Monthly Archive for May, 2009

From The Happiness Diary, by Nicolae Steinhardt

Gabriela Ailenei (Translator)

Published on May 21, 2009 in The Journal.

31 December, 1959

On the other hand, the qualities of a Roman senator don’t seem tied to a certain historical time, the same way Schelling showed that Romanticism is not a literary school belonging to a phase in the evolution of taste, but one of the permanent propensities of the human soul. The Jew of over eighty-two years old, the little retiree from Bucharest, proved, out of the blue, and in the simplest of ways, capable of authentic senatorial feelings.

After I told him how things happened, he spoke:

- Why did you come home, you fool? You gave them the impression that you’re hesitating, that there’s room for the possibility that you’re going to betray your friends. In business, when you ask for time to think, it means that you’ve accepted already. Under no circumstances are you to agree to be a witness for the prosecution. Come on, go right now.

I remember how he used to come home in the evenings in Pantelimon, how martial he looked on the step of the coach; when during the Troubles in 1919 he went through the factory workshops in uniform and with his sword drawn, but I’m inclined to believe that he is acting, for both our sakes, at least a little. I steal glances at him, I’m afraid to find that he’s posturing. I explain to him that I won’t find anybody there now, and that to go and sit with a suitcase at the Securitate’s gates until Monday is futile, this heroism being very close to buffoonery… And I feel worn out, and there’s still dinner to come. And I also explain to him what prison means in reality, that he’s old, he’ll be left alone with a very small pension; he should not expect charity from anyone; nor to receive any visits; and I’m also afraid; after all, I’m only asked to declare the truth; and we’ll never see each other again; I’ve already caused him trouble all his life, at least now at the end I should try to sweeten his days a little; and – to be honest – the prospect of prison, of suffering, and to top it all off, the thought of his misfortune horrify me.

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Why I created Some Blind Alleys

Greg Baxter

Published on May 16, 2009 in The Journal.

I’ve spent a lot of time in disagreement with myself over the question of an introduction to Some Blind Alleys. Should I speak for the content, or let the content speak for itself? I think the latter is the decision one ought to come to, if one has the luxury. There is far more resonance in that silence – far more meaning. It speaks to an assuredness in the editor – to create something and vanish – a fearlessness and openness. It frees the authors who contribute. Journals live more productive, more interesting lives when they discover their nature gradually and cumulatively. An editor who feels compelled to justify a publication is after something different. His journal is not made to last. His journal will not outlive him, nor even his temperamental obsession with it. It is, to be blunt, never going to be a very good journal. But it may, in its short life, be exceptional.

The risks of endeavoring in justification are great: the act of it may inflate you with such a sense of destiny that your humble invitation for submissions suddenly becomes a manifesto; you may overshoot the mark so badly that your aspirations for a new literature – or such other absurdity – are betrayed by the pieces you publish, which cannot possibly live up to your ideals; you might easily take away from those pieces – though you had merely wanted to enhance them – by demanding that they serve your ambitions; you may, by trying to entertain the possibility of newness, of originality, end up defining that newness so narrowly that you exclude the very authors who could make it happen; and the worst blunder – you appear so desperate to be taken seriously – to be involved in some literary discussion that takes place among people who will not let you in – that you become pathetic; you are like a little stomping child trying to get adults at a dinner table to listen to you tattle on your sister.

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How I hated that rabbit, and how it hated me

Pauric Holleran

Published on May 7, 2009 in The Journal.

The first time Ernest and I got drunk together, I tried to kiss him and he threw me into a Starbucks shutter and split my forehead open. I couldn’t really see with the blood in my eyes, and I lunged at him, and we both fell to the ground. I scrambled back up with my shirt still gripped in his fist, and kicked him in the head. It didn’t connect properly and I felt my big toe wrench to the side. I went to the hospital and they fixed it up, and I hobbled around a few weeks. Ernest didn’t remember the next day.

He was beautiful and terrible with women. It happened that we both recently had fallings out with respective friends, and had no one, apart from each other. The next week we stood in the streets and drank cans and smoked weed. The city centre is a very communal place in the summer. Everybody talks: the street performers; the junkies; the tourists; the Spanish kids; the Emo kids. And there were things to look at: the dealers with nylon tracksuits walking past us on their mobiles; the satellite dishes on the stone balustrades; the junkies with Dutch Gold, tabulating cigarettes. At night the empty churches were lit by floodlights from beneath, and they looked like they were floating in light. We walked to his place. On the way, a homeless man screamed at us until we came too close to him. Then he fell silent, like he had to tell a secret.

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