After hours, the city looks largely uniform in its
Flemishness, represented by buildings both old and new. On that overcast afternoon, for a glorious couple of hours, Antwerp
did become the city of my imagination. As I spied the old men sipping Sagres in Espigueiro, a corner bar in the heart of the Portuguese barrio in
Sint-Jansplein, the sun peeked out and the city-within-a-city project of
the immigrant didn't seem so misguided anymore. I might have been in
Lisbon. Like all great
cities of the world, there are more beginnings than ends here.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Monday, January 14, 2013
Why I Read - IV
"When a man rides a long time he feels the desire for a city. Finally, he comes to Isidora, a city where the buildings have spiral staircases encrusted with spiral seashells, where perfect telescopes and violins are made, where the foreigner hesitating between two women always encounters a third, where cockfights degenerate into bloody brawls among the bettors. He was thinking of all these things when he desired a city. Isidora, therefore, is the city of his dreams: with one difference. The dreamed-of city contained him as a young man; he arrives at Isidora in his old age. In the square there is the wall where the old men sit and watch the young go by; he is seated in a row with them. Desires are already memories."
- Italo Calvino (trans. William Weaver), Invisible Cities, at 7.
Why I Read - III
"To be treated with the respect you aren't due is the dream of every talentless sportsman."
- Marcus Berkmann, Rain Men, at 85.
- Marcus Berkmann, Rain Men, at 85.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Chasing Little Prizes - Since 2009
Another final played today. Another evening spent staring at my computer screen and alternatively, the ceiling, not really noticing them. A rather perceptive person put it beautifully today - our private faces know no restraint. Our public faces, no liberties. 4 years now. Still only 15 games played. Still only 17 goals scored. Still no final. Still no title. Want to know how to do it? Dig yourself a basketball-court sized hole, jump-in (don't spend a moment pondering talent/ability - just dream, dream, dream), gift yourself a tear of the medial meniscus, and don't climb out. Simple.
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