Well Lit

Last night I drove past a lighting shop close to work. It was dark and the shop was ablaze (as you would expect) and to me, at that time, it seemed to be the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I was agog (I only used that word because I find it funny), enrapured! What is this obsession with light? It is aesthetic, but it is also healthful.

I am reading The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto again (Mario Vargas Llosa), which is definately the right thing to do. I am absorbed. Someone recently asked me how I know what to read, and I realised that it is something that just seems to happen. I follow a chain of links perhaps. I know I became interested in Simone Weil (not that I have properly read any of her work) through Chris Kraus. How did I discover Edmund White, or Peter Carey? Perhaps because they are seminal (especially in Edmund White's case....ha ha). I bought my first copy of Nights at the Circus ([Angela Carter] I now own at least 3 copies of it) at Fullers bookshop in Hobart in 1994. This was when I lived in Warwick St with Weej, in a revolting old house that nearly froze us to death. I read a lot of it in the kitchen there. I didn't ever smoke cigarettes during the day then.

What is the name of the lighting shop at the beginning of Sandy Bay Rd, opposite Byron St, the one that has been there since I was a child?

In that house I read a lot. I didn't really have much else to do, as we were so poor. There was something we really loved about being poor though, and it always made us laugh. Poor, drunk and dirty. A very Hobart existence. Funny how I couldn't do that now. And I don't think I could live in Dublin now. SM sent me a text while she was at Ri Ra (horrible club in Dublin) and reminded me of the time we were in there very drunk and were nearly locked in the toilet. We were talking and the club closed and no one realised we were still in the toilet. When we left we staggered around until we found a Spar or a Centra (equivalent of 7-11) to buy some shitty food. I heard someone speak with an Australian accent and before I knew it I had said 'fucking Australians' to this person. I don't know why. Perhaps I was angry? Perhaps it was some weird disidentification thing? But I so fervently held on to being Australian while I was there.

The world is, and should be well lit.