In response to a friend ...

with somewhat far-eastern leanings, who told me, in a heated discussion:

You better face it: it all boils down to nothing

I said:

Let me tell you, there is PLENTY!
And if only it’s the appearance of something.

Shall the twain ever meet?

Another one of Blumfeld's unnumbered wisdoms.

Blumfeld's Wisdom No. N

Some of my attempts at wisdom, wit, cuteness & meanness were posted at Garden of Literary Confusion in various skins I choose (like a snake, but I keep shedding them and putting them back on as convenient).

Oh, and by the way, life goes on today. As it always will – in one form or another.

Promise to stop counting my wisdoms! Solid promise. At wit's end for now. Good-bye.

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.)

In a dark monster of a building

Do only monsters live in that kind of building? Or is there somebody who'll carry up Granny Whip's shopping bag, make tea for the young man who's been down with a fever for days? Yes, there is: it is Elsie, who's in a sparkling mood at all times, what with her blonde pony tail, freckles and dimpled cheeks. Watch out, Elsie: not all of them deserve you!

- Leon Blumfeld (text and photo, Copyright 2007)

Note:
I wrote this story inspired by this picture I took a while ago and by a blog that publishes extremely short stories in German and submitted it on the off-chance they would also take something in English. The editor suggested that I supply a German translation, which I did. Hopefully he'll accept it.

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)

Hello World!

This is Leon Blumfeld's contribution to the world, which he considers so wide that, even if you flitted around and around it, you would never reach the end of it, particularly because it is in constant change.

Leon has been and hails from many places, including the Florence of the Sinclair Lewis novel that gave its name to this blog.

He also feels an affinity for Kafka's Blumfeld, even though there's no blood relationship.