Alex Kudera's Blog, page 94
April 24, 2018
Extinction by Thomas Bernhard, II
"Unlike my brother, I had no respect for authority. Very early on, Uncle Georg had told me the truth about teachers: that they were moral cowards who took out on their pupils all the frustrations they could not take out on their wives. When I was very young Uncle Georg impressed upon me that among the educated classes teachers were the basest and most dangerous people, on a par with judges, who were the lowest form of human life. Teachers and judges, he said, are the meanest slaves of the state--remember that. He was right, as I have discovered not just hundreds but thousands of times. No teacher and no judge can be trusted as far as you can throw him. Without scruple or compunction they daily destroy many of the existences that are thrown upon their mercy, being motivated by base caprice and a desire to avenge themselves for their miserable, twisted lives--and they are actually paid for doing so. The supposed objectivity of teachers and judges is a piece of shabby mendacity, Uncle Georg said--and he was right. Talking to a teacher we soon discover that he is a destructive individual with whom no one and nothing is safe, and the same is true when we talk to a judge."
~~ from Extinction by Thomas Bernhard
~~ from Extinction by Thomas Bernhard
April 22, 2018
Extinction by Thomas Bernhard
"I have often observed that people who throughout their lives have been judged repulsive and distasteful are spoken of after their death as though they had never been repulsive and distasteful. This has always struck me as tasteless and embarrassing. When someone dies, his death does not make him a different person, a better character: it does not make him a genius if he was an idiot, or a saint if he was a monster. . . After the death of somebody who throughout his life was a dreadful person, a thoroughly low character, how can I suddenly maintain that he was not a dreadful person, not a low character, but a good person? We daily witness such tastelessness when someone has died."
~~ from Extinction by Thomas Bernhard
~~ from Extinction by Thomas Bernhard
April 15, 2018
March 20, 2018
March 14, 2018
Shakespeare & Co. for Philly. . .
From what I can glean, the Shakespeare & Co. super-bookstore opening near Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia is related to ones in Manhattan but unrelated to the original in Paris, France or the two locations of Shakespeare and Sons in Prague, Czech Republic.
March 12, 2018
March 11, 2018
January 17, 2018
Haitians and Africans in West Philadelphia
In West Philly, there may still be a Korean church at 48th and Pine although from growing up in the seventies, I remember when "the Korean family" who lived around the corner moved away. The two boys played two-hand touch football and other street sports with us, and then they left. It was around when Southeast Asians were moving in by the dozens and then hundreds--Vietnamese, Laotians, Cambodians, and as kids, we'd enjoy playing basketball with these boys behind an apartment building where they had built a basket with a orange milk crate nailed to a large square wooden board.
Also, around that time or soon after, Haitian immigrants began to arrive. These latter immigrants included a couple who lived in my father's third-floor walk-through apartment for a while. The Haitian husband had been on the radio speaking against his country's leadership, and although my father was not a political man, he enjoyed the opportunity to help this couple. Because they would walk through the first two floors to get to their third-floor quarters, I'd see them regularly whenever we stayed with my dad.
Africans came later, and it seemed like at first Ethiopians were most visible although over the ensuing decades Africans from many other countries have recreated the Baltimore Avenue corridor,--at least, from 45th to 49th Street--that I was raised a block away from. Many settled further west, maybe in or near Eastwick where many of their children attended public schools and did quite well. Today if you walk down Baltimore Avenue, you can't miss Dahlak and Gojjo, but there is a West African restaurant, and others I believe.
Reading Dinaw Mengestu's first novel reminded me of how I'd imagine the lives of some of the African guys, no few of them cab drivers with graduate degrees from other countries which hadn't proved useful in America. The book has a rich sadness that many immigrant lives are never fully divorced from. Yet people continue to arrive and seek employment, education, or other means to come to America. From Irish to Jewish to Vietnamese to Haitian to Ethiopian and more, West Philly has benefited from immigration policies that have let people in from all over the world.
I last saw the Haitian husband in Sam's Place, a beautiful old movie theater that had a huge main screen, chandeliers, and a full lobby for men's and women's conveniences on a carpeted lower level. I was in my late teens or early twenties, and it was long after he had lived on my father's third floor, although Philadelphia is that kind of town, a place where the past can quickly return to the present. A "small town" is how many express it. Anyway, I recognized him right away. He was with another adult we knew, and it was a warm, if brief, visitation from my childhood at 44th and Pine, the part spent at my dad's house in the 1970s. And then, as Roberto Bolano would say, I never saw him again.
The current administration appears intent on reviving an America that the president knew or imagined from years ago. It's an America markedly different from the one I knew spending my first couple decades off Baltimore Avenue in University City. It's worth noting that there were always many other versions of America over our several centuries. Melville notes that twenty languages were spoken in the New York City he knew around when Moby Dick (and The Communist Manifesto) were published. Today it could be closer to two hundred, but I doubt we'd be a stronger nation if it were possible to hear only one.
Also, around that time or soon after, Haitian immigrants began to arrive. These latter immigrants included a couple who lived in my father's third-floor walk-through apartment for a while. The Haitian husband had been on the radio speaking against his country's leadership, and although my father was not a political man, he enjoyed the opportunity to help this couple. Because they would walk through the first two floors to get to their third-floor quarters, I'd see them regularly whenever we stayed with my dad.
Africans came later, and it seemed like at first Ethiopians were most visible although over the ensuing decades Africans from many other countries have recreated the Baltimore Avenue corridor,--at least, from 45th to 49th Street--that I was raised a block away from. Many settled further west, maybe in or near Eastwick where many of their children attended public schools and did quite well. Today if you walk down Baltimore Avenue, you can't miss Dahlak and Gojjo, but there is a West African restaurant, and others I believe.
Reading Dinaw Mengestu's first novel reminded me of how I'd imagine the lives of some of the African guys, no few of them cab drivers with graduate degrees from other countries which hadn't proved useful in America. The book has a rich sadness that many immigrant lives are never fully divorced from. Yet people continue to arrive and seek employment, education, or other means to come to America. From Irish to Jewish to Vietnamese to Haitian to Ethiopian and more, West Philly has benefited from immigration policies that have let people in from all over the world.
I last saw the Haitian husband in Sam's Place, a beautiful old movie theater that had a huge main screen, chandeliers, and a full lobby for men's and women's conveniences on a carpeted lower level. I was in my late teens or early twenties, and it was long after he had lived on my father's third floor, although Philadelphia is that kind of town, a place where the past can quickly return to the present. A "small town" is how many express it. Anyway, I recognized him right away. He was with another adult we knew, and it was a warm, if brief, visitation from my childhood at 44th and Pine, the part spent at my dad's house in the 1970s. And then, as Roberto Bolano would say, I never saw him again.
The current administration appears intent on reviving an America that the president knew or imagined from years ago. It's an America markedly different from the one I knew spending my first couple decades off Baltimore Avenue in University City. It's worth noting that there were always many other versions of America over our several centuries. Melville notes that twenty languages were spoken in the New York City he knew around when Moby Dick (and The Communist Manifesto) were published. Today it could be closer to two hundred, but I doubt we'd be a stronger nation if it were possible to hear only one.
