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When The Titanic Sank The Dead Came To Halifax

Halifax is significant to the Titanic, and vice versa. It is the port where 209 of the victims from the Titanic were brought after being retrieved. 150 of these bodies were eventually buried in Halifax. I live a short city bus ride from one graveyard where many Titanic victims are buried. I am also a longer bus trip to another graveyard where more of the dead are buried. I usually visit each once a year.

When cruise ships come to Halifax, one of the ‘tours’ offered the passengers is a visit to the Titanic graveyard. I assume the irony of this is lost, but I do wonder about the ‘tempting fate’ aspect of such an excursion.

One year I went to a Titanic “parade” down on the waterfront. The event started one hour late. The horse-drawn “hearse” was really a waggon from a local farm. The candles were fake electric…

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10/12/2015 0

Kafka Makes Demands After He Is Dead

kafkaestblog

Much is made – again and again – about Kafka’s famous request to his friend, Max Brod, that all his manuscripts be burned unread. That included all his fiction, all his letters, and all his diaries. Consigned to the flames and removed from the earth.

Had this been done, most of the work for which Kafka is famous would never be known, for little was published during his life. His skewed yet realistic outlook on life, now famously known as Kafkaesque, would not be classed in every dictionary. A touchstone, known the world over, would have been lost. Kafka might, at best, been remembered as the man who wrote about the bug.

I will point out that Brod gets a bum rap about defying Kafka’s direction to burn all his manuscripts. Yes, Kafka did indeed make this request of Brod. He apparently made it a few times, both verbally and…

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10/07/2015 0

People of the World / Punishment of Puns

kafkaestblog

spuning out of control

When In Rome

There was an Abyssinian (I made her),

an Albanian,

a Bolshevik,

a Bratislavian (he was worst),

a Brazilian,

a Canadian,

a cannibal (uh-oh),

a Colombian (smoking),

a cynic (she didn’t believe the Canadian),

a Dominican,

a Druid (he prayed for the Dominican),

a Druze,

an Etonian,

an Estonian,

a fool (ha ha),

a Frieslandian

a Gazaian (she stripped),

a graduate (he smoked),

a Haligonian,

a Helgolandian (he was gone),

an Israeli,

an Iranian,

an Iraqi {they three went into a bar},

a Jamaican,

a Japanese,

a Kazakhstanian,

a Kurd,

a Lithuanian,

a lush (one in every crowd),

a Mongolian,

a monster (them’s the odds),

a Nederlander,

a Norwegian,

an Olympian (I liked her),

an opportunist (coulda been me),

a Pole (he vaulted over the rest – *joke*),

a Québécoise (I’ll never forget her),

a Russian (great dancer – he had the steps),

a…

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10/07/2015 0

Kafka’s Passport at Auction

Coming to auction next week is Franz Kafka’s signed Czechoslovak passport. The author was born in Prague in 1883. This 32-page booklet with various manuscr

Source: Kafka’s Passport at Auction

09/18/2015 0

Kafka’s Passport at Auction – The Fine Books Blog

Source: Kafka’s Passport at Auction – The Fine Books Blog

09/18/2015 0

Reading From: “The Elephant Talks To God”

kafkaestblog

Here I can be heard giving a brief reading from my book of short stories, “The Elephant Talks To God”.

http://www.authorsaloud.com/prose/estey.html

The book itself:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Elephant-Talks-Dale-Estey/dp/0864924593

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08/05/2015 0

She had God in her feet and Angels in her streaming hair

It was such a summer day.

07/30/2015 0

Kafka And His Burrow

HUMAN BURROW

A burrow offers security and comfort, and Kafka found both in his sister’s tiny house on the Golden Lane.

Ottla – his sister – had rented it so she could spend time with her lover and not be bothered by parents and comments. Her lover was a Christian and ready to go to war. Time was precious. However, she rarely had opportunities other than the weekends, so she offered Franz the use of the tiny house for most of the time. And use it he did, though he never stayed the night.

Through fall, winter and spring Kafka wrote a whole book of short stories there. For one single block of time, it was one of his most creative periods.

When I visited, even under Communist rule, it had been converted to a book store. Of course (which he would have appreciated) there were no books by Kafka for sale. Today he is displayed in the windows.

It was only when I went thorough the small rooms and looked out the window into The Moat that I realized how important the house would become in my novel about Kafka. It was cozy – even with the space cramped by tourists. It had been little altered and I easily imagined Kafka looking through the same glass and walking through the same doorways. No doubt stooping because he was tall. Research met reality.

One of the last stories Kafka wrote, during his final year in Berlin, was called The Burrow. A version exists and is published, though a longer version is supposed to be among his ‘missing’ papers. In it a tiny animal keeps incessantly burrowing to keep away from an enemy. A vague noise convinces the animal to burrow deeper. Yup – that’s Kafka.

07/24/2015 0

It’s time for morning pages…

This seems a great idea to give a try.

Peggy Riley

Morning! It’s time for morning pages!

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll already know how I start my days, clogging your timeline with #amwriting tweets and lovely cups of tea. Every morning, it’s time for morning pages as soon as I can manage it, leaving bed for the kettle to wake myself up with words. It is a practice, a ritual, and a habit, one I’ve done for years and years. I flex my fingers; I empty my head. It is the only form of meditation I actually commit to and do. Without morning pages, I feel a bit scratchy, a bit foggy and shocked. Like the proverbial tree falling, is it morning if I’ve not done pages? My head isn’t so sure.

So, what are morning pages? Do they have to happen in the morning? How do they work and why do I, along with writers across the…

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07/13/2015 0