tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85192778474921853442024-03-19T15:21:59.286+11:00A Glance AsidePhotos and their stories. Stories and their photos.Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06189060900520547321noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8519277847492185344.post-40265843800284161902011-11-20T18:45:00.008+11:002011-11-20T18:55:02.840+11:00The Fetish of Travel<div style="text-align: left;">When it comes to travel, why is it that we focus on specific sights or objects, to the point of fetishisation? For instance, the 'Mona Lisa' in the Louvre or the Spanish Steps in Rome. Sure, these sights are worthy of our attention, but the attention they attract and the pleasure they give seems excessive. Two theories of fetishism may explain what is going on.</div><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3VNBD9ncNiwL3V-dPM4rwsxnjYX0pGjhqX0PhPS0FveTkOll4VTjO3ROKSUik3xQshG17_wFweaBxmPX40nFjvfFb9Ki23voZcrfutA4fyMoLXBhnztJgmfzHjKVhTlBpj9FD6wCXPRg/s1600/5965827695_3d7982a464.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3VNBD9ncNiwL3V-dPM4rwsxnjYX0pGjhqX0PhPS0FveTkOll4VTjO3ROKSUik3xQshG17_wFweaBxmPX40nFjvfFb9Ki23voZcrfutA4fyMoLXBhnztJgmfzHjKVhTlBpj9FD6wCXPRg/s400/5965827695_3d7982a464.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5676981505908746530" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px; " /></a><div style="text-align: center; "><span class="Apple-style-span" >Image by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephevaphoto/5965827695/in/photostream/">StephEvaPhoto</a></span></div><br />First, Freud's definition of fetishism. In typical Freudian fashion, the scene imagining the origin of fetishism is male-centric: upon seeing the female genitals for the first time, a boy supposes that there has been a castration. To shield himself from the fear of his own castration, a penis substitute for women is installed, such as the foot, and thus the fetish begins. The fetish supplements or even displaces traditional sexual pleasures. So, translating this into the traveller's scenario, the 'castration' is the fear of losing oneself in the pleasures particular to the local culture. Instead of adapting to local tastes, certain experiences (eg seeing the 'Mona Lisa') are fetishised as substitutes for an authentic experience of the destination.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSl0aFu4gQyOWIcDvRs6bYIF43ieyMWACgc1no_OFJl0lLOMRLM7QeShntCgp0g3guD1xcvfwnNXcxbDz_PRqSs2E0kdjQkbvPkQklBeheWs4FIN9JJJBtH3H1VFzlDNxvKq1EPa3XSDw/s1600/443463013_26a061e597.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSl0aFu4gQyOWIcDvRs6bYIF43ieyMWACgc1no_OFJl0lLOMRLM7QeShntCgp0g3guD1xcvfwnNXcxbDz_PRqSs2E0kdjQkbvPkQklBeheWs4FIN9JJJBtH3H1VFzlDNxvKq1EPa3XSDw/s400/443463013_26a061e597.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5676982176160120322" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px; " /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/markbroadhead/443463013/in/photostream/"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Image by Mark Broadhead</span></a></div><br /><br />In the 1950s Roland Barthes finds the tide turning against this sort of fetish (his terminology for it is 'myth') and returning to a love of the everyday: 'travel has become (or become again) a method of approach based on human realities [...] it is everyday life which is the main object of travel'. While this tide of human realities has continued to flow, the fetish of travel has yet to ebb. Marx's theory of commodity fetishism is helpful for understanding why some travellers still find fetishised objects more interesting than a destination's 'human reality'.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgzYBXWUm384QoTwgvsmf2NQKWLp5a5VFS-0r2uq-Q3vwc2MVJzXnMtEolaLhMh8dhYQfO_wdjNOA7tgAhGC5V-gztBfv9igWp0ToBdKaUSTTvOP52vabLBeeRErxgZStNzLupplRexTk/s1600/2531016410_09b38d887f.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgzYBXWUm384QoTwgvsmf2NQKWLp5a5VFS-0r2uq-Q3vwc2MVJzXnMtEolaLhMh8dhYQfO_wdjNOA7tgAhGC5V-gztBfv9igWp0ToBdKaUSTTvOP52vabLBeeRErxgZStNzLupplRexTk/s400/2531016410_09b38d887f.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5676982665489384146" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 267px; height: 400px; " /></a><div style="text-align: center; "><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/markbroadhead/2531016410/in/set-72157605256422094/"><span class="Apple-style-span" >Image by Mark Broadhead</span></a></div><br />With the transition from feudalism to capitalism, most workers move from selling or using their products, to selling their time. In this change they become alienated from the commodities they help produce. Instead of owning the fruits of their labour, they own the money they have exchanged for their labour. As a cog in the machine of manufacturing, the workers' self-worth is diminished while products increase in worth (quite literally, as commodities are sold for more than what workers are paid to make them). Consequently, society values the relations between commodities more than between people. And persons are defined by the commodities they own.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaIDHwlY2HJ3Vgu9fFnWuUUeW65KHAz1vnxVNOxDt_iiAR1Oux7T-A69nxjG6JrjH26KH0PdY6i1EdDcXK3jM24Dq7iU1uQ9ydQ2Fsozh9giW5XLWd1G3iuluu-g-6VYOSczh8d29ZiOY/s1600/2661330844_66685e5010.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaIDHwlY2HJ3Vgu9fFnWuUUeW65KHAz1vnxVNOxDt_iiAR1Oux7T-A69nxjG6JrjH26KH0PdY6i1EdDcXK3jM24Dq7iU1uQ9ydQ2Fsozh9giW5XLWd1G3iuluu-g-6VYOSczh8d29ZiOY/s400/2661330844_66685e5010.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5676983053943939954" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px; " /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" ><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/markbroadhead/2661330844/in/photostream/">Image by Mark Broadhead</a></span></div><br />When I recall my travels, my favourite memories are frequently the conversations I've had with locals — not the paintings I've seen or the architecture I've walked around. Not that these sights aren't also appreciated by me, but society has fetishised them above the equally interesting daily realities of the locals.Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06189060900520547321noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8519277847492185344.post-79576287978745164022009-02-09T20:28:00.008+11:002009-12-29T21:10:12.054+11:00The Pensive Lions<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG3MwbdEpKD41IiLfSghqt2_mI7ZbD3k_VG7KqLJAu3-mlLQ6RPtg2tcTiN083wmOC6qYawseZQDmhbDbcj890rTJPgBoYM8XnXI-zCqXGY5BSuZ9MFSE0tRrnwuwsia-M1YbveOG6iYs/s1600-h/argentina.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 92px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG3MwbdEpKD41IiLfSghqt2_mI7ZbD3k_VG7KqLJAu3-mlLQ6RPtg2tcTiN083wmOC6qYawseZQDmhbDbcj890rTJPgBoYM8XnXI-zCqXGY5BSuZ9MFSE0tRrnwuwsia-M1YbveOG6iYs/s200/argentina.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300729050328645586" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXtTy6fdT83h1k82crdbiyWWx3aTbpoHB1iefOhEnbR-SF1PTTPsN0HVf8yN9rBtbZDCTyemlWPOSMRfhGan8_E-NAhM6a3CLxidhIOhQb3n3v9mPWFN0HMs8hJJ3C6dxxHIPD0-hH0Qw/s1600-h/463864520_8b70de139c.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXtTy6fdT83h1k82crdbiyWWx3aTbpoHB1iefOhEnbR-SF1PTTPsN0HVf8yN9rBtbZDCTyemlWPOSMRfhGan8_E-NAhM6a3CLxidhIOhQb3n3v9mPWFN0HMs8hJJ3C6dxxHIPD0-hH0Qw/s400/463864520_8b70de139c.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5300728476632892098" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">[Parque Lezama, Buenos Aires.]</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">This lion is mentioned in the opening of Ernesto Sabato's novel </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0879233818?ie=UTF8&tag=aag0a-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0879233818"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">On Heroes and Tombs</span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=aag0a-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0879233818" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">. There is another lion guarding the right-hand side of the gate. Their bronze has been painted since 1953.<br /><br />"On a Saturday in May, 1953, two years before the events in Barracas, a tall, stoop-shouldered youngster was walking along one of the footpaths in the Parque Lezama. He sat down on a bench, near the statue of Ceres, and remained there, doing nothing, lost in thought. 'Like a boat drifting on a vast lake that is apparently calm yet agitated by currents far beneath the surface,' Bruno thought when, after the death of Alejandra, Martin recounted to him, in a confused and fragmentary way, some of the episodes connected with that story. And he not only thought this but understood it -- indeed he did! -- since that seventeen-year-old Martin reminded him of his own forebear, the remote Bruno whom he glimpsed at times across a distance of thirty years, a nebulous territory enriched and devastated by love, disillusionment, and death. He had a melancholy image of him in that old park, with the dying afternoon light lingering on the modest statues, on the pensive bronze lions, on the paths covered with limp, dead leaves." </span></span><br /></div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06189060900520547321noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8519277847492185344.post-84823458134797657122009-02-03T21:19:00.005+11:002009-02-03T21:36:08.844+11:00The Sorrow of War<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQu17vGal1YS8thfYAQWdIVl3IN0N8DACs48BaIaFgkV98-Ey-5svrA8g7Jl8opU7mLdTW2csA2PZI-WFSjkJ4oxyT1b8fWLlHg2xr45H-Hlu5vaZIa6zCkkeFZr2UfOkzYjJJ7JSFrxE/s1600-h/vietnam.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 92px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQu17vGal1YS8thfYAQWdIVl3IN0N8DACs48BaIaFgkV98-Ey-5svrA8g7Jl8opU7mLdTW2csA2PZI-WFSjkJ4oxyT1b8fWLlHg2xr45H-Hlu5vaZIa6zCkkeFZr2UfOkzYjJJ7JSFrxE/s200/vietnam.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5298516785318702498" /></a>In less than two weeks I will be in Ho Chi Minh City. This is one of the books that is part of my pre-trip reading (I will add an appropriate photo when I get back).<br /><div>"The sorrow of war inside a soldier's heart was in a strange way similar to the sorrow of love. It was a kind of nostalgia, like the immense sadness of a world at dusk. It was a sadness, a missing, a pain which could send one soaring back into the past. The sorrow of the battlefield could not normally be pinpointed to one particular event, or even person. If you focused on any one event it would soon become a searing pain." <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1573225436?ie=UTF8&tag=aag0a-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1573225436"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">The Sorrow of War</span></a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=aag0a-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1573225436" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />by Bao Ninh<br /></div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06189060900520547321noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8519277847492185344.post-62899720262696612932009-01-24T21:06:00.012+11:002009-03-16T22:15:48.294+11:00The Narrative: Part 2<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdStHvSls8OPVFdIadgtqWDMHvm3RCltuEQfNiN9h6KcDmEOqlt6vm-hk5fmWnc7zzeqNO9vlfImP_gvaLhng3oLT5yTk0JbrisExha48K9vGewUtPfFFXVevZVrINgzkEc8BUjtlrZoo/s1600-h/australia.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 186px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdStHvSls8OPVFdIadgtqWDMHvm3RCltuEQfNiN9h6KcDmEOqlt6vm-hk5fmWnc7zzeqNO9vlfImP_gvaLhng3oLT5yTk0JbrisExha48K9vGewUtPfFFXVevZVrINgzkEc8BUjtlrZoo/s200/australia.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5294799902423963378" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigY803kq7epDJrgOK86GWTnLlWnbhD_tsK54a5TeanqwLWQV1_vE2CaCHzGxeO2dkzC5tJFAz5itdgpwNgX421qBxk_dl1i51xPP7kkpG9q2Z6TzsUIZu7mezICiQyrnXQDS9KghRQYyo/s1600-h/505188118_2cef4200e7.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigY803kq7epDJrgOK86GWTnLlWnbhD_tsK54a5TeanqwLWQV1_vE2CaCHzGxeO2dkzC5tJFAz5itdgpwNgX421qBxk_dl1i51xPP7kkpG9q2Z6TzsUIZu7mezICiQyrnXQDS9KghRQYyo/s400/505188118_2cef4200e7.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5294799725848227058" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">[Fawkner Park, Melbourne]<br /></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">One of the reasons to travel is to escape the everyday, the boring, the expected, the things that hold us back. I feel free in a new environment because I am anonymous. While I can get anonymity in Melbourne (because it is a large city), I am still restrained by the all too familiar everyday: the same food, the same clothes walking by, the same streets I know too well. Travel offers me freedom from this familiarity. Even if my everyday is only a little bit different (say I go to Sydney), then there is a exponential rise in my freedom.