Paul Attinello

Author: paulattinello

  • A few words

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    by

    paulattinello
    in

    After this period of sparse blog entries – and me feeling a bit guilty for not keeping this up – Romi phoned me tonight to make sure I was all right (she lives out of town in Northumberland, and we don't see each other often – she actually glances at this blog occasionally to see…

  • Hotel, party, graveyard

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    paulattinello
    in ,

    In Küsnacht, at the end of the second of three endlessly busy weeks studying at the Jung-Institut. Sixty-five pages of typed, single-spaced notes (I am not obsessive-compulsive, and can prove it with a handy alphabetized chart); three or four trips, some great meals and some ludicrously bad ones, a vast array of lectures, seminars and…

  • Midnight

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    paulattinello
    in

    In my small hotel room at the top of a guest house in Küsnacht, on Sunday night; the nearby church bell has just struck twelve. Studying again at the Jung-Institut – busy, exciting, sometimes embarrassing or ridiculous, often wonderful – did I really take thirty-six pages of notes for a week's seminars? Single-spaced, mind you.…

  • Citizen

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    paulattinello
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    And today I am a British citizen. A pleasant ceremony, a bit long but the mayoress and city administrators were attentive to detail and acted as though they enjoyed it – well done, as it's already their tenth such ceremony this year. A bagpiper played the Northumbrian pipes – my colleagues who play folk music…

  • The house, far from the city

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    paulattinello
    in ,

    Among large plans and changes: British citizenship, Zürich training, a big financial transfer – and small: a new jacket and shoes, a trip to northern Italy paid for by the the university, and most startling a re-engagement with two research projects that had dropped off the radar (just as though I were as productive as…

  • Anniversary 4

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    paulattinello
    in

    Four years of this blog – and you'll pardon me for writing so few entries over the past four months; I promise I haven't stopped writing completely. In fact, next week I'm in Milan and Parma for a trip to our exchange partners; I was naturally a bit intimidated by going to northern Italy wearing…

  • Writing and hearing

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    paulattinello
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    Working on a presentation about Derek Jarman's last films, for Wednesday. After much procrastination, aided by the calm, dull backwaters of the Easter holiday.  And, amid brief frustrations as to exact dates, processes unrecorded, I realize I am enjoying myself: while making dinner in the kitchen, I say aloud to no one: But this is…

  • Spring

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    paulattinello
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    And finally, here it is, what we've been waiting for. Nearly a week after Easter (and apparently this year Roman Easter and Greek Easter were the same day, which is in itself a fairly weird result of changing calendars and seasons). A young father, slightly anxious-looking but in a light t-shirt, walks with a child…

  • Cornell

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    paulattinello
    in

    [By which I don't mean the upstate New York university, where my nephew – hi, Ben, how are you? – is finishing his freshman year…. Which brings us to a peripheral tale, before I even get into the point of this blog entry: I told my sister, and have joked to several friends (sorry, Ben)…

  • Making

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    paulattinello
    in

    A tutorial with a smart but thus far undisciplined masters student, where I was quite definite about the draft paper he'd sent me – I thought it was chaotic and touched on an unmanageable array of topics, and said so. Fortunately he didn't seem to mind, and went home to rewrite the whole thing (not…