Author: paulattinello
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The City
Stepping along the steel edges of intersections, people in precisely cut suits walk quickly through the icy air past elongated glass windows protecting neat arrays of crystal, ebony-handled carving sets, and thin, pale diamonds. The edges of all these things extend out in a net of lines infinitely narrow, infinitely sharp, a labyrinth of slashing…
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Happy…
anniversary. This blog is a year old today. I’m rather pleased with where it has taken me – 262 posts, or a hair more than five per week, or one every working day – not too bad for productivity, which is such a bugbear for me (one recalls Saul Bellow’s Henderson the Rain King, quoted…
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Seeing stars
Diamanda Galás is here for two days, performing and giving an interview. Last night’s concert was amazing, with astounding piano licks and a ventriloquist’s array of voices – but also almost parodic at points, with an edge of blackly camp satire I’ve rarely seen in her work before. I went backstage to talk to her…
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Audient
Lately several colleagues are running Events, starring themselves, or guests… and looking to me expectantly to be in the audience. To be another warm body. I’m unfortunately not very interested; and I’ve been avoiding their eyes when they start to hint that they want me to be an audient (or, as a sop to my…
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Books (I)
I’ve been enjoying A Book Addict’s Treasury (Rugg & Murphy, 2006) for the second time through. It’s yet another of those collections of excerpts, bound in pale paper with simple fonts for the title; but this one is actually quite good – intelligent passages, well chosen, many surprises, really just a lot of very well-chosen,…
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Apologies; and rambling
My apologies for not posting this week… frankly, my thoughts and experiences have been too fragmentary, and too dark, bitter, repetitive, to be worth putting into even this miniature form of public presentation. Continued rage over promotions, or lack thereof. Anger at students, who are being incredibly dilatory and irresponsible, in a way that feels…
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The plan
The original plan was: (a) Laura is flying in to Edinburgh for a gallery opening, from New York. (b) I buy a train ticket to go up and have lunch with her, spend the afternoon, go to opening. Meet apparently amazingly friendly/charming gallery director, have fun, take late train home. (c) Many slightly complicated and…
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Exquise
The French Baroque: a favorite period of mine. Although the German Baroque, in its transition from chaotic to orderly, is always impressive; and the Italian, though widely admired by good and intelligent friends, bores me; it is the quirky, unfinished but quaint English Baroque, and the fantastically ornate, seductive French, that I most enjoy. Lully,…
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LA ’89
He pulls back the brake, turning his head. Pressure of the gear shift. Bare arm and vinyl. Warm, bright air, a slight glare. Can’t see. Growl of the engine. He backs towards the red Porsche… Hand on the brake, he pulls. Up. Feet on the clutch and brake, his head turns, he feels the breeze…
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Afterthought (after bath)
I used to tell people (this is also in the context of noticing, over the years, my increasing tendency to organize my thoughts into neatly packaged anecdotes – a suspicious tendency, but useful at parties, if a bit artificial) that, before I moved to LA, I knew what it was like to relax over a…
Paul Attinello 