Sasha Wants More

sashawantsmore: In Simon Mawer’s The Glass Room, Liesel Landauer, disquieted by Viktor’s...

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:22:56 +0800

In Simon Mawer’s The Glass Room, Liesel Landauer, disquieted by Viktor’s infidelity—and especially, I think, by her own reaction to the revelation—no one but Kata, the “other” woman, can comfort her. This is not the place to point out the irony of the situation—Mawer himself never focuses on it; perhaps the irony matters least. He just gives us an image: of Kata, so small and lithe and lush and curved, and so very young, holding her lover’s wife as the latter cried. Liesel, so tall and thin, her breasts too small, her legs far too ungainly. The smaller woman comforting the taller.

It was ridiculous really, Liesel thought. Height should give you some kind of defense, make you less vulnerable, make you able to control your life and your love and your destiny; but it doesn’t. A tall person in tears somehow seems, and feels ridiculous.

It’s true. How difficult it is too accept offered comfort from anyone who strained to reach past your shoulder. The effort to bend, to fold into yourself, to make yourself manageable, that you can be held.

Liesel’s plight will never not be relevant, no, Sash?

From Fair Play by Tove Jansson, translated by Thomas...

Sat, 15 Jun 2013 23:08:54 +0800

From Fair Play by Tove Jansson, translated by Thomas Teal.

“Mari,” said Jonna, “sometimes you’re really a little too obvious.”

“Do you think? But once in a while a person just needs to say what doesn’t need to be said. Don’t you think?”

And they went back to their reading.

From the ridiculously amazing introduction to Querida: An...

Thu, 13 Jun 2013 00:39:59 +0800

From the ridiculously amazing introduction to Querida: An Anthology, edited by Caroline S. Hau, Katrina Tuvera, and Isabelita O. Reyes:

A querida is defined by what she does, and with whom. Her name in Spanish means “beloved,” and tells us something about the passion she kindles, the affection she commands. Some names show her in action: live-in, for example, and patiki, which alludes to “a sexual act where the female mimics the bird (like kingfisher) that feeds on fish.” Other labels such as kalunya (from the root word alunya, “illicit caress”) and kaapid (from apid, “illicit sexual intercourse”) are less about her as a person and more about the bounds—legal, moral, and social—that she transgresses. “Kabit” dates back to the 1970s and originally refers to buses or jeepneys that plied the streets illegally alongside legitimate franchises. Having an affair is commonly described in folksy, dated language such as paglalaro ng apoy (playing with fire), pamamangka sa dalawang ilog (rowing in two rivers), pagsusunog ng uling (burning charcoal), pangangaliwa (literally, turning or moving left), pangkukulasisi (keeping a parakeet in a cage), and pangtsitsiks (tsiks may either derive from the Spanish chica, “girl,” or the American slang “chick”), a sure sign that the act and the stock characters in the family drama have been with us for as long as we can remember.

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From The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate.

Wed, 12 Jun 2013 17:50:00 +0800

From The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate.

Monica Ragazzini, Portrait of Frida K. (2009)

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 02:34:10 +0800

Monica Ragazzini, Portrait of Frida K. (2009)

Photo

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 02:31:46 +0800

Two books.

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 02:24:41 +0800

Two books.

It has been more difficult than usual to return to the world of...

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 17:23:03 +0800

It has been more difficult than usual to return to the world of the living this fine Monday. Tiny Beautiful Things has taken monopoly over all my brainhurts and black-hearthurts. [This, and Philip Pullman. Good lord, His Dark Materials is a relentless revelation. I can’t wait to calm down enough for the third book—then again, when that happens it’ll be over. Sigh of sighs.]

In his first field journal, John Muir listed his home address...

Wed, 29 May 2013 00:02:47 +0800

In his first field journal, John Muir listed his home address as “Earth, planet, Universe.”

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tacokisses: Louise Bourgeois.

