About

Freelance writer. Bad poet. Based in São Paulo. More.

Entries in Life (40)

Tuesday
Dec252012

The Twelve Blogs of Christmas.

I came up with the idea of twelve blogs in as many days on December 11th or thereabouts, because I knew that I was going to be the only person looking after our son and daughter for the two weeks between my wife going back to work and the holidays beginning. I figured there wasn’t going to be enough time for sustained work in between schlepping to and fro from my son’s day-care (in the thirty-five degree heat) and tending to my five month old daughter’s waking/feeding cycle. However, by grabbing an hour here or there, I hoped I would be able to keep a foot in the world beyond tummy time and bottle preparation. Plus I had a ton of half-finished documents in my blogs folder that I thought would supply me with more than enough material for twelve posts (not true, as it happens). Now, surveying the overall tenor of the twelve posts, it’s hard not to assume that living with me is the domestic equivalent of watching the Ring Cycle on DVD, on repeat, forever: death, homelessness, heartbreak and architecture, for god’s sake. But, of course, man cannot bear too much reality. Thankfully, for all those times when you can’t bear to think about all the heavy stuff anymore, there’s your wife and your kids and a crappy blockbuster or a terrible pun. Speaking of which, I’ve got some Christmas silliness to attend to. Adieu and god rest your merry chestnuts.  

Tuesday
Dec252012

After Gravity.

A still from Erika Janunger's short film 'Weightless'Well, it's 4.48am on Christmas Morning and I have just this minute finished the twelfth and final post of the Twelve Blogs of Christmas. It's not quite what I expected it to be, being perhaps a little darker than I would have liked. But there's a lot of hope between the lines - and that's what Christmas is all about, right? Now, I'm off to celebrate this rather lovely holiday. I hope you and yours have a jolly good time doing the same. x

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Monday
Dec172012

Grace.

Here's a story about failing to help someone who clearly needed it through diffidence and reserve and all that English bullshit we can really do without. I can't be more elaborate than that, I'm afraid, as it's late and I'm knackered and it took longer to finish this than I had hoped. That's no. 7 of the 12 Blogs of Xmas. As ever, hope you enjoy.

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Thursday
Dec132012

Explaining Tropic.

In this post, I write a thousand or so words explaining a poem which is about thirty words long with no punctuation except for a single, solitary full stop. Clearly following the maxim that less is more, I left everything out of the poem, and then ruined it by putting it all back into the essay. Ezra Pound (who spent years reducing his 'In a Station of the Metro' to fourteen words) would be SPITTING. Anyway, this is the third in my twelve blogs of Christmas. I'll be doing one a day till the 22nd, and then I'll bow out. Hope you enjoy this one.

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Wednesday
Dec122012

The Adulterers.

It often causes problems – and by it, I mean my infant son’s tendency to become infatuated with random strangers. Today, however, he excelled himself.

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