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"></span><br /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Although the everyday offers me a form of freedom (freedom from thinking, freedom from care, freedom from myself), the downside is that it is what Jean-Paul Sartre would call viscous. Sometimes it is hard to even realise how stuck I am in the everyday. In his novel <span style="font-style:italic;">Nausea</span>, the main character is sitting on a park bench when he notices the root of a tree. It is then that he realises how everything gets its meaning from its entanglement with other elements. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">"And then, all of a sudden, there it was, as clear as day: existence had suddenly unveiled itself. It had lost its harmless appearance as an abstract category: it was the very stuff of things, that root was steeped in existence. Or rather the root, the park gates, the bench, the sparse grass on the lawn, all that had vanished; the diversity of things, their individuality, was only a appearance, a veneer. This veneer had melted, leaving soft, monstrous masses, in disorder -- naked, with a frigthening, obscene nakedness."</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> -- </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0811217000?ie=UTF8&tag=aag0a-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0811217000"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Nausea</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=aag0a-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0811217000" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">by Jean-Paul Sartre </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">While travelling I have these moments all the time. I see everything as a mass. The freedom of travel is this distance I have between myself and the everyday. For a short while I can escape its viscosity.</span></div></div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06189060900520547321noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8519277847492185344.post-31770687309340669482009-01-20T20:53:00.012+11:002009-01-24T22:25:16.257+11:00The Narrative: Part 1<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgh7neSu57sVnR1yO_SOmXmGBp6SQgBrEqDvRJgfWoozbqoUeSrYvSPKQh_Wa50Yn1KlbW-2AN-Vb2BhCd0VPuclKo0HVNptnK9VvB1EguNOgnR3nsCotFb6dW6K6zsx9OcUV_FljmFKA/s1600-h/usa1.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 102px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgh7neSu57sVnR1yO_SOmXmGBp6SQgBrEqDvRJgfWoozbqoUeSrYvSPKQh_Wa50Yn1KlbW-2AN-Vb2BhCd0VPuclKo0HVNptnK9VvB1EguNOgnR3nsCotFb6dW6K6zsx9OcUV_FljmFKA/s200/usa1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293319263200379554" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU-js0gjlpqIwTyb-aFchqtugvJteGvcbyMEKyHMi42iz4WWEZc2f5ndXC-fYZtw9hr0oUCBkiiFm9HCM_y9zKrnOm6oTaBDQZQUJmGuBuQIyCOrVEUhBrcB61t7YLbfzu307YpEtqR_Y/s1600-h/2524003068_f5ae1ed1f9.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU-js0gjlpqIwTyb-aFchqtugvJteGvcbyMEKyHMi42iz4WWEZc2f5ndXC-fYZtw9hr0oUCBkiiFm9HCM_y9zKrnOm6oTaBDQZQUJmGuBuQIyCOrVEUhBrcB61t7YLbfzu307YpEtqR_Y/s400/2524003068_f5ae1ed1f9.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5293319138691523426" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">[Grand Central Station, New York City, May 2008.]</span><br /><div><br /></div><div>It is a truism that a destination is never exactly as you expect it to be. Multiple factors undermine the purity of desires. The weather determines your impressions more than the architecture; authenticity is diluted by coca colonisation; ease is impeded by language barriers; insouciance is defeated by tiredness; freedom is curtailed by financial limits; and so on. All these factors are present in my everyday at home, but somehow I imagine them vanishing in a distant land of travel utopia. And luckily I persist with these delusions, no matter how statistically improbable their success becomes after the failures mount up, for I would embark on fewer quests without them. But the delusions have now become ironic. It is only natural to desire the perfect encounter with a destination, but thankfully reality steps in.<div>The travel utopia doesn't exist outside my mind because it has no narrative. Before seeing the museum's masterworks I must wait in line for two hours; before waiting in line I must eat breakfast at an over-priced cafe. Utopias don't have narratives, but narratives are the things that make a trip a <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">trip</span>. I need obstacles to trip myself up, to make me see the everyday as a local would see it, not as a tourist.<br /><div><br /></div></div></div><br /><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");<br />document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));<br /></script><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />try {<br />var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-3155850-4");<br />pageTracker._trackPageview();<br />} catch(err) {}</script>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06189060900520547321noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8519277847492185344.post-45236467716284212822009-01-18T22:33:00.015+11:002009-02-03T21:18:13.733+11:00Egytian skies<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxaZ8kZ5pW6szmOylN2_nbElm31k3C0goB9giOic-T9YONzRmh1lS0aSFaue4YNjRpPBhz4sgZSnYGwKgrtvWYsuGb-rJknLpSaPB5RcNerPR2OaVud9Pm4jCF3RFcaDO5wC0eVnuRCOY/s1600-h/egypt.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 187px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxaZ8kZ5pW6szmOylN2_nbElm31k3C0goB9giOic-T9YONzRmh1lS0aSFaue4YNjRpPBhz4sgZSnYGwKgrtvWYsuGb-rJknLpSaPB5RcNerPR2OaVud9Pm4jCF3RFcaDO5wC0eVnuRCOY/s200/egypt.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297774087896585042" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDvBt09fu2oB-iHTTwgCxjtx93zmQK_eA6Q2Z3zE7HkpaBBUHSIns8N14EqE6ik9UC2EvZ9XXofdVduU8StCU9t0CEh2ww16BbyT5f0Dyu5zG2DZ3pLs_LfN7aDUwC9YEO9ou3Q62bC8A/s1600-h/3128122580_ec035447b5_b.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDvBt09fu2oB-iHTTwgCxjtx93zmQK_eA6Q2Z3zE7HkpaBBUHSIns8N14EqE6ik9UC2EvZ9XXofdVduU8StCU9t0CEh2ww16BbyT5f0Dyu5zG2DZ3pLs_LfN7aDUwC9YEO9ou3Q62bC8A/s400/3128122580_ec035447b5_b.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5297773962430716322" /></a><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">[View of Cairo from the minaret of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Ibn</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Tulun</span> mosque.]</span><br /><div><br /></div><div>It is quite surprising how distinctive a destination's sky can be. It is as distinctive as a person's hair style.</div><div><br /></div><div>The sky may not always be grey in England, but even a blue summer sky over Hyde Park does more to prove the sovereignty of grey than diminish it. When it returns, the English Grey stalks you like a melancholic just above you. </div><div><br /></div><div>In comparison, the sky is big in Australia because the clouds often hang so high.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9rard_de_Nerval"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Gerard de Nerval</span></a>, the man famous for walking his pet lobster, Thibault, wrote of Cairo's sky in 1842, and I found the same sky in 2008 (above). It is a large grey, as opposed to the small grey of England.</div><div><br /></div><div>"The turbid dust that clogs the horizon never breaks up into fresh clouds, as our European mists do; even at zenith the sun only manages to pierce a course through the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">cinereous</span> atmosphere in the form of a fiery red disk that might well have emerged from the Libyan forges of the god <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Phta</span>. At this prospect you understand the melancholia of ancient Egypt, preoccupied, as it so often was, by sorrow and tombs, that profound melancholia which is also transmitted to us through the extant monuments."<div>Gerard <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">de</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Nerval</span>, <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0720610966?ie=UTF8&tag=aag0a-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0720610966"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Journey to the Orient</span></a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=aag0a-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0720610966" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br /></span></div><br /><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");<br />document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));<br /></script><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />try {<br />var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-3155850-4");<br />pageTracker._trackPageview();<br />} catch(err) {}</script></div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06189060900520547321noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8519277847492185344.post-19013364086825872612009-01-18T00:20:00.025+11:002009-02-03T21:19:03.916+11:00Cafephilia<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEionbXUsRJEDEW7fTZSsACi1p3YfCv3RcKrKhX5F2Rww6D9K-bh6rDmE1A25vp1XZ8j_1wJt0jj9W6JdlYFKIp5kd_Pl9j0m-YhuFk4KnuzmcR9Pkc5aKGma_HHyLC1DWkQA5s-jrsU7WM/s1600-h/egypt.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 187px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEionbXUsRJEDEW7fTZSsACi1p3YfCv3RcKrKhX5F2Rww6D9K-bh6rDmE1A25vp1XZ8j_1wJt0jj9W6JdlYFKIp5kd_Pl9j0m-YhuFk4KnuzmcR9Pkc5aKGma_HHyLC1DWkQA5s-jrsU7WM/s200/egypt.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5292920076777608162" /></a><br /><div>Two panorama photos of cafes. <br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIEPGEjR3pC41FwW75gZlO4_SRmMZoLYeCtBJO-AdkqS1POU3MuWkemCBjRrBddR6kDBJbS9ZgkmDeN94L4LMRSyqDyxhvdTgO51QNQDWgDm5Dnw-xVhv13wnIN3lU5nakf4NZN3REOXM/s1600-h/2563726619_467d2f67ec_b.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 127px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIEPGEjR3pC41FwW75gZlO4_SRmMZoLYeCtBJO-AdkqS1POU3MuWkemCBjRrBddR6kDBJbS9ZgkmDeN94L4LMRSyqDyxhvdTgO51QNQDWgDm5Dnw-xVhv13wnIN3lU5nakf4NZN3REOXM/s400/2563726619_467d2f67ec_b.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5292252434605440850" /></a><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">[</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: bold; font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">El Fishawy, </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); font-weight: normal; font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Cairo, May 2008.]</span></span></span></span></div><div>This cafe is in the Khan el Khalili market district of Cairo. I had a honey sheesha. I found it very relaxing to smoke. It doesn't give you much nicotine (at least for me, a smoker). I was told the best time to visit was late at night when there are fewer tourists. However, when I visited in the afternoon I was the only Westerner. </div><div>I took a dozen photos with my Nikon D80 and the Sigma 10-20mm, then stitched them together with PTGui.</div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj98jlTj7D-REeRRafxxUckF9Jgo2atT000TD0HwpxxIE0Y21uKQ5sKfdfOgse0HsgSTKoFWDlbfXTzt2NfsvxycDQSZV8584ZJ_ubN9nuqDL1CXOZJ1QSZCKG3-GUhl8ZqhrBkap2usO0/s1600-h/argentina.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 92px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj98jlTj7D-REeRRafxxUckF9Jgo2atT000TD0HwpxxIE0Y21uKQ5sKfdfOgse0HsgSTKoFWDlbfXTzt2NfsvxycDQSZV8584ZJ_ubN9nuqDL1CXOZJ1QSZCKG3-GUhl8ZqhrBkap2usO0/s200/argentina.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5292921465615126898" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz2xYO4JE66LuuKsAZkiKrhtM9OOrEyQzZ7u6aHzC3yp9ZSDigfA2EjwAW8d0m5cmv47-wTjhKk3R_klVohIwv4Z4l3csHjFKKbr0PN9i8sZjKkLyii_PcqwA8E9hl6S9gJGg1Sl1ZRn0/s1600-h/467911149_0d64197d9f_b.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 85px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz2xYO4JE66LuuKsAZkiKrhtM9OOrEyQzZ7u6aHzC3yp9ZSDigfA2EjwAW8d0m5cmv47-wTjhKk3R_klVohIwv4Z4l3csHjFKKbr0PN9i8sZjKkLyii_PcqwA8E9hl6S9gJGg1Sl1ZRn0/s400/467911149_0d64197d9f_b.