Stories, Tall and Short, pt. 2

CalGal is so interesting to watch when she tries to be subtle.


Seguine: Come to think about it, this ought to merit its own page in TSE.

1002. Seguine - 10/22/1999 10:28:56 PM

I'm sure there are even people who would pay good money to watch a videotape of A5 sitting in a white room, discoursing at length on the phrase, "Breasts have lots of great uses..."

It could be shown in 15 second intervals, with interruptions from viewers' browsers advising them to deposit more quarters.

1003. Seguine - 10/22/1999 10:30:35 PM

"Come to think about it, this ought to merit its own page in TSE."

Mmm, no, my mother reads TSE.

1004. Angel-Five - 10/22/1999 10:32:47 PM

Seguine: But it's art.

Do I get to wear normal clothing for the videotape?

1005. CalGal - 10/22/1999 10:33:14 PM

Here I am lamenting our inability to market such a product, due the chief programmer's lamentable lack of interest in revenue (I can only assume it's something in that antipodean water) and I commit the sin of arousing Pixie-dust's interest.

1006. Angel-Five - 10/22/1999 10:34:05 PM

Easily dispelled. All you have to do is fall silent. It's the right thing to do and a great way to do it.

1007. CalGal - 10/22/1999 10:38:57 PM

Alas. I work here.

What is it you do, again?

1008. Angel-Five - 10/22/1999 10:39:56 PM

Point out the obvious to you.

1009. Seguine - 10/22/1999 10:41:15 PM

"Do I get to wear normal clothing for the videotape?"

Sure, if what you normally wear includes a fair amount of nothing whatsoever.

Don't worry. We'll have Banks direct it. As you've noted, he can be relied upon to be unfazed.

1010. CalGal - 10/22/1999 10:42:57 PM

Really? But you use so many words. One would think you perform such a mundane task with far less effort.

1011. CalGal - 10/22/1999 10:44:35 PM

I will say, though, that it's a relief to know that there is a reason I get so much of your attention. But your job performance leaves much to be desired.

I shall see about finding a superior replacement immediately. Perhaps Ace has some spare time.

1012. Angel-Five - 10/22/1999 10:45:52 PM

CalGal: Please, go look at what's been said so far, then tell me again about my many words. If you need to embarass yourself further, I'd suggest the Playpen.

1013. Angel-Five - 10/22/1999 10:47:39 PM

Banks, as a clove-smoking, beret-wearing cameraman, I can readily see.

1014. Seguine - 10/22/1999 10:48:46 PM

On the subject of fundraising, I think we can do additional good work if we all just think long and hard about it.

1015. Seguine - 10/22/1999 10:54:09 PM

"Banks, as a clove-smoking, beret-wearing cameraman, I can readily see."

Yes, and as you sit unclad and harshly illumined, describing in some detail the many uses of breasts, it should reassure you that he is very likely heterosexual (having sired progeny after all).

1016. Angel-Five - 10/22/1999 11:10:26 PM

I'm doomed to be a sex object, apparently. It's the height and hair and my seductive voice. Being an angel is hard work.

1017. Angel-Five - 10/22/1999 11:22:03 PM

Banks is perhaps my favorite fraygrant and I have no concerns that he would be ogling me. For one, I will be wearing no PVC for the ne-plus-ultra of sated aesthetes to fix upon.

It strikes me that we should have him on the tape saying a few words, along the lines of the taped speech in True Lies.

1018. Angel-Five - 10/22/1999 11:24:41 PM

You do realize that, my voice being the vocal equivalent of a romantic movie, a dozen roses, a limousine ride, some recited poetry and about six shots of rum to most women, that I will have to disguise it? For bandwidth purposes? I had thought to do something along the lines of the commentator in the Python skit upon the importance of remaining unseen.

1019. Seguine - 10/23/1999 4:55:41 PM

"...a romantic movie, a dozen roses, a limousine ride, some recited poetry and about six shots of rum to most women..."

What is it about that list of dating paraphernalia--apart from the rum--that is supposed to be so marvelous? The vast majority of "romantic" movies are awful. I have roses in my garden; a whole damn bush of them costs maybe thirty dollars and produces hundreds of roses for years on end. A limousine ride... well, it foreshadows the hearse ride, there's just no way around that, plus, anything you can do in a limo can be done while stationary and without a driver present.

Then there's the recited poetry: a very iffy proposition, as there is the choice of poem to consider, the delivery is crucial, and most men can't manage it without making us cringe or laugh (admit it, ladies). If the poem is good and the recitation ideal, an intelligent woman will wonder whether her swain is an actor, in which case he probably should be dumped immediately, before his lies cease to be amusing.

An ideal lover makes tea. If one smokes, he lights one's cigarettes before one asks the favor. In the morning, he operates the coffee grinder and the espresso machine. He is deft with his hands, a good conversationalist, and has a fine sense of humor. (There are certainly other qualities that needn't be enumerated here, lest we frighten the males hunkered down, listening and quivering, behind those scrubby bushes there, far from the light of the fire.)

I never have understood the importance of the diamond ring either. Why not a sapphire, or an andalusite? A ruby? Why not, even, an attractive, jewel-free band made by an artisan, rather than these mass-produced things everyone seems to need?

1020. Seguine - 10/23/1999 4:56:06 PM

As I contemplate such matters, it strikes me that perhaps A5 will be too pedestrian for our fundraising event. He's tall, he says, and mellifluous. But maybe we need someone bolder, less, well, tritely angelic. Someone earthier.

