Author: paulattinello
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AIDS in the World
[Speech for the first World AIDS Day vigil in Newcastle, UK, December 1, 2004.] Tonight I’m thinking about some of the places I’ve lived and visited, and some the people I’ve seen and known, over the last twenty years. Many of those people have been touched by, or concerned about, AIDS, and a lot of…
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Politics of border crossing
I tend not to believe much in politics; only in the past few years did I begin to think about my own past, and why that might be – after all I was sixteen when Nixon made Watergate; a few years later I moved to San Francisco, to a thriving arts community, just in time…
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You May Have Won
Well that’s odd. After mentioning answering Winning Lottery spam e-mails yesterday, I keep receiving them today – the spammers couldn’t possibly be reading this, could they?…. Or perhaps there’s a truly amazing new generation of bots – ah, the development of technology. Either way, I’m wondering about the repercussions of public exposure. Yet again….
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South
Tonight’s pasta: conichiglie, with chopped-up anchovies melted in olive oil, and roasted tomatoes, and capers, and a can of tuna (that was possibly overkill) and lots of black pepper. It’s got a bit of a kick – hmm, no lack of anchovy flavor…. I would love to live in Italy, or Spain, or Greece. A…
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Changeable
The weather is changeable, and… so am I. (Hmm, another version of a phrase I’ve used before.) Chilly but bright autumn days; then dark gray days that move into winter. And I’m similar – I did finish editing the three articles; a mixture of satisfaction and mild frustration (the third article is from ten years…
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Touched by trendiness
For some obscure reason, tonight I remembered being friends (acquaintances? – at least she seemed to think I was amusing for a time) with a gorgeous, extremely chic, rather wild, very sexy party girl of the highest order, while living in Hong Kong. I can’t quite recall her name…. I’m the kind of person who…
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The way it spozed to be
Well, today I actually completed the editing on two articles of mine for publication – in addition to handling a number of e-mail requests with dispatch, and making a healthy breakfast (oatmeal with chopped apple and dried cranberries). And all without wearing myself out or staying up until four a.m. Doesn’t sound like much, does…
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Dementia Poets
From 1987 to 1992, I was part of an HIV+ writing workshop in Los Angeles run by the wonderful Terry Wolverton. My main partners in crime were Gil Cuadros (the most successful of the lot, who published his powerful poetry collection City of God with City Lights before he died in 1996), Kevin Martin, and…
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Visited countries
I kind of liked this… simple enough; and graphics are always fun: Fiddled with it a bit; countries where I’ve actually lived (had a home): And, because Europe is interesting to me, and complicated, one for just that ‘continent’ – which incidentally emphasizes the peculiar accidents that have led to me never being inside the…
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Anti-Goethe
Reading, for fun (yes, I should be editing those articles instead), between sneezes (I still have a cold), Beerbohm’s wonderful essay ‘Quia imperfectum’ (1918) from And Even Now. Far funnier and more charming than one would expect, given the topic – which purports at first to be unfinished artworks, but which ends up being Goethe.…
Paul Attinello 