i wish
his three favourite things
Hired a bike and visited my only friend in Denmark, who runs a beautiful second-hand store that sells his three favourite things: books, and records, and coffee. He has two splendid crimson armchairs and windows onto a cobbled street. How we met was, I was in Berlin over the summer and dropped in on the bookstore that had agreed to trial one of my books in their English-language section. The pile was sitting untouched but I saw this tall man hovering and said to him, unexpectedly, “You should buy this one! I wrote it.” So he did and we have been friends ever since. God love good bookshops, the friendship agency of the civilized world. Today he had on Nick Cave’s new album and was listening to it “over and over.” I said, “He’s Australian! Like, the coolest Australian since… 1975.” In the riverside cafe where I ate dinner afterwards they were playing Olivia Newton-John, who has no use for cool and was singing “Hopelessly Devoted to You” as though her heart would crumble. What a song. I and the elderly waiter were both singing it. Two tough-minded Danish women in their fifties walked in to order beers, wearing what seemed to me very insufficient clothing. Outside, the water darkly rippled and a skin of ice extended itself infinitesimally.
You might also like to read:
I saw a woman who looked just like you, I wrote to my friend, smoking a cigarette and wheeling her bicycle, big black spiky thing with a huge basket strapped on front, down the boulevard ...read more
I was in a strange city recently, got lost, felt overwhelmed momentarily, & needed comfort. Ducked inside a Guitar Shop to touch all the guitars. You pluck one string and wait for it slowly to ...read more
When I went to Copenhagen on my own it was cold and windy and there were times I felt very lost and alone. When I felt lost and alone I would take refuge in one ...read more