Author: Mark J. Chmiel

A Mosaicist

  … Proust had never been able to finish any work of fiction because he lacked the story and point of view. He had at last found his structure, one that was to prove ideal…

Greta

Garbo had a stand-in who was identical to her, and who was said to have ‘everything that Garbo has except whatever it is Garbo has’. What Garbo had was a body that transmitted and received. It…

Dr. Johnson and Jane Austen

One unblushing admirer of the Dictionary was Jane Austen’s father, who assembled a substantial collection of books by Johnson, by his friends and associates, and about both the man and his circle. Inspired by her…

By Little and Little

If you can just manage five minutes a day [to meditate], then do that. It is important to do whatever you can, no matter how little.—Dipa Ma I once wrote for a magazine: I made…

Letter to a Barista

Dear Fräulein Sabine, I read a book I think you might appreciate (as if you don’t have enough to read with your Civil Engineering course and your Higher Mathematics course and your reading Spinoza for pure…

Instruments

“Priez pour que soit pur le travail accompli par votre intermédiaire car vous êtes Son instrument. Souvenez-vous de Lui dans toutes vos actions. Plus pure sera votre pensée, plus belle sera votre œuvre.” —L’enseignement de…

Speed

[At this point a nurse showed up, interrupting our talk. Although he was only sixty-five {Jean-Paul} Sartre was already suffering from all the amphetamines he had taken his whole adult life and needed to receive…