Listen I’m Colombian so of course I read a few of Gabo’s (Gabriel Garcia Marquez for those who are unaware) oeuvre, as he is a national treasure. As much I adore Love in the Time of Cholera, I feel Strange Pilgrims (or Doce Cuentos Peregrinos) is just as amazing. It is a collection of short stories of various Latin Americans residing in Europe and my personal favourite is Sleeping Beauty and the Airplane as it perfectly encapsulates the trip between CDG and JFK. For the anglophones, both of these books were also translated by Edith Grossman who also translated the copy of Don Quixote we read at my secondary school and I feel the translator means just as much as the author and she was an incredible one in what I’ve read that she’s done.
It felt like every magical realism, multiple-narrative, unreliable or consistent, speculative work I've ever read before, cascaded into this one. Like they were all mirrors of his work. It pays to read the forerunners!
For our last project in my grad school poetry class, our professor (adorable, brilliant, 80 yrs old) had us each choose a poet to "sleep" with for a few weeks (i.e., get hooked on them & read absolutely everything you can, dine with them, take them to bed, write emulation poems/make ur own art out of theirs, etc.). 💋💋💋💋
Choosing to consume just one thing—& consume it fully—felt like a small rebellion against today's attention economy. It stretched curiosity muscles I didn't even realize had become atrophied. So EVERYBODY SHOULD SLEEP WITH A POET! Or a novelist! Or a writer of some sort! I think summer is the perfect time to experiment w spending time w one writer !!
get to know their voice, immerse yourself in their world, attune your eye to their noticings 𓈒⟡₊⋆∘˚⊹ ࿔
I always find myself back here when I'm at home. There's just something re-orienting about the way it's a lil slice of your town that has its own self-contained vibe where all these different types of people come and do their thing quietly. Awesome
What will become of our generation that seems to believe every thought 💭 is both worth sharing and NEEDS to be shared? Enough of that. Keep more things to yourself. There is still beauty in sharing but Quiet vibes are in