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 I arrived home a few hours ago from my brief trip to meet Friedrich Nietzsche. The mansion looked a pretty shade of orange as the sun set all around her. I am glad to be here where I belong. I am a man who dislikes travel.This afternoon, after the last speech by the last professional impostor, I stopped by a local coffee shop; one with stuffed chairs, wooden tables, antique footstools, a modest library and several regular customers who each afternoon drink coffee and read newspapers while the rest of us work for a living. I sipped a double espresso with a twist of lemon, as I read of Nietzsche in Turin. I tried hard to concentrate on Friedrich's nervous nighttime walks along the Po, but my envy got the better of my concentration. I wished that I might someday visit Turin to listen to opera, let my moustache grow thick, and write several chapters of claustrophobic philosophy. For a few moments I wondered about the one nameless waiter who served Nietzsche coffee in Turin. Had he owned Nietzsche's family stature, and so the time for travel and philosophic rumination, might he have written books more magnificent than Friedrich's? And what about the coffee-drinking, newspaper-browsing regulars all around me? Take just the plump, middle-aged hippie with a tired ponytail who sat in front of me. With the proper encouragement of privileged aristocrats, might he, too, have penned his own theology? *** I feel tense tonight. Driving an automobile requires that I pretend to trust other human beings, either that or imagine that I'm somewhere other than inside a speeding box of metal. I can think of nothing much but driving, and this interruption bothers me. I want instead to be home where I can stretch and read and write and otherwise enjoy my solitude. The traffic wasn't too thick. I made the trip in short time. The gate is closed behind me now, and I am once again alone, my cat Bomboli lying by my feet. *** I sidetracked myself just once more this afternoon. I took a detour to visit a small town of antique stores and common laborers. Nothing like Turin as I imagine her, but quiet enough to allow for introspection. I parked the car and walked a few blocks through a grey mist, until I reached an old bookshop, one I first discovered four or five years ago. I asked the man who stood behind the front counter if the owner, Catherine, was in. He told me that Catherine died last year, after a long and chronic illness. Of course, I felt sad that I had not returned sooner. I enjoyed many conversations with Catherine about old books, quiet towns and long walks. I at first felt selfish as I considered what I lost, and then felt fortunate to remember what I gained by knowing Catherine. I searched the stacks for about an hour. The new owner -- my man behind the counter -- had reorganized things just enough that twice I had to ask him for direction. I purchased four magazines and one book. Three issues of "Ladies' Home Journal," dated 1930, 1933, and 1935. One 1919 issue of "Vanity Fair." The one book is a collection of Maxwell Perkins' letters to several of the writers with whom he worked. I am one of many former boys who long ago read of Perkins' legendary and loving relationship with Thomas Wolfe. I remember staring at photographs of Wolfe's large trunk of manuscript pages, as I read the story of how Perkins helped Thomas turn that haphazard trunk into a several long and wonderful novels. For a long time I wanted to fill my own trunk with wild prose and then meet my own Maxwell Perkins. But Maxwell Perkins is just as dead as Catherine and just as forgotten as Friedrich Nietzsche. *** Thanks for stopping by to visit us here at SpilledBeans.com. If you'd like to be notified whenever something new is posted to SpilledBeans.com, then please join the Spilled Beans notification list. -- Con affetto, Anthony V. Toscano, Editor SpilledBeans.com  |
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