Bryan Alistair Charles
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bryanacharles.bsky.social
Bryan Alistair Charles
@bryanacharles.bsky.social
Writer in midst of disorienting midlife free fall / Author of a novel, a memoir, and a book about Pavement written for 33 1/3 / Broken Hearts Are Blue guitarist / Amateur Proust scholar bryanalistaircharles.com
excited to continue my immersion in the Oxford #Proust. When first reading the Search in 2003 I struggled with this one, after the delicious seaside atmosphere of vol. 2, which I had greedily inhaled. Set the Search aside until 2014, & by then I was ready for Proust's vast social canvas.
November 12, 2025 at 8:55 PM
At @citylightsbooks.bsky.social. A national treasure. Proust shelf features multiple translations/volumes of The Search plus related works. Including of course the new Oxford Proust, which includes @avecsesdoigts.bsky.social's gorgeous translation of vol. 2.
#Proust
#booksky
#Proustsky
November 1, 2025 at 8:39 PM
Found this lovely copy of THE LEMOINE AFFAIR, comprising Proust's pastiches of Flaubert, Balzac, etc., at Walden Pond Books, Oakland. Translated by the great Charlotte Mandell @avecsesdoigts.bsky.social & published by @melvillehouse.bsky.social
#Proust
#Proustsky
October 28, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Fellow Proustians, I did it, I made madeleines!
#Proust #Proustsky
October 27, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Sunbeam Wireless. Highly recommended.
October 24, 2025 at 11:36 PM
Saturday night stopped at Moe's 10 minutes till close and found this-- @groveatlantic.bsky.social -- I read the Beckett Trilogy circa 2012 the same way I eventually completed THE SEARCH 2 years later--10 pages every morning first thing--(p.s. love you Barney Rosset & Dick Seaver!)
#proust
#proustsky
October 13, 2025 at 5:13 PM
In today's #Proust reading there was a reference to Baudelaire's "La Chevelure," which is exactly where I left off in Les Fleurs... yesterday!
October 1, 2025 at 7:14 PM
James Dean with cousin Markie Winslow, Park Cemetery, Fairmount IN, February 1955, photo by Dennis Stock.

Note name Cal on headstone is same as Dean’s character in EAST OF EDEN. Dean himself would be laid to rest in Park Cemetery eight months later.

8 February 1931-
30 September 1955
#filmsky
September 30, 2025 at 3:06 PM
Last week I watched the great SYMBIOPSYCHOTAXIPLASM, by William Greaves.
Not sure I had expectations per se, but whatever I had assumed the film might be like... it was not like that at all.
Amazing. Highly recommended.
#filmsky
September 13, 2025 at 5:56 PM
My newest machine. Late 1950s Hermes 2000. Has a really crisp, snappy touch, much different from the 3000, and a heavy carriage shift, similar to an Olympia SM3, maybe even a touch heavier. New platen as well!
September 7, 2025 at 6:28 PM
PARIS DU TEMPS PERDU.
The photographs of Eugène Atget with text by #Proust.
Edita Lausanne, 1963
#booksky
#Proustsky
September 7, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Two more Moe's finds. Centennial Proust pub. 1971 w/ photos & essays (including by Philip Kolb & Anthony Powell!).

And massive edition of SWANN'S WAY pub. 1954 by The Limited Editions Club & featuring illustrations by Bernard Lamotte.

#booksky
#Proust
#Proustsky
August 29, 2025 at 3:32 PM
Founds these at the great Recycle Bookstore, San Jose CA, neither of which I know anything about. (Latter given to "me" April 1964 by Miss Jennie Lernhart.)
#Proust
#booksky
August 16, 2025 at 9:58 PM
dear @danielsilvabooks.bsky.social, I like the feel of the Ticonderoga in my hand & on page. Also the eraser. But it is a touch too light for me. I bought a box of the black ones thinking they might be darker but no 😂 Stays sharper longer than the Blackwing though. I will keep them in rotation! ✏️📝
August 15, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Last night my band Broken Hearts Are Blue played its first show in 28 years in our hometown, Kalamazoo MI. Many old friends were there, some had flown in for the occasion, many I had not seen in decades. . . it was completely overwhelming. echoes of Le Bal des têtes. . . . #Proust
August 11, 2025 at 2:52 AM
Dictionnaire Marcel Proust. Another birthday treat from Moe's. (Cool part is I have loads of credit there just now so it was a freebie!)

Thanks to @insearchofproust.bsky.social for the heads up!
#booksky
#Proust
August 4, 2025 at 12:30 AM
I have read this one in English but could not resist picking it up in the original French when I saw it today on birthday outing at Moe's, one of the world's great bookstores.
#Proust
#booksky
August 2, 2025 at 11:03 PM
This sticker on my copy of THE TALISMAN always cuts me to the bone. @stephenking.bsky.social
July 28, 2025 at 2:16 PM
My zine THE CRACK-UP is now available.
Bits of poetry, dreams, cut-ups, movies--
Besotted by #Proust, haunted by 9/11.
To order a copy send $5 to:
The Crack-Up
PO Box 1512
Alameda, CA 94501
#booksky #zines #DIY
July 18, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Nice to see this in today's NY times. Thank you Sadie Stein.
@3313books.bsky.social
#pavements
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/14/i...
boys are dying on these streets....
July 14, 2025 at 11:34 PM
It is hard to imagine a more gorgeous screen couple than Jeanne Moreau and Marcello Mastroianni in La Notte. Add Monica Vitti in the second half of the picture and the scale essentially shatters.
#filmsky
July 11, 2025 at 5:32 PM
I made a zine THE CRACK-UP, old school, typewriters, pencil, cut ups, glue sticks...Here is page 11 w/ my kid's drawing of me in apparently very common position, lying down reading #Proust
#zines
July 1, 2025 at 12:27 AM
Neighbor's cat Loki has made himself a groovy little bed in our landscaping .... #caturday
June 21, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Surprised and delighted to find this book face out on shelf at my local indie shop days after reading about it in @nybooks.com.
#Proust
#booksky
@columbiaup.bsky.social
June 20, 2025 at 9:48 PM
....for good measure I also bought DÉSERTER so I could look at the French after reading @avecsesdoigts.bsky.social's masterful translation (THE DESERTERS) out now from New Directions
#booksky
June 3, 2025 at 10:15 PM