voyeur

Katherine Anne Porter on Hart Crane: Hart would "weep and shout, shaking his fist. 'I am Baudelaire, I am Whitman, I am Christopher Marlowe, I am Christ.' But never once did I hear him say that he was Hart Crane."


This excerpt is from a book I picked up in Powell's back a few weeks ago- Chance Meeting, by Rachel Cohen- there's an excellent essay written by the author about the inception of the book.
The second part of the title sums up the book quite succinctly; Intertwined Lives of American Writers and Artists, 1854-1967. I enjoy reading it greatly, since I am a life voyeur, that is, I derive unspeakable pleasure reading and looking into lives of others. Especially the lives of the quite strange, partially unhinged, and extremely intellectual, as this book is filled with these sorts of characters.

As for my own life.... in your absence, I have fully indulged my religion of reading, and have been spending too much time in solitude, as my preference for now.

Monday night- I had Chinese at my "neighborhood" restaurant on Piedmont Ave. Staring out the window, watching curious faces pass below me; I ate alone and read some more of Death and Life of Great American Cities, which I am slogging through very deliberately. I was the only lone diner, I thought of you, dining alone, an ocean away. Then I walked home the long way, passing by the Fishtank, to peer into its dark windows.

Tuesday night, I returned books to the Berkeley Public Library, and I bought an umbrella because it started to rain heavily and the umbrella I had was like a broken bird. I had dinner at Cancun, and finished reading Brokeback Mountain (a book I would not usually read, but my co-workers were sharing it, and it was an easy read.) Then I walked home in the pouring rain, becoming quite soaked by the time I arrived home.


I may be alone, but I do not feel empty.