Author: paulattinello
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Projective
A burst of anxieties and slight despondencies: after several days of talking to students about their futures, and in a few painful cases having to tell them that their marks were not high enough to allow them to go abroad as exchange students – which feels like telling them: no adventures for you, my boy…
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Multitasking
Apologies for not posting. Many students, classes, administrative e-mails flying back and forth; and preparing to go to Zürich next week to study with the Jungians. (As in the Gilbert and Sullivan tune: "mystical Germans, who preach from ten 'til four"… though that was written too early to refer to Jung.) But life isn't chaotic…
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His night, times 250
Not only is it Burns Night, but it's the 250th since his birth. Years ago, my dear friend Katie Aronson, an actress and performance artist (and I wonder what she's doing now? a lovely, gentle woman with a sweet face, amazingly good at inspiring performances and getting grants written; she moved to Pittsburgh with her…
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Judicious, or slothful
"She decides, with misgivings, that she is finished for today. Always, there are these doubts. Should she try another hour? Is she being judicious, or slothful? Judicious, she tells herself, and almost believes it. She has her two hundred and fifty words, more or less. Let it be enough. Have faith that you will be…
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Inaugural
[I heard the inaugural speech in a BBC studio, where I'd been asked – just forty-five minutes before it started – to come represent the point of view of a 'regular' American to the new President's speech. As you may imagine, I liked it… it seemed tough, honest, specific, real, uncompromising, like some of FDR's…
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Picking up speed
Not so down: the sun appears to be out more, and even the days are longer since the equinox – it is always interesting to see how rapidly the length of the day changes at certain points of the year. I am less depressed partly, of course, because of the impact of the world on…
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Stuck
… and therefore what I object to most strenuously about the New Depression, about the lack of new jobs and money and general hunkering down, is that if I'd been lucky – ha! as if! – if I'd been lucky, when everyone hunkered down, I'd be in Hawaii. Or California. Or Palermo… not here. Stuck…
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Je t’aime je t’aime
After a rather extreme version of the usual winter irresponsible incoherent dead-time day and night, I watched this 1968 film by Resnais – perhaps not the best choice for someone thinking about depression and the incoherence of his life. Or, perhaps, the best possible choice. No, let me explain, briefly, or you'll think this is…
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All time, all space
Home from a pleasant Christmas lunch at Ian's – excellent food – and sitting in the living room, with the tree glittering. And a beautiful strophic folk song by Chris Wood playing; and pulling out the tarot deck, to do one of those bottom-of-the-year readings. And seeing on the computer news of the Marshall Islands,…
Paul Attinello 