I think we all know who this is.

Uzmakk? Uzmakk, are you available to be filmed, in the nude, discoursing on breasts, by Marjoribanks? A5 will need something to do, so he can write your monologue. All you'd have to do is perform.

1021. Angel-Five - 10/23/1999 5:26:07 PM

Whew. I don't like using my voice for commercial purposes. It seems whorish.

The
vast majority of "romantic" movies are awful.

hahahaha, yes, well, most men consider them to be sufficient foreplay. I sit through them patiently.

I have roses
in my garden; a whole damn bush of them costs maybe
thirty dollars and produces hundreds of roses for years on
end.

Yes, nice effort, but you simply cannot ignore the way your whole gender goes batty over a handful of freshly killed plants.

A limousine ride... well, it foreshadows the hearse
ride, there's just no way around that, plus, anything you
can do in a limo can be done while stationary and without
a driver present.

Oh, admit it, you like the idea of the driver. Besides, everyone knows that sex and death are tied together psychologically. It's sort of like how earthquakes can make people aroused.

If the poem is good and
the recitation ideal, an intelligent woman will wonder
whether her swain is an actor, in which case he probably
should be dumped immediately, before his lies cease to be
amusing.

Women like actors, depending upon what you do or do not make plain. But I can't think that the majority are so suspicious. Especially after six shots of rum.

An ideal lover makes tea. If one smokes, he lights one's
cigarettes before one asks the favor. In the morning, he
operates the coffee grinder and the espresso machine. He
is deft with his hands, a good conversationalist, and has a
fine sense of humor.

This is mostly, of course, ex post facto, dahlink.

1022. PelleNilsson - 10/23/1999 5:26:58 PM

Have you seen the portrait of A-5? It's in Spirutual #1862.The small format doesn't do him justice. Check here.

1023. Angel-Five - 10/23/1999 5:29:03 PM

You forgot the bit about backrubs. And a general willingness to lie shamelessly when it's obviously expected of us.

1024. Angel-Five - 10/23/1999 5:30:12 PM

The thing is, that looks a lot like my uncle.

1025. pseudoerasmus - 10/23/1999 5:38:19 PM

What on earth are you people talking about?

1026. Angel-Five - 10/23/1999 5:50:23 PM

Why am I not surprised that Psood is confused by all of this?

1027. pseudoerasmus - 10/23/1999 5:54:26 PM

Angelfive: Why don't you just record yourself reciting a short poem or a stanza?


In exchange I offer a cranky frog and a boorish Japper.

1028. PelleNilsson - 10/23/1999 5:55:38 PM

Trivium: Self-portrait, by whom? Hints: Scandinavian, well-known.

In the meantime: what about a story? Nothing fancy, or exciting, or particularly well-written, just a little weekend divertissement to take your minds off the weighty issues.

The Great Cyprus Four-Wheel Debacle

This is 1988 and we live in Amman. We have decided to spend Christmas in Cyprus together with our friend, and my colleague, Stig. We have been there several times before, although separately, so we knew the island well and are looking for some new feat of exploration. On an earlier visit, Stig had obtained a set of Ordnance Survey maps at the scale of 1:100,000 which is quite detailed. This is Cyprus:



Sorry about the bad resolution. The thing that looks like a river is the UN buffer zone between the Greek and Turkish zones. The shaded portions are the British Sovereign Base Areas.

And this is the area of interest:



Our decision was to make our way from Paphos, where we were to stay, to Cape Arnauti , the westernmost point on the island. As you can see there is a road from Paphos to Peiya. Our maps showed a dirt road that continued much further. We judged that we would have about 8 km to walk from the end of the road to the Cape. We had in fact been up that road for some distance on earlier visits but had been checked by its bad state. It was difficult, perhaps impossible, to negotiate with an ordinary car. So we booked a four-wheel drive -a Nissan Patrol, I think - which we picked up at Larnaca airport.

1029. PelleNilsson - 10/23/1999 5:58:23 PM

Then the day came. We had two goals, the Cape and a place marked as "Turtle Hatchery" on the map, about a third of the way up. We departed early. It had rained quite a lot during the night, but now it was a beautiful, crisp morning. We drove on towards the Hatchery. So far the road was rather OK. All three of us had been to Thailand and seen the crocodile farms there, where the eggs are hatched in incubators and the place is full of pens with crocodiles of different sizes. We expected to see something similar. We arrived but there was nothing. Signs, there were saying "Turtle Hatchery" but no buildings, no trace of human activity.

We walked around for a while and came to the beach. And suddenly it dawned on us: this was the hatchery! We were on one of the beaches where the sea turtles emerge on a night of full moon, lay their eggs and bury them in the sand. Having established that, we climbed into the car again and took off. I was driving. After a while we climbed a small hill and there, in front of us, was a shallow depression filled with a mud pool, at least 100 meters long. We looked at each other . What to do? "Give the iron", said Stig (Swedicism). So I engaged the four-wheel drive, put the vipers on and the box in second gear, and floored it.

1030. Angel-Five - 10/23/1999 5:59:31 PM

Psood: A few people here have talked to me on the phone. The recorded poem idea is good, though.

