Desk Notes by Charles Schifano
Charles Schifano
Exploring writing, travel, and literature—with a new issue every Friday.
Created 31 Jul 2020
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A Cold Wind01 Apr 2022Lisbon 2017 Desk Notes explores writing, travel, and literature—with a new issue every Friday. Subscribe now And now we’ve reached the time of year when the weather acts like a jester, teasing us with...
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A Low Dishonest Decade25 Mar 2022I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade September 1, 1939 W. H. Auden I Prague 2011 Here is Count Pierre Kirillovich ...
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All Those Fanatical Writers18 Mar 2022La Spezia 2019 In a 1950 letter to the publisher Jamie Hamilton, the always pugnacious Raymond Chandler took a moment to complain about writers. Your Paris trip sounds like a typical publisher’s jaunt...
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Soundless11 Mar 2022New York 2015 Desk Notes explores writing, travel, and literature—with a new issue every Friday. Subscribe now Nothing makes you doubt the merits of a music education more than a neighbor who takes up...
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The Correspondents04 Mar 2022Rome 2016 Desk Notes explores writing, travel, and literature—with a new issue every Friday. Subscribe now Stuffing a few shirts and some notebooks into a small backpack before jumping onto a plane to...
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More Than One Mistake25 Feb 2022In the fall of 2020, I wrote the paragraphs below. I found myself looking over them again this morning and decided that they were—after a few edits—just as relevant today. Black Sea, Constanța 2018 De...
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Against The Novel of Validation18 Feb 2022London 2011 Desk Notes explores writing, travel, and literature—with a new issue every Friday. Subscribe now Just before the halfway mark of Ian McEwan’s 2012 novel Sweet Tooth, we arrive at a sentenc...
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The Result of Chance11 Feb 2022Angra dos Reis, Brazil 2019 Desk Notes explores writing, travel, and literature—with a new issue every Friday. Subscribe now For many years I preferred to swim in a pool rather than the ocean, to play...
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Reader Questions—The Problem With Contemporary Writing04 Feb 2022Rome 2016 The first bit of news is that last week’s Desk Notes triggered a flood of messages and comments and also brought along a lot of new readers. The second bit of news is that there are, well, s...
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The Problem With Contemporary Writing28 Jan 2022Rome 2016 Desk Notes explores writing, travel, and literature—with a new issue every Friday. Subscribe now To care about the state and quality of writing today is to scream into a void while knowing t...
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