∞-lecture

A box of matches

Première publication : 2003

Lu du 11/03/2015 au 22/03/2015, à Le Havre

Dans la bibliothèque

« I would like to visit the factory that makes train horns, and ask them how they are able to arrive at that chord of eternal mournfulness. Is it deliberately sad? Are the horns saying, Be careful, stay away from that train or it will run you over and then people will grieve, and their grief will be as the inconsolable wail of this horn through the night? The out-of-tuneness of the triad is part of its beauty. »

Londres : 2004, Vintage, p. 22.

« The whole dropping-of-the-leaves thing and the coming of winter is one of those gradual process that becomes harder to believe each year it happens. All those leaves were up there firmly attached to the trees, and they're gone. Now, incredibly, there are *no leaves on the trees*. It's like death, which is also becoming harder and harder for me to understand. How could someone you know and remember so well be dead? My grandmother, for instance. I can't believe that she is dead. I don't mean that I believe in a hereafterly world, I don't. But it does seem puzzling to me that she is now not living. »

Londres : 2004, Vintage, p. 34.

« Several years ago, I decided that I would make a collection of paper-towel designs. Hundreds of patterns were coming and going, and unlike wallpaper patterns nobody was interested in studying them as indicia of American taste. Do you remember when suddenly one of the manufacturers began printing in four colors ? I think it was 1996. I had in minf a big folio, with a pane of a towel on each page, and a label of what it was, who had made it, the date, notes, etc. »

Londres : 2004, Vintage, p. 136.