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5292252144115969746" /></a><div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">[</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: normal; font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">La Puerto Rico Cafe,</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: bold; white-space: normal; font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); font-weight: normal; white-space: pre-wrap; font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Buenos Aires, </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); white-space: pre-wrap; font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">March 2007</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); font-weight: normal; white-space: pre-wrap; font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">.]</span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre-wrap;font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">An out-of-the-way cafe, seemingly ignored by tourists. And as a consequence, much more authentic than the hyped </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: normal; font-family:Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caf%C3%A9_Tortoni"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Cafe Tortoni</span></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">, where Jorge Luis </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borges"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Borges</span></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">used to go. </span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family:Arial;">I took multiple shots with my Canon Powershot S3, then stitched it together with Canon's software.</span></div></div></span></div><br /><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");<br />document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));<br /></script><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />try {<br />var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-3155850-4");<br />pageTracker._trackPageview();<br />} catch(err) {}</script>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06189060900520547321noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8519277847492185344.post-11733189843137914662009-01-13T19:32:00.012+11:002009-01-25T01:36:29.677+11:00New York Public Library<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJK3oP177jwmwKpZFEvBDVsalRQ-mIHnHPLStaDY-xO0C-wexJkPRcF3oQISqgv-cUTFZ8-XZAfx8fWctwzL2o9UO4pRYSY8i0S1Wh2yiwaEgmFKc8DGmXHouFpTwiXS6_WDvNh7jo9CY/s1600-h/usa1.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 102px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJK3oP177jwmwKpZFEvBDVsalRQ-mIHnHPLStaDY-xO0C-wexJkPRcF3oQISqgv-cUTFZ8-XZAfx8fWctwzL2o9UO4pRYSY8i0S1Wh2yiwaEgmFKc8DGmXHouFpTwiXS6_WDvNh7jo9CY/s200/usa1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5291056049669643362" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Po2HltdsQiwnK40jTkX3GDvKzDd60H0BY7JlmdRfJ1lkSMnezzeSD2FWaqEB04wEWZJdMBpkYw10lmN9ADM7BX3X4OZ3HLcFFzinunPg4CuALAiypPmkNKMCKLvRPxBXnDAc8qaodb8/s1600-h/2521033530_fd28832991_b.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 268px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Po2HltdsQiwnK40jTkX3GDvKzDd60H0BY7JlmdRfJ1lkSMnezzeSD2FWaqEB04wEWZJdMBpkYw10lmN9ADM7BX3X4OZ3HLcFFzinunPg4CuALAiypPmkNKMCKLvRPxBXnDAc8qaodb8/s400/2521033530_fd28832991_b.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290694683599572050" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">[New York Public Library, May 2008.]</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"><br /></span></div><div>I'm a librarian (albeit a corporate librarian), but I don't read in libraries like this woman. It has to do with my bowels.</div><div><br /></div><div>I exaggerate. But there is something about bookshops and libraries that induces bowel movement in a lot of people. The common "something" shared by these two most venerable establishments is, of course, books. Books are laxatives. Masses of unread books produce anxiety. It is like public speaking. You stand before aisles of unread books and it is the same as standing <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">before the law</span>. They judge your ignorance.</div><div><br /></div><div>Before the Law is, of course, is the title of the most famous parable by Franz Kafka, which can be found in his <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805210555?ie=UTF8&tag=aag0a-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0805210555"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Complete Stories</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=aag0a-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0805210555" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></span>. "Before the law", it begins, "stands a doorkeeper. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the country and prays for admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says that he cannot grant admittance at the moment." The man waits his whole life, dying on the doorstep. Just before his last breath he asks the doorkeeper one last question: "'Everyone strives to reach the Law,' says the man, 'so how does it happen that for all these years no one but myself has ever begged for admittance?' The doorkeeper recognises that the man has reached his end, and, to let his failing senses catch his words, roars in his ear: 'No one else could ever be admitted here, since this gate was made just for you. I am now going to shut it.'"</div><div><br /></div><div>This short story was published in Kafka's lifetime, but it is also part of his posthumously published novel, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805209999?ie=UTF8&tag=aag0a-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0805209999"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">The Trial</span></span></a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=aag0a-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0805209999" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />. The multiple meanings of the parable are discussed at length by the teller of the tale, a priest, and the novel's main protagonist, Joseph K. However, they do not discuss the ignorance of the man for failing to notice that no one else enters <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">his </span>door. </div><div><br /></div><div>Each book in a library is for you. You are ignorant before it. And you may be ignorant after it too, depending on how good it is. But you can't judge it till you open it. You can't judge a book by its cover. But it judges you if you don't enter into its world.</div><br /><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");<br />document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));<br /></script><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />try {<br />var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-3155850-4");<br />pageTracker._trackPageview();<br />} catch(err) {}</script>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06189060900520547321noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8519277847492185344.post-45529884361083641112009-01-11T10:48:00.004+11:002009-01-24T21:47:17.969+11:00Do Not Go Gentle<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7gZRtR7RQuImIzuMxDZkQdQmwG1WKO4EfaP86VNGKyGYN7LsLpyPT8G2oGEnVJDduudB-I1BzLJDSamKqzO8YlpC1Ycp2NuqLq_IoLTQgyWzCGvUuztCpXejq-WgP6t3QA08_GZ2_cIo/s1600-h/italy.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 177px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7gZRtR7RQuImIzuMxDZkQdQmwG1WKO4EfaP86VNGKyGYN7LsLpyPT8G2oGEnVJDduudB-I1BzLJDSamKqzO8YlpC1Ycp2NuqLq_IoLTQgyWzCGvUuztCpXejq-WgP6t3QA08_GZ2_cIo/s200/italy.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290741648056522706" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAzIEd67ysZsgvPhMIYmwXQcpOnsz_iAHsSoix3XVM9XNbm2Z20EKKeXd4kaQn7kckw5MLpvD-iibPo8nAc_LwxL2XZiCaX56ch-tggJt1t1ChgSF189bc33vOKRtfADn3N8Uz0Ubx1BI/s1600-h/jan23.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 268px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAzIEd67ysZsgvPhMIYmwXQcpOnsz_iAHsSoix3XVM9XNbm2Z20EKKeXd4kaQn7kckw5MLpvD-iibPo8nAc_LwxL2XZiCaX56ch-tggJt1t1ChgSF189bc33vOKRtfADn3N8Uz0Ubx1BI/s400/jan23.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289819158445582338" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">[Stardust, Italy, Rome, May 2008.]</span><br /><div><br /></div><div>My last night in Rome I finally found a bar that suited my taste. I had struggled all week to see some jazz. Each time I went to a place it was either closed or much further away than I had expected, so I went home. <a href="http://www.lonelyplanet.com/italy/rome/entertainment-nightlife/389805"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Stardust </span></a>was also mentioned in the Lonely Planet guide as playing some jazz now and again, so I went forth. It also says that the crowd is Boho (Bohemian) and that I can vouch for. Most remarkably for me, it had women who had great spirit. I talked to several patrons. One in particular could speak good English as he had lived in England for a few years. His name was Derek. I said, "There isn't even a K in the Italian alphabet." He laughed, but I never discovered the reason for the spelling.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO_XK5uOhxa_OjuhDqfgSHutQjjmjvzYNxIATENg6UAO98syOj34PBVhHOMdkFYjigXwnIHe10d4y4KXYRvUkwsS4alDawL8rdCUQpD-R3sL3PYUvBkz2jHPAb7M-jr9GSqdTHHsNme90/s1600-h/jan24.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 134px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO_XK5uOhxa_OjuhDqfgSHutQjjmjvzYNxIATENg6UAO98syOj34PBVhHOMdkFYjigXwnIHe10d4y4KXYRvUkwsS4alDawL8rdCUQpD-R3sL3PYUvBkz2jHPAb7M-jr9GSqdTHHsNme90/s200/jan24.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289824945683849234" /></a></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">[Jack Russell playing with a drunk and a plastic bottle.]</span></div><div><br /></div><div>Running around the bar was a Jack Russell, so I spent a while playing with him, as did a good proportion of the other drunks. I mentioned to Derek how silly it was that Italian lighters had a cartoon stuck to them explaining how to use the child-proof action. He admitted their stupidity and said that children collected the stickers (I hoped he was being ironic). Towards the end of the night, a diminutive guy with large hair stood on the bar, quietened everyone, then performed <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0811215415?ie=UTF8&tag=aag0a-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0811215415"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Dylan Thomas'</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=aag0a-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0811215415" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /></span> poem "Do not go gentle into that good night" in Italian. I could hear the familiar cadences even if in a sense I couldn't understand the Italian words:<br /></div><div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Do not go gentle into that good night,</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Old age should burn and rave at close of day;</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Rage, rage against the dying of the light.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Though wise men at their end know dark is right,</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Because their words had forked no lightning they</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Do not go gentle into that good night.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Rage, rage against the dying of the light.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Do not go gentle into that good night.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Rage, rage against the dying of the light.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">And you, my father, there on the sad height,</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Do not go gentle into that good night.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">Rage, rage against the dying of the light.</span></span></div></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy-wGfJt2Dd7BRC6TYjTXGqRMsbwWEaoxIz-zvmmzLNGjAn3lkP2nSOtPccSOYYZYM_Iki1ol3rYfo2gXTeziDGn20KEgIkPNDebBB7B1sTLU2jp_mR6WMu6u6bv0foCJauiCNu_GUwxo/s1600-h/jan25.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy-wGfJt2Dd7BRC6TYjTXGqRMsbwWEaoxIz-zvmmzLNGjAn3lkP2nSOtPccSOYYZYM_Iki1ol3rYfo2gXTeziDGn20KEgIkPNDebBB7B1sTLU2jp_mR6WMu6u6bv0foCJauiCNu_GUwxo/s200/jan25.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289825798924722898" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"> [A recitation of Dylan Thomas in Italian. When I become leader of the free world I would institute the law that all pubs engage a patron to recite this poem at closing time.]