1031. PelleNilsson - 10/23/1999 6:00:49 PM

It was an awesome experience. It was almost impossible to steer. The car veered from side to side. Sometimes it seemed to float on the mud, sometimes we seemed to sink and was slowed down precariously until the wheels found a grip and gave us back the momentum. But we made it and celebrated with a cup of coffee. There were a few more such passages, but none as deep, or wide, and with our new-found confidence in the car's abilities we made light of them.

We duly arrived at the end of the road and started trekking. It was much more difficult then we had thought with deep gullies to be traversed and thorny bushes, and it got worse all the time. After three hours we considered our situation. We reckoned we had done about five km. It was doubtful if we could make it all the way there and back before dark. Retreat was inevitable but not very palatable - the thorns and gullies all over again. High above us were the ruins of a building. Where there is a house there must be a road, we thought, and scrambled up on all fours. Up there we saw the Cape, our elusive goal. And there was indeed a road, and it took us almost to the car. The journey back was uneventful; the sun had made the mud pools much smaller.

Back in Paphos, thirsty and tired, we fell to drinking beer and examining the day's event. Nothing had gone right but we were a bit euphoric and self-congratulatory anyhow, as one gets when one is exhausted and the endorphins kick in. We praised the car and the four-wheel drive which had made all this possible.

1032. PelleNilsson - 10/23/1999 6:04:06 PM

The next day Stig departed for Amman; we went for a drive to a monastery to look at icons. We took some narrow roads back. Suddenly we found the road completely blocked by asphalting works. I then understood that the sign in Greek a few km back, probably had informed about this. I started to turn around when the site foreman disengaged himself from the work gang. He was a middle aged stocky Greek, complete with baggy trousers, high boots and drooping moustache. A regular Anthony Quinn.

He smiled a terse little smile, pointed to the car and held four fingers in the air. I nodded. He then pointed to how we could circumvent the work site by crossing a shallow ditch into a field and back again. He indicated that he would walk in front. I nodded again and engaged the drive.

When crossing the ditch I got stuck. Anthony again held up four fingers in a vigorous gesture. I checked the indicators and nodded, equally vigorously. Anthony came closer and examined the car. A great tiredness and sadness came over him. His posture slumped as he leaned forward and turned a lever on the left front wheel hub and repeated the manoeuvre on the right. Then, with a listless hand, he waved me on. And the wheels gripped, and in an instant I was out of the ditch, across the field and back on the road.

The four-wheel drive had never been engaged during our stay in Cyprus.

1033. concerned - 10/23/1999 6:33:27 PM

Re. 1027 -

The links appear to be broken or obsolete.

1034. webfeet - 10/23/1999 7:47:15 PM

Well, thanks Seguine and Adrianne for the titillating preview of the post-partum breast swell to come. Can't wait. I might consider locking myself up a la maison since, if what you say is true, I will probably have nothing big enough to conceal these bumptious knockers and will have to stay bed-ridden since I am bound to topple over if I try to stand up. On the bright side, I can always use them to grind out maternal frappucinos or double lattes for hubbie and junior. Quel fetishisme!

Today I am doing the equivalent of free balling and walking around braless since my constricting, frighteningly tight DD maternity bra is suspiciously "missing." (I unconsciously throw away, hide, or leave on trains, objects that I hate or that are too heavy) I could have taken my pick of any of the oglers in the Indi-Pakistani supply shop, whisked away in a cloud of curry, leaving frenchcat on the sidewalk, where he was standing waiting for me to come out with my coriander and ginger marinade. Actually, I think they were looking at me for a diffent reason. I was the only non-Indian inthe place, a pronounced "visitor" with shameless, unhindered breasts. All the same, I feel delightfully free.

Btw, Marj, when you're around, you have to tell me what to do with the marinade and with mango pickle relish because Im going to buy that next.

1035. Seguine - 10/23/1999 9:03:59 PM

"But we made it and celebrated with a cup of coffee."

Not a pint of ale, not a shot of single malt, but a cup of coffee. Was there any joyous yelling as the coffee was poured, or was it drunk in stolid, satisfied silence?

1036. Bubbaette - 10/23/1999 9:24:39 PM

"An ideal lover makes tea. If one smokes, he lights one's cigarettes before one asks the favor. In the morning, he operates the coffee grinder and the espresso machine. He is deft with his hands, a good conversationalist, and has a fine sense of humor. (There are certainly other qualities that needn't be enumerated here, lest we frighten the males hunkered down, listening and quivering, behind those scrubby bushes there, far from the light of the fire.)"

Damn it, have you been seeing my husband!?

1037. Seguine - 10/23/1999 9:40:25 PM

"Damn it, have you been seeing my husband!?"

No, Bubbaette, I am so satisfied as to be beyond temptation.

1038. Bubbaette - 10/23/1999 9:47:31 PM

Seguine

MMMmmmmmmm, I know what you mean.

"But maybe we need someone bolder, less, well, tritely angelic. Someone earthier."

There's something about his calloused hands that's better than the feel of silk on my skin.

1039. marjoribanks - 10/24/1999 12:38:28 AM

Re#997

It is true that I'm unimpressed by Daljit Dhaliwal, though I like her voice. Check out Aishwarya Rai for my preferred sub-con look.

1040. marjoribanks - 10/24/1999 1:21:25 AM

Webbie,

"the marinade and with mango pickle relish "

What? what? what marinade? Mango pickle is extremely spicy and meant to be eaten in accompaniment with rice and curds and some vegetables, mostly. By curds I mean plain yoghurt, which most mango-pickle-eating sub-cons make at home.

