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the coffeemaker in his hotel room is a hungry little mollusk, snapping open its jaws to devour pods
Here is a shop that sells only zippers. Here are twenty of them. The Zipper District. What a glorious city.
A man he almost stayed with, almost loved, and now he does not even recognize him on the street. Either Less is an asshole, or the heart is a capricious thing. It is not impossible both are true.
crazy quilt of a writer’s life: warm enough, though it never quite covers the toes.
Back in his room, he is surprised to find, in the Lilliputian bathroom, a Brobdingnagian tub.
He wonders when their conversations had begun to sound like a novel in translation.
Less finds himself searching for an appropriate prayer. He was, however, raised Unitarian; he has only Joan Baez to turn to,
Strange, though; because he is afraid of everything, nothing is harder than anything else. Taking a trip around the world is no more terrifying than buying a stick of gum. The daily dose of courage.
“There follows, I am sad to say, a very long ride on a very slow road…to your final place of rest.” He sighs, for he has spoken the truth for all men. Less understands: he has been assigned a poet.
Mescal turns out to be a drink that tastes as if someone has put their cigarette out in it. You
What was it like to live with genius? Like living alone. Like living alone with a tiger.
Something happened in that room, despite everything; something beautiful happened. It was the only place in the world where time made things better.
Robert would say, The work will fix you. The work, the habit, the words, will fix you. Nothing else can be depended on,
But what if you are not a genius? What will the work do then?
chooses the Tuscan chicken (whose ravishing name reveals itself, like an internet lover, to be mere chicken and mashed potatoes),
she was all bones and sharp edges, a too-tall, unpretty woman who celebrated her flaws with confidence and grace, so they became, to Less, beautiful.
supertranslated, his novel given to an unacknowledged genius of a poet (Giuliana Monti is her name) who worked his mediocre English into breathtaking Italian.
minusculitude
The spotlight comes on; Less blinks (painful scattering of retinal moths).
The Russian novelist pulls his lush eyebrows together like the parts of a modular sofa.
He understands that he has fallen under the spell of a shopkeeper, as has many an American before him; he has spent a small fortune to dress as Parisians might rather than as they do.
wish I were single.” Less smiles bitterly at the subjunctive
“We’re too old to think we’ll meet again,” Less says.
“Prayer is better than sleep,”
Zohra’s voice comes loudly from her camel: “Shut the fuck up! Enjoy the fucking sunset on your fucking camels! Jesus!”
We know there’s no love of your life. Love isn’t terrifying like that. It’s walking the fucking dog so the other one can sleep in, it’s doing taxes, it’s cleaning the bathroom without hard feelings. It’s having an ally in life. It’s not fire, it’s not lightning. It’s what she always had with me. Isn’t it? But what if she’s right, Arthur? What if the Sicilians are right? That it’s this earth-shattering thing she felt? Something I’ve never felt. Have you?”
Boredom is essential for writers; it is the only time they get to write.
With a joy bordering on sadism, he degloves every humiliation to show its risible lining. What sport! If only one could do this with life!
Looking-Glass driving. Like laying type for a letterpress; you just reverse your mind.
the GPS, after giving crisp, stern directions to the highway, becomes drunk on its own power outside the city limits, then gives
there are always a few drops left in the bottle of indignity—
