Pen

Apartment 93

excerpts (This article is prohibited to my parents, as it may contain: scenes of moderate physical violence, alcohol consumption, conduct which may be easily imitated by said parents, etc. ) I think that my first Bohemian period started off in an unsuspecting leave taken

With My Little Brother, Reinventing The Bohemia

The bohemia, the obnoxious, damned bohemia kills and often not only figuratively. My stomach, for example, stood defeated, alongside with the bowels, the sphincters, the liver, the brains and in consequence all inspiration, exactly on Friday, the deadline for my article.

A Morning Without Abu Ghraib

Dedicated to Ol' Eugen Hang on, ol' man: they caught once a 450-kilo sheatfish! It was nine meters long! They used a sheep for bait! There'd been ducks and geese disappearing from the Danube, but when it took away two children…That's what Ol'

Fishing Days

excerpt The loaded boats – from time to time you can hear the thumping of a strong fish striking against the freshly tarred wood – are lined up in the narrow canal, towed by Michea's tug. Come on, you dark-bay horse, take me to my beloved, don't tarry! Timosca

Me, Lisa And Nae

I'll be 33 in no time. I met Liza yesterday. My friend, Nae Curcă, is also in love with Liza. He met her at the swimming pool last summer. When he passed by her, she asked him:Stop fiddling, will ya'?Liza was with a friend of hers. Curcă promptly reacted. He

Gogu Georgescu And Gică Petrescu

On some days I feel universal when listening to Hora în căruţă (Jig in the Cart); I can even picture a cart then, all its joints rattling among the frozen missiles of the world. I get dizzy and a teardrop warms up the Murmansk under my eyelids. Hora Stacatto (Stacatto

It's Beautiful, It Couldn't Be More Beautiful

It's beautiful, it couldn't be more beautifulthe morning when, after you've washed,after you've shaved, after you've cleanedyour razor blade, your brush, after you've glimpsedyourself in the mirror and discovered no causeof alarm on your face

Orbitor - The Left Wing

excerpt Maria had come to town during the war, leaving her native Tântava, and managed to find a job as apprentice for Verona Tailor's Shop, along with her sister Vasilica. The tailor's shop was located behind ARO building, stuck right on the white painted house,

The Morometes

excerptclick here to see film preview Heeler produced from a slit of his belt an unopened package of smokes, casually took place on a stump and began rolling a cigar. Moromete squatted down and rolled one from Heeler's pack, after which he stretched his arm to laggardly

About Joy In The East And In The West

Minimal Joys  To fully take delight in minimal joys – here is one of the irreducible experiences of joy in the East of Europe before 1989. The minimal joys mustn't be confounded with the simple joys. It is one thing to enjoy a piece of hot bread and a glass of wine

The Dacian Allurement

excerpt  Never have I felt more keenly all that separates us from the West than in a summer afternoon spent in the Versailles gardens. In the park full of Greek memories: Apollo's Pool, that of Latona, in which the superposed arrangement of the gardens that mount towards

Idle Hours

In the olden times, in the Year of Our Lord 1937, as soon as the vernal wind had started wafting, I would cross the Danube with a handful of companions, to hail the passage of woodcocks in some of the parts of the Dobrudja. We reposed in propitious places, groves and copses,