From Lust To Zest
The English-speaking people do not have a perfect equivalent for the French joie de vivre. The latter conveys the accord between body and soul, the excitement at the prospects of the future (advienne que pourra), the feeling of well-being (se sentir bien dans sa peau).
Apartment 93
excerpts (This article is prohibited to my parents, as it may contain: scenes of moderate physical violence, alcohol consumption, conduct which may be easily imitated by said parents, etc. ) I think that my first Bohemian period started off in an unsuspecting leave taken
A Morning Without Abu Ghraib
Dedicated to Ol' Eugen Hang on, ol' man: they caught once a 450-kilo sheatfish! It was nine meters long! They used a sheep for bait! There'd been ducks and geese disappearing from the Danube, but when it took away two children…That's what Ol'
Orbitor - The Left Wing
excerpt Maria had come to town during the war, leaving her native Tântava, and managed to find a job as apprentice for Verona Tailor's Shop, along with her sister Vasilica. The tailor's shop was located behind ARO building, stuck right on the white painted house,
The Morometes
excerptclick here to see film preview Heeler produced from a slit of his belt an unopened package of smokes, casually took place on a stump and began rolling a cigar. Moromete squatted down and rolled one from Heeler's pack, after which he stretched his arm to laggardly
The Dacian Allurement
excerpt Never have I felt more keenly all that separates us from the West than in a summer afternoon spent in the Versailles gardens. In the park full of Greek memories: Apollo's Pool, that of Latona, in which the superposed arrangement of the gardens that mount towards
The Wedding Book
excerpt Only when, after three hours, Jim breathed the salty air of Constanţa did he regain his self-possession. Medy let them walk through the city and went to prepare the home reception. They took a round in front of Ovid's statue, who looked at them pensively,
The Procrustean Bed
excerpt Between 9. 30 and 10. 30 in the evening, all the other restaurants were empty, but the Popovici Garden was packed, they put more tables in every corner, and when even that was no longer possible, friends asked those who had arrived earlier to let them sit at their
Mahmud's Slippers
VII. TURNU-MĂGURELE PARTIES While the three friends met, once or twice a week, and talked peacefully and wisely about matters of the soul, the town around them changed, in the readers of the export societies, the wheat in gold, received on land and water thousands of bottles
Music And The Romanian Soul
None of the great men of 1848 – a Romanian scholar noticed once – had a particular understanding of music. The boyar sons from a hundred years ago assimilated everything regarding the arts that they encountered abroad, but not music. Not even today, perhaps, do we have
At The Royal Cinema
The Lumière Brothers' toy, perfected year after year, challenges Thalia and Melpomene and the people of Bucharest take cinemas by storm. Businessmen are quick in smelling money, and thus many individuals whose energy used to be spent at the haberdasher's or on
At Grandiflora
excerpt In the town square, behind Gustav Café, there is the variety entertainment ale-house with the strange name Bucharest Hotel (it has room only for women-artists), Mr. Cocoşel's winter public house. Ancient house, rather long and low, the hotel twinkles its