In the cool dark this morning there was a disturbance in one of the small trees a few feet from our open front window. A bird called out as if from a dream, in a tone of voice one doesn’t hear during the day. A minute or so later, a towhee spun a few notes, as if to say, I can’t see, but I can hear. This was repeated perhaps […]
Every now and then, I like to remind people that I’m well aware that by publishing my efforts, I’m really charting my decline. It’s intended as a statement of humor and truth. I don’t fear losing my mind, but maybe I should. It is going. But in which direction? Is it strengthening and gathering force? I’m healthier now physically than when my books were written. I’m also older, grayer, and […]
At 4:55 this morning I finished the third volume of Los Hijos del Pueblo: Historia de una Familia de Proletarios a Través de Veinte Siglos, por Eugenio Sué. Only one more volume to go. The first contains 1,150 pages; the second, 912; the third, 1,070; the fourth, 962. I read ten pages every morning while having my first cup of coffee. Sometimes, later in the day, when it’s too hot […]
There’s a man we see looking at books in the thrift shops. He’s about our age, small, thin, and wears a wool cap in all weather, and at all times of the year. He’s thoughtful, always alone, seldom buys anything, and doesn’t stay long. Yesterday I said hello very quietly, and he replied with a kind nod, his lips forming the same word, with just enough breath behind it that […]
And Man first appeared in Primitive: Selected Drawings in Pixel, Pencil & Pen, in 2010.
It was slightly altered and shared online in its present form in 2017.
And Man
[ 14 ]
For a good long stretch, I had been chipping away at Leopardi’s Zibaldone, a few lines here, a paragraph there, careful not to wrinkle the bible-thin pages. Since it is made to lie flat, I had been keeping the book open here on my mother’s desk. But the time came recently that I needed the space to accommodate more books: a complete six-volume set of Imaginary Conversations by Walter Savage […]
William Michaelian 