Author: paulattinello
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Entangled in the blankets
I woke shortly before my 8:30 pills, turned off the alarm, went out to the couch to lie for a bit more: engaged in an interesting (to me) psychological game, which had a depth that only gradually became evident – imagining myself differently, as someone who was going to get some things done today (marking…
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Seasons
This frozen twilight, ice holds my breathing under and alone. I brush away wet darkened leaves, lean down on your grave… Direct, above, strong sun gives flame to your arm across my back; I push aside green branches, catch your morning eyes and smile – [Los Angeles, 11/4/91-9/21/92]
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Copenhagen
It is the wrong season to see this play. I’m thinking of warm countries, a week in Sitges at the end of the month, making pasta with roast vegetables…. But Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen is on television again, and the last time I didn’t get to see it from the beginning. The intricacy, the overlapping conceptual,…
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The kids are being funny again
[The following rather peculiar typewritten document was evidently the response of my sisters, my brother and I to the eternal parental demand that we thank relatives for our Christmas presents. What it must have been like to preside over a household of four children… note especially the interesting salutations, which probably sounded almost normal in…
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S.E.P.
Telephone call on a Sunday, from the police in a small village in the county south of here. Apparently someone has disappeared, and the neighbors are worried about him – someone I’ve never met: but someone who is on my list of contacts for HIV patients who want to talk to someone. This is a…
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Reitalianization
[Los Angeles, 1990] Tonight is party night – lights, glasses, guests: a dazzling and varied collection of Italian designers, Italian models, a very choice set of imported beauties (tutti questi Italiani). The only non-Italian is our host, who introduces us to his new boyfriend Gianfranco, a richly dark man with remarkable hands who, in the…
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Evanescent
Spurious mentioning Handke reminds me, not of the brief writings I’ve read by him (always elegant, exquisitely tooled, even if they do seem to leave the universe a little darker and more hopeless); but of a completely amazing stage work I saw by Handke in 1994, and reviewed for an academic newsletter. I can’t find…
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Maintenance
Tonight I was doing my rather intricate monthly bagging of pills – I’ve been doing it for years. It is a possibly somewhat over-meticulous response to, on the one hand, the intricate demands of HIV medications and the many supplements I take; and, on the other, my tendency to lose track of everyday actions unless…
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Abasement of the Northmores
After a rather disappointing day, where I just sort of maintained cruising speed – didn’t really do much useful, but didn’t stop completely – it is now late at night, when I should be sleeping (as I can’t sleep in tomorrow, because I have a doctor’s appointment in the morning). But I am not sleepy……
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Pointless power
Given that I have just been getting into PowerPoint a lot more lately – downloading templates, giving those two conference presentations – I was somewhat dismayed, but enlightened and impressed, by Edward Tufte’s sharp critique of its use. He claims that the program and the culture that has sprung up of how to properly create…
Paul Attinello 