Last night, while Amanda was at work on our evening meal, I sat on the couch with our girls in front of Blue's Clues and read, in The New Yorker, excerpts of the diary that the Canadian writer Mavis Gallant kept while living in Spain in the early 1950s. She sold things--her clothes, her grandmother's jewelry--to get money for food. The ratio of potatoes to literature is high. Food, food, food. By the time we were called to dinner, I was famished, and scarfed down, oh, around 3000 calories if you count the two bottles of "the champagne of beers." Notwithstanding all that, the entry I remember now is:
Today from the balcony I see a blind man tapping his way along the buildings across the street. He reaches a street crossing; everyone watches, silent, and lets him walk full on into the side of a building. When he has recovered (for a moment he was like a butterfly beating its wings in a box) the spectators just walk away. Pure detached curiosity: "What happens when a blind man collides with a wall?" Then, "Only that?"
Here is a (rare) interview she gave.
