Paul Attinello

Author: paulattinello

  • Changeable

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    Up in the night (you know why) and saw the sky – very strange: the clouds like a dark orange against a dark dark gray, moving very fast, chased by the winds off the north sea. Looks almost like a weird negative. 5 am – well the weather shifting with spring, the days getting (too…

  • The Magic Coat

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    Pablo F—-mann was his name – is his name, as far as I know. A percussionist, composer and graduate student at school with me in the late 1980s. Handsome, coolly sexy: a slightly wolfish face, gray eyes, always a bit unshaven. He grew up in South America – and yes, I know what you’re thinking,…

  • In Bel Air

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    paulattinello
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    Chic beauties, men in tuxesrun across the wet plazato the hospital entrance. I twist sprung cords to turn the blinds, trying to see. Perfect curves on rainswept autos. Big smiles, fine suits, fabrics night-blue, glassy. My vision’s left is carved inward by my arm, skin dim with shadows. Laughing, waving to friends who lean out…

  • Train III: Impacts

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    Still on that train, but now in the other direction. Last night, in a small movie theater on the Dartington College of the Arts campus, I saw Pan’s Labyrinth. Well, I practically had to see it – arriving one late and rainy evening, in a countryside school of the arts, with nothing else to do;…

  • Train II: In transit

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    paulattinello
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    The countryside of the south: greener, more crowded, but gentler and more civilized. The truth is, I’d probably be more at ease down here, rather than the raw, chilly north where I’ve landed. The sheer density of people seems to soften things: making, I’m sure, more crowded resentments – but also, always, more alternatives, more…

  • Train I: Discourse on Disappointment

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    paulattinello
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    A train, from Northumberland to Devon. I often feel as though my head is clearest in travel – on trains, on planes, are the times when I see everything whole, and in its largest and most realistic context. So far I’ve done some work on the paper that was due last month; listened to music;…

  • On the second day of Christmas…

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    paulattinello
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    December 26, 1995 – San Francisco This evening something rather unexpected happened… I had been exchanging gifts at the largest department store in San Francisco (you’d think Lars would know that I wear a medium shirt by now), and dragged home, fairly tired, on the subway. My regular train didn’t come, so I took one…

  • Snowstorms

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    paulattinello
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    Not real ones. It is colder, and there will be snow, but we haven’t seen any yet. But I kept thinking of one of Peter Altenberg’s postcard poems, the one sung in the first of Berg’s wonderful but rarely performed Altenberg-Lieder: Seele, wie bist du schöner, tiefer, nach Schneestürmen.Auch du hast sie, gleich der Natur.Und…

  • MacNew

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    paulattinello
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    Sunny, fresh, active, much going on in what feels like a fast lane. How is it possible to experience renewal and excitement and freshness in January?… ah well, stranger things have happened, I suppose. I have a new office computer, one of the new iMacs – Intel chip, utterly immense screen, high-resolution, stylish, and fast…

  • In the quiet night

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    paulattinello
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    Morning: green tea, hot chocolate; a strong English breakfast at a nearby café (I didn’t eat the blood pudding though, it just seemed… optional). By which time I was oddly shaky: so much caffeine and sugar and strong food, and my body was getting a bit overwhelmed… so some afternoon sleep. And tonight: again, a…