waste lands
An old entry, written on a napkin, 11/09/26:
In Budapest. Sitting in the square off the basilica, drinking vermouth, my poison this year and the last, because it’s a simple drink – one ingredient – not too strong, available in (almost) every city, every bar. I am facing away from the basilica, so my view is of the tourists approaching it, and I am being immortalised in all the pictures they are taking.
When I travel, I feel a great sense of purpose and a great aimlessness simultaneously. I am not a savvy traveller, and am perhaps a victim of nostalgia for an ‘Old World’ that never existed. In Paris, I walk the pages of Hemingway; in Berlin, Isherwood; in Prague, Kafka. I think part of why I love London is because I know the city well enough to see it through my own eyes. Nowhere else do I feel so qualified to form my own reading…
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter /
And on her daughter /
They wash their feet in soda water /
Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!