[ilds] happy 97th birthday

[James Gifford]

I grabbed a very fine bottle of the local vintage, I kid you not, 
"Freud's Ego," 'specially for the occasion.

Spent this morning reading through the early portions of /The Black 
Book/ too, and I still marvel at that richness of allusion paired with a 
raw flow of adjectives and startling juxtapositions.

But how did the old beast recall that day a mere 97 years past?

"The child was born in those first days of the monsoon, when the
ground was rapidly becoming a living clot of humidity, and the ravines
mere waterways for the passage of such debris as the wind had torn
from the hillsides: when the clouds moved in menacing night-patrol
above a cowed earth." (Pied 1)

Best,
James

Charles Sligh wrote:
> Do you know what has been upsetting me all day?  To-day is Durrell's 
> birthday.  Think of it, the ninety-seventh birthday of codger Durrell.  
> I felt I ought to see some signs of it on the national countenance, I 
> looked about me eagerly all day.  But there was nothing.
> 
> Let _us_ celebrate the old b---'s ninety-seventh birthday, shall we?
> 
> [with gratitude and best wishes for the coming years--cf. /Mountolive/]
> 
> *Lawrence Durrell, 27 February 1912*
>