Work

I’ve been coming twice a week to clean this illustrious writer’s house – thirteen or even fourteen years it must be. He used to meet people, have interviews, appear on TV, particularly after the success of his one and only novel The Deserted Planet, which, as you know, also became a movie everyone went to see. That was probably about ten years ago. He had a big party to celebrate his 70th birthday – I was there to help out in the kitchen. Lots of VIPs – writers, the mayor, people from politics and cinema. His ex-wife, that well-known anchorwoman. And then a gradual decline set in, fewer people came, he stayed home most of the time. Eventually he would no longer go on his habitual hour long walks. And now, sadly, his speech is as jumbled as his thoughts. His niece is taking care of him now, is getting paid for it and in control of everything. And stingy. He’s become haggard because she skimps on his food – while treating herself to fancy meals downtown with her boyfriend. He moved in a year ago. The slick, lecherous type. Has his eyes glued to certain parts of me whenever he’s around. Once he told me, when handing me my money, “You know, Felicidad, I love Latin women. A lot. There is something so exotically sensuous and seductive about them.” I keep the job because of the old man, who mostly sits in the living room now, staring out of the window.

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2015)

Written around illustrious, habitual and jumbled from 3WW.

Snowdrops / A. D. Miller

(Warning: This is a more or less polemic blurb without any claim to thoroughness or completeness.)

Finished reading Snowdrops this weekend, a novel about a British lawyer who becomes involved in fraud in his work for an investment bank, and, in private, in a case of apartment fraud as a consequence of falling in love with a mysterious Russian woman.

So what's true about the hype?
'Totally gripping' – more ho-hum than gripping. Took me numerous sessions to read and is certainly not one of the potboilers you cannot put down.
'Disturbing and dazzling' – draws a disturbing picture of Russia and Moscow. Greatly reduced my readiness to ever go there.
'Electrifying ... Leaves you stunned and addicted' – That opinion, pardon my bluntness, is a striking example of pure bullshit. Seems more appropriate to LSD, heroin or some other drug than anything written.

As it says on the back cover, there is some similarity to the writing of Graham Greene, but more along the lines of imitation. Neither the writing itself nor the plot are that good. There is that Greene-like feeling of guilt, but there's so much insistence on building it that it becomes annoying. The confessionality (the story is told as a confession to the hero's fiancée) is also reminiscent of Greene, except that it never comes alive, so to speak, because the person the story is told to remains nondescript, making the whole device seem irrelevant.

Then there's that constant puerile harping about how awful it is to be older than thirty. (I believe a lot of people have successfully moved on even into their forties or fifties.) And the annoying premonition building (along the lines of 'I should have known better then that ...', 'Had I not ...') that seems to come straight out of a fiction writing workshop manual. And then there are all the attempts to humanize inanimate objects with adjectives that mostly didn't do much for me. That's the literary touch, I suppose.

A third plot line – pretty much unrelated to the other two – is about the body of an old man found in a rusty orange Zhiguli (mentioned umpteen times in the course of the novel to make it absolutely clear that it has to have some significance).

You may rest in peace, Graham. This ain't no serious competition for The Third Man or The Quiet American.

– Leonard "Won't Write Reviews" Blumfeld

From Gertie Dreary's diary

I simply had to get to L.A. to see my auntie Nell as she was about to leave for Nepal. They did not renew her job with the UN. Being an attractive young girl, I drank lots of my favorite cherry liqueur to muster up the courage to hitch a ride in the deep dark night. Too late for buses. And no money for a taxi, not even to the nearest train station. Who knows how long the train would have taken anyway. Also, my experience with trains is limited and bad. However, all went well as I got a ride from an elderly gentleman in a vintage white car with white hair who reminded me of Kenny Rogers. He played country music and smoked cigars, but what do I care. Kept telling me about his five ex-wives and the twelve children he had with them, and the grandkids. Remarked with a smile on the cherry flavor I kept burping up. Told him about my nervousness and how I overcame it and how I was praising the Lord to have found such an excellent ride with such a lovely old man. He gave me a look then I thought was a little on the lecherous side, so I quickly changed the subject, asking about his current wife Louisy Ann, or how ever that's spelled. She's a sexy little fox, he said, and I'm looking forward to a lot of lovin' once I pick her up at L.A. International Airport. That made me burp some more, with a cherry flavor so strong I could smell it myself, and he kept his head turned towards me for a long time so I had to remind him to watch the road as everything was pitch black. But it all went OK as I wrote above and before any more cherry burps and lecherous looks could happen we were in my auntie's neighborhood, where he dropped me off, telling me on parting that there sure was going to be a lot of hot lovin' once he'd picked up Louisy Ann, that sexy little fox and sixth wife of his, at L.A. International Airport.

– Leonard "Speaking for Gertie" Blumfeld (© 2011)

Written using drank, hitch, muster from 3WW.