Webbie, if you want to buy things from your local sub-con grocer start with a nice bottle of Horlicks to begin with, given your nutrition-needy state.

1041. phillipdavid - 10/24/1999 3:11:49 AM

A true-life domestic story:

Sometime after I had left the house yesterday, and my wife had gotten up, gotten sick, and taken a shower, my feeble old dog Sammy knocked over a lamp table in the living room. Inexplicably, my son had left four one-hundred dollar bills on it the day before.

My wife walked into the living room after her shower and saw the upturned table, the magazines and lamp on the floor, and a few small shreds of the afore mentioned greenbacks on the carpret.

Our younger dog, Guenther, is rather mouthy and likes to chew up paper towels. He apparently discovered a taste for greenbacks too yesterday, as he ate the money -- except for the few small shreds he left behind as evidence.

I came home yesterday evening to hear my wife say, "You'll never guess what I had to do today!"

Well, she spent her day following Guenther out in the yard and combing through his shit looking for scraps of one-hundred dollar bills. She did this twice and came up with about seven small slivers of paper that can be recognized as pieces of money. I found the evidence in a cup of water by the kitchen sink. If you put them together as pieces of a puzzle, they wouldn't add up to any more than a quarter of a bill.

My son came home while I was on the computer last night, and the first thing I said was, "Did Mom tell you what happened?"

Sure enough she did. And sure enough he had to ask her all about it. I couldn't help laughing, despite my son's obvious distress, as he asked her if she had checked the shit carefully. "Yes, I did, very carefully" said she.

Of course I had to do the same this morning as Saturday morning is my usual to take the dogs out for a long romp in the woods. Guenther was very helpful as he took two shits this morning. I was the dutiful helper as I thouroughly mashed around his fresh piles this morning with a few small sticks I picked up, but nothing of value was discovered.

1042. phillipdavid - 10/24/1999 3:21:20 AM

I'm still a little mystified that a few scraps could come through his bowels undigested yesterday, but nothing resembling paper, or even the color green came through today. A testament to a dog's digestive system I guess.

Having the fine temper and ruthless instincts of his mother's Scottish ancestors (his family clan was actually kicked off Scotland generations ago because of thier rough behavior -- banished to a small isle), my son was ready to thrash Guenther to bits last night. Turns out that $400 was of vital importance to an upcoming music show he is producing in town -- need to pay for the flyers and such. I was gonna let the two of them go at it without intefering as Guenther is a rotweiler and my son is much tougher and meaner than I am, but dutiful, loving mom prevented any man-beast brawl in our living room.

My son broke into tears instead, and mom broke into her wallet to replace some of the money --quite a loving act, I thought, as mom is on her way to NY city in two days and handed over her spending money to our distraught son.

1043. Bubbaette - 10/24/1999 8:19:31 AM

Mmmmmmmmm -- green fiber.

1044. webfeet - 10/24/1999 11:17:31 AM

My sympathies, Philipdavid for having to poke and prod through fresh doggie doo and also, for the unrecoverable, digested greenbacks. How maddening.

1045. webfeet - 10/24/1999 11:23:14 AM

"There's something about his calloused hands that's better than the feel of silk on my skin."

Sounds like Carl Ray and Thelma have been at it again...

1046. webfeet - 10/24/1999 12:07:35 PM

btw, Marj, thanks for the mango relish tip. I didn't know it was just used to complement vegetarian dishes.

The coriander and ginger marinade is something different. Beef? Chicken? What works best?

1047. marjoribanks - 10/25/1999 9:39:11 AM

Webbie,

I'll answer your question in a bit. In the meanwhile, I just ran across this Jackson Heights story and thought it may interest you.

1048. marjoribanks - 10/25/1999 10:39:57 AM

PD,

That's a very nice "real-life" story. Thanks.

Webbie,

I'm not sure we're necesarily talking about the same things. Mango pickle (achar) is spicy and is eaten as an accompaniment to food as described above, as are lime pickle, chili pickle etc. The common brands available in our area are Laxmi and Patak's. They tend to be an acquired taste, Indians use it to add real heat to food, especially rice and curds.

I haven't seen anything labelled "marinade" in Indian grocery stores. This may be because I haven't looked. But ginger/coriander paste is a base to any number of Indian dishes, particularly those involving fish and chicken. If you're interested, this evening I'll post for you a very good Afro-Luso-Indian recipe for 'chicken cafreal', which is a fairly simple but superb dish which uses ginger and coriander, and the paste will be useful for that. It does call for lots of fresh coriander (kothmir) as well.

1049. Seguine - 10/25/1999 10:45:00 AM

Banks, she cannot help but be interested, and if by some strange occurrence she isn't, carry on: I am.

1050. pseudoerasmus - 10/25/1999 10:47:27 AM

Achar is not that spicy, or at least I don't think so. I can make a meal of rice and half a jar of Hyderbadi achar without a thought.

Marzipranks, didn't you say you didn't like Goan food the other day? But you keep giving out recipes of Luso-Indian stuff. Or is there some difference between "Goan" and "Luso-Indian"?

1051. marjoribanks - 10/25/1999 10:56:45 AM

Achar doesn't have to be super spicy. But mango pickle tends to be.

