King Lear, by Shakespeare
some cheap paperback edition

San Francsico, CA
Fall 2001

Here is an example of a book that has spread itself out all over time, whose contents I have tried to memorize in part, whose space of operation now carries bits and pieces from all over time.

I am unsure when I read this play. But at one point last year I put it in the pocket of my jacket, got on my motorcycle, and rode into the city and out to Golden Gate Park to walk around and memorize.

Almost a year later I was in precisely the same spot with a woman: we had purchased Galouises at a shop on Haight Street and were waiting for her plane, which left that day. The weather was almost identical (this is San Francisco, after all), and I was unable to recall much of what I had learned.

I told her about how strangely happy I had been, wandering around in the botantical gardens working on the soliloquy Edmund (or is it Edgar) gives (This is the most excellent foppery of the world that when we are sick in fortune…)

“Are you a romantic?” she asked.

“Not really,” I said, but it wasn’t true.