TRTR - Chapter VI - cigarettes burn windowsills

[Michael Bailey]

there's a poignant line in Traffic's song, Paper Sun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cp_3NEWTzU
cigarettes burn windowsills, something something something

always had that kind of feeling of romantic neglect, hearing that -
like the people are preoccupied with something romantic and wonderful
and too busy to tend their smokes

Traffic of course is more late 60s than late 40s, and the phrase seems
to be intended as a pejorative, but I end up perceiving it as a
positive (a cigarette burn mark on a sturdy wooden piece of furniture
or structural element is quite attractive, imho, demonstrates the way
that the sturdy wood patiently takes the burn and the cigarette
eventually goes out...)

and in a way, maybe that's what Otto is after, a romantic
absent-mindedness that is admired by somebody
although he probably wouldn't be looking to impress me in particular...

but anyway


page 204 - the rumpling of the linen is less attractive (less
"becoming") in the morning light than he'd thought last evening.
In addition to the linen, there are 2 suits and a jacket.
The gray flannel suit is deliberately unpressed (the movie The Man in
the Gray Flannel Suit (1956) wouldn't have been out in time to be
referred to here) - is this an act of rebellion?

an ad on the radio for hair removal for ladies - 1500 hairs an hour
(4000 holes in Blackburn Lancashire)
- harkening back to Wulstan of Wulster, why *don't* more men depilate
or undergo electrolysis?
If you're going to shave every day anyway, think of the time you could save!

I noticed that now in New York, he's looking at his nails "like a
man": turned in upon the palm.

Gd crs as mch fr mmnt as fr hr - wht mean?

that looks a bit like "God curse as much French monument as French
whore" at first glance, but of course it's "God cares as much for a
moment as for an hour"  Didn't Wyatt or somebody say that? can't find
it right now...


...so he's counting his money (the money he went south to get) (Iago:
"make money") and reaches one hundred thirty.
Gives it over to examine his face anxiously in the mirror.

the lady next door is radio-station-surfing and there's a little
triptych like a Varese aria:
"And so friends, to get your free...Christ sent me not to baptize but
to...That wonderful he-man aroma that girls really go for."