The Literary Review back issues from March 1999:
Death and Venice: Editor's Introduction.
Mar 22, 1999; ... I was last in Venice in 1987. It was my second and, to date, final trip. I have traveled to other European cities since then, but I have never gone back to Venice--nor do I ever plan to return. Twice is enough. One more trip would probably tempt fate. As I look back to that ...
The Return.(PO)
Mar 22, 1999; ... <Pre> The broken Victrola on your tablewaited to play old jazz, the gondola rushedover a reflection of clouds on the canal,and pain kept you lowered on the bedas you caught the muffled criesof statues from the square, feltyour own weak fingers lockin ...
The Ghost of Tintoretto's Daughter.(PO)
Mar 22, 1999; ... <Pre> When you returned from Venice you had changed,we were no longer comrades--I saw that right away.The moon kept its old devoted deathwatchall the way home from the airportbut you hardly noticed, you barely spoke. So I had to imagine every lovesick vignette-- ...
La Tempesta.(SS)
Mar 22, 1999; ... It was late afternoon when we climbed into a gondola. Feletia remained in back to practice conversational Italian with the gondolier. She had tied her bronze hair with a red scarf and was peeling a peach. I sat in front of her, too hot to talk. Our two daughters, dressed in blue, perched ...
Venice Via Hell & Belgrade.
Mar 22, 1999; ... Mere mention of Venice calls up memory fragments of just getting there. I was twenty. On the bus in Munich--Charlotte Appleton's hair flashed like a stoplight. Avoiding another's clutches she sat down next to me. We slept that night fully clothed in a park under honeysuckle. She was from ...
Venetian Thresholds.(SS)
Mar 22, 1999; ... Venice, 1984. Fleeting sentinels, a pair of seagulls glide past the stretch of milky sky whilst down in the campo two ragazzi play at calcio. "Goal!" exclaims the eldest prematurely as he strikes the ball with all his might. "And missed again," counters a strident voice. Except for the two ...
Death in Venice.(SS)
Mar 22, 1999; ... He looked as if he'd been to see a private screening of Death in Venice at an Art Film House in another dimension. I often wondered what happened to all those extras from Fellini's movies once the shooting was done. It was a sure bet more than a few of them had relocated to Albany and were ...
Carnival, Venice: A Meditation on Generations.(PO)
Mar 22, 1999; ... <Pre> One hundred years nowsince Grief Gondola was composed, since Liszt, pulled hereby irony's weight, had to admit for the first time, his strangerwas a daughter and the reverse; her husband Wagnerafter all was no King Midas; and he ...
The Foot of Saint Catherine.(SS)
Mar 22, 1999; ... Reynaldo descended from the train at Stazzioni S. Luccia nd stood on the platform for a moment, lifted a handkerchief folded into a white square from his pocket and coughed quietly into it. He was a tall, slender man, clad in a white linen suit and silk necktie of a nougat hue. As he ...
On Not Dying in Venice.(PO)
Mar 22, 1999; ... <Pre> I should have known betterthan to drink the water in Venice,summer 1956, our honeymoon;the water was black and oilyand tasted like ink.Writing without pen or paperwhile I writhed on my bed in Venicethe black water scrawled graffition the walls ...
Chasing the Moonlight.
Mar 22, 1999; ... I've been in this calle often; I know it well. I come here to wonder and look onto the black water, playing and splashing mere inches from my feet. The first time I came here was by chance while scurrying to the Rialto late at night. Following the labyrinth of dark streets in Santa Croce, ...
Sunday Night--Piazza San Marco.(PO)
Mar 22, 1999; ... <Pre> I. There's only one, yet;Hour by hour I wanderLost in my Venetian night.Through her veins and chambersI seek her secrets. I see you in her;Within those careful eyesAn easy grace and style.Nearby the Bridge of Sighs --So many ...
