Category: Prose
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“Das Wunderkind,” by Thomas Mann
I was asked, after posting my translation of this story, whether I could offer readers a link to the original. Hoping ardently that I’m not running afoul of any copyright laws for posting a 117-year-old story, here it is in full. Das Wunderkind kommt herein – im Saale wird’s still. Es wird still, und dann…
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“The Prodigy,” by Thomas Mann – My Translation
For the Christmas 1903 issue of Vienna’s Die Presse, the Nobel laureate-to-be Thomas Mann contributed this lovely short story, about a wintertime concert given by a prodigy pianist. “Das Wunderkind” was the title it carried when published as a novella in 1914. Mann himself wrote in 1910 that it was his “most beloved” work. I…
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Barnacle-Studded Buoy, Seattle WA, Aug ’20
A night-dark cormorant skizzed past us on a solid packet of waves. Some minutes later, he came back the same way. You gripped with both hands alert and taut the unspooling line which plumbed the gloom. I had taken to wondering by and by when those hands would jump up and clamp into a vise…
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The Hound and the Mistress Sound, Jan ’20
The veterinarian, Dr. March, grabbed the dog’s long-haired ears and pulled them out to either side. So doing, he and the poor creature looked briefly like twinned ice dancers. But the enthusiasm was plainly lacking in the dog’s face; his anxious stomach saggier and hanging low to the ground, his ragged breaths which might normally…
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Rivers and Waters, Jan ’20
The first surprise you get as a resident of New York concerns its waters. Twin rivers clasping hands to the south, forming the bay which was of great import to Hamilton, and Cornwallis, and maybe John Jacob Astor, but which now holds for most the same attractiveness as an unfunny mural. Barrel-chested Hudson over yonder…
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Ode to “Interstate 10” / BPB, Feb ’20
“Habeat Corpus,” they intoned of a single voice, lips clapped shut, and let slip the bonds anchoring that cooling body to its last reminiscences of dry land. It looked like an old mummy whose tomb they had plundered and, having found nothing of value remaining in that sandstone cathedral, whose body they had taken in…
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Garage Below 12400 Wilshire
The ticket you’re handed is tinted pleasingly – magenta, or maybe salmon, a blushing card amid the grey beton and indiscriminate lighting. Obverse many protests against the potential for you to seek damages in the event of misfortune, reverse an odd schematic of a car, already the most familiar shape on Earth. The color again:…
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