Where have I handed out Goan food recipes? Anyway, there are several things I like in Goan food (which tends to be a curious Malayo-Afro-Luso-Indian combination as a whole), but several of the signature dishes leave me absolutely cold. This tends to alienate me from some of my relatives, since Goans are justifiably proud of the reputation their food has in the region. For instance, there tends to be an overemphasis on pig, and I've already detailed my objection to consuming Goan pig. There is also a huge dependence on shellfish of all types, shrimp, crab, lobster. These I am both repelled by and allergic to. Then, many Goan "curries" use a ton of coconut, and I'm not particularly fond of heavily coconut curries.

But the fish is excellent, the 'rechiado' chili and garlic paste is tasty and very useful (we make roast chicken using it), the innumerable sweets are favorites of mine, and I do love two or three signature Goan dishes that don't involve pork or Goan sausages. BTW, Goan vinegar is very good too.

1052. pseudoerasmus - 10/25/1999 11:04:21 AM

I can't say I'm a big fan of coconut either, except in sweets.

You don't eat any shellfish? I can live without shrimp, crab and lobster, but clams and mussels are indispensable. In particular I love "fritures de mailles".

Seguine, Webfeet: stay tuned for an absolutely fantastic recipe for shucked mussel pasta.

1053. marjoribanks - 10/25/1999 11:11:37 AM

Well, what do you know. I found this decent page of Goan recipes. I'd ignore the recipe for chicken cafreal, it looks made up to me - no coriander? how absurd. And the spellings are silly - Shakoothi? It's Xacuti, bozo. But it'll give you a good idea of what constitutes Goan food. BTW, I know the restaurant he talks about wrt the cafreal, it's called Florentine and is a favorite of mine. How he could eat there and then post a recipe sans kothmir is a mystery to me.

BTW, Goans eat and cherish literally dozens of types of clams and mussels, with variations in species and the type of water they're found in (sea, estuary, river, etc). Everyone around me goes into paroxyms of delight over them, but I remain quite happy not to eat them. You do know what function they perform in their habitat I hope.

1054. pseudoerasmus - 10/25/1999 11:13:58 AM

Wow, that Goan mussel pullao sounds good. What is it with the jalapeño seguinism?

1055. JudithAtHome - 10/25/1999 11:18:20 AM

phillipdavid:

Nice story about your dogs; mine is in the doggie hospital right now due to his digestive system failing to process pecan shells. I'll probably be losing as much green as your son did when Klaus is released from the vets...

1056. marjoribanks - 10/25/1999 11:24:15 AM

The man who put together is obviously a bit of an idiot, though quite diligent. There are no jalapenos in India, and in fact they don't make a decent substitute for either local Goan or the ubiquitous Kashmiri red chilis.

BTW, that mussel pulao is one of the most famous "grand occasion" dishes made by Goans. They tend to use little estuarine mussels (called Tisrio) which as far as I know are unavailable anywhere else and you can bring an expat to tears at the mere mention of it.

1057. MrSocko - 10/25/1999 11:27:50 AM

marjoribanks:

Kindly desist from slapping quotation marks around expressions such as "grand occasion."

1058. pseudoerasmus - 10/25/1999 11:32:19 AM

I want to have some of that mussel pullao!

#1057

I've never seen anyone use more unnecessary quotations marks than Marzipranks.

1059. marjoribanks - 10/25/1999 11:37:03 AM

Okely dokely, Psocks. But I feel it should be set apart from the rest of the sentence somehow. Would 'grand occasion' pass your test?

1060. marjoribanks - 10/25/1999 11:38:41 AM

I have been chastised for my overuse of quotation marks and underuse of the semi-colon innumerable times. But the way I use (or not use) them make sense, if only to me.

1061. Seguine - 10/25/1999 2:43:52 PM

seguinism; n., 1. culinary miscegenation, esp. one involving species of food related to endemic species, but alien to a given region's recipes.

penism; n., 1. the addition of unnecessary ingedients to a simple recipe, such as black pepper to hummus, sour cream to guacamole, etc.

banksness; n., 1. capsicum addiction combined with an inability to consume certain shellfish without vomiting.

sockismo; n., 1. intolerance of excessive or imprecise use of quotation marks.

1062. Seguine - 10/25/1999 2:49:21 PM

Banks, the pickles you mention--and those brands in particular--have never struck me as especialy spicy. Rather, they're salty.

I confess to having had, at one time in my reckless youth, a dependency on mixed pickle. I couldn't stop. Nearly ruined my kidneys. Had to take up mainlining methamphetamine as a stop-gap measure, until withdrawal was complete.

1063. marjoribanks - 10/25/1999 2:59:14 PM

Seguine,

An admission: I've never tried those brands, and in fact I haven't eaten achar since I was a child, except for lightly pickled green mangoes in briner. I don't like them, and never have. I do know their very reason for existence is to provide heat to rice and whatever, though.

1064. Seguine - 10/25/1999 3:00:18 PM

Banks, on the Goan recipes page the chicken cafreal looks very good, but as you're not impressed with its authenticity I'd be interested to know how you think it should be ammended.

1065. marjoribanks - 10/25/1999 3:06:12 PM

My recipe book is at home. However, offhand, the chicken should be coated in a corainder-garlic paste, literally massaged with the stuff and more should be pushed through slits in the skin. And then it should be left covered in the fridge for a few hours before cooking.

I can see coriander-ginger working somewhat reasonably as well. This evening I'll try to post the recipe I use, which is an old family failsafe.

