I am petulant. I cannot find an essay by Milan Kundera on the web. So spoiled have I become; my demands knows no bounds.

The essay? "Prague: A Disappearing Poem" from a Granta I remember reading. (My serach engine did turn up the reference to 1985 but I want the actual essay dammit.) In it I remember an indelibe image Kindera conjures, an unforgettable metaphor, of a poem slowly disappearing as the page it is written on is set on fire.

This came to mind as I was talking to Evelyn yesterday. Told her the guy who torched the library has been assassinated.

I am planning a research trip for UK and NYPL, a proposal due this coming week. John says a Tibeto-Burman slash Foothills culture center such as the one Evelyn and I are dreaming of at UK would be fantastic, a first of its kind. (Not considering the not inconsiderable work of dharma bums that pass for Tibet studies.)

I told him Manipur is a center, a focal point , a node, an entry point. John wants to bring the library's conservator. I have asked Evelyn to think who might go from UK.

"A small nation can disappear, and it knows it,” said Milan Kundera. "To understand, we must compare."