Will you come and visit me next year? I shall undoubtedly have a large circle of witty and interesting friends by then and life will be on a very high plane – elegant, literary, and in perfect order… On the roofs of the brick houses and on the island in the pond there will be all sorts of romantic musicians, and supper will be served on the island too – strung with lanterns. It will be very pleasant, reminiscent of Venice, and the Last Days of Rome and the Chinese Emperors, with a bit of Coney Island thrown in.
- Elizabeth Bishop to Frani Blough, 1934
Has it really been eight years since I last wrote here? It was picking up Murdoch’s The Book and the Brotherhood that reminded me. My reading diary said I read the novel in 2011, but I don’t believe it. I have no memory of it. (And you would.) I came back to this blog to cross-reference. Yes, I can see I bought it in December 2010 – for a steal – but wrote nothing on it. An old blog, like an old diary, is a shed skin, preserved by sentimentality, laziness, and neglect. For a while I was appalled at how openly I exposed my ignorance! I thought it was charming. (An Americanism?) Also for trying to speak in a register I couldn’t consistently command. But now that blogging is a dead art, that the energy that once lived there has been translated into Tiktok, or Youtube, or Substack, the blog becomes practically private. I can come back and paw over this old, shed skin. When you come across old writing, there’s an inevitable measuring up between the self you were then and the sel...
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I feel like a stranger, barging into your digital world. I haven't been here in so long...hoping to remedy this in future.