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October 15, 2004

autumn in peking

So, I just made plans : a lovely weekend of rain and books, a cat to be pet, things to be dipped in cheese and swallowed until a state of grace is obtained! The colder it gets, the more self-indulgent I become. Wait, this is all a lie - I spent last weekend in the delicious, sweltering heat of south padre texas, and indulged quite a lot too. I saw my first opossum, whose courage now inspires my every acts, also my first crazy dragonflies, and stars that shone twice as bright as streetlights. It’s not like my city is covered under thick blankets of smog, or that I live in Paris Ville-Lumière, but the fact is that stars in the Montreal nightsky are very much washed-out and indistinct. I read that it has to do with the low cost of electricity around here, and angry astronomers will point out that stuff like outside parking lots are 5 times more brightly lited than any other place. This can explain how watching the dark Texas sky has lifted my spirits so well, also Lone Star beer, and all the SNF stars.

Let me just tell you one word about the Rimbaud biography by Graham Robb, which I devoured the same way one would a box of Domino’s breadsticks. Like Calvin returning to Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie, I always go back to my favourite lurid fairytale — the childpoet who spat on everything! and set his loved ones on fire! — which operate a lazy, slightly hypnotic beatitude on myself, the unequalled comfort of tired old beloved stories. Anyway, Robb’s biography may very well be the worst I have ever read, close in squalor to Enid Starkie’s, all bathed in slimy worned out myths, and for some stupid reason, like Baldur’s Gate paperback fiction, it makes me happy.

Posted by nathalie at October 15, 2004 4:08 PM