1066. webfeet - 10/25/1999 4:10:34 PM

Yes, please do, Marj. Im looking forward to that and Pseuder's recipe for shucked mussel pasta.

Maybe, just for the sake of structure and consistency, they should be posted in Glenda's 'Home and Garden.' If either of you want to add a little link from here to indicate where they will be posted, it would be helpful just in case someone misses it.

Just no recipes on Goan pig. Im actually still a little traumatized by those outhouse stories you, and I think it was scottloar, were telling. I still have trepidation when I am choosing whether or not to buy pork chops at the grocery.

1067. PelleNilsson - 10/25/1999 4:21:34 PM

Following webfeet's caveat I proceed to Home&Garden to present a nice recipe for Moules Marinière-

1068. marjoribanks - 10/25/1999 8:30:32 PM

Now I can't find the family cookbook. So, the chicken cafreal recipe will have to wait till tomorrow. Suffice it to say that much coriander is called for - coriander is the key to a good chicken cafreal.

1069. RickNelson - 10/26/1999 8:36:56 AM

I made my way back to read, found PD's dog story and found it settled my appetite for a story. Man, what a distress to have to find $400 in crap. And even more what a lesson for that young man to keep his green in a safe place. I hope the mother/wife has an ok time without her spending money in full supply. Best wishes.

1070. Uzmakk - 10/26/1999 11:19:22 AM

I am very fond of coriander, Banks, and use a good deal of it in Uzmakkian cookery.

1071. Schehezarade - 10/26/1999 11:54:39 AM

Webfeet


I forgot to mention, I think that Clement is a great name!



Sequine


Speaking of names, you correctly pointed out that mine has certain changes in it from the original. I posted (in here?) why I spell it the way I do. Basically, a close friend of mind and I read _Arabian Nights_ when we were too young (12). We both wanted to be noble story tellers and would make believe we were the heroine, but we could never get the spelling (or the pronunciation) down just right. We came of with some real doozies too. Like Schehehehehezarade, Scherezeradadare, and every other combination createable. But, we settled on Schehezarade. It always brings back good memories for me; she was a dear friend.

1072. webfeet - 10/26/1999 12:39:52 PM

Scheherezade,

Thank you, I like Clement, too. Although, admittedly, the French pronunciation has a little more dash to it. (clay-mon)

Btw, a more appropriate question on nomenclature may be redirected at seguine herself, someone whose name either unconsciously chosen or not, closely resembles sanguine, of or relating to blood; bloodthirsty.

1073. JudithAtHome - 10/26/1999 4:20:22 PM

I always thought she was named after the city here in Texas...

1074. glendajean - 10/26/1999 4:49:32 PM

So did I, Judith.

1075. JudithAtHome - 10/26/1999 4:54:11 PM

GJ:

Well, once a Texan.....

1076. glendajean - 10/26/1999 5:00:22 PM

....well, certainly not a hoosier.

1077. Seguine - 10/27/1999 8:42:45 AM

"I always thought she was named after the city here in Texas..."

There's the unconcious part. Isn't the name of the town spelled differently, though? (Guess if anyone named "Tombal" or "Killeen" ever shows up in here, y'all will know it's me.)

Webfeet: The allusion to bloodthirstiness was deliberate. As is the suggestion of a dance popular, I think, in the 1920s. But the name itself is a corruption of the name of a mythological character chosen, ironically, for her dissimilarity to me in her aspects.

Schehez: Thanks for the 'splaining. Makes sense.

1078. Schehezarade - 10/27/1999 1:13:27 PM

Webfeet


Ever since you first mentioned the name Clement, "pronounced like the French version of lemon", I can't get U2's "She wore Lemon" out of my mind. AND, the cute French guy I bought brie and olives from today was named Clement. What a hottie. Isn't it weird how we can like or dislike names depending on our experiences with people with those names?

Seguine

I've always expected a "meloncholic" to be running around loose on the fray, chasing you.



(Spelling change is deliberate)

1079. Uzmakk - 10/27/1999 1:18:13 PM

Shehezarade:
Love the moniker.

1080. Schehezarade - 10/27/1999 1:33:01 PM

Thanks, babe. What's an Uzmakk if I may ask.

1081. Uzmakk - 10/27/1999 1:43:57 PM

Uzmakk Uzbekian, child of the steppe, at your service.

1082. webfeet - 10/27/1999 1:45:27 PM

That's funny, Shehezarade, because I have visions of lemon meringue now when I say his name. I know that U2 song. I used to be really into 'Zooropa' in that post-college identity crisis state after graduation.

AS for the hottie, Frenchmen generally aren't known for their musculature, but they can be quite sexy and they are pleine de charme in the company of women. They flirt naturally, the way southern men can, in a very charming and casual way.

1083. pseudoerasmus - 10/27/1999 1:47:12 PM

But surely Webfeet you must realise that "limon" and "clément" do not rhyme -- they're different nasal sounds.

this reminds me of an American I know who used to pronounce "citroën" like "citron".

1084. webfeet - 10/27/1999 1:50:03 PM

Actually, I think it's more than 'charm,' I think they are less self conscious about the implications of flirting; they experience no embarrassment when pursuing a woman. C'est naturelle!

1085. webfeet - 10/27/1999 1:52:36 PM

Voici le pedant! Cheri, ne t'inquietes pas. I know that. Remember, Im only french by association, I still think, phoenetically at least, in my natal tongue.