</span><br /><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");<br />document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));<br /></script><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />try {<br />var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-3155850-4");<br />pageTracker._trackPageview();<br />} catch(err) {}</script>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06189060900520547321noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8519277847492185344.post-27987967947124563822009-01-10T13:45:00.031+11:002009-01-20T21:56:02.238+11:00Crawford Market<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaz5ym4M3ZIkdKnrXt60qAKZGeGTovj1QeuGuPDrUUoFCbp4EYTMAEHOuj2ohSquwUu1CaMKqJLVFUyRf7miHd3mqxspQgTqV39rR8GfSOE_8wzKdO7KF-fiL1_xNm-o9APyzv6UwrmmI/s1600-h/india.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 186px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaz5ym4M3ZIkdKnrXt60qAKZGeGTovj1QeuGuPDrUUoFCbp4EYTMAEHOuj2ohSquwUu1CaMKqJLVFUyRf7miHd3mqxspQgTqV39rR8GfSOE_8wzKdO7KF-fiL1_xNm-o9APyzv6UwrmmI/s200/india.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290743565629076354" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3NZfbxFz55L_WuyEmwYuj7LLhliJjTplkdCufOmWuN6HipPJamOi-zhuG6ocbVxbgS3mvEv-PxfuOoXp-hgOvC1tq_VpbMUogFbyOCToNhS4ofTNtFrsgTybaLMTF6WPrWny_WzNCX_Y/s1600-h/2539486451_aa82455a7e_b.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 268px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3NZfbxFz55L_WuyEmwYuj7LLhliJjTplkdCufOmWuN6HipPJamOi-zhuG6ocbVxbgS3mvEv-PxfuOoXp-hgOvC1tq_VpbMUogFbyOCToNhS4ofTNtFrsgTybaLMTF6WPrWny_WzNCX_Y/s400/2539486451_aa82455a7e_b.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289492523488638706" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">[Crawford Market, Mumbai, May 2008.]<br /></span><div><br /></div><div>Markets are one of my favourite things to visit while travelling or at home. You can tell how much soul a city has by the character of its markets. </div><div>I visited <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawford_Market"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">Crawford Market</span></a> twice. The first time I was told that I had to have an official guide because I was a foreigner. Several small men pointed to the sign in English to confirm this. I walked out in frustration that day, but came back later in the week and to be honest my guide was excellent. He spoke very little English, but he made up for it with pointing calmly at details I wouldn't have noticed.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /><br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlweQ2791p-E0gNPdMZv_VmT7Fwxps4HrO9FfXP4QYJF4A9OsFSoKpJgwRCMVn3uhSQ222US55mNjC5q9icBBNe5khzy0sfJkvA0jq89jpYUu0_8PlOsiX6MOYkkFtF4b0UiDIlLByWxo/s1600-h/2673397755_0822b952d0_b.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlweQ2791p-E0gNPdMZv_VmT7Fwxps4HrO9FfXP4QYJF4A9OsFSoKpJgwRCMVn3uhSQ222US55mNjC5q9icBBNe5khzy0sfJkvA0jq89jpYUu0_8PlOsiX6MOYkkFtF4b0UiDIlLByWxo/s320/2673397755_0822b952d0_b.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289492849196147698" /></a></div><div>It was late afternoon when I arrived. I'd already walked aimlessly for at least three hours, and played a game of cricket on the pavement with some boys. They watched me roll a cigarette then came up to me with the entreaty "Match?" As it was nearly 40c, it wasn't long before my shirt was completely wet with sweat. In short, I was tired by the time I reached the market. <br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">[The main entrance. After Indian independence the market was renamed the Mahatma Jyotirao Phule Market, which can made out on the arch in this photo.]</span></div><div><br /></div><div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDdB0CZfIhfP6ixQ_cGQgg3aRZ5M1zQjXUOcSJQWSuRNNvtYEJMzNPcHPsTNTTQOX04XkLRlHN617vy-G2tjQkC_9lFWIg1gGOiQQCX3QtRKJoErrf_9m3vbk1GcJ-Mtd1rs6wpTAg4lo/s200/jan35.jpg" style="float:right; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 110px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290668500606844930" /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); ">[The basket man (left) was reflected in the friezes on the archway. These were designed by Lockwood Kipling, Rudyard Kipling's father.]</span><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLDrR4KtG8wH-Rp005FroF1yU_zk8tSa5hCR2aM0EC1nWGIZ0w-pyAoUW8z3OLuRh6oflrWbSmps9B4mSqTPKjMUvsqc81-JHUtaUNqYwvE3OL7Od1WQiVI0JX9Q232ZVOuuqO9NYczkU/s320/2674218846_35baa88bca_b.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289493262660347026" /></div><div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgy3RMMckT9yUoqrmNoZ-qS2kTGrnVDIeGlmRqWcNpyTQUO_yWiNdopQrsRrq7XFFYckKAtrnXkFvCPSxGn0Uw9awt15z0WpLmLNEQOnsTbCpim3HEI3K7d_nbAeyX1CDc9IAcBG_bwK74/s320/2859344640_dc253e077c_b.jpg" style="float:right; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289495818842690322" /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">[Mangoes were in season. 90% of the fruit stalls were selling them, and only them. The boy (left) is "sweeping" the straw with his feet.] </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlnmpeYaCEgqhg46KQEq61yzBUr3IMSyk1jHQEn0ygc4OXvjxWJR43V246vZTmiPAdKoCWL-UZD2AMH1VuG6PypR5vduczlRqv2-6CkQ62YwWnfnd14fJ1CsaMvlTu2Vzr1YBpBGQgfvs/s320/jan16.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 257px; height: 320px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290676312905210914" /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC2GLxc6UWcoqUyLAEX3nRLFb6lnj6yy-smNiJnff8fJgmhgjKFKaBFOUbqKYk2unmyLX6hngP3ZUP2xJVkBEk_8hMgC_OK5U6t1l4qR9FZLi8lqGnwKI8GXtlMDCegmApqhdFnEoMh_M/s320/jan20.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290689191958001810" /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0); "> </span><br /></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghq6D-4StpnDrxREYG3P4oyhwfOekGT02E1-zc4Mdx2yxNkiWdK-FJZqmixcGy11VlIAiTSloLXAzn3_mGMPs8Mm7n11kzeeg6gmaCFV-t_3dc0V6PcWTC-9Lb45ll-nP4HR14Ldnc_X8/s320/jan18.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 244px; height: 320px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290691903691658866" /><br /><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"> </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">[The poultry section of the market (left). As you can see, it was long closed for the day when I went through. A cat and a couple of crows (the latter can be seen in the photo) were the only customers.] </span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOJMwAbyMmElLUzMq1zNzR0179qViYSqstBT_IXpQN_MLz7iDiPNk3Y-ZQs3lZfgoXkPcwy26Gr86pkBq6wWKqvKO1QjR1pueQULazFWWqXQqA_UUhyQAYDYATWJO9_C1rsLDZ4xlVx9U/s320/jan21.jpg" style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 214px; height: 320px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290702075490639250" /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><script type="text/javascript"><br />try {<br />var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-3155850-4");<br />pageTracker._trackPageview();<br />} catch(err) {}</script>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06189060900520547321noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8519277847492185344.post-51205746561171009842009-01-08T19:58:00.003+11:002009-01-20T20:15:37.967+11:00Intolerable Presence<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihTvskS9cG4WsE_XGQReOVwnche5oEAFVwMG926Nc46BRy5PWaR-OHIwYfVGqDvpwjakdb4bcO_vz4fCWl1qrTkxb5BBGbFff0l8orCcAgnuJts4kiz6EpnbraGP18PWcGE5KvLZeo-lY/s1600-h/egypt.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 187px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihTvskS9cG4WsE_XGQReOVwnche5oEAFVwMG926Nc46BRy5PWaR-OHIwYfVGqDvpwjakdb4bcO_vz4fCWl1qrTkxb5BBGbFff0l8orCcAgnuJts4kiz6EpnbraGP18PWcGE5KvLZeo-lY/s200/egypt.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290742107390997378" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3i7vYyyoiIAM6zNNsEjim93HGbfyEPhrlDwXKiR0pMb_0We9C9hSWBoyc_zsz3prnGPVVJDjXHTNeOF6t4YO55qQM_IZ-rT-JlmxsebE_uLF5HhIZCAMkZXyrAd0rXEF5ynmYAlW30nE/s1600-h/2569585701_18beb3444c_b.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 268px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3i7vYyyoiIAM6zNNsEjim93HGbfyEPhrlDwXKiR0pMb_0We9C9hSWBoyc_zsz3prnGPVVJDjXHTNeOF6t4YO55qQM_IZ-rT-JlmxsebE_uLF5HhIZCAMkZXyrAd0rXEF5ynmYAlW30nE/s400/2569585701_18beb3444c_b.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5288845242593386210" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">[Another view from the hotel balcony in Cairo, May 2008.]</span><br /><div><br /></div><div>I am going to Vietnam in a month. Yesterday I began reading Norman Lewis' travelogue through South-East Asia in 1950, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/090787133X?ie=UTF8&tag=aag0a-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=090787133X"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);">A Dragon Apparent: Travels in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam</span></span></a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=aag0a-20&l=as2&o=1&a=090787133X" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /> and found this quote:<div>"It was all very entertaining to a stranger completely fresh from the West, but from the experiences of these few hours I had learned one disturbing thing. This was that as a European I had been invisible. My eyes never met those of a Vietnamese. There was no curious staring, no gesture or half-smile of recognition. I was ignored even by the children. The Vietnamese people, described by early travellers as gay, sociable and showing a lively curiosity where strangers were concerned, have now withdrawn into themselves. [...] It is as if a general agreement has been reached among them that this is the best way of dealing with an intolerable presence."</div><div><br /></div><div>Although the situation in occupied Indochina during the fifties is a completely different kettle of fish, this discription captures for me the same sense I sometimes get walking in a foreign city. I felt it occasionally while walking around Cairo as a "Westerner". To describe it as hostility is too strong a word. And indifference is too weak a word. It is better described as feeling unwelcome. It has more to do with my own unease in being a "Westerner" than any actual unwelcomeness on the Cairenes' part. </div><div><div><br /></div></div></div>Other related blogs:<div><a href="http://aglanceaside.blogspot.com/2009/01/kafkaesque-market.html">Cairo</a><br /><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");<br />document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));<br /></script><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />try {<br />var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-3155850-4");<br />pageTracker._trackPageview();<br />} catch(err) {}</script></div>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06189060900520547321noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8519277847492185344.post-77252897229638738492009-01-07T21:23:00.002+11:002009-01-15T21:49:09.443+11:00Taxi Drivers, Immigration Officers, and Jetlag<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcKFSHxeawZU-5WiWniBEU63tz6QtIjCNgK5atCKfTGs3JZw_EA8-pl_N4qzfRsIu60lkb80Nh05_V-gxHQdmNxGNPXLrYb85f2RPbIgNiy0pPN4hAj6goCR1eWm2z-WdHCr3erOh1CIc/s1600-h/india.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 186px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcKFSHxeawZU-5WiWniBEU63tz6QtIjCNgK5atCKfTGs3JZw_EA8-pl_N4qzfRsIu60lkb80Nh05_V-gxHQdmNxGNPXLrYb85f2RPbIgNiy0pPN4hAj6goCR1eWm2z-WdHCr3erOh1CIc/s200/india.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290743240293037698" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh904dgYLmDar5b0xWSmuYidMbMDQBLv9J4kSPc-jC6uPW7t8g4EmYhf79KWH0l6hUelBidUXs5CkbQnWPQopVlZd3sRNlywk5R92Prx-HbYeaZttsB_PKUl5AUut4IgNw0NK_Sm_q_yjA/s1600-h/2552880855_c3530ded95_b.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 268px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh904dgYLmDar5b0xWSmuYidMbMDQBLv9J4kSPc-jC6uPW7t8g4EmYhf79KWH0l6hUelBidUXs5CkbQnWPQopVlZd3sRNlywk5R92Prx-HbYeaZttsB_PKUl5AUut4IgNw0NK_Sm_q_yjA/s400/2552880855_c3530ded95_b.