“What a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.” — Socrates, according to Xenophon.
Post workout recovery meal: haddock, chips, steak & curry pie, pickled onions, mushy peas and a pint of Guinness. (Taken with instagram)
Absolutely delightful collection from laphamsquarterly.
A tiger at large on the streets of Paris.
CARVED IN MARBLE.
(In celebration of the unseasonably pleasant weather in NYC.)
This is the theme song for my jazz combo, The Epistrophy Swing Orchestra. We’ll play a short set seven o’clock Sunday night at Café Epistrophy (200 Mott Street, NY, NY).
Come introduce yourself. I’ll be the devilishly handsome one with the guitar.
This photo more or less perfectly sums up my childhood.
The beginning was so long ago, so far away, and so awful that I’ll leave it out of the story altogether. The middle would take too long to tell, and besides that it’s too complicated for me to get it right. The end is where we’ll begin.
Twelve years rotting in Chateau D’If. Four years staggering through the deserts of North Africa. Two musket balls I had to dig out of my own flesh, and more knife scars than I can count.
Gypsy roving, marauding, spending my days as a balladeer, a duelist, a boxer, and every other trade that kept my feet on the road and didn’t ask me to be another man’s property.
Finally, here and now, at the end of it all, I’ve found the X that marks the spot on this treasure map. On my hands and knees, throwing aside a lifetime’s dignity, I dig.
I dig first with a shovel until the hole is too deep, then with my knife until it breaks against a stone, then with my hands — would use my teeth if need be — to get to the locked box beneath the soil, pry apart its wooden lid and lift from it the promise that kept me alive for all these years: your shining golden heart.
IMAGE: Peasant Digging, Van Gogh, 1885.
“I suppose it started when I was a child. My parents left me in a restaurant.”
“For how long?”
“Forever. They said I should wait, that they were going to pull the car around. It was the last I ever saw of them. Plus they didn’t pay, so I had to wash dishes all night, then off to grandmother’s house. More wine?”
“Yes, please. Now, surely, things must have looked up after that?”
“Not at all. My grandmother sent me away on a student exchange program. When I got back from Germany there was a different family living in her house. No forwarding address, of course.”
“Oh, God. That’s awful.”
“I know. Really, I’m just telling you this as a sort of explanation. I want you to understand that it’s only because I love you.”
“Underst—”
Herman’s face fell flat into the spaghetti alla bolognese in front of him, his body limp. Percy carried him upstairs, soaked the flesh off his bones in a tub of lye, assembled his skeleton with the utmost care, then carefully lifted him by his dear sweet pelvis into the case where he kept all his lovers, secure in the knowledge that none would leave.
