Encontré este cuento en la cafetería de la Ruhr Universität de Bochum, Alemania. Forma parte del libro “Me Talk Pretty One Day” de David Sedaris.
It was Easter Sunday in Chicago, and my sister Amy and I were attending an afternoon dinner at the home of our friend John. The weather was nice, and he’d set up a table in the backyard so that we might sit in the sun. Everyone had taken their places, when I excused myself to visit the bathroom, and there, in the toilet, was the absolute biggest turd I have ever seen in my life – no toilet paper or anything, just this long and coiled specimen, as thick as a burrito.
Yo escribí: «en la oscura caverna de nuestro nacimiento».
El impresor puso «taberna», lo que parecía mejor:
Pero en eso reside el motivo de nuestra risa,
Dado que en la página siguiente «muerte» aparece como «suerte».
También puede ser que la palabra de Dios sea «distracción»
Y en nuestra extraña tipografía aparezca «destrucción»,
Lo que es cruel.
I wrote: in the dark cavern of our birth.
The printer had it tavern, which seems better:
But herein lies the subject of our mirth,
Since on the next page death appears and dearth.
So it may be that God’s word was distraction,
Which to our strange type appears destruction,
Which is bitter.
(‘Strange Type’, from Selected Poems of Malcolm Lowry, 1962)
Margaret MacMillan passes along a story originally told by the writer Susan Jacoby. She was in a New York bar on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001, and eavesdropped on a conversation between two “bewildered” men.
First man: “This is just like Pearl Harbor.”
Second man: “What is Pearl Harbor?”
First man: “That was when the Vietnamese dropped bombs in a harbor, and it started the Vietnam War.”
Leído en Washington Post, Sunday 12th July. [Link]
WHEN the flush of a newborn sun fell first on Eden’s green and gold,
Our father Adam sat under the Tree and scratched with a stick in the mold;
And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart,
Till the Devil whispered behind the leaves: “It’s pretty, but is it Art?
Failure’s hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you’re successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever.
Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.
They had me in the counselor’s office in one of the back rooms of the second floor.
“Let me see how you look, Chinaski.”
He looked at me.
“Ow! You look bad. I better take a pill.”
Sure enough, he opened a bottle and took one.
“All right, Mr. Chinaski, we’d like to know where you’ve been the last two days?”
“Mourning.”
“Mourning? Mourning about what?”
“Funeral . Old friend. One day to pack in the stiff. One day to mourn.”
“But you didn’t phone in, Mr. Chinaski.”
“Yeh.”
“And I want to tell you something, Chinaski, off the record.”
“All right.”
“When you don’t phone in, you know what you are saying?”
“No.”
“Mr. Chinaski, you are saying. ‘Fuck the post office!’ “
“I am?”
“And, Mr. Chinaski, you know what that means?”
“No, what does it mean?”
“That means, Mr. Chinaski, that the post office is going to fuck you!”
Then he leaned back and looked at me.
“Mr. Feathers,” I told him, “you can go to hell.”
Well she was an american girl
Raised on promises
She couldn’t help thinkin’ that there
Was a little more to life
Somewhere else
After all it was a great big world
With lots of places to run to
Yeah, and if she had to die
Tryin’ she had one little promise
She was gonna keep
Oh yeah, all right
Take it easy baby
Make it last all night
She was an american girl
It was kind of cold that night
She stood alone on her balcony
She could the cars roll by
Out on 441
Like waves crashin’ in the beach
And for one desperate moment there
He crept back in her memory
God it’s so painful
Something thats so close
And still so far out of reach
Oh yeah, all right
Take it easy baby
Make it last all night
She was an american girl
When they let me go, the interrogator apologized but reminded me that in the interests of the Reich it was better to punish ninety-nine just men by mistake than to let a single guilty person slip through their fingers.
Leído en I Served the King of England, de Bohumil Hrabal
June twenty-ninth. I gotta get in shape. Too much sitting has ruined my body. Too much abuse has gone on for too long. From now on there will be 50 pushups each morning, 50 pullups. There will be no more pills, no more bad food, no more destroyers of my body. From now on will be total organization. Every muscle must be tight.
