A TRAVELER'S JOURNEY IN BABEL: 11/01/2009

KALI'S DAY excerpt

"Candice hears the sounds of birds. The last traces of light stain the cave’s entrance far from where she sits in full lotus covered only in the ashes of the dead. She drifts in and out, sometimes jolted from a vast emptiness by the grumbling of her stomach. So far she can silence hunger by simply focusing and re-focusing on her breath. But the stomach is a dumb animal and its indifference to “mind over matter” is becoming more apparent in the increasing volume of its complaint. It clenches itself like a fist and it’s all she can do to keep her eye closed, though she hears something scratching along the ground somewhere to her left. She’s conquered fear, never feared the dark until right before she conquered it. In another lifetime, there was a longing that she barely remembers. So it’s not fear or need that distracts her now. It’s the knowledge that, other than herself, something animate, something alive is within reach. Most likely it’s one of those large succulent beetles, thickly armored against what she is now in most danger of becoming—a predator, since she hasn’t really conquered appetite, has only concealed it, and despite having risen above the desire for even the simplest bowl of rice, is about to succumb to defeat for the taste of something that until now has been far from tempting or even remotely relevant to the satisfaction of any desire, let alone hunger—especially hunger.

She doesn’t open her eye. But she imagines it crawling heavily over the various obstacles in its way: pebbles and clumps of damp earth, a random search for whatever nourishment, dirt, dead insects, bits of excrement, it might stumble upon."

KALI'S DAY available from

Amazon U.S.:http://www.amazon.com/Kalis-Day-BonnyFinberg/dp/1570272816

UK, NZ, Australia & Europe:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kalis-Day-Bonny-Finberg/dp/1570272816

SAINT MARK’S BOOKS (signed copies) 31 3rd Avenue NY, NY

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BLUESTOCKINGS 172 Allen St. NY, NY

Sunday, November 1, 2009

We Can Stay Local

“We can stay local—have crêpes or French food or fuck off—”
“I’d rather have crêpes or French food, then fuck off.”
“Or do that and get pissed.”
“Stay local, have French food. Can have a crêpe tomorrow—French food.”
“How do we get home?”
“We’re supposed to get a cab…or a bus.”
“The drug you just took—the drugs are part of your mind.”
“We have to find a way to get home.”

April 8, 2005, rue Ravignan, Paris