating me a bit, back to the late 60s and 70s…. recordings of the Rite, Sinfonia, El Salón Mexico; Stravinsky, Beethoven, Copland, Foss, many others… my record player in the room shared with my brother, between the dressers; concerts, then later playing on stage at Wolf…
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Crossing
Crossing from one year to the next…. This year has been one of separations and endings. In fact, more than ever in my life, I've made many breaks – but without having to do so, and at my own speed. As I am someone who has, many times, suddenly leapt or been driven from one…
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A bit vague, not lost
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by
Anniversary of this blog… sixteen years. A few days ago, really, on Saturday, but this is close enough. No, the blog doesn't feel dead to me, I'm still here for it, and it for me. I retired from the university in February; moved the books of my office to storage; and now keep talking about…
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Sermonette
A friend who is a priest, as well as a skilled teacher of theology, was talking to me about his mood… he said that he is bringing a message of joy to people, but lockdown is difficult, he finds his mood is… inconsistent. I said: face it – this is the dark of the year.…
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[Essaying] Bloggisization
Brian Dillon, Essayism. He writes beautifully, and has become famous by doing it. Actually I'd never heard of him until I started noticing those Fitzcarraldo Editions – are they named for somebody involved, or for Herzog's strange movie, and the man the movie is about, played by the mad Kinski? – it's probably about the…
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Stats
June 5 is HIV Long-Term Survivors Day – it's actually a fairly recent phenomenon, with varied definitions. It's 5 June because that's when an article talking about five cases first appeared in the press, so – as in the work I'm writing (or supposed to be writing) now, it's not about the existence of the…
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Anniversary, and questions
A few days ago was the fifteenth anniversary of this blog – 14 May 2006. I wanted to finish a blog entry from September 2019 – so a bit more than a year and a half ago – a fairly amazing late-summer experience of Vienna, Barcelona, Sitges, and life, and excitement, and death, and ending.…
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Mood [partly reconstituted]
[A post drafted in late November 2020; I have moved on from these things, a bit… and incidentally am now firmly of age, at 64. I apologize for the fragmentation: unfinished work, with later attempts to recapture some of the original content, and then some scraps of things I wanted to talk about – two…
Paul Attinello 