a dictionary of spectral curiosities
Posts about vintage memorabilia from my ever-growing collection.
Today, I teared up in a bookstore. Today, I bought a book because the first two paragraphs of its final chapter made me feel like crying. I picked it up and leafed through it to kill time, and because the title, Borderlines, caught my eye. I picked it up with some cynicism, wondering what this …
Continue reading "Crying in bookstores, thinking of borders"
I find there is something especially sad about old photographs sold at flea markets, curio bazaars, and similar places. I always ask myself how they ended there, at what point someone decided they were no longer interesting, no longer needed, no longer of any emotional value. Maybe they belonged to someone who no longer had …
Let's talk about one of the strangest, creepiest literary landmarks of Romania. About an hour and a half's drive north from Bucharest, lodged among the hills, lies the rather sleepy town of Câmpina, once upon a time a key transit point on the commercial route linking Transylvania, the mountainous northern region of what is now …
Continue reading "Iulia HaÈ™deu: the Cult of the Dead Girl-Prodigy Who Wasn’t"
One of my long-time hobbies has been collecting old photos. Nothing compares to the feeling of rummaging through reams and reams of old photographs at flea markets and wondering: Who were these people? What were their lives like? How did these once-cherished keepsakes end up, anonymised, in a plastic bin at a flea market?I recently …
What is something not-so-secret and somewhat strange that you do that gives you purpose? For me, it's bringing flowers to old graves that no one seems to visit anymore. It's not as random as it might seem. Wherever I live, I seem to get attached to old cemeteries, and in particular churchyards. They bring a …
Continue reading "Bringing flowers to a forgotten grave: Celia Holloway (1799-1831)"
Yes, somebody actually put this on their bio. Does this count as copyright infringement, or fair use under the copyright law? After many, many, many - possibly way too many - years stuck in monogamous relationships that weren't good for me, I'm finally experiencing what some might call "freedom." For some months I did the …
Today's prompt encouraged us to write a poem about an animal, which was an excellent excuse for me to to write about a cockroach for the first time! I dedicate this one to my patient hissers, Kafka and Rilke. The Cockroach He burrows, searching for the trail left him by his ancestors, alive with the warning …
Today, I wrote a poem about fairies, elves, mermaids, and nature, inspired by the amazing town I'm currently staying in. The View from the Nehaj Fortress One could almost believe that the elves went to war with the fairies here. The hills, bathing their feet in the sea are true testimony; there have been no …
Found these two lovely photo-postcards at a flea market in Italy. Judging from the clothing style and  the automobile, I'd date them to the early 20th century, possibly the 1920s, but please do correct me if I'm wrong. They were displayed together with other photo-postcards in which various people from the group photo also …
I haven't updated this blog in such a long time, but I guess life and work have a habit of getting in the way. Well, this weekend I've finally done something properly new that broke the monotony of habit, and now I'm itching to write about it. I went to a taxidermy workshop. That's right, taxidermy, where you …
Encyclopaedia Vanitatum 