Bruno Silva

“A drawing of a tree shows not a tree but a tree being looked at”
― John Berger

“As soon as you close your eyes, the adventure of sleep begins."

-from "A Man Asleep”
― Georges Perec, Things: A Story of the Sixties / A Man Asleep

“4. Or else:
Rough draft of a letter

I think of you, often
sometimes I go back into a cafe, I ist near the door, I order a coffee
I arrange my packet of cigarettes, a box of matches, a writing pad, my felt-pen on the fake marble table
I Spend a long time stirring my cup of coffee with the teasspoon
(yet I don't put any sugar in my coffee, I drink it allowing the sugar to melt in my mouth, like the people of North, like the Russians and Poles when they drink tea)
I pretend to be precoccupied, to be reflecting, as if I had a decision to make
At the top and to the right of the sheet of paaper, I inscribe the date, sometimes the place, sometimes the time, I pretend to be writing a letter

I write slowly, very slowly, as slowly as I can, I trace, I draw each letter, each accent, I check the punctuation marks

I stare attentively at a small notice, the price-list for ice-creams, at a piece of ironwork, a blind, the hexagonal yellow ashtray (in actual fact, it's an equilaterial triangle, in the cutoff corners of which semi-circular dents have been made where cigarettes can be rested)

(...)

Outside there's a bit of sunlight
the cafe is nearly empty
two renovatior's men are having a rum at the bar, the owner is dozing behind his till, the waitress is cleaning the coffee machine

I am thinking of you
you are walking in your street, it's wintertime, you've turned up your foxfur collar, you're smiling, and remote

(...)”
― George Perec

“I ask every thinking man to show me what remains of life.”
― Charles Baudelaire