Tue, 28 May 2013 23:54:28 +0800

tacokisses:

Louise Bourgeois.

inagumbubble: 19th century map of the moon.

Tue, 28 May 2013 15:03:34 +0800

inagumbubble:

19th century map of the moon.

Photo

Tue, 28 May 2013 00:51:58 +0800

artistandstudio: Lucian Freud.

Mon, 27 May 2013 23:49:06 +0800

artistandstudio:

Lucian Freud.

vitazur: Norman Rockwell - The Saturday Evening Post.

Mon, 27 May 2013 23:46:29 +0800

vitazur:

Norman Rockwell - The Saturday Evening Post.

"Then, without warning, we both straightened up, turned towards each other, and began to kiss. After..."

Mon, 27 May 2013 19:04:57 +0800

“Then, without warning, we both straightened up, turned towards each other, and began to kiss. After that, it is difficult for me to speak of what happened. Such things have little to do with words, so little, in fact, that it seems almost pointless to try to express them. If anything, I would say we were falling into each other, that we were falling so fast and so far that nothing could catch us. Again, I lapse into metaphor. But that is probably beside the point. For whether or not I can talk about it does not change the truth of what happened. The fact is, there never was such a kiss, and in all my life I doubt there can ever be such a kiss again.”

- From The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster.

Reading hurts my brain parts. How do you do it so diligently?

Mon, 27 May 2013 15:22:20 +0800

Because the hurt in my heart parts makes it worthwhile.

View from the Artist’s Bedroom (c.1930), by Percy...

Mon, 27 May 2013 02:12:16 +0800

View from the Artist’s Bedroom (c.1930), by Percy Shakespeare.

A detail from which was used as the jacket image for Dear Life by Alice Munro.

I didn't mean to insult; I am just genuinely curious.

Mon, 27 May 2013 01:27:23 +0800

I wasn’t insulted. I just really had to pause.

(So this is what it feels like, having a conversation with the ether. [Not that I haven’t been doing pretty much just that for the past coupla years.])

Is it all you do: work and read books?

Mon, 27 May 2013 01:08:00 +0800

Good morning, then. You must know that I had to pause for a bit, Anon, trying to figure out if this stung. (Do I know you?)

That is: Work leaves me no choice, and reading—damn, but reading is reading. Ang ibig kong sabihin: This insomniac takes a lot of just-for-five-minutes-I-promise naps, too.

From “To Reach Japan,” by Alice Munro: During the...

Mon, 27 May 2013 00:40:00 +0800

From “To Reach Japan,” by Alice Munro:

During the coming fall and winter and spring there was hardly a day when she didn’t think of him. It was like having the very same dream the minute you fell asleep. She would lean her head against the back pillow of the sofa, thinking that she lay in his arms. You would not think that she’d remember his face but it would spring up in detail, the face of a creased and rather tired-looking, satirical, indoor sort of man. Nor was his body lacking, it was presented as reasonably worn but competent, and uniquely desirable. […] The dream was in fact a lot like the Vancouver weather—a dismal sort of longing, a rainy dreamy sadness, a weight that shifted round the heart.

Oh, dear life. Have reunited with Alice Munro—after months and months and months of pointedly avoiding this beautiful [and expensive] hardcover, telling myself over and over that I could wait, I could, I could. But here I am, alone once again in the Fortress, and reading Madame Munro’s short stories. (And I admit that I am finding comfort in the heft of this book, it’s very tactility: The crude brush of the deckle-edge against my fingers, the rasp of the paper, its slightly sick-sweet smell; the weight.)

I’ve only read five of the stories thus far, but it was almost distressingly easy to slip into Munro’s telling. There’s always this grace with her stories, borne (I’m whimsical enough to think) of how her characters will themselves to remain still under duress. So: The illusion of grace, then—but the illusion is more than enough. In the face of some keen shame, an unforeseen mortification, a half-expected disappointment.

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