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By pigwhisperer, February 14, 2010

For Valentine’s Day, some excerpts of letters between Franz Kafka and his fiancé, Felice Bauer. They had a five-year relationship carried out mostly through letters, and were engaged twice.

Hoje é Dia dos Namorados nos EUA. Para comemorar, trechos da correspondência de Franz Kafka com Felice Bauer. Eles eram noivos para 5 anos e, durante seu noivado, tiveram uma correspondência de mais de 700 páginas. (Só achei trechos das cartas em inglês, infelizmente.)

In 1912, Kafka wrote to Bauer about how she had become inseparable from his work, and also how anticipation of her writing kept him awake at night. He wrote:

“Lately I have found to my amazement how intimately you have now become associated with my writing, although until recently I believe that the only time I did not think about you at all was while I was writing. In one short paragraph I had written, there were, among others, the following references to you and your letters: someone was give a bar of chocolate. There was talk of small diversions someone had during working hours. Then there was a telephone call. And finally somebody urged someone to go to bed, and threatened to take him straight to his room if he did not obey, which was certainly prompted by the recollection of your mother’s annoyance when you stayed so late at the office. — Such passages are especially dear to me; in them I take hold of you, without your feeling it, and therefore without your having to resist.

Eleven days later, Kafka wrote to her:
“Fraulein Felice!
I am now going to ask you a favour which sounds quite crazy, and which I should regard as such, were I the one to receive the letter. It is also the very greatest test that even the kindest person could be put to. Well this is it: Write to me only once a week, so that your letter arrives on Sunday — for I cannot endure your daily letters, I am incapable of enduring them.
For instance, I answer one of your letters, then lie in bed in apparent calm, but my heart beats through my entire body and is conscious only of you. I belong to you; there is really no other way of expressing it, and that is not strong enough. But for this very reason I don’t want to know what you are wearing; it confuses me so much that I cannot deal with life; and that’s why I don’t want to know that you are fond of me. If I did, how could I, fool that I am, go on sitting in my office, or here at home, instead of leaping onto a train with my eyes shut and opening them only when I am with you?”

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By pigwhisperer, December 9, 2009

Dear friends,

Something troubling has been brought to my attention. I’ve decided to include it in the blog so that all of those quietly suffering from the same affliction can find camaraderie and seek help.

There’s someone on the farm, someone very close to me, with a serious dilemma. I’m keeping her identity secret in order to preserve her dignity. Let’s call her “Long Zipper.” Long Zipper used to consider herself fashionable. She used to take a certain amount of pride in her appearance. But who needs fashion on a farm? When you are covered in mud, dog slobber, pig slobber, goat slobber, and every other kind of slobber, who really notices a cute pair of leggings? And you certainly can’t hike in ballet flats. (At least not every day.) So, over time, you (Long Zipper) begin to lower your standards of what is an acceptable way of dressing yourself. A shirt covered in blood stains is considered work wear. Pleated-front khakis two sizes too large that a random guest left in your house five years ago become your “comfortable” pants. Anything clean becomes your “going-out outfit.” It’s a slippery slope.

We’ve come to the crux of our problem: pants. (See Exhibit A below.)

Many of Long Zipper’s jeans button at chest height. One pair (Exhibit A) is peg-legged, and has the words “Pepe, London” embroidered on their back pocket. Who is Pepe? Why did he have his jeans embroidered in the UK? Where did Long Zipper acquire Pepe’s pants? It was a long and sordid road though the 1990’s. We’ll leave it at that.

Please send words of encouragement to Long Zipper, who is reluctant to let go of her pants. Please tell her to burn them, to liberate her belly button. With your help, we will find a solution.

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By pigwhisperer, November 2, 2009

Today is Finados. It is a day to remember all those who came before us, to light a candle for them, and to commemorate their lives.

Ancestors

by Harvey Ellis

my ancestors surround me
like walls of a canyon
quiet
stone hard
their ideas drift over me
like breezes at sunset

we gather sticks
and make settlements
what we do is only partly
our own
and partly continuation
down through the chromosomes

my son
my baby sleeps behind me
stirring in the night
for the touch
that lets him continue

he is arranging
in his small form the furniture
and windows of his home

it will be a lot like mine
it will be a lot like theirs

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By pigwhisperer, August 13, 2009

We lost a very dear friend today. Fernando Boiadeiro was a rancher and a savvy businessman. Everyday he brought home ice cream to his wife, Tuta. He told long, detailed, sometimes bawdy stories. He gave each of his cows a name. His laugh was a cross between a loud growl and a cough. If he deemed you a friend, he never let you down. In his presence, his friends felt protected. Safe. Loved.

For those of us lucky enough to have been his friends and loved ones, today is a shock. It’s a sad day, and we will miss him.

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

–Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

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By pigwhisperer, August 5, 2009

I recently traveled to New York to attend my dear friend’s wedding, take part in the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and to do a little book promotion. The paperback version of The Seamstress is officially in stores!

First, I was a invited to guest blog on the Reading Group Guides blog, which is a great organization of book clubs across the country. Check out my post.

Tomorrow, August 6th, I’ll be interviewed on the Book Club Girl radio show, part of the Authors on Air program. You can tune in through the internet by going to Blog Talk Radio at 2 PM EST tomorrow, and can download the interview at any point after that.

New York City is amazing, and a real change from farm life. It’s nice to spend time in such a fun, lively place. Tonight I had the pleasure of watching my friend Danny’s dance company perform their first series of “In the Studio” performances. Each Wednesday in August, the Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company presents a range of choreography from their acclaimed Encore show, as well as several new dances. Before each dance, Danny and the troupe deconstruct their movements and explain to the audience what goes into the final piece. Tonight, we got to see fast-paced modern dance set to 1930’s swing, Micheal Jackson, and an Argentine ballad, among other pieces. There was also amazing partnering work, where the dancers used gravity and their own weight to create a kind of tug-of-war with their bodies. Afterward, there was a question and answer session. I’m not knowledgeable about dance, so the Q&A really helped me better understand modern dance and all of the hard work that goes into each step.