Fashion

Alexandru

excerpt The second time I went to Alina's parents', the neighborhood seemed too familiar not to imagine that my memory was playing a prank on me, and not a nice one. I had got off the tram a few steps away from the barber's called The Merry Whiskers, which

Living In Sin

excerpt All his anxiety, that apoplectic fit, was proof he did not know Clara. That was precisely the state of their relationship at the time. In order to know and understand and accept her manner of thinking, the style of her infinitesimal psychic reactions – allowing

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In 2004 there was an impressive amount of literary productions by young authors. At the time I called them, too harshly, I'm afraid, 'Catchers in the Cannabis'. It seems that the first person narrative is still in fashion. The language they use is violent,

On Love And More Than Love

It is amazing how many children are begotten from the sentimental exultation that one or the other of their parents feel for a third person, another than the partner in the respective action, irrespective if the person in question be a man or a woman. Sometimes this third

A Legendary Love Story: Maria Cantacuzino - George Enescu

One should add to the romantic universe of Berlioz, Chopin, Liszt and Wagner the love story of Maria Cantacuzino and the composer George Enescu, as the mystery of its extraordinary tension has been revealed in the recently published Ombres et lumières, Souvenirs d'une

The Procrustean Bed

excerpts  I passed dizzily from one room to another… nowadays, cubist furniture is commonly used and has long ceased to make a big impression, but four years ago there were extremely few lodgings that were furnished like that. Maybe a couple of banks had dared to introduce

Return To The Interwar Bucharest

excerpts  So closeSuddenly, the interwar people make the body visible: men are allowed to shave off not only their beards, but also their moustaches – a facial change that overthrows an aesthetic canon with centuries-old resistance – and women, punished and ridiculed

The Tale Of Ionica The Fool

In a village, the story goes, there once lived a lad who had neither father, nor mother, nor any other kin; so obscure was his lineage, in fact, that for all we know, he may well have dropped there from the sky. As the boy was meek, long suffering and slow to speak, the

Love Asylum And Pharmacy

excerpt Our first poets (the Vacarescus, Milu, Conachi and others) were experts in erotic pathology, the maladies induced by love. But the true physician erotologist appears to have been Anton Pann. The Love Asylum attempted to cure precisely that kind of ailment. The enamored

Ways Of Seeing

Minority ethnic groups have usually developed some separate cultures within the larger framework of the majority. Their particular language and specific customs generally single out such societies. From the cultural point of view, the main characteristics of a minority society

Record Of Journey To Romania, May 1924

excerpts X In the morning of May 27th I went to see Mr. Tatarescu, at the office of the Prime Minister. I quote the main points of what Mr. Tatarescu told me: He is the Under-Secretary of State for political issues, including Minorities issues. As these latter are of particular

Turks, Germans, Americans... And Other Nationalities

An event that happened several years ago and has turned, in time, into an urban legend, goes like this: the employees of a German-owned media trust had become lazy and unruly, would come to work when, and if, they felt like it, and would actually work only between two coffee