Author: paulattinello
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Irritable today… after spending too much money on things I don't really want, while feeling pushed from one thing to another – £750 for the privilege of staying in the UK, £440 for new glasses with frames I don't quite like. Phone calls to government agencies and chain stores, lots of voicemail and people apologizing…
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To the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival
[A grumpy letter to the festival. Perhaps I should sign myself Brigadier-General, as in those parody Monty Python letters to the Times.] Dear LLGFF, So the 22nd London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival is on tour; and just three movies from its series will come to Newcastle, at the Tyneside Cinema, in mid-August, with about…
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Mamma mia
Well, well, two summer blockbuster films in one week: quite bizarre for me. David C. and David R. wanted to go; I argued that I didn’t really want to see Mamma Mia, but they wanted to, and it sounded pleasant to spend the time with them, so I went. Well. I suppose there are a…
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Too dark a knight
Today, a day of seeing the doctor, prescriptions, correcting paperwork, getting things done: a decent enough day, though there was no Writing of the Book in it. (And I can’t help thinking that those are the dangerous days: when you really are busy but don’t get any of the big stuff done. However, admittedly, there…
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Stunning
Tonight, exasperated with my rather unsuccessful cooking and eating over the past week, I went out – fairly late, at 9 pm – to the Italian restaurant up the road. As with several Italian restaurants in the area, since I’ve made a point of telling them I’m Italian, and often sit alone with a book,…
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Fragments read
As spurious has started blogging again (he’s been busy – and he’ll get busier now for a few weeks, he’s marrying a lovely woman, a faintly more conservative philosopher than he but a charming colleen, in September), at a time when I’m getting back to it myself, I’m impelled to echo some of the author’s…
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On the way to living
The past few days have seen some work, and a great deal of not working: in the midst of some lovely weather, much quiet, much space. Today I followed several patterns familiar from this summer: up at 6, surfing the web unimportantly; then slept another hour or two; then… but here the patterns broke a…
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Hildes Reise
It is rather wearing to see all of these films about AIDS. (Have I perhaps mentioned that already?…) This one was well-made; coolly done – a lovely, simple ending. But the most disturbing part was the rich Swiss family, homophobic and controlling: ick – we may all be glad we’re not rich Swiss people. Of…
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Things that are easy
After months of moving from anger to exasperation, through guilt and a sense that I was holding out on him too long (and thereby being petty, etc.), I finally texted Patrick tonight, and we Moved On, which took a total of four text messages. So utterly easy, as it always is in these things once…
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Bathing at Delphi
I continue to like Jarman more and more, overturning my earlier irritable disdain. I have been reading his Chroma, a sort of journal/book of quotes/poetry cycle/death diary, the last book he wrote before he died: it’s full of memories and the frightening and painful bits of dying of AIDS, but also full of the joy…
Paul Attinello 