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5288495646817400530" /></a>As we were leaving the airport, the taxi driver asked me if I liked India. I said I've only been here ten minutes. That was a lie. Firstly because I'd waited half an hour for another taxi driver to find him. He was in a restaurant or something. I'd paid in advance in the terminal so I couldn't jump in another taxi. Then, secondly, earlier I'd had an immigration officer who only reluctantly took my passport. She even went to pick up her newspaper again before resigning to the fact of my existence (and her job). When she did look at my passport she said "Broadhead" then laughed, and the smile didn't leave her face for the full two minutes I was in front of her. I made her day complete when she repeated the refrain "Broadhead [laughter]" as she stamped my entry date. I wanted to ask her what her surname was, but I didn't want to get back on the next plane to Cairo.<div><br /></div><div>A week earlier the immigration officer at Cairo airport (actually both of them -- inbound and outbound) thought it amusing to question my intelligence. I bought a Egyptian tourist visa for 80 pounds at a strategically placed stall in the terminal. When I handed it to the immigration officer with my passport, he said "Why didn't you stick it in your passport?" As if I knew I was supposed to do so because I come here every day. He continued by demonstrating how to do it by peeling off its waxed back ... "Look, magic". </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">[The photo is of a Mumbai taxi or two, taken from a Mumbai taxi (though not on the day of my arrival). Taken with my Nikon D80 and fitted with a Sigma 10-20mm. May 2008.]</span></div><br /><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");<br />document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));<br /></script><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />try {<br />var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-3155850-4");<br />pageTracker._trackPageview();<br />} catch(err) {}</script>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06189060900520547321noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8519277847492185344.post-25018520083085031692009-01-06T20:09:00.004+11:002009-01-15T22:45:37.661+11:00Along Nanjing to the Bund<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3E7U4kW0b3iWLC3OvKo9xO-pasQ_tnYQikP20ZEj6PUPEzgcGUywIxX1dnRdxbtPw03ncET1eRm4f18lpKEvG7KeVshq_Xoy6Kr4Lz2q09-ERsdpR0yJMDZtPhMIbWIFXiok2SWHQ94k/s1600-h/china1.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 102px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3E7U4kW0b3iWLC3OvKo9xO-pasQ_tnYQikP20ZEj6PUPEzgcGUywIxX1dnRdxbtPw03ncET1eRm4f18lpKEvG7KeVshq_Xoy6Kr4Lz2q09-ERsdpR0yJMDZtPhMIbWIFXiok2SWHQ94k/s200/china1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5291055254128048050" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6P_OGG-oFwPyfWdkU5cOrV3STA2qZZl2sZy5DUzBvlWtr7dsJTvsQeBrJnlT2nkcBHKESIzlmVZ08A6vMb4M9SMDVt3aOu0KsHZrnQhijfZsBjuicMmlhUClBRGfg4qhxXUdUaYL52fA/s1600-h/2539010730_6aae2996fc.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6P_OGG-oFwPyfWdkU5cOrV3STA2qZZl2sZy5DUzBvlWtr7dsJTvsQeBrJnlT2nkcBHKESIzlmVZ08A6vMb4M9SMDVt3aOu0KsHZrnQhijfZsBjuicMmlhUClBRGfg4qhxXUdUaYL52fA/s400/2539010730_6aae2996fc.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5288482907943196290" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">[Nanjing Rd, Shanghai, May 2008]</span><br /><div><br /></div><div>On the 21st May 2008 I wrote in my diary: <div>"I am in a restaurant in the French Concession called Sasha's. Bit up-market for me. I am surrounded by rich Shanghai women eating lunch. I have a pint of beer. Last night I walked along Nanjing Rd, being hounded by two touts, one spruiking women ("massage"), the other fake goods (I apparently need a new watch).I endured their questions because I needed a light (airports steal my lighters). Then I found a convenience store and I couldn't get rid of them (they followed me in and, much to my consternation, wanted to help me choose a drink and get a lighter). The watch-tout gave up on me shortly after the convenience store. I endured the massage-tout for another 400m till we reached the Bund. My head was buzzing with the adrenalin of getting off an international flight at night. It is more sensible to arrive anywhere in the morning, because you can find your bearings easier, get around easier, etc., but it is ten times more fun to arrive at night. And the Bund added to this enjoyment."</div><div></div><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGn0Df4oO2yTw9dLrPPU6gK7zXiaIyYR1zyOSBpbFpHAh9xjRtbaZyjNkZsBm4uXeeNUP1H4CZR77W-P_pVKvutcBUfHovWuwkKDqmIlNguYe0iUzsiqr5o1wFNPoe5nunWLp5i6e35Zk/s1600-h/2564091072_426930041d_b.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGn0Df4oO2yTw9dLrPPU6gK7zXiaIyYR1zyOSBpbFpHAh9xjRtbaZyjNkZsBm4uXeeNUP1H4CZR77W-P_pVKvutcBUfHovWuwkKDqmIlNguYe0iUzsiqr5o1wFNPoe5nunWLp5i6e35Zk/s320/2564091072_426930041d_b.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5288488632164699714" /></a><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">[The group on the left are looking at jewellery on a small stall. The guys squatting on the right are selling a rotating "laser" toy. The buildings in the background are selling capitalism. Shanghai, May 2008.]</span></div><br />The Bund is like a pier. People wander along it, take in the views, buy some food or cheap trinkets, watch passers-by, practice dancing on its smooth pavement, etc. Like a pier you go nowhere. You walk up and down. It is an end in itself.<br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");<br />document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));<br /></script><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />try {<br />var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-3155850-4");<br />pageTracker._trackPageview();<br />} catch(err) {}</script>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06189060900520547321noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8519277847492185344.post-57257823297791182392009-01-05T18:59:00.003+11:002016-12-20T17:34:48.503+11:00Sleep, Beauty & Forgetting<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpTcjdy6z7BBsFdsj9j8cQ0JtDrzxhwnaEssVtrz5UshShWo4yIBCGMPx0e8K0j5Win4VAKuw_87njV8YTSJkCIGdVqfG4gQvD6ePo1v0d6MJ8FfMOb0JQOauOQXOZd6caa7Cr7FP6vE/s1600-h/usa1.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5291054819483125698" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpTcjdy6z7BBsFdsj9j8cQ0JtDrzxhwnaEssVtrz5UshShWo4yIBCGMPx0e8K0j5Win4VAKuw_87njV8YTSJkCIGdVqfG4gQvD6ePo1v0d6MJ8FfMOb0JQOauOQXOZd6caa7Cr7FP6vE/s200/usa1.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 102px; margin: 0 0 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">[I wrote this after a trip I took in 2002.]</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">This morning I got up, put on my dressing gown and went to the kitchen. As I had neither cereal nor bread I decided to heat some milk for breakfast. Because there were no matches to light the stove, I got a lighter. To understand what happened next I need to explain that my dressing gown was a little frayed around the cuffs – indeed, frayed everywhere. When I ignited the gas element the flame leapt, and almost immediately I heard a crackling sound racing up my sleave. In every film I have seen of someone on fire they are always running. And that is exactly what I started doing – down the hallway. It is just instinct. Halfway to the front door, I had a thought, a thought more scientific than I’d had before or since, “This is silly; running is fuelling the fire with oxygen.” I stopped, then felt the urge to scream for help. Before I could open my mouth, though, I thought, “No, I am a gentleman, I will keep a stiff upper lip.” Repressing the urge to scream, I took off the dressing gown, quelled the flames with a few stomps, then acting as though nothing had happened, I finished making my hot milk. Five minutes later, as I was sipping my breakfast, I pondered whether the incident was indicative of my life, and if not, what was.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">I addressed the question by asking if the conflagration was representative of how I create drama in my life. The etymology of "Drama" is “do” in ancient Greek and as such, for me, the ideal drama is the wind because we only see what it does, never what it is. The wind pushes that tree, moves this cloud. But drama is rarely viewed in this sense. It is rather how or why one does something to the world. I considered two of my friends. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/markbroadhead/2796062794/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51 , 51 , 255);">One </span></a>creates drama by leaving everything till the last minute, or, as they say in theatre, the denouement. He creates drama by not doing. Another <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/markbroadhead/2635654631/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51 , 51 , 255);">friend</span></a> has a constant denouement by doing as many things as possible. His drama lies in how he cannot do all the things he sets himself. Even with these two comparisons, however, I found it impossible to scrutinise myself without more direction. Finally I realised that there are at least two forms of drama for me. The events I am involved in, and how I sustain those events through a telling of some kind. In effect, then, it is a case of being either the playwright writing a scene or the spectator retelling the drama to a third party. These two forms of drama continued spinning through my mind. As one became prominent, the other would revolve around it until eventually they joined together into a single mass large enough to gravitate towards the time I spent in the international centre of drama, Hollywood.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">I was staying in a Hollywood hostel when I met a woman who recommended a Borges story I was unable to recall reading. Not remembering its title she told me the story. A poet, she explained, is asked by a king to write a poem to the glory of his kingdom. When he returns with his elegy the king is not completely satisfied and so sends him back to his writing table. The second poem is also rejected, but with his third attempt, which is only one word, the king is so moved that he chops off the poet’s head and destroys the poem. She said the story made her cry every time she read it.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">When I left L.A. we missed exchanging addresses. All I had was her first name, Thea. I talked to her several times. One time she invited me to go to a cemetery with her to see Marilyn Monroe’s grave. She apparently visited all the famous graves on her travels. On our third encounter we had a Borgesian conversation that reduced America to one word. At the time I was reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679785892?ie=UTF8&tag=aag0a-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0679785892"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51 , 51 , 255);">Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas</span></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=aag0a-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0679785892" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /> and disagreed with Hunter S. Thompson’s diagnosis that the American dream was to be rich. I thought this was only a symptom of the true dream, which was fame. Thea was in agreement with me that fame was the essential American dream, but she admitted that we were in Hollywood, after all, and she’d just had a bad experience with a dorm-mate at our hostel, a pornographically busty African-American called Sandy with a Jaguar in which she drove her to Santa Monica while Thea said she didn’t want to go. Halfway there she had finally called Sandy crazy and that had gotten her thrown out of the car. Sandy’s parting words were: “You don’t know who you’re messing with: I’m famous.”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">Standing in the entrance of the hostel, where we had happened to cross paths, Thea reached the conclusion that fame in America was tragic. Shifting my position to allow someone with a large backpack to get passed me, I said I didn’t understand. She explained that it was more tragic to try to succeed and fail than never to attempt to succeed at all. Dumbfounded, I jokingly said, “So you believe in the dictum: it is better to live on your knees than die on your feet” She said that she had a t-shirt with that saying on it.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">The tragic comes in many guises. For the ancients a tragedy was to try to change one’s fate, rather than accept it. Until quite recently tragedy was also reserved for the aristocracy or royalty. Since the rise of existentialism, the tragic is, what Jean-Paul Sartre calls Bad Faith, where persons of any class do not accept that they have the freedom to control their lives. They live on their knees.