...a deathly serenade...

Art is really helping you to laugh and see
something new in the face of death. Death? What
is death? All that exists is what Leila talks about
when she wrote: I eat, drink you could say
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
(Elysium, Random Apartment) … we eat, drink
and this is all that really needs to be said, living
under the moon …" Heavily influenced by poetry
and Leila Dois, in particular, he often mused on
these poems though it seems that he has had not
ventured into Zhaozhou's, The Gateless Gate
because it still had a Waterstones receipt in the
middle of the book, that was obviously new and
by the looks of it, untouched.
On the bottom shelf, the book titled, 午 後
の 曳 航 is the Japanese version of Yukio Mishima's
novel, The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea.
Having spent time in Japan teaching English,
Franz had a great affinity for all things Japanese
and this book was a gift from a lady called Miho,
who has written the words: "To Franz. A beautiful
man," she wrote, "just like you! xx" and signed
her name at the bottom. A handsome man that
was clearly popular wherever he went. Talking of
his status as a celebrity and part of the "beautiful
people", Franz words were scathing, "Look, what
I find particularly strange is that people want to
talk about how I look," he said, "which was rather
flattering to begin with. All the talk of writers
rarely being so handsome and how my work came
to be, slowly, like a woman at work given
promotions because the boss likes her breasts, it
started to take precedence, particularly in the
82