'But where is he really?
His real self?In those last looks..
Or in his blind steps?'
-- J. Wagner.
I am up in the middle of the night, having earlier slept for hours in the dark room, the blessedly silent dark room that catches no light. I decide to close my eyes and focus on some act of petty vengeance. I decide-and there are so many options- on showing up the Vice-Chancellor with a marvelously wicked quick-witted riposte. And then replay the scene a few times in my mind, turning over the specific details again and again until I am satisfied.
I know that I will sleep through the day again, feint a welcome to my colleagues, smile at least twice in the morning and do nothing to alter the general impression of a man who stumbles through life without much direction or purpose.
At the V &A you once saw a worn-out tapestry from the 15th (?) century, its outlines barely visible, depicting a story that had once meant something to a local notable in southern France, or Burgundy. The beautiful tapestry was kept in a large, dimly lit hall, cold and empty. The need to preserve the image in case, by chance, someone should glance at it and ask themselves who they really were.
A colleague wears a watch to count his steps, his goal being to walk 10,000 by the end of the day. For myself, I walk blindly since only the shadows mean anything in this stunning light. I sleep, but do not sleep. Vitamin D is not the solution to weak nerves!
_ visits a whorehouse in the middle of the city. At midday, too. The young woman wears a pencil-like pin in her hair and has a wheatish complexion. She's studied English literature. "Perhaps you could ask her to help you write one of your essays," I quip and then feel terrible for being so frivolous. How does anyone so educated end up in her position? She says to him, "I will add you to my contacts". She has an expensive phone and is in many ways better off than him. I'm not lending him any money, that's for sure. "When you are ready for an "experience, call me," she says. There's over a month to Ramadan. I can't see him holding out.
In the early hours of the morning I decide to put an end to the night's drifting and read a few pages of Feyerabend's book on Abundance, having to squint my eyes to read the small print. As the darkness clears and gives way to a softer kind of light I think that today, maybe, I'll spend fifteen minutes of the whole day actually reading anything to do with my job. The rest will be spent looking for notes, procrastinating (whence this post) and either sifting through old books to pick out some choice sentences or trawling through the net to pick out a random line:
Koi, as they clot,
as they weave into the tapestry of blackness
their golden threads, their orbits more
difficult to predict than comets...
His real self?In those last looks..
Or in his blind steps?'
-- J. Wagner.
I am up in the middle of the night, having earlier slept for hours in the dark room, the blessedly silent dark room that catches no light. I decide to close my eyes and focus on some act of petty vengeance. I decide-and there are so many options- on showing up the Vice-Chancellor with a marvelously wicked quick-witted riposte. And then replay the scene a few times in my mind, turning over the specific details again and again until I am satisfied.
I know that I will sleep through the day again, feint a welcome to my colleagues, smile at least twice in the morning and do nothing to alter the general impression of a man who stumbles through life without much direction or purpose.
At the V &A you once saw a worn-out tapestry from the 15th (?) century, its outlines barely visible, depicting a story that had once meant something to a local notable in southern France, or Burgundy. The beautiful tapestry was kept in a large, dimly lit hall, cold and empty. The need to preserve the image in case, by chance, someone should glance at it and ask themselves who they really were.
A colleague wears a watch to count his steps, his goal being to walk 10,000 by the end of the day. For myself, I walk blindly since only the shadows mean anything in this stunning light. I sleep, but do not sleep. Vitamin D is not the solution to weak nerves!
_ visits a whorehouse in the middle of the city. At midday, too. The young woman wears a pencil-like pin in her hair and has a wheatish complexion. She's studied English literature. "Perhaps you could ask her to help you write one of your essays," I quip and then feel terrible for being so frivolous. How does anyone so educated end up in her position? She says to him, "I will add you to my contacts". She has an expensive phone and is in many ways better off than him. I'm not lending him any money, that's for sure. "When you are ready for an "experience, call me," she says. There's over a month to Ramadan. I can't see him holding out.
In the early hours of the morning I decide to put an end to the night's drifting and read a few pages of Feyerabend's book on Abundance, having to squint my eyes to read the small print. As the darkness clears and gives way to a softer kind of light I think that today, maybe, I'll spend fifteen minutes of the whole day actually reading anything to do with my job. The rest will be spent looking for notes, procrastinating (whence this post) and either sifting through old books to pick out some choice sentences or trawling through the net to pick out a random line:
Koi, as they clot,
as they weave into the tapestry of blackness
their golden threads, their orbits more
difficult to predict than comets...
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