Fernando Pessoa, from text 400, The Book of Disquiet, trans. from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith (New York: Penguin, 2003).
Perhaps the most dangerous passage in The Book of Disquiet, at least if you’re an ex-smoker subject to moments of nostalgia for a filthy habit you’d never return to, not even for one cigarette, not even for one puff.
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Tuesday, June 2, 2020
“With a cheap cigarette”
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I wonder if Jeff Tweedy ever read Pessoa. Here are the opening lines from “Misunderstood”: “When you’re back in your old neighborhood/The cigarettes taste so good.”
ReplyDeleteI’d wonder too.
ReplyDeleteThe old neighborhood also makes the madeleines taste better, no? :)
Yes, but only till I recall la morte d’Albertine. Then I feel sad and need something a little stronger.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a nice piece of coffee cake? Drake’s? Entenmann’s?
ReplyDeleteMethinks that a nice Charlotte Russe no-bake would do the trick. (I tried to work in “Godspeed” too, but no dice. Which reminds me: “cowlick”?)
ReplyDeleteOh, the European (i.e., fancy-pants) kind of Charlotte Russe. Well, Godspeed!
ReplyDeleteYes, cowlick works. Weird: methinks is a verb, but Godspeed is a noun. I would have thought it’s a verb — may God speed you along.
ReplyDelete