Jack Robinson, if that's his name, is good: quirky, funny, slightly mad...a nobody who is everybody in a big city. The guy next to you on the tube reading Life and Fate, not the unshaven one with a funky scarf-the multi-coloured narrow scarf that only a thirty-something would wear. You know the type, sky-blue jumper, a few highlights in the hair, white shirt hanging out, a fake European, essentially.
Reminds you of Mr Palomar in a way. Look at the world one step removed. Of course, we've been doing that since the day we landed. But there's a tangible difference because here the person isn't quite at home at home whereas here, as in, here, the person, which would be me, doesn't even have the concept of home. The lives you could have lived flow on by; you see them in the dark reflection opposite you as the train enters the tunnel.
On the district: the grotty, easy-going third-world feel of decay. Rubbish on the floor, laughter, African women in their towering head gear, children slurping down their food, babies bouncing on mothers' laps, Albanians, Bengalis, Somalis...all aboard the asylum express.
~~~
A meeting with the new Vice-C today. Wants to tear everything up, bring us all up to speed. Heads are going to roll....most likely: my fat one. I can see it rolling down the steps now, kicked along by a few colleagues as it passes them, with half a silly, grinning smile still stretched across it.
You have no students, no research, no "institutional contribution", you have raised no funds for the uni., you have mocked and derided everyone in power, you have told a former VC that he was worse than the Nazis, and the one after him that he should be ashamed of himself (that too in front of 300 students). The first VC (then Dean)..you wound him well and good. In the end he wrote to you, exasperated: "you are a juvenile delinquent..your parents haven't brought you up properly, you have lost the right to call me by my first name"...blah, blah, blah). The last Dean is someone you ridiculed on a daily basis (The current one you like, however).
What do you actually do, then?
I read, I think, you know, the old things. I try and listen, learn. Compile. Yes, I'm quite good at that. I've got all the material for a survey book. Nothing original, just a collection of a thousand one-liners, pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I'm all spent here. The rag-and-bone shop of the heart empty, the terrible charity shop of your mind, full of clutter and jumbled up hand-me-downs. The homelessness in your bones, the doubt in your voice, the low-key intelligence, the high octave of stupidity, the oriental drowsiness of your eyes, the sagging, droopy lower lip of a clown, the jangling nerves, the peasant fingers (I slipped that in for you, Roxana), the shuffling feet of failure, the thickly arching Persian eyebrows, the central European anxieties, the Punjabi sluttishness, the ears of a Buddha- without the spirituality, the swami's pessimism that manages to start every sentence with a 'No' and end it with a 'maybe,' jeans worn out in the inner thigh region (don't ask), a soul that is out of style, the wonderful aimlessness of the Dougal, the toothpaste stains on your t-shirts, Ubo's Jewish nose, unique in the world, the grand idleness of your Kashmiri ancestors, those frightfully frail wrists, little r's amazing ability to wind everyone up, her beautiful, beautiful pig-headedness...what a junk shop this is!
~~~
'The Last Place on Earth...the pull of these shops is the ghost that barely adheres, the bygone associations and value-even if very little-attached to these objects by their previous owners: the heirloom kept on a shelf, the dress worn twice and never again, the substance of thought in the pauses when the writer rested the quill on its rest before inking another sentence.'
---W12.
Reminds you of Mr Palomar in a way. Look at the world one step removed. Of course, we've been doing that since the day we landed. But there's a tangible difference because here the person isn't quite at home at home whereas here, as in, here, the person, which would be me, doesn't even have the concept of home. The lives you could have lived flow on by; you see them in the dark reflection opposite you as the train enters the tunnel.
On the district: the grotty, easy-going third-world feel of decay. Rubbish on the floor, laughter, African women in their towering head gear, children slurping down their food, babies bouncing on mothers' laps, Albanians, Bengalis, Somalis...all aboard the asylum express.
~~~
A meeting with the new Vice-C today. Wants to tear everything up, bring us all up to speed. Heads are going to roll....most likely: my fat one. I can see it rolling down the steps now, kicked along by a few colleagues as it passes them, with half a silly, grinning smile still stretched across it.
You have no students, no research, no "institutional contribution", you have raised no funds for the uni., you have mocked and derided everyone in power, you have told a former VC that he was worse than the Nazis, and the one after him that he should be ashamed of himself (that too in front of 300 students). The first VC (then Dean)..you wound him well and good. In the end he wrote to you, exasperated: "you are a juvenile delinquent..your parents haven't brought you up properly, you have lost the right to call me by my first name"...blah, blah, blah). The last Dean is someone you ridiculed on a daily basis (The current one you like, however).
What do you actually do, then?
I read, I think, you know, the old things. I try and listen, learn. Compile. Yes, I'm quite good at that. I've got all the material for a survey book. Nothing original, just a collection of a thousand one-liners, pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I'm all spent here. The rag-and-bone shop of the heart empty, the terrible charity shop of your mind, full of clutter and jumbled up hand-me-downs. The homelessness in your bones, the doubt in your voice, the low-key intelligence, the high octave of stupidity, the oriental drowsiness of your eyes, the sagging, droopy lower lip of a clown, the jangling nerves, the peasant fingers (I slipped that in for you, Roxana), the shuffling feet of failure, the thickly arching Persian eyebrows, the central European anxieties, the Punjabi sluttishness, the ears of a Buddha- without the spirituality, the swami's pessimism that manages to start every sentence with a 'No' and end it with a 'maybe,' jeans worn out in the inner thigh region (don't ask), a soul that is out of style, the wonderful aimlessness of the Dougal, the toothpaste stains on your t-shirts, Ubo's Jewish nose, unique in the world, the grand idleness of your Kashmiri ancestors, those frightfully frail wrists, little r's amazing ability to wind everyone up, her beautiful, beautiful pig-headedness...what a junk shop this is!
~~~
'The Last Place on Earth...the pull of these shops is the ghost that barely adheres, the bygone associations and value-even if very little-attached to these objects by their previous owners: the heirloom kept on a shelf, the dress worn twice and never again, the substance of thought in the pauses when the writer rested the quill on its rest before inking another sentence.'
---W12.
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