Author: paulattinello
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Real trouble
V. is extremely ill – a cardiac arrest in fact; she is unconscious in the ICU unit, and we don’t know whether she will recover. She has been, as it happens, ready for this – in fact she has had the most direct and unflinching ability to look at her condition and possible problems of…
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Signs
[Los Angeles, 1992] The session chair is standing, the first paper is over, and through a long wave of applause intended for someone else I move through a labyrinth of aisles towards the stage. I’m wearing khakis, emblematic of the Eastern aristocracy, the conservative controllers who went to school with me; shoes beige and just…
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Memory
Do other people get as confused over the implicit values of their memories?… maybe it’s because I’ve moved around so much, and am so dissatisfied. When something reminds me of certain angles of life in LA: the Santa Monica bus as it passes that big, difficult-to-negotiate intersection near Rodeo Drive; the cheesiness of Santa Monica…
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334
It is dangerous to read books that have certain moods – especially when they are well written. Your own mood distorts and shifts to match them…. Tom Disch’s masterpiece is certainly 334, his intricate exploration of various denizens of an overcrowded, rather listless, declining but realistic New York in 2021-26. It’s really a series of…
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The Long Weekend
[San Francisco & Los Angeles, 1991] I Saturday What was he like – you mean before, don’t you? Wait, move, my arm’s going to sleep. Oh, it’s not so bad for a foldout couch. Hey, it’s free, right? Okay, it was sort of – no, it’s fine, they always shut their bedroom door. Okay, first.…
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at [x] in the morning
My first paper on AIDS and music, back in the mid-1990s when I thought death was imminent, and honesty unavoidable, was titled, “at three in the morning, with both pedals down”. Now it’s four in the morning. Half an hour ago I finished the Sondheim paper – or declared it finished. Calm, exalted, distant. Yes,…
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L.A. Story
[The first sentence of the worst gay novel ever written.] As the bus station locker slammed shut with a clang, I reflected blissfully on having escaped from the bitter, windswept plains of Montana and on Muffy’s predictably overjoyed reaction which I could virtually see (although of course she was not present at the time, being,…
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Shiki soku ze ku
Shiki soku ze ku, Ku soku ze shiki Hurry up it’s time clock nails closing door Drooling cries moaning flabby hands sweat Drab knife-edge headlamp glare shades to black and white Drive in distorted circles wait get out parking Unseeing eyes flat twisting numb hands pulling too far Head thrown back pale lights clutch fingers…
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Writing a Story for You
[Los Angeles, 1991. For me this story is always paired with Valentine’s Day (below), because I started writing them the same night, in that laundromat – but it is about a different man, a different time, a different city.] You’re dead, but you wanted to write stories. You were just about to get published, just…
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Valentine’s Day
[Los Angeles, 1991] I met Gary about a week ago, we’ve only seen each other twice, but I’m surprised at how happy I am around him – beautiful, sharp-edged features, a strong soldier’s face and warm Southern voice, and of course his fierce enthusiasm in bed. And he seems to like me so much. I’m…
Paul Attinello 