1086. Schehezarade - 10/27/1999 1:55:14 PM

Webfeet


I like a man with confidence. Unfortunately, there's a fine line between confidence and conceit and most fall to the wrong side. Adult-Clement blushed when I told him that I wanted "une tranch du frommage." He also threw in some smoked puree thingy and the olives. He asked me "Mon cherie... next week... we will be ear own Mercredi, voulez-vous moor cheese?" I was going into a trance, and in my head I heard "Must have cheese. Must have cheese. Must have cheese."


Uzmakk

I like having my own MoteMan in uniform, you're very welcoming here.:-p

1087. pseudoerasmus - 10/27/1999 1:55:35 PM

Well, "pedantry in excelsis" is my motto....

...natal tongue...

Well, there's a Francism for you! Even if you remain phonetically Anglo, maybe you're turning idiomatically Frog.

1088. Uzmakk - 10/27/1999 1:57:05 PM

Mon dieu.


Pseudo, I have a little something that I hope you will like that I am going to post here in a couple of days. Hope you enjoy it. You are in the story.

1089. Schehezarade - 10/27/1999 2:03:01 PM

PseudoErasmus


What is the shape of your head?

1090. pseudoerasmus - 10/27/1999 2:07:23 PM

Schehezarade: My cranium was sculpted by Brancusi himself, the shiny bronze egg.

1091. pseudoerasmus - 10/27/1999 2:07:25 PM

Schehezarade: My cranium was sculpted by Brancusi himself, the shiny bronze egg.

1092. Schehezarade - 10/27/1999 2:17:04 PM

PseudoErasmus

Your head?

1093. pseudoerasmus - 10/27/1999 2:17:50 PM

Have you never seen a Brancusi egg?

1094. Schehezarade - 10/27/1999 2:23:25 PM

Can't say that I have.

1095. Seguine - 10/27/1999 5:45:36 PM

Try the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

[Shiny. Shiny. Has PE succumbed to street fashion and begun shaving his head?]

1096. Seguine - 10/27/1999 5:48:31 PM

Uzmakk! You must confess immediately to Schehez that one of the k's in your moniker used to live elsewhere.

1097. Uzmakk - 10/27/1999 5:57:54 PM

I confess. Seguine is actually my creator, or atleast my transposer.

1098. Uzmakk - 10/27/1999 7:06:35 PM

Seguine:
Can I actually see a likeness of Pseudo's head at the Philadelphia Museum of Art? I will make a day of my next trip into Philly and visit Pseudo's head, a phenomena which has fascinated me for more than a year now.

1099. Seguine - 10/27/1999 10:19:44 PM

One should pronounce Uzmakk using the diaphragm.

(Not that diaphragm.)

1100. SpenceMirrlees - 10/28/1999 2:43:06 AM

"(Not that diaphragm.)"

now you tell me

1101. Uzmakk - 10/28/1999 8:33:37 AM

Seguine:

I think you have come up with an excellent Mote Maxim.

Speak from the diaphragm, refer to the diagram.

Both actions to be performed simultaneously, ofcourse.

1102. Bubbaette - 10/28/1999 8:40:01 AM

When I was young, we had a lassie-dog that was a peachy/orangish color. Her name was "Baby", and she diddn't mind very well and would only respond when my dad called her. He'd say "come to me, my melon collie, Baby."

Ark ark ark

1103. Uzmakk - 10/28/1999 8:48:55 AM

Perot's problem was that he didn't speak from the diaphragm, though he did refer to the diagram.

1104. Uzmakk - 10/28/1999 11:44:42 AM

I am quite sure that his media handlers handed him the maxim-- Really babble it, and point at the tabbelit. Ofcourse, there is all the difference in the world between the two maxims.

1105. Uzmakk - 10/28/1999 6:36:54 PM

Seguine:

I must know whether I can find a likeness of Pseudoerasmus' head at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. My new assistant, Igor, and I may be taking a trip in on Monday.

1106. Seguine - 10/29/1999 12:31:26 AM

I think, Uzmakk, that you can find a whole room full of Brancusis and Duchamps, including the Large Glass (aka The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even), in the 20th Century section. Unless I'm recollecting badly and the room is actually full of Duchamps and Arps, PE's head must be reproduced there in several media.

It is a little known legend that Brancusi was careful to incorporate telltale odors into his three-dimensional works. If you bend down close to the ones that resemble Pseudoerasmus--and this should be done while the guards are distracted--you may be able to detect the scent of ginger, garlic, onions, and little subcon chiles, BUT NOT JALAPENOS.

1107. Uzmakk - 10/29/1999 6:24:33 AM

Thank you, Seguine.

1108. Uzmakk - 10/29/1999 6:52:00 AM

And I shall perform the sniff test.

1109. webfeet - 10/29/1999 2:01:42 PM

Judithathome

IF you are serious about wanting the extractor, I will purchase it for you today, as I am leaving this job (Hoorah!) where I worked as the equivalent of a door-to-door salesman in advertising plugging digital cameras from web site to web site, and won't be, alas, next door to Sephora any longer.

I'm happy to say that I start Tuesday as a Conference Producer at an Intl research institute and am doing more serious work for much better salaire!

1110. JudithAtHome - 10/29/1999 2:04:21 PM

webfeet:

I am very serious and if you will send me the details at JudithAtHome@mailcity.com I will send you a check, post haste.

