2009/08/06 New York
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1995

Sweltering

The summer of 1995 was my first summer in New York and in my memory one of the hottest summers I experienced in the city. At that time I was still living in Holliswood, Queens. Every day I took the F train to the city to go the New York Film Academy, where I followed a crash course in film making with among other people a very young Gael Garciá Bernal. (You can see him in my short and fairly silent movie “Left Shoe”.)
Not that I aspired to be a moviemaker; as always I was looking for material.
There is something to be said for not leaving the city in the summer. I wrote most of my novel “The Asylum Seeker” in my sweltering apartment in the summer of 2002. I wrote my collection of poetry “Love is Business” in the same sweltering apartment in the summer of 1998.
According to The Times, this summer is unusually cold, but my apartment is sweltering as always. I believe that’s a good thing.


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12 comments Last_comment
It was The Asylum Seeker that knocked me over completely. It was the book that got me hooked on Grunberg, the start of a serious addiction. I am looking forward to another masterpiece to come out of the sweltering appartment this summer.
said Ron Lander 06/08/2009 08:45 • x
Hooked on Grunberg
Arnon,
How does it feel to have men openly expressing they are hooked on and addicted to you?
said Joost Sprokel 06/08/2009 10:30 • x
In the summer of 1995 (I turned 11 that year) I went to Spain with my family since my father took part in a training camp (he used to be a cyclist). While he went up and down the hills with his bike all day I spent a lot of time wandering the hotel grounds. I wasn't allowed to go swimming in the pool since my mother was afraid that I might catch a cold so I had to make do with what was at hand, e.g. watching people playing tennis. One day a pair of them lost a ball and they asked me in four or five languages to retrieve it for them before finding out my mothertongue (at that time someone else had spotted the ball and threw it back). The most interesting thing I saw during that summer was the lump in the groin of a younger cyclist. He developed it (and fever) because of homesickness which I thought tremendously curious.
said Juliane B. 06/08/2009 12:06 • x
Left shoe
A movie with Marx Brothers value (? gehalte). May be thanks to the sepia, the music, the setting. I liked it.
said vera m 06/08/2009 14:47 • x
True believer
I got 'hooked on Grunberg' when I read 'Figuranten' in highschool. I vividly remember reading the scene where the main character has finally got a gig as an actor, and he has to play a scene in which he is thrown of the stairs by a hooker. This scene then has like 20 takes, which means he actually is thrown of those stairs about 20 times. I thought that was the funniest thing I ever read. Been a true believer ever since.
said M. Hordijk 06/08/2009 15:35 • x
Joost
It feels good, Joost.
said Arnon Grunberg 06/08/2009 17:17 • x
1995
In 1995, Arnon Grunberg was only known to me as ‘one of those new young Gods in writers land’. Someone to ignore, definitely.
said Bernard f 06/08/2009 19:47 • x
But it was his TV presentation of RAM-VPRO and The Jewish Messiah that caught my attention (and hooked me…)
said Bernard f 06/08/2009 21:36 • x
If I remember well, the first thing I've read about Arnon, was about the publisher 'Kasimir', not the writer.
said Mieke Dutoit 06/08/2009 22:23 • x
Same for me, Bernard. Same for me. I saw this cocky young fellow on RAM and thought "Boy, do I hate this man".
I just came back home and took a shower. While showering I thought "One only hates in other people what they can't stand in themselves". I don't remember who said this, but it's a good quote.
said Dens Powells 08/08/2009 00:33 • x
Dens
L'enfer, c'est les autres.
said Oscar Wilde 08/08/2009 05:04 • x
@Dens
No, I only hated the image the media gave him before I knew him (the image of the new Young God…). Il liked Arnon immediately, when I first saw him on TV. I was surprised in a most positive way: he was a very intelligent and curious man, but absolutely no entertainer. Of course his career was not long lasting…
said Bernard f 09/08/2009 11:25 • x
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