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">Two of my friends at hostel were Angus and Allan. They called Thea “Pocahontas” because on the first night we had met her in the hostel’s bar she had pigtailed her straight hair. Angus, Allan and I met a couple of weeks earlier in a Las Vegas hostel playing foozball. Angus was a nickname, his real name was Augusto. Even though Spanish, he lived in Denmark as a computer programmer. Allan was a Danish drum teacher. Allan seemed lost, like Hamlet in Elsinore. Tall and blonde, Allan told me he was sleeping with a married woman back in Denmark. He had told her he didn’t love her, and she didn’t mind. He confided to me that when he got back he’d demand some gifts for sleeping with her because he wasn’t enjoying it. He said it without emotion or shame, as if he had told it to himself so many times that he assumed it would seem quite normal for anyone else to hear. This was on the way to the nearest liquor store to buy a couple of forty fluid ounce bottles of beer to drink on the hostel’s patio. The hostel used to be a motel. Corridors ran the length of its two-storeys. Each dorm room contained at least 8 bunk beds and an en suite bathroom.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">I spent over a month at the Hollywood hostel, primarily waiting for my airplane ticket to come back from Arizona with a changed departure date and an additional stopover in Fiji. While in Los Angeles I decided not to keep in contact with Amy once I left America. I first met Amy in Perth in 1988. She was from the Minnesota and, like me, travelling around Australia. The following year I travelled to America, crossing the states from Hawaii to the east coast. I arrived in New York and bought a plane ticket for London. I was staying in a hostel near Times Square. The next day I walked up and down much of Broadway. At one point a woman approached walking her Labrador. As they passed I said hello to the dog. I confounded myself by this action, finding no immediate reason for why I had spoken to a dumb animal rather than a human. But I found a reason soon enough. It is the fear of failure. I had no guarantee that I would get a friendly response from the human, whereas the dog was just a dog. The attraction of animals, as opposed to humans, is their innocence. Their emotions may be biased but never duplicitous. And then, compared to humans – who have a measure of control over their lives, albeit invariably denied by neuroses or bad faith – animals’ lack of freedom induces the most extreme form of pity in me, to the point where I deny my own freedom to satisfy their smallest whims. My fear of failure is dictated by the fear of being myself. It is all right to fail if I am acting a role. The fear of approaching a woman, unless somehow detached from what I am doing, is a distrust of my own actions. If I act somehow other than myself then the blame for my actions cannot be completely attributed to myself. It is like writing fiction but pretending it is one’s autobiography.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">Performance theories are contrary things by the mere oddity of trying to theorise the instant of action, because thought is somehow both before and after but rarely coincidental with action. The more one thinks about actions, the more detached the two become. Because thought is perceived to be related to expression, the highest form of expression, language, has been seen by performance theorists as the key to reconnecting thought and action. Of particular interest to theorists are things called speech acts, where words are themselves acts, such as the “I do” in a wedding ceremony. A “written act” would be to write “I write”. The heightened drama of speech acts is quite contrary to my own dissociative drama. Two examples. I will be drinking a beer on the back porch and think that it would be good to get a beer from the fridge. Or I will turn the radio on only later to think I would like to listen to some music. I am not sure whether I want more because I don’t realise what I am doing or because I am not satisfied with what I have chosen.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">There is an anecdote told by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sartre"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51 , 51 , 255);">Jean-Paul Sartre</span></a> to explain the difference between <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0806522763?ie=UTF8&tag=aag0a-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0806522763"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51 , 51 , 255);">Being And Nothingness</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51 , 51 , 255);"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=aag0a-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0806522763" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" /></span>. For <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51 , 102 , 255);">existentialism</span> </a>being is doing. He arrives at a café where he has an appointment with Pierre. After studying all the tables he experiences nothingness in the fact that Pierre is not there. By contrast, when I enter a café my first impulse is to look for the nothingness of an empty table. Soon after greeting the dog I stepped into a café, and headed for the one remaining unoccupied table. As I was making my way through the labyrinth of tables I looked up to see that a couple were already making themselves comfortable at the table. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJgcG_v-Lf4rWiKqbjQNazDI22zh9t1J4S1erIAkZAFBQCEk-qWhTdSpcA3wocSjF5ZhK075Z_2PZN3jqjroIPG8AR8z1OE5BXBwrXPCML3w5hXfsS9nlKtOeiMyVRlxivPmNS-kZIHCY/s1600-h/2143169289_8d573ee0b4.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5288093904189562850" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJgcG_v-Lf4rWiKqbjQNazDI22zh9t1J4S1erIAkZAFBQCEk-qWhTdSpcA3wocSjF5ZhK075Z_2PZN3jqjroIPG8AR8z1OE5BXBwrXPCML3w5hXfsS9nlKtOeiMyVRlxivPmNS-kZIHCY/s200/2143169289_8d573ee0b4.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 130px; margin: 0 10px 10px 0; width: 200px;" /></a>Unable to secure my own patch of nothingness, I backtracked and exited the café. I was walking back down Broadway when I heard a small voice behind me say, “Excuse me, do I know you?” I turned around and surprised her by saying immediately, “Hello, Amy.” We walked back into the café and had coffee.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">If Sartre helps me to understand my experience of entering the café, then another French academic, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Barthes"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51 , 51 , 255);">Roland Barthes</span></span></a>, allows me to understand Amy’s position. In a small book called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374521344?ie=UTF8&tag=aag0a-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0374521344"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51 , 51 , 255);">Camera Lucida</span></span></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=aag0a-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0374521344" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />, dedicated to Sartre, Barthes calls the stare of subjects in photographic portraits looking straight at the camera, the “photographic look”. He uses a non-photographic scenario to elucidate what he means. He is sitting in a café when an anonymous man enters and scans all the tables, including Barthes, obviously looking for someone, just as Sartre was looking for Pierre. Although the man <i>looks</i> at Barthes, Barthes is left with the feeling that he does not <i>see</i> him.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">That week in New York I saw all of Amy for the first time. She was studying humanities at NYU. I stayed in her halls apartment. We kissed and fondled each other for eternity then she ran the bath. At the end of the week I left New York and did not see her again till nine years later when she came to Melbourne for a few weeks. On the last night of a later visit, which was considered a trial period, we went to a restaurant to discuss our future. She complained that I had chosen a restaurant so as to stop her from making a scene. I pointed out that a restaurant was much better suited to making a scene than my bedroom where she would only have an audience of one. During the meal she convinced me that when I had finished my studies I should come over to stay with her for six months before we returned to Melbourne. Twenty-four hours after I arrived in Minneapolis she said we couldn’t “date”. Obviously I wanted to know what the problem was. She said she didn’t know. I asked to stay for a week to get over my jetlag. I give the impression that I was calm, and I suppose I was. When I do not understand what is going on, whether in a story or my life, I do not stop. I go on in the certain knowledge or hope that when I see more of the ‘picture’ I will be able to understand in some way what has preceded it. The next few days were spent looking out of her apartment’s one large window, smoking cigarette after cigarette. It was like being in a lift with a stranger. Occasionally I played with her cat. After a week I booked a Greyhound to San Francisco. Her last request before I left was that I would tell her if I ever wrote a story about her. I said, “I will never write about you.” Fifty hours of travel later I arrived at Stephen and Anissa’s apartment.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">I stayed with them for three weeks. One night we went to a barbecue. Mockingly, Stephen told me to tell Bryan my bike-lock question. I said, “I want to know why there are bike locks attached to poles or bike racks without any bikes connected to them.” Bryan’s response was similar to Stephen’s. He said, People leave their locks because they work nearby, and eventually they forget about them after their bike has been stolen somewhere else. I said that there is more mystery to the bike locks than that. He said, There are other more interesting mysteries, like why do people become less friendly to those who are being kind to them? I said, “People have been trying to solve that mystery for millennia, but no one has considered the mystery of the abandoned bike locks.”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">Bryan left the party, driving his girlfriend, Angela, and Anissa home, so Stephen and I headed for a bar on Haight Street. As we were walking I commented on how fucked up a guy at the party had been. Stephen ask how he was fucked up. And I repeated some comment the guy had said. Stephen lashed out at me for always stating the negative, never the positive. Rather than defend myself by proving that his analysis was incorrect I instead adopted the juvenile strategy of trying to prove that my position was as equally right as his own. We were in an Irish bar on Haight St when I began to argue that if my negative comments of others were correct then the person could only learn from them, and if they are wrong then they could easily dismiss them. It is like, I continued, there is a character in a novel who resembles someone in reality, but the character is doing something the real person would never do, so that person sues the writer for libel. The publisher defends their writer by saying that if the character is doing something you would never do, then how can you recognise it as you? As I was finishing this speech I turned and caught my reflection in a mirror behind the bar and I didn’t recognise myself.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">While at Stephen and Anissa’s apartment I kept in contact with Amy by phone and email, mainly because I wanted to know the truth about why we couldn’t “date.” I didn’t believe she didn’t know what it was. When I was in L.A. I finally made some headway when she said that she had just seen the film <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Secretary-James-Spader/dp/B0018LX9T4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1231142669&sr=8-2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51 , 102 , 255);">Secretary</span></a></i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Secretary-James-Spader/dp/B0018LX9T4/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1231142669&sr=8-2"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51 , 102 , 255);"> </span></a>and it had a similar relationship to ours. I went to see it at a cinema on Sunset Blvd where the staff were so friendly I involuntarily began waving back at them. I was also confused by the film. I wrote to Amy the next day to ask how the sado-masochism of <i>Secretary</i> related to our relationship. She wrote back saying that the woman was like herself in having a Cinderella syndrome, which is where a woman changes herself to suit the desires of her man. Cinderella, that is, becomes a princess, rather than the prince becoming a pauper. Amy explained that I did not know her because she had changed herself so as to seduce me. The next phone call she said the reason we couldn’t “date” was that she didn’t think I loved her.