A Little Workshop of Stories
Notebook gathers short notes, observations, and texts in progress. This is where thoughts, readings, and impressions are recorded before they take the shape of essays or prose. It is a working space, open and unfinished.
Reading Assmann’s The Search for God in Ancient Egypt, I came across a myth about the creation of humanity. Atum, the first god, the creator, the one who created himself, found himself alone in the primordial waters of chaos. To ease his loneliness, he spat out two children, Shu and Tefnut. But the waters of … Read more
Seventy-three years have passed since the publication of Czesław Miłosz’s The Captive Mind. The book appeared in 1953, two years after Miłosz’s defection to the West, and was received largely with enthusiasm, as a rare analysis of an East that the Iron Curtain had rendered distant and obscure. The Captive Mind is not a history … Read more
The Marginalia in Books Handwritten traces on the pages of books are as varied and colorful as readers themselves . Small doodles scribbled out of sheer boredom. Love notes, dedications, offensive or lascivious remarks. Abstract and accidental lines. Some handwritten notes even become amateur footnotes or comparative analyses, which is particularly amusing to read. Serious … Read more
Printed and written Traces The invention of the printing press completely altered the character of the book. Separated it from the human being — its creator. The printing machine put an end to handwriting, which for centuries revealed the author or the scribe on the pages of a book. Handwriting, in turn, is an essential … Read more
Traces in books and buildings If anything will bear witness to the complexity of our existence (when one day we are gone), it will be buildings and books. Buildings testify to the monumental ambition of the human Body — the insatiable urge to conquer the material, to bring it under control, to touch the sky … Read more