The Jew of Venice.(EX)
Mar 22, 1999; ... Now what I'm telling is from Master W.S., his play Jew of Venice, which only after years gone after 1596, when it first played, they call now Merchant of Venice. What I m telling now is how in his play Jew of Venice Master W.S. wrote about me, Pincus Perlmutter, all to make mean gleeks ...
Drinking Tea with Ezra Pound in Venice.(PO)
Mar 22, 1999; ... <Pre> Christmas has passed and the lighton the snow has lengthened. Criesof blue jays toughen like rawhide.Last night I dreamt that old age had cornered me, twitched my gizzard,tripped me into a wheelchair whereI stewed about the good old daysof ...
Toccata and Feud.(SS)
Mar 22, 1999; ... "Tonio, no! Tonio, listen to me." Vivaldi would not be calmed; shaking off Umberto's hand, he continued his relentless advance upon his target. His long strides carried him across the marble floor of St. Mark's Cathedral, oblivious to the murmurs of the listening audience. ...
Carnevale.(EX)
Mar 22, 1999; ... The First Night Spirit away the princess to where the century has landed in the lap of the past. Set her down, gently now, still rubbing her eyes from the gust of passage. Will she recognize the place? Is there anything she will recognize? Yes, of course: what hasn't tumbled ...
Fifteen Short Poems.(PO)
Mar 22, 1999; ... <Pre> Cortege Nobody hears the cortegefiltered through the rainand the illusion becomes more realthan the boatsor the laughter of childrenwho think they see a line of swans. In Memoriam Taped to the inside of the windowwith a pastry shop ...
Der Tod in Venedig.(SS)
Mar 22, 1999; ... On the train to Venice, counting the cypresses against the gilded sky. Forty-five, beginning to age, I crouch in the upholstered seat, travelling the continent alone, rushing through the August afternoon until the shadows level toward the sea, the land lies low, and--over the ...
Zattere.(PO)
Mar 22, 1999; ... <Pre> sunflashoffcanalwaterssointenseitmeltsintothisajargreenbuzzstaretoohardyouloseit </Pre> Kedeem Beeftallow is a pseudonym for your humble guest editor, who, lacking ...
What I Did on My Summer Vacation.(EX)
Mar 22, 1999; ... First of August ... I am walking, but it is not me. It is memory walking. Memory leading my limbs through these twisting calle as if it were only yesterday. As if it weren't only two hours since I landed, two years since I last searched these stones for a pattern, a path. This is how time ...
Our Slides of Venice.(PO)
Mar 22, 1999; ... <Pre> Here we are the final day, tired, our eyesdark and drooping a little, as we boardthe train to leave. Outside, water lapsagainst the station steps, to bid us farewell, to greet the newly arrived.This is one of many courtyards, paintpeeling across stones ...
Conversations with the Doge of Venice.(SS)
Mar 22, 1999; ... The other five found Gerald on the floor sometime in what they called the morning. It wasn't really morning, only that the lights were back on, but it was the closest they'd come to morning in months, maybe longer. The interval between Duane's appearance and Gerald's was the longest yet, ...
The Cemetery Island.(PO)
Mar 22, 1999; ... <Pre> 1. At Ezra Pound's Grave, 1994 Still rocking from the vaporetto rideI wander,camera for amulet, pastblocks of stacked tombs:photographs behind glassand sconces of bouquets. Lost in long alleys, I turnand stumble uponcypresses in the ...
Venice Unbound.(SS)
Mar 22, 1999; ... Paula, sleek, blonde and breezy, moved through the cold, damp loft each day dressed in shades of grey and black, inevitably broken with a touch of white, usually a crisp shirt. Under her left arm, clutched close to her like a tattered teddy bear, was the usual worn leather portfolio. Over ...
Small Leavetaking.(PO)
Mar 22, 1999; ... <Pre> By late afternoon only small things remain--olives in a twist of green waxed paper. The boat is seven hours late. We lollon the sunbaked pier, blood slowing to Hymettus honey, sharing the wine,tipping the last drops in our mouths as the shadow of ...