Old dog, new trick

"You know, James, I could be more than fond of you … if you altered your tranquil ways."
"You could, dear Anthea?"
She was standing behind his work chair, hands on his shoulders.
"Yes, I could even love you, James – love you passionately, if I felt more passion coming from you."
He patted her hands.
"It's good of you to say that, dear. But it also makes it perfectly clear to me that you'd never love me the way I am – for what I am. I could probably try to change my tranquil ways, as you call them. I would do that for you, you know I would. But in the end it would exhaust me. And perhaps –"
"Perhaps?"
"Perhaps you have been barking up the wrong tree."
She furrowed her brow.
"Just what are you telling me?"
"That you might be better off looking for another tree. Or another dog, for that matter. This old dog would never do for you. Don't you think I'm right?"

– Leonard "Tranquil" Blumfeld (© 2011)

Written around alter, fond and tranquil from 3WW.

A world of friction

An attractive youngish woman dressed in some kind of frumpy lilac frock walked up to the desk that had been set up for the reading.
“Hi, my name is Frue.”
That surely had to be Sue, and I was about to quote Johnny Cash (“So how do you do!”), but thought better of it and smiled politely.
“I hear you’re a writer of friction,” said the woman.
“Of friction?”
“Yes, of froze.”
“Froze?”
I was beginning to sound very dull to myself, simply repeating her cues.
“Yes, froze, as fropposed to froetry.”
“That is true, I hardly ever write froetry. How about you? Are you a writer too?”
“No. I come from Frampton, which is near Frondon, and that is –”
“... in France?” I simply knew it had to start with an F and an R.
“What gives you that fridea? – No, it’s in Frotland, of course.”
“Which makes you a true Frot, I suppose.”
“Indeed, and I’m froud to be one.”
Was I ever going to snap out of this fruity world of friction?
I decided to steer the conversation back to the realm of reality ... err ... freality.
“So, Sue from Hampton, would you like me to sign a copy of my book for you?”
“It’s Frue and Frampton, and I don’t want you to frign a fropy of your frigging frook.”
“Oh?!”
“I came here for friction, and what did I get? Only frustration and fret.”
I frinally frinked my freyes – and that frid it.
Frue, with a frap of my froes, went up in a frume of froke.

– Leonard F. R. Blumfeld (© 2010)

Written for Sunday Scribblings and Friction.

Blumfeld interviewed by Psychotic News

PN: Thanks for the opportunity to interview you, Mr. B.
LB: Call me Len, please.
PN: Mr. B., you told us that you have a history of being invisible...
LB: Yes, that happens sometimes.
PN: What happens exactly?
LB: I'm among people and say something, and it's as if I wasn't even there, or in a different time slot.
PN: That sounds quite speculative. What about the other people – do you see them?
LB: Yes, they seem quite normal to me.
PN: And you consider yourself the abnormal one?
LB: Yes.
PN: Like you're not fit to be around the human race?
LB: Yes.
PN: Has it occurred to you that you might be an alien?
LB: Alien, yes, but not an alien.
PN: ...
LB: You were saying?
PN: ...
LB: Yes?
PN: Mr. Blumfeld, where are you? Are you there? Hello?
LB: (can obviously no longer be seen or heard)
PN: This, dear audience, was the interview with Leonard Blumfeld – a man who said he had illusions of invisibility and who indeed has become invisible.

– Len "No See" Blumfeld

He acted like God come down to earth

Having the great writer at my house was not all that enjoyable. We talked more about his aches and pains, sensitive bowels and eyes than about the wonderful novels and poems he’d written or future plans of his. That is, he talked. In the afternoon he wanted to go for a walk and headed back home five minutes later as a light rain came down. He asked for homeopathic ulcer medication and a light vegetarian meal, of which he devoured three servings. He also scarfed down most of the chicken korma I’d fixed for myself. I had originally planned to show him some of my own poems (in all humility), but abstained from it because my head was aching from all his talk. Two more days I’ll have this man around, I thought in desperation.

– Surendra Sparsh

(Sparked by a real experience with one who knew himself to be a great artist.)

Blumfeld, an elderly bachelor

One evening Blumfeld, an elderly bachelor, was climbing up to his apartment - a laborious undertaking, for he lived on the sixth floor. While climbing up he thought, as he had so often recently, how unpleasant this utterly lonely life was: to reach his empty rooms he had to climb these six floors almost in secret, there put on his dressing gown, again almost in secret, light his pipe, read a little of the French magazine to which he had been subscribing for years, at the same time sip at a homemade kirsch, and finally, after half an hour, go to bed, but not before having completely rearranged his bedclothes which the unteachable charwoman would insist on arranging in her own way. Some companion, someone to witness these activities, would have been very welcome to Blumfeld. He had already been wondering whether he shouldn't acquire a little dog. These animals are gay and above all grateful and loyal; one of Blumfeld's colleagues has a dog of this kind; it follows no one but its master and when it hasn't seen him for a few moments it greets him at once with loud barkings, by which it is evidently trying to express its joy at once more finding that extraordinary benefactor, its master. True, a dog also has its drawbacks. However well kept it may be, it is bound to dirty the room. This just cannot be avoided; one cannot give it a hot bath each time before letting it into the room; besides, its health couldn't stand that.

(The beginning of the story by Franz Kafka)