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">This doubt had its origin when she was in Melbourne. During a heated exchanged I had said I wasn’t sure whether I loved her because, although we had known each other for fourteen years, all but two months of that time had been spent apart. I couldn’t understand how she was so sure that I was the one for her. I accepted my role as the beloved with some unease, but was generally happy to find I could please someone else so easily. Maybe all relationships are based on a similar delusion. Love is parcelled out in the belief that it has already been received in kind.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">There was an Italian at the Hollywood hostel called Franco who hired people to be in the audience of the Weakest Link. Franco had aspirations to be a Hollywood actor. He introduced himself to the men at the hostel with the phrase: “I’m Franco – I love pussy.” He would smile as he said this to reveal a mouth full of cavities, even though he was only in his twenties. The quiz show was shot with the audience behind the contestants so they needed people to stay all day. The first day I worked in the audience, one of the contestants, a real estate agent, confessed to liking fat women. He gave the example of Oprah as his size of woman. The host of the show, George Gray, asked him which “Oprah,” because Oprah was slim again. He replied, the last Oprah.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">As the audience we had to wear black and laugh at George’s jokes. The studio was chilled to an uncomfortable level, supposedly to stop the dry ice they used to accentuate the light beams from rising to the ceiling. Each show took two hours to record. Most of the audience members were out of work or wannabe actors, like Franco, trying to get a break. We all got $6.75 an hour. Towards the end of the day some tourists would come in to experience a live recording so not all of us were needed. Some of our number volunteered to leave, others were bumped for being too slow to laugh at George’s jokes. The contestants collectively accumulated money with every question answered correctly in a row. Each contestant took turns to answer a trivia question, and with each right answer the prize doubled, but a wrong answer erased the accumulated sum. At the end of each round of questions the contestants got to choose who should be kicked off the team because they were inhibiting the collection of money. I was surprised to note that the contestants on the Weakest Link were more likely to kick someone off their team for being <i>slow and correct</i> than someone who was <i>fast and wrong</i>. I understood this impulse fully at lunch when I was talking with the other backpackers Franco had hired to work that day. They were talking about how long Scandinavians take to say “I love you.” It is a sacred phrase for them, whereas the Australian girl, who was married to an American, explained how quickly Americans are willing to say “I love you.” I could, of course, relate to this with Amy, who couldn’t understand how I could not love her after being with her for two months of my life.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">While travelling in America I carried Borges’ <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0811216993?ie=UTF8&tag=aag0a-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0811216993"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51 , 51 , 255);">Labyrinths</span></a><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=aag0a-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0811216993" height="1" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />. Perhaps tellingly I was particularly fond of his essay “The Avatars of the Tortoise,” which looks at finite forms of the infinite. By replaying the conditions of this morning’s conflagration, I conjectured that one of the ways I create drama is my affinity to paradoxes of the infinite, such as the one Zeno explains with a runner who cannot reach the finish line. The runner begins by halving the distance between himself and the end, then he halves the remaining distance, then that distance is halved, and so on, gradually getting closer by halves, but without the possibility of ever reaching the finish.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">When writing I am like a dog. I have no trouble making a start but cannot lead it to its conclusion. Likewise, dogs know how to greet, but do not understand the etiquette of goodbyes. I have immense trouble leading things to their conclusions. I cut things in half, then half again, and so on, without joining the whole together.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">Zeno’s paradox goes against my experience of space, where I, for instance, continually reach the toilet before I wet myself. But it is in agreement with one of my conceptions of time. When I was a teenager I calculated the year I would be exactly half my mother’s age. I would, of course, be the age she was when she gave birth to me. During that year of halves, I did remember my earlier calculation, but without knowing the reason for my concern for halves. One morning in that year, however, I was lying half awake in bed and I daydreamed that it was possible to become older than my mother while she was still alive. To do this, I vaguely calculated us both living for centuries, if not millennia. This was patently wrong. Where the fraction of our age difference would decrease with each year, there would nonetheless always remain 28 years between us. Actually this is not entirely true. When I awoke properly I realised there was a scientific explanation for how I could become older than my mother. It required that she travel at high velocity through outer space while I remained as stationary as possible. When she returned to earth she would have aged at a slower rate than myself. The paradox can be encapsulated in the different meanings of the word after, depending on whether it refers to space or time. Spatially Zeno’s runner is chasing <i>after</i> the finish line, whereas temporally I am necessarily born <i>after</i> my mother.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">Time is like a dream you can’t remember. If is too familiar to waking life, it fails to be classified as a dream, and if it is too different from your reality then it is never remembered.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">The concept of halves is related to the return from a journey. Odysseus is the classic example of the one who returns home. His odyssey has been contrasted with Abraham’s eternal wander without return. The infinite non-return of Abraham and Odysseus’ finite return. Odysseus and Abraham are the two archetypes of drama.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">It was towards the end of the night, and my friends and I had just entered. After buying a round they began talking about someone I did not know, and being tired of their company I separated myself from their circle by leaning against the bar. When stationary in a public space I unconsciously situate myself as to the most attractive woman in the vicinity. I may be on a beach, a train, a bus, in a café or, as I was on this occasion, a busy bar. My search came back to a woman right in front of me giving off an aura of both ingenuousness and deception.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">In any case, such were my thoughts after I overheard the most beautiful woman in the bar say to her female companion “It vibrates like my life,” then turn towards my gaze. Embarrassed, I spun away, closing my eyes at the same time. When I reopened them I was staring intently at my beer, then the bar, then a bar stool, then she was standing in front of me saying, “It’s terrible, isn’t it?”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">Confused by her certainty, her vagueness, I asked, “What is?”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">She smiled. “I don’t know.”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">It was a game. I took a sip of beer. “Maybe it’s the weather,” I offered. “The rain.”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">A small shake of the head signalled that I would have to be obscure as well.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">A friend of mine defined the difference between obscure and normal as the difference between Sundays and Mondays. He said that the obscure becomes normal just as inevitably as Sunday’s freedom gives way to Monday’s routine. Nonetheless, I argued that the normality of Mondays can lead to their own obscurity. Rain, for instance, is rarely appreciated because it is overbearing, but if we step back we see its beauty. Between us we saw two ways of finding the obscure, like there are two ways of looking at a glass – half empty or half full.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">As you might have guessed, I wasn’t thinking all this at the time, it was only in retrospect of our walk later through the all too friendly rain to her flat, where we clinked our oddly shaped glasses together in a toast to sleep, beauty, forgetting. For in the bar I had managed to convince her that if rain, war, disease, etc., were not acceptable then there was the terrible ubiquity of the self. Not that I found selfhood itself terrible, nor did I mind solitude, yet I would prefer longer breaks from myself. “There is sleep, beauty, and forgetting, of course,” I admitted, “but not enough to live on.”</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">When I left her flat it was somewhere between late at night and early in the morning. Long ago when walking home after a lonely night of drinking, two equally drunk women, who were passing on the other side of the deserted street, shouted provocatively, “How good are you?” It is an indicative of my selfhood that my first thought was to hear this as a moral question rather than a salacious invitation. The penance for this error is that I have always remembered that call when walking home drunk, as I was doing that rainy morning.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times new roman";">I come home to space bereft of importance, as all homes bequeath when we conquer them. Outside are unseen powers you succumb to in order to feel free when you come home. It is the freedom of a dream. You lie down now on your bed with a half started book. Through the walls you hear the shallow sounds of domesticity.</span></div>
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<script type="text/javascript"><br />try {<br />var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-3155850-4");<br />pageTracker._trackPageview();<br />} catch(err) {}</script>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06189060900520547321noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8519277847492185344.post-38011818427954167532009-01-03T22:02:00.008+11:002009-01-20T20:12:49.690+11:00Kafkaesque Market<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiulRkuJVTe5obngmp-FmS55WO01HXEh8LiYS194sfPVP7eUiMdsXZ5SmVbC6oZVbA75zaN1qZrmqL9j09TTUqTBS7kKYFwVCVIFsHZIxpjYrzYuBhFOI9-aNhWREKavXZEN50P7_OoKys/s1600-h/egypt.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 187px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiulRkuJVTe5obngmp-FmS55WO01HXEh8LiYS194sfPVP7eUiMdsXZ5SmVbC6oZVbA75zaN1qZrmqL9j09TTUqTBS7kKYFwVCVIFsHZIxpjYrzYuBhFOI9-aNhWREKavXZEN50P7_OoKys/s200/egypt.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5290740198641878626" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2350/2524343572_3887f916ea.jpg?v=1221132105"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 334px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2350/2524343572_3887f916ea.jpg?v=1221132105" border="0" alt="" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">[Khan El-Khalili, Cairo, May 2008.]