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Letter to my lost friend

Dear Robert, It’s been a good long while, old friend! I’m writing to you now, curled up on the windowsill of my small bedroom off Lexington Avenue in New York City, while hoping to catch a glimpse of midnight snow. I don’t remember exactly how our correspondence last dropped off—most probably I fell into some deep dark well—and then life moved on. I do think of you more often than you’d expected me to, over the years. When I was struggling, I wished you had found peace; and as I was learning about myself and reconciling with the world, I had hoped you were on a similar path.  I have so many curiosities about you: Are you still writing? Have you gotten the family for which you so craved? Did you end up learning Mandarin?  But wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, I’m comforted by my belief that you are as brilliant, compassionate, and authentic as you were when we got to know each other (virtually as children!) 10 years ago. How I’d love to catch up with you! My life has taken many u

8:48 PM

1.      Can’t propel myself to write today. 2.      Stopped by Manuel’s office to fix the form. 3.      Still raining. 4.      Read more on Charles Brockden Brown tomorrow.

Djuna

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The hypnotic prose of Nightwood produces certain hallucinations via a profusion of personas and locations, encrypted codes perceived in a vain strive for the forward momentum of plot. It seems exhaustive and carnivalesque, like Ulysses . Like Ulysses , it is constantly bounding and unraveling onto itself in an ecstatic fusion; yet, unlike Ulysses , it’s stubborn loquacity doesn’t irritate me. I’ll keep mining through the text for charming hendiadys and possibly escaped meanings. P.S., should not even compare with Ulysses . I am as of this moment putting Joyce away and leaving only Barnes and the lean arabesque form of a woman on the table.

A Long Walk

  獨自在台北街頭行走,試著聽音樂調節自己的心情,卻不斷被來自從前的思緒纏上。南門市場、永康街、大安公園。星巴克、茉莉書店、人行空橋。熟稔的巷口、吵過架的地方、夜半駐足的馬路。這個城市把我包得如此緊,我幾乎無法脫逃。記憶的浪潮強勁,與冷風一起充鼓我的腦海。 這些細碎真實的記憶,等我離開這裡之後,應該就會消散了吧。我愛的人和那些不愛我的人,很快也不會再迴盪。時間越來越稀薄,吸飽了幾乎要滿溢流出的現實。長長的風和慢慢的樹,煙火般的高樓與半頹的牆。我的台北快要結束了。我也只能繼續行走。

Work

 I spent most of the day filling out a form, over and over again, in Manuel’s office. A form. A single form. What a wonder of precision and obstinacy! We would take turns tackling the keys, hawkeyed and embattled, chip chip chipping away at the august undertaking with a severity never afforded Sisyphus.   —Did it work in the end? —No, there were a couple of problems.   We’ll keep trying on Monday.

Some vague success

  今天一口氣看了整個下午的書,起身時頭暈目眩,意識語言突然變成中文。 也許是天氣轉涼了,最近比較深居簡出,畏光且厭食,成天在等待著甚麼事情發生。答應自己每天要早起、行走、寫字。似乎又回到了十年前的此時:初乍入世,不知道如何自處,只好依偎著文字。 而現代主義和陰性書寫推拒冰涼的現實,這樣保持著若即若離的關係──彷彿有意義又彷彿沒有──挨著秒針一步一步走到暮色泛起。又一天過去。一些微弱的勝利。

1:55 PM

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My writing has changed over the past few years. It used to be sensuous, wistful, and almost somnambulatory. Now it’s fragmentary, shot, and shorted. I suppose it’s my mind that’s changed. It’s decayed—collapsed into a splatter of spasmodic cells, sporadically firing at the light of the tangible world. Words awake, from time to time, peeking above the dark foamy sea of consciousness, and dissolve soon afterward. No relations make themselves known.