Author: paulattinello
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Missing
There are notes for two more long segments on my surgery and recovery, but I haven’t had the energy to attack them yet. I hope I will finish them – not for your sake: it is entirely possible that the select company friends and strangers who read this blog are already tired of the topic…
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Ostern in Stuttgart (II)
[March 22-25, 2008] Intensiv (Saturday/Sunday) The two days following surgery are complex and not without their pleasures: these are the days immured in intensive care, the days of morphine. These are also the days of constant attention, many tubes and cables, an endless bleeping and ticking of machines, an excellent nurse or two, a charming…
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Ostern in Stuttgart (I)
[March 19-23, 2008] Winterschnee (Wednesday) Snow is forecast, although it is Easter weekend (admittedly a very early Easter, tribute to the peculiarly arcane calculations the Church goes through to establish the date – look it up some time, the formula is nothing short of bizarre); and here it is – rich, heavy snow, very wet,…
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Transitionals
The unhappy weight of guilt around productivity has let up somewhat: since Mitchell has kindly started giving me my marching orders – literally telling me what chapter to draft next, and send it to him – and Melinda, going a bit outside the normal range of activity for a therapist, has chimed in asking for…
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Turn of the wheel
Fortunas turns yet again, but upward this time: finally that promotion – after three applications in a row, and only about a year later than deserved, according to my figuring. (In Britain, where money and business control have taken over academe, that isn’t bad – administrators here love to deny promotions in order to save…
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Making oneself crazy
… or should that be: making one’s self crazy?… In the interstices of watching these films, and scanning Joyce’s thesis so I can report on it (the airplane and hotel for her defense in Paris are already organized – which reminds me: I also need to buy a flight to Washington to attend my eldest…
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Les nuits fauves
I’ll admit it: Savage Nights (Les nuits fauves), Cyril Collard’s famous 1992 film about being bisexual, HIV+, and careless – by which I mean: really fucking careless: having sex with someone without telling them – is at least as exasperating as it is impressive. Does that make me a fuddy-duddy?… Lots of drama about rebellion…
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Jarman
In the midst of watching all these AIDS films, a left turn, sort of: before sitting through Derek Jarman’s Blue (I’ve never actually seen it with the blue screen throughout – which may hardly be necessary – but perhaps it’s a good idea to do it), I thought I would see something that didn’t require…
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Spring
It is very late, or very early, depending on your preference – just after six a.m. Sleep is for some reason impossible, I don’t know why. The other day an IKEA catalogue came in the mail, with ‘SPRING’ on the cover. I laughed, hollowly – all right, I didn’t do that, I don’t engage in…
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Framing the past
Having finished watching Parting Glances, I can see – yes, it is a good movie; but I don’t think I missed so much, walking out on it twenty-odd years ago. An interesting and touching slice of a certain kind of life, and the party scene is indeed great fun; of course from my current point…
Paul Attinello 