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Khan El-Khalili is the major market area in Cairo. This is a pile of shoe moulds in one of its alleys. </span></span></span></span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I wrote this in my diary while in Cairo:</span></span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"I sat in the market at 9am this morning and watched a Kafkaesque scene when the stalls opened. Each owner swept their store-front of dirt and rubbish and put it in front of the neighbouring stall, so the rubbish wasn't reduced, just moved around." </span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I continue in the same entry: </span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="white-space: pre-wrap; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"It feels like I haven't worked for months [actually two weeks]. And yet in many ways I am still working. Work is [or, has become] taking a plane, getting through immigration, getting to my hotel, then seeing all the required sights while taking photos. Work is what I feel I have to do. I feel I have to see the pyramids or go to the Egyptian Museum. Each sight is demanding my attention. It is on a list of things I should do. Not that I won't enjoy them when I am doing them, but I must prioritise these options above others that more suit my character. My character? It is lazy, reluctant to be compelled to do something. So when I do a necessary thing I become stressed -- I lose my character, or, rather, I lose my ability to find my character."</span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In his beautiful history of the city </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679767274?ie=UTF8&tag=aag0a-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0679767274"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Cairo: The City Victorious</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=aag0a-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0679767274" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />Max Rodenbeck writes: "There remains a sensible antiquity to the rhythm of the Old City, to the worn texture of every surface and the intimate scale of public space. The narrow lanes away from the main streets may no longer be overhung by the traditional tiered upper floors that closed out the sky and brought welcome shade in the summer, but they are still no wider than the medievally prescribed breadth of two laden camels, and still they are largely pedestrian."</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140435824?ie=UTF8&tag=aag0a-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0140435824"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Gustave Flaubert</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=aag0a-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0140435824" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />wrote of the old alleys in his notebook for 9th January 1850:</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"I keep losing my way in the maze of alleys and running into dead-ends. From time to time I come on an open space with the debris of ruined houses, or rather no houses; hens pecking, cats on walls. Quiet way of life here -- intimate, secluded. Dazzling sun effects when one suddenly emerges from these alleys, so narrow that the roofs of the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">moucharbiehs</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> [shuttered bay windows] on each side touch each other."</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Much more recently, the cantankerous </span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375708359?ie=UTF8&tag=aag0a-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0375708359"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">V. S. Naipaul</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=aag0a-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0375708359" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />describes a Cairo market:</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"Cairo revealed the meaning of the bazaar: narrow streets encrusted with filth, stinking even on this winter's day; tiny shops full of shoddy goods; crowds; the din, already barely supportable, made worse by the steady blaring of motorcar horns; medieval buildings partly collapsed, others rising on old rubble, with here and there sections of tiles, turquoise and royal blue, hinting at a past of order and beauty, crystal fountains and amorous adventures, as perhaps in the no less disordered past they always had done."</span></span></div></div></div></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /><br /></span><script type="text/javascript"><br />var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");<br />document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));<br /></script><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />try {<br />var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-3155850-4");<br />pageTracker._trackPageview();<br />} catch(err) {}</script>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06189060900520547321noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8519277847492185344.post-51006952543140227272009-01-02T18:17:00.002+11:002009-01-15T21:49:47.765+11:00That Awful Mess<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3008/2557816951_e6001d863a.jpg?v=1221827391"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 334px; height: 500px;" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3008/2557816951_e6001d863a.jpg?v=1221827391" border="0" alt="" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">[The Pantheon, Rome, May 2008.]</span><br /><br /></span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">I spent a week (or thereabouts) in Rome. On this particular day I managed to buy and lose a copy of </span></span></span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Awful-Merulana-Review-Books-Classics/dp/1590172221/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230886535&sr=8-1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);">That Awful Mess on the Via Merulana</span></span></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"> by Carlo Gadda. </span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">I had traipsed across the Tiber to a little English language bookshop called the <a href="http://www.lonelyplanet.com/italy/rome/shopping/390059">Almost Corner Bookshop</a>. As is usual for me when travelling, I had trouble finding it, even though it was exactly where the map said it would be. </span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">Expectations seem to blind me to reality. I expect a bookshop to look like such and such, and instead it looks more like what I'd expect a haberdashery to look like from the outside.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br />In any case, that evening I returned to my hostel after reading only a few dozen pages, and left it by mistake in the hostel's bar. Ten minutes later I went back to retrieve it. But one of the drunken Australians or British backpackers had pocketed it. I scrutinised each one of them for the rest of the week, and I couldn't imagine any of them enjoying a modernist novel about a murder in 1930s Rome.</span></span></span></div></div></div><br /><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");<br />document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));<br /></script><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />try {<br />var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-3155850-4");<br />pageTracker._trackPageview();<br />} catch(err) {}</script>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06189060900520547321noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8519277847492185344.post-44004398610486097322009-01-01T21:25:00.001+11:002009-01-15T19:03:42.378+11:00Banker<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2049/2524310972_276a164b35.jpg?v=0"><br /><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 500px; height: 334px;" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2049/2524310972_276a164b35.jpg?v=0" border="0" alt="" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">[Cairo, May 2008.]</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br />This is an Egyptian leaning out of Banque Misr. I took this from the balcony of the hotel I was staying in across the road on the fifth floor. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">A few doors down from the hotel was a mosque and a Coptic church. You can see the mosque reflected in the bank's windows. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">This combination of a bank and a mosque reminds me that Islamic law (Shariah) forbids usury. The Qur'an: "Those who charge riba [usury] are in the same position as those controlled by the devil's influence." Furthermore, Muslim banks must not lend money to individuals or organisations that are contrary to the laws of Islam. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">Instead of charging interest, Muslim banks work with other systems, like profit sharing. The Wikipedia page on </span></span></span></span></span></span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_banking#Modern_Islamic_banking"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);">Islamic banking</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"> lists the methods they use.<br /><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">Two hundred metres down the street (in the same direction the banker is looking) is the intersection named after the founder of Banque Misr, </span></span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talaat_Pasha_Harb"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);">Mohamed Talaat Pasha Harb</span></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">. In the middle of Medan Talaat Harb is a statue of the man himself.</span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br /></span></span></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig2zI6LDeBj7_IS-o6M9RX5VuCcATpe1rCRFUhj2aRGn4NvlNH2Ih1O7Ctm3BFuGlSc0BVML0P6Bj0K339DrWSBY6bbxO44BxvzEpGDppgUPzYhAt1oBloKPbrXLK7AX3fqye-YfUTVzw/s1600-h/jan1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 134px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig2zI6LDeBj7_IS-o6M9RX5VuCcATpe1rCRFUhj2aRGn4NvlNH2Ih1O7Ctm3BFuGlSc0BVML0P6Bj0K339DrWSBY6bbxO44BxvzEpGDppgUPzYhAt1oBloKPbrXLK7AX3fqye-YfUTVzw/s200/jan1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287326072751794114" /></a></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 153, 0);">[Medan Talaat Harb, Cairo, May 2008.]</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">Click on this photo to see a cat sitting under the statue. Even from the pavement I could hear it meowing. Occasionally it would try to get across the road, then sit back down in the shade. I presume it had slept there the night before and woke up when the traffic was too busy to escape. I thought about rescuing it, but the stray cats in Cairo were very shy of humans.</span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUMevNGbhJ4R360TBsPyM1qL8ndtuTSr6gHcewfpfWhUk-1_mLlZu9GerFI2ECW-OO0nu5gkr-t4_-aC3BYs0zV5YawOZagnwHirGZZqZz0zvibRr9SGhbQvzWMH4Kukn5lziu6gWHJ8I/s1600-h/jan3.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 170px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUMevNGbhJ4R360TBsPyM1qL8ndtuTSr6gHcewfpfWhUk-1_mLlZu9GerFI2ECW-OO0nu5gkr-t4_-aC3BYs0zV5YawOZagnwHirGZZqZz0zvibRr9SGhbQvzWMH4Kukn5lziu6gWHJ8I/s200/jan3.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5287354096918177538" /></a></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br />Just below my hotel was a take-away kebab shop. The lamb is cooked outside and several stray cats hang around waiting for scraps. One night I came back drunk and asked the man in charge of the rotisserie to sell me some meat for the cats. He took a few pounds from me and went inside for a receipt for the purchase. As I was feeding the cats a guy passed saying, "You are very kind," in broken English.</span></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">The Egyptians are very kind to cats. I wondered whether this was part of their ancient history. However, I discovered that it probably has more to do with more recent world history. In the Qur'an it tells of how a cat fell asleep on the Prophet Mohammed's cloak. Instead of waking it up when it was time to move, the Prophet cut a circle in his cloak around the cat.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br /><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style=""><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br /></span></span></span></span></div></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br /></span></span><br /><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www.");<br />document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));<br /></script><br /><script type="text/javascript"><br />try {<br />var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-3155850-4");<br />pageTracker._trackPageview();<br />} catch(err) {}</script>Markhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06189060900520547321noreply@blogger.com1