1111. Uzmakk - 10/29/1999 9:08:07 PM

More interesting work, more money and that money in the form of a salary...now there's a tall tale.

1112. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:34:31 AM

The wind moves through the bleak December woods with a chill insistence; whispering between the stark black tree-trunks wet with snow, rustling the last withered remnant of the summer's leaves in a shiftless progression, and filling my ears with a low, ruffling moan as I shiver in my blind and wait for the deer to come. The air is crisp with the icy clarity that comes after a snowfall, vividly rendering the reddish browns and blacks of the winter forest in sharp contrast against the white purity of snow; the sky is a muted grey watercolor, an inpenetrable caul drawn over the earth through which the sun can be seen only as a hazy smear of pale light. My eyes move over the forest floor in a relentless sweep of determination and uncertainty, and the anticipation builds slowly in my blood. Far off in the distance I can hear gunfire, echoing and roaring intermittently.

The sun has moved considerably higher in the sky since those first moments of light and bitter, teeth-rattling cold, when it rose over the horizon. When you sit in a tree stand, motionless for hours in the cold and the wind, you attain a forced awareness of the things around you. There is nothing but you and your gear, and the stand and the trees and the wind, and after a while you get tired of pondering those things; there is a temptation to slip into reverie, but you know that you must at least partially keep your attention on matters at hand. The sameness and the greyness of the moment makes it hard to distinguish one from the next at times, but the objects around you mostly stay the same despite the passage of the day.

1113. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:35:05 AM

It is only their appearance that changes as the sun rises and moves across the sky, transforming the forest from the blackness of night to pre-dawn when the vestiges of form can be seen as grey blurs floating in the vision; then comes the first, half-lit traces of daylight, where everything has a faint, ethereal watercolor feel to it, like you could put your hands through it all. Sometime after the dawn you look around and suddenly realize that you can see everything, that the colors present themselves cleanly and that your vision is more or less sharp and clear. The trees, the blind and the shotgun have not ceased to exist, they have not changed at all, but it is strange to sit and think about how they shift appearance in the changing of the light, the different way they present themselves to the eye and the different way our brain defines them.

In this light, pale and anemic as it is, I have an excellent picture of the forest and can see for some distance beneath the spreading branches of the towering trees. But when I first walked into the forest everything was night-black and I could barely see at all by the thin circles of my flashlight, and the trees that have now fully resolved in the light of day were hulking and menacing monoliths in my sight. As I look around now it is hard to reconcile the forest I see now to that that appeared to me in the long walk before the dawn. I survey the forest for any movement, eyes flicking over the snow and leaves, but nothing new has presented itself, and my mind drifts back through long hours of waiting to the blindness of unlit night and the bone-shivering shock of the cold as I stood beside the car, loading shells and checking gear with my brother and father, and then following them off through the brush and into the fields.

1114. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:35:35 AM

The pack and blankets pull heavily upon my back as I move through the tall grass, white with frost, that fills the field; cradling the length of the shotgun in my left arm and following the dim shapes of my father and brother as they traverse the muddy path. We move in a crouching, pregnant black silence, alleviated only by the occasional thin beam from a flashlight as we pause to orient ourselves and by the low muttering of necessary speech, and by the soft building voice of the wind. Trees loom from the blackness as we enter the woods, and in this absence of senses they take on fantastic, malign proportions; the smallness of the noises we make, the dull tread of our steps, the rustle of our clothing and the muted crunch of branches beneath our feet seem to magnify the enormity of the trees and the dead growth that covers the leaves beneath. Looking around, one can see no landmarks, no points of reference, and the trees seem nightmarish and alien in the darkness. There is a sudden awful feeling that the forest is alive and merely feigning sleep, breathing with infinite slowness, pulsing with a lifeblood too slow and rare for me to sense; that it is watching these intruders upon its soil, waiting. I imagine the trees crashing down upon us to tear and rend our flesh, the ground gaping beneath my feet to swallow me alive, without a trace, buried beneath the vastness of the fallen leaves and trees, our cries smothered by the rising wind. I want to stop and turn around, but I cannot.

1115. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:36:35 AM

The memory sends a shiver, even now in the light of day as I sit safe in my blind.

I have been in the tree stand long enough for my feet to grow leaden and numb, and the wind bites at the exposed skin of my face with a thousand teeth. It rattles in the trees and transforms the forest into a sea of movement ; an endless chaotic repetition of noise and motion that the mind shapes easily, and for many hours after dawn I turned at every loud rustle of brush, gun raised to fire and body transformed by the shaking pulse of adrenaline, knowing that the long wait was over... but the deer were never there, and once again I would sit and resume my endless wait.

In the cold and the wind my world has pulled back its borders, has become a concentration of anticipation and physical discomfort, and I am trapped within it. The branches rock gently in the wind, shifting the blind with minute creaks. Hands of perception stretch the present in both directions; it seems that I have always been waiting in this blind, always cold, that I have always been waiting for the deer. A part of my mind, cold and devoid of logic, tells me that I will always be here waiting, that they will never come... the beginnings of metaphor begin to assert themselves in my mind, and for the first time I wonder what it is, what it really is, that I do here.

The shotgun is black and lethal in my hands, as cold as the death it brings. I shy away from its answers.

My eyes perform their searching scan of the forest again, and I think of the deer. