Saturday, February 29, 2020

the last book I ever read (Station Eleven: A Novel by Emily St. John Mandel, excerpt four)

from Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel:

“Enter Lear,” Kirsten said. Twenty years earlier, in a life she mostly couldn’t remember, she had a small nonspeaking role in a short-lived Toronto production of King Lear. Now she walked in sandals whose soles had been cut from an automobile tire, three knives in her belt. She was carrying a paperback version of the play, the stage directions highlighted in yellow. “Mad,” she said, continuing, “fantastically dressed with wild flowers.”

“But who comes here?” the man learning the part of Edgar said. His name was August, and he had only recently taken to acting. He was the second violin and a secret poet, which is to say no one in the Symphony knew he wrote poetry except Kirsten and the seventh guitar. “The safer sense will ne’er accommodate … will ne’er accommodate … line?”

“His master thus,” Kirsten said.



Friday, February 28, 2020

the last book I ever read (Station Eleven: A Novel by Emily St. John Mandel, excerpt three)

from Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel:

“I should call his lawyer,” the producer said.

This solution was inarguable, but so depressing that the group drank for several minutes in silence before anyone could bring themselves to speak.

“His lawyer,” the bartender said finally. “Christ, what a thing. You die, and they call your lawyer.”



Thursday, February 27, 2020

the last book I ever read (Station Eleven: A Novel by Emily St. John Mandel, excerpt two)

from Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel:

If he called a cab he’d be home in a half hour, but he liked being outside in the clear air, away from other people. The snow was falling faster now. He felt extravagantly, guiltily alive. The unfairness of it, his heart pumping faultlessly while somewhere Arthur lay cold and still. He walked north up Yonge Street with his hands deep in the pockets of his coat and snow stinging his face.

Jeevan lived in Cabbagetown, north and east of the theater. It was the kind of walk he’d have made in his twenties without thinking about it, a few miles of city with red streetcars passing, but he hadn’t done the walk in some time. He wasn’t sure he’d do it now, but when he turned right on Carlton Street he felt a certain momentum, and this carried him past the first streetcar stop.



Wednesday, February 26, 2020

the last book I ever read (Station Eleven: A Novel by Emily St. John Mandel, excerpt one)

from Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel:

“Jesus Christ,” Edgar said. “Oh Jesus.” He’d dropped the British accent he’d been using earlier and now sounded as if he were from Alabama, which in fact he was. Gloucester had pulled away the gauze bandage that had covered half his face—by this point in the play his character’s eyes had been put out—and seemed frozen in place, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.



Sunday, February 23, 2020

the last book I ever read (A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America, excerpt fourteen)

from A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig:

Trump did achieve a victory of another sort that day. Finally, he got rid of Sessions. As election results were still being tallied the night of November 6, Trump told advisers he was eager to ax the attorney general right away. The next day, Sessions was gone.

Everything had seemed so normal the night before. Sessions; his wife, Mary; Rosenstein; and aides Isgur Flores and Stephen Boyd were hanging out in Boyd’s Justice Department office watching the election returns on Fox. Sessions knew he was not long for Trump World. Internalizing his own fragility, the attorney general had taken to quoting from Princess Bride to staffers as he left the office at night: “Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I’ll most likely kill you in the morning.”



Saturday, February 22, 2020

the last book I ever read (A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America, excerpt thirteen)

from A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig:

On July 16, Trump and Putin spent two hours meeting alone, joined only by their interpreters, inside Finland’s neoclassical Presidential Palace along Helsinki’s glistening waterfront. Unlike in most foreign leader meetings, there was no note taker to compile an official record of what was said or what promises were made. What came next was historically unprecedented. As he held forth with Putin for a forty-six-minute joint news conference, Trump refused to endorse the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies that the Russian government had tried to sabotage the U.S. election to help him win. In fact, he said he took the word of Putin over the collective assessment of his own intelligence agencies. Trump demurred when Jonathan Lemire of the Associated Press asked, “Would you now, with the whole world watching, tell President Putin—would you denounce what happened in 2016? And would you warn him never to do it again?”

“All I can do is ask the question,” Trump replied. Referring to his director of national intelligence, the president continued, “My people came to me, Dan Coats came to me and some others and said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be.”

Trump then raised a series of questions about Hillary Clinton’s emals before adding, “I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.”



Friday, February 21, 2020

the last book I ever read (A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America, excerpt twelve)

from A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig:

Before heading to the airport to depart Brussels, Trump addressed throngs of journalists from around the world at a lectern at NATO headquarters. The American president made claims that some of his international counterparts contested. For instance, Macron and other foreign leaders disputed Trump’s announcement that countries had agreed to eventually increase their spending “quite a bit higher” than 2 percent of their gross domestic product. However, the U.S. officials traveling with Trump breathed a major sigh of relief when Trump stated, “I believe in NATO.” He called the alliance “a fine-tuned machine” and praised its “great unity, great spirit, great esprit de corps.”

At his news conference, Trump revealed he had been disappointed with the media’s lack of coverage of him scolding the Europeans to pay more. “I was surprised that you didn’t pick it up; it took until today,” he said, as if his morning threat were a stunt orchestrated to generate headlines. Xavier Bettel, the prime minister of Luxembourg, had reminded reporters that Trump had wireless internet on Air Force One and could reverse his support for NATO in a single tweet once he left Brussels. When a reporter asked Trump if he might attack NATO on Twitter after departing, just as he had maligned Trudeau following the G7 in Quebec, the president replied, “No, that’s other people that do that. I don’t. I’m very consistent. I’m a very stable genius.”



Thursday, February 20, 2020

the last book I ever read (A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America, excerpt eleven)

from A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig:

Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad had gassed his own people, and the top military brass had come to the White House to meet with Trump to review his options. National Security Council officials had worked with Defense Department officials to prepare specific targets should Trump authorize a mission to take out, or at least temporarily weaken, Syria’s ability to fly chemical weapons sorties. But there was only one subject on Trump’s mind as the meeting began, and it wasn’t dead Syrian children.

“So I just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys, a good man, and it’s a disgraceful situation. It’s a total witch hunt,” Trump said sternly as he sat hunched forward slightly over the conference table, his arms crossed at the wrists.

“It’s, frankly, a real disgrace,” Trump added. “It’s an attack on our country in a true sense. It’s an attack on what we all stand for. So when I saw this and when I heard it—I heard it like you did—I said, “This is really now a whole new level of unfairness.”

The military leaders looked on stone-faced.



Wednesday, February 19, 2020

the last book I ever read (A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America, excerpt ten)

from A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig:

McMaster made one last attempt to give his considered advice. He had his National Security Council staff prepare a three-inch-thick overnight briefing book for Trump, which the staff secretary delivered to the president’s residence late Monday evening. Notably, the briefing book included four five-by-seven-inch “cue” cards, the kinds used by students cramming for a test. The stock-grade cards, with the White House seal at the top, contained easy talking points Trump could use in the conversation. To ensure the president would not miss what it said, the first card had all capital letters and bold lettering: “DO NOT CONGRATULATE ON ELECTION WIN.”

It was the first time anyone on the White House career staff working on national security could remember a president being handed marching orders from the NSC in all capital letters.

On Tuesday morning, McMaster called Trump at his residence for a quick check-in before the call. McMaster did not reiterate the “DO NOT CONGRATULATE” instructions from the cards. He didn’t think he had to. After all, the key points were in all capital letters. How could Trump miss them? Shortly thereafter, the White House Situation Room placed the call, connecting the Kremlin to Trump’s residence. Trump opened his conversation with Putin as if greeting an old friend, congratulating him on his amazing election victory.



Tuesday, February 18, 2020

the last book I ever read (A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America, excerpt nine)

from A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig:

Trump spent much of his weekend watching cable news and venting to friends that the Russia investigation was dominating the news cycle. He had dinner Saturday night with the talk-show host Geraldo Rivera before retreating to his private quarters and firing off the first in his series of controversial tweets. Trump was especially irritated with McMaster, who was in Germany addressing the annual Munich Security Conference. He said in his speech there that evidence of Russian interference in the U.S. election was “incontrovertible.”

Trump, who firmly believed any acknowledgment of Russia’s crimes took away from the validity of his own election victory, upbraided the national security adviser on Twitter: “General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Dems. Remember the Dirty Dossier, Uranium, Speeches, Emails and the Podesta Company!”



Monday, February 17, 2020

the last book I ever read (A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America, excerpt eight)

from A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig:

Kushner was the classic profile of a person who would be rejected for national security clearance, and Kelly’s move to downgrade his clearance level provided comfort to the CIA. Agency officials had been wary of allowing Kushner to see highly sensitive information about sources and methods, based on his pattern of talking to foreign leaders in the Middle East—including Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince—without State Department diplomats or other government experts guiding him.

The intelligence agencies were on guard in part because, as the Post reported on February 27, they had intercepted private conversations of leaders in China, Israel, Mexico, and the United Arab Emirates talking about the ease with which they could manipulate Kushner. Some of these foreign leaders described Kushner as naïve and easily pushed; others said his financial debts and search for refinancing for an underwater Manhattan skyscraper were one route that made him vulnerable to pressure.



Sunday, February 16, 2020

the last book I ever read (A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America, excerpt seven)

from A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig:

Deep into the first hour of Fox & Friends, on January 11, at 6:46 a.m., Andrew Napolitano came on the air. Napolitano was one of Trump’s favorite Fox analysts, so much so that some of Trump’s advisers had talked seriously about the former New Jersey judge as a possible Supreme Court nominee. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives was expected to vote that day to reauthorize a key part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a move the White House had endorsed. Known as the Section 702 program after its numerical reference in the statute, the measure was essential to U.S. intelligence agencies because it authorized government surveillance on foreigners abroad as a way of catching terrorists before they struck.

“I’m scratching my head,” Napolitano said. “I don’t understand why Donald Trump is in favor of this.”

Napolitano said he did not trust the surveillance program and warned, erroneously, that it had likely been used to spy on the Trump campaign and give birth to the Russia investigation. Then, forty-seven minutes later, at 7:33 a.m., a gap in time explained perhaps because Trump had been watching Fox & Friends on a delay, the president announced his opposition to the bill that his own White House had been championing in language that eerily echoed Napolitano’s commentary.



Saturday, February 15, 2020

the last book I ever read (A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America, excerpt six)

from A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig:

Another episode startled Trump’s advisers on the Asia trip. As the president and his entourage embarked on the journey, they stopped in Hawaii on November 3, to break up the long flight and allow Air Force One to refuel. White House aides arranged for the president and first lady to make a somber pilgrimage so many of their predecessors had made: to visit Pearl Harbor and honor the twenty-three hundred American sailors, soldiers, and marines who lost their lives there.

The first couple was set to take a private tour of the USS Arizona Memorial, which sits just off the coast of Honolulu and straddles the hull of the battleship that sank into the Pacific during the Japanese surprise bombing attack in 1941. As a passenger boat ferried the Trumps to the stark white memorial, the president pulled Kelly aside for a quiet consult.

“Hey, John, what’s this all about? What’s this a tour of?” Trump asked his chief of staff.



Friday, February 14, 2020

the last book I ever read (A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America, excerpt five)

from A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig:

As with most of his foreign leader meetings, Trump had been briefed but didn’t appear to have retained the material and instead tried to wing it. He took a hard right turn into a nitpicky complaint about trade imbalances. Modi tried to refocus on the threats India faced from Aghanistan, China, and Pakistan. His mention of Afghanistan led Trump off into a lengthy tangent about how stupid it had been for the United States to maintain its military presence in Afghanistan for so many years. When Modi mentioned his concern about China’s amibitions and aggression in the region, Trump revealed a stunning ignorance about geography.

“It’s not like you’ve got China on your border,” Trump said, seeming to dismiss the threat to India.

Modi’s eyes bulged out in surprise. Aides noticed him giving a sidelong glance at Tillerson, who accompanied Trump as part of the U.S. delegation. The Indian prime minister considered Tillerson among the best-versed Americans on the region’s security challenges, and together they had been plotting a new partnership. Tillerson’s eyes flashed open wide at Trump’s comment, but he quickly put his hand to his brow, appearing to the Indian delegation to attempt not to offend the president as well as to signal to Modi that he knew this statement was nuts.



Thursday, February 13, 2020

the last book I ever read (A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America, excerpt four)

from A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig:

Trump had had his eyes on Kelly for a while. After firing Comey in May, the president had asked Kelly to be FBI director. Kelly had declined, saying he preferred to stay as homeland security secretary, but he had observed to Trump that he had been poorly served by his staff because they had let him fire the FBI director without a Plan B. That conversation stuck with Trump, and the last week of July he asked Kelly to step in as chief of staff. Kelly asked to take the weekend to consider the offer, but the president was too impatient. He tweeted Kelly’s appointment before he had agreed to take the job.

Priebus had been in an impossible position. Despite tireless efforts, he never could managed to assert control over basic White House functions, such as communications and policy development, in large part because of the president’s impulses. Trump never fully empowered Priebus, either, allowing Bannon, Kushner, and Ivanka to operate as independent forces outside the chief of staff’s authority. Priebus complained to friends that he often felt demeaned by the president’s treatment of him. Trump had undermined Priebus by calling him “Reince-y.” When they flew to Priebus’s hometown of Kenosha, Wisconsin, for an April manufacturing event, the chief of staff peered out the window of Air Force One and spotted his home down below. The president mocked him for it. These episodes illustrated what some of Trump’s subordinates considered his cruelty as a manager. He was willing—eager, really—to belittle the people working for him.



Wednesday, February 12, 2020

the last book I ever read (A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America, excerpt three)

from A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig:

On January 27, without consulting his Justice Department or fully briefing his homeland security secretary, Trump issued a travel ban barring citizens and refugees from seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the United States. Chaos reigned at large international airports, and immigration lawyers filed emergency petitions asking federal courts to intervene to halt enforcement of the ban, arguing that it was unconstitutional.

The ban was drafted in secret by Bannon and Stephen Miller, Trump’s thirty-one-year-old senior policy adviser and a hard-line opponent of illegal immigration. They didn’t consult McGahn or Yates about its legal framework. Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly, whose department had to enforce the ban, never got to see the final version until after Trump delivered his executive order. Kelly was on a plane when the ban went into effect, which meant his deputy had to arrange an emergency conference call to explain to top department officials how it would be enforced, and didn’t have a copy of the document itself. Customs and Border Protection agents, wholly confused by the order’s language, inconsistently enforced a part of the ban that was later found to be illegal: barring people who had green cards from returning to their homes in the United States. Even Trump’s allies acknowledged the unmitigated disaster.



Tuesday, February 11, 2020

the last book I ever read (A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America, excerpt two)

from A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig:

There were three core questions facing U.S. intelligence officials about Russia’s role in the 2016 election. First, did the Russian government itself interfere? The overwhelming evidence said yes. Next, did Russia try to help Trump win? Much of the evidence suggested yes. Finally, did Russia’s efforts change the election result? Intelligence leaders argued they lacked the ability to say definitively. But Trump believed that acknowledging Russian intervention effectively tainted his victory.

In the days following the January 6 intelligence briefing, Priebus, Kushner, and other advisers pleaded with Trump to publicly acknowledge the unanimous conclusion the spy chiefs had presented to him. They held impromptu interventions in his twenty-sixth-floor office in which they tried to convince him that he could affirm the validity of the intelligence without invalidating or even diminishing his win. “This was part of the normalization process,” one adviser explained. “There was a big effort to get him to be a standard president.”

But Trump dug in. Each time his advisers pushed him to accept the intelligence, he grew more agitated. He railed that the intelligence community’s leaders were deceitful and could not be trusted. “I can’t trust anybody,” the president-elect said. On that point, he was seconded by Bannon, who said of the Russia report, “It’s all gobbledygook.” The president-elect said he believed admitting that the Kremlin had hacked Democratic emails would be a “trap.”



Monday, February 10, 2020

the last book I ever read (A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America, excerpt one)

from A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig:

Nobody bothered to vet Flynn. There was no review of his tenure as a U.S. military intelligence chief in Afghanistan, which had been the subject of a misconduct investigation. Nor of his time as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, which President Obama had cut short. Nor of his international consulting firm and his contracts with Kremlin-aligned companies. Nor of his attendance at a 2015 Moscow gala as a guest of Russia, seated at the table of President Vladimir Putin.

Flynn had used the Trump campaign as a gravy train, hoping to better his lifestyle after thirty-three years of relatively low military wages. At the same time he was advising candidate Trump, Flynn was working for the Turkish government and, according to federal investigators, concealing the nature of that arrangement. On Election Day, Flynn published an op-ed in The Hill in which he trumpeted Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s cause by comparing his political opponent, Fethullah Gulen, who was living in exile in the United States, to Osama bin Laden. Flynn called for the United States to force Gulen out of the country, stunning his former colleagues in the intelligence and national security communities.

Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor who had endorsed Trump and was the chairman of the presidential transition, was flabbergasted when the president-elect told him he would name Flynn his national security adviser.



Sunday, February 9, 2020

the last book I ever read (Virginie Despentes's Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel, excerpt fourteen)

from Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel by Virginie Despentes (translated by Frank Wynne):

“I left the bag with the tapes at a friend’s place, her name is Emilie. If you managed to track me down, I’m sure you’ll find her too. Well, anyway, good luck … you can drop me here.”

“Out of the question. I’m not leaving you on your own.”

He wanted to say “I would prefer not to.”



Saturday, February 8, 2020

the last book I ever read (Virginie Despentes's Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel, excerpt thirteen)

from Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel by Virginie Despentes (translated by Frank Wynne):

The vet took the body away in a black plastic bag. Xavier asked if he could have the ashes. He lied to Marie-Ange about how much it had cost. He didn’t give a damn. When he went to collect the ashes from the vet and saw the name “Colette” on the box, he realized that it was done. He put the box on a shelf, between the biography of Lemmy and a book about Mesrine. He still can’t get used to how quiet the house is when he comes home. He has never known the apartment to feel so empty.



Friday, February 7, 2020

the last book I ever read (Virginie Despentes's Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel, excerpt twelve)

from Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel by Virginie Despentes (translated by Frank Wynne):

“What kind of music do you like?”

“I love Adele. I could listen to her James Bond song all the time.”

“I used to be a record dealer. A long time ago.”

“Yeah? Vinyl and old-school photography—so you and me are both castaways from jobs that were shipwrecked.”



Thursday, February 6, 2020

the last book I ever read (Virginie Despentes's Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel, excerpt eleven)

from Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel by Virginie Despentes (translated by Frank Wynne):

Night had fallen, they’d emerged from the Métro and Laurent had chaperoned him as far as the soup kitchen at Saint-Eustache, where he managed to sort him out a blanket before leaving him, though not before telling him to drop by and see him in the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont. “You need anything, bro, just ask for me.”

Vernon had collapsed in a doorway of a boulangerie sheltered from the wind and had woken up—in the middle of the night this time—shackled to a brutal hangover and without the first idea where he could find water. He had headed up toward Pyrénées Métro station only to stop at Goncourt, dead on his feet. He had been having trouble breathing for a few days. He had sat down by the church, thinking that maybe he could pass for some suit out on the tiles waiting for someone in the cold. Then he had held out his hand. It had not been premeditated. He had simply made the gesture—once again feeling it was not quite real. Despite Laurent’s advice, begging while sitting down worked out better than he had anticipated—maybe, given that he still looked like a relatively normal guy, people could identify. In the first three hours, he managed to pocket twenty euros. Beginner’s luck. Shadowy figures slowed, fumbled in their pockets, and dropped coins into his cupped hand. There were the tightwads who came on like good Samaritans and coughed up only five cents, the spendthrifts who never gave less than two euros. There was no correlation between the apparent wealth of the passerby and the size of the donation. This was when Vernon lost all interest in the faces. When he got up, he had pins and needles in his legs, he invested in a kebab and a beer and wandered around looking for a bench where he could eat in peace. As he walked, he came across a young man sleeping on the sidewalk guarded by three huge dogs, a mixed-race girl with frizzy hair sitting talking to herself in a telephone booth among dozens of plastic bags. He passed an old man sitting on the sidewalk outside a building listening to his radio, surrounded by so many curious objects it was as though he had re-created his apartment on the street. He had never noticed there were so many people in his situation. When he reached Jourdain Métro station he sat down again, giving a wide berth to the other homeless people pitched outside the church and the Monoprix.



Wednesday, February 5, 2020

the last book I ever read (Virginie Despentes's Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel, excerpt ten)

from Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel by Virginie Despentes (translated by Frank Wynne):

Seeing that he will not be persuaded, she makes him promise to wait. She dashes to the Société Générale outside the park gates and takes out a hundred euros. It is all she has until the beginning of next month. She will make do. She does not want to spend tonight wondering whether he is sleeping on the streets, what with the weather being so cold. She wishes she could find the words to convince him to go with her, to let her take care of him. She remembers this feeling—wanting to help someone who turns away.

But already she can imagine redoing the little room where she does the ironing, so that he could move in and she could help him with the official red tape. She is not afraid of waiting in line in offices, of filling in forms. She can do something for him. She needs this as much as he does. To be useful for something.

When she comes back, the bench is empty. She is distraught. She wanders the park looking for him. She encounters people out walking who stare at her in alarm. She knows that she looks like a madwoman. She is used to it.



Tuesday, February 4, 2020

the last book I ever read (Virginie Despentes's Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel, excerpt nine)

from Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel by Virginie Despentes (translated by Frank Wynne):

It was taken him three days to resign himself to sit down and beg. He spent the first day entombed in the Métro. Riding the lines from one end to the other. He rode them all. He dozed, he read the newspapers people left behind when they got off, he watched the stations flash past, he made connections, he listened to buskers. He got off at a random station, let several trains pass, then got on again and rode all the way to the terminus. To throw people off the scent. Not that anyone noticed what he was doing.

He came up to the surface when the Métro gates closed. He was somewhere near Passy. He spent his first night sleeping on the streets sheltering in an ATM booth. The weirdest thing was finding himself scouring the darkness for cardboard boxes to insulate him from the cold floor. It felt oddly as though he were playing a role. He could not quite believe what was happening. Taking advantage of a drunk from the sixteenth arrondissement staggering up to the ATM, he stepped in behind, pretending to wait his turn, cool, laid-back, three cardboard boxes tucked under his arm. Then he nipped inside, settled himself on the ground, head propped on his backpack, and waited for dawn to break and the Métro to reopen. A blanket wouldn’t have gone amiss. He is still not properly equipped. The following morning at five, he was waiting for the Métro to open, he had a nap on Line 8 then got off at République, still determined to pretend he was a guy who was going somewhere. He sat for a few hours—or a few minutes, time had lost all meaning—on uncomfortable benches staring at the wall opposite like someone preoccupied by minor everyday concerns. This time spent moving from station to station had left him covered with a film of black grime. Needing to get some air, he had come up to the surface. He walked for a long time, looking into shop windows like any other pedestrian. When he reached Opéra, he went into the Apple Store to get warm. The staff in their blue T-shirts didn’t notice him, there were too many people clamoring for their attention. He logged in to Facebook to see whether Marcia had left him a message. He saw that she hadn’t and closed the page. He tried to read the news but had a hard time finding a story that interested him, he watched a few videos with girls in them. Then he went on his way. He walked as far as Pigalle and then went down into the Métro, where he stayed until evening.



Monday, February 3, 2020

the last book I ever read (Virginie Despentes's Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel, excerpt eight)

from Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel by Virginie Despentes (translated by Frank Wynne):

Some men do not really change past the age of fifteen. She recognizes this curious little habit men have of telling foolish, barefaced lies, probably based on the principle that women are too half-witted to distinguish between a plausible assertion and a story that does not make sense. Vernon lies the way he did when he was fifteen when the bedroom reeked of stale tobacco in the morning and he and Xavier would claim the smell was coming from outside and refuse to budge an inch. When it came to twisting the truth, Nicolas had inherited all the family flair. Xavier had always been a terrible liar.



Sunday, February 2, 2020

the last book I ever read (Virginie Despentes's Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel, excerpt seven)

from Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel by Virginie Despentes (translated by Frank Wynne):

Xavier used to call his brother Houdini and his parents could not help but smile. My brother is Houdini, when Nicolas managed to escape from his bedroom on the sixth floor, bypassing the locked door, and taking with him two gold bracelets that had been hidden in a safe and that he sold to pay for his next fix. My brother is Houdini.



Saturday, February 1, 2020

the last book I ever read (Virginie Despentes's Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel, excerpt six)

from Vernon Subutex 1: A Novel by Virginie Despentes (translated by Frank Wynne):

It is a day of radiant sunshine, such as February affords from time to time. It is bitterly cold but the light is dazzling. She has a beer on the terrace at Rosa Bonheur. In the daytime, even old ladies can sit on the terrace without being stared at. Paris is wonderful in this respect. She drinks too much, she drinks like an alcoholic—starting early in the morning, small doeses, in secret. Gently. Her face bears the marks of the booze. Another expression of defeat. Her son pretends not to notice. He is afraid of her. He is afraid he might have to listen to her talk about something other than her lung X-rays or delays in the Métro. Besides, she bores him.