Meet me in Saint Louis

She seats beside me.

Just a couple of feet away.

Eating her bagel and sipping

Absently from her large coke

While some crumbs lie around the table.

Her eyes pierce the page

Of the paperback book she reads.

Her shoulders so bent that her pony tail

Curves over the little bump

That rises between her shoulders.

A few minutes before

she was talking to a partner from work.

With fearing pride she showed the glitter

Resting on her left hand:

Big, and golden, and shinny

With a small green stone in the middle.

Is that your engagement ring? Congratulations!

And something else I couldn’t hear

And nothing more. Warm words

So coldly said. Not friends, I figure.

Not very good ones, at least.

And she keeps reading besides me

And I don’t know why I feel sad.

I don’t know why, she, eating

there with her engagement ring

her half full large coke

and her absent mind

make me pity her.

Who gave me the right to believe

my life is any better than hers?

Who made me think I’m closer

To happiness and blessedness

And the sun?

Saint Louis, Missouri

4 November 2009

It is easier to say “In my opinion it is a not unjustifiable assumption” than to say “I think”

What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way about. In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is to surrender to them. When you think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualizing, you probably hunt about till you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one's meaning clear as one can through pictures or sensations. Afterwards one can choose – not simply "accept" – the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impression one's words are likely to make on another person. This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally.

George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" (1945). All Art is Propaganda: critical Essays. Ed. George Packer. Orlando: Harcourt, 2008. 284.

I think important to notice here the resemblance of these ideas on words, thought and social (political) effectiveness with Walter Benjamin's writings on criticism; above all, those that appear in Einbahnstrasse. There are historical factors that make this resemblance significative: political views, literary influences on perception, wars, etc.

The meaning of the question

As every child does at least once, the kid will go to their parents and ask them bluntly: “Is it true this is all there is for me in this world?”

Clearly bewildered by the question his parents will stare uncomfortably at each other trying to make the other answer. Finally, one of them will say:

“No, of course not. There are many things waiting for you outside. The world is big and full of surprises. The thing is you’re still too young to know them”.

“Yeah, imagine…” the other will continue, “there are hundreds of countries, cities, lots and lots of people. You will go to school, college, you’ll marry, have kids... As you see, there are much more things for you out there than you can possibly imagine.”

And the kid will nod, turn around, and leave with the dreadful certainty his parents have long ago forgotten the meaning of the question.

February 15th, 2009

Saint Louis, Missouri.