15 posts tagged “city”
The telephone rang. The waiter wiped a glass dry and held it up to the light. Not until I felt I could stand the ringing no longer did he pick up the receiver. Then, jamming it between his shoulder and his chin, he paced to and fro behind the bar as far as the cable would let him. Only when he was speaking himself did he stop, and at these times he would lift his eyes to the ceiling. No, he said, Vittorio wasn't there. He was hunting. Yes, that was right, it was him, Carlo. Who else would it be? Who else would be in the restaurant? No, nobody. Not a soul all day. And now there was only one diner. Un inglese, he said, and looked across at me with what I took to be a touch of contempt. No wonder, he said, the days were getting shorter. The lean times were on the way.
George Grosz: Gray Day, 1921 (Germany)
Tomorrow I'm off to LA for some art-seein' and food-eatin'. Back next week!
Karel Teige, Travel Greetings, 1924 (Czechoslovakia)
Saul Leiter, Waiter, Paris, 1959 (USA)
Dear Mr. Reifenberg,
I hope this letter doesn't give you the impression that I've lost my mind with delirium over Paris and France. I assure you I'm writing in complete command of my skeptical intelligence, and that I'm deliberately courting the risk of sounding moronic, which is about the worst thing that could happen to me. I feel compelled to inform you "in person" that Paris is the capital of the world and that you must come here. No one who hasn't been here can claim to be more than half human or any sort of European. It is free, open, intellectual in the best sense, and ironic in its magnificent pathos. Every cab driver here is wittier than any one of our authors. We are such a miserable lot. Here everyone smiles at me; I love all the women, even the oldest of them, to the point of contemplating matrimony; I could weep when I walk over the Seine bridges; for the first time in my life I am shaken by the aspect of buildings and streets; I feel at ease with everyone, even though we continually misunderstand each other when we talk about practical things, just because we understood each other so perfectly on every subtlety and nuance. If I were a French writer, I wouldn't bother to write or publish anything but just read things off the walls. The cattlemen with whom I eat breakfast are more aristocratic and refined than our cabinet ministers, patriotism is justified here, nationalism is a demonstration of a European conscience, every affiche is a poem, court announcements are as elegant as our best prose, cinema billboards display more imagination and psychological insight than do our contemporary novels, the soldiers are like whimsical children, the policement witty editorial writers. Joseph Roth
Joseph Roth, A Letter from Paris, May 1925 (Austria)
Fresh new Astrarium: Eternal Spring. Please enjoy!
J.M.W. Turner, Bridge of Sighs, Ducal Palace and Customs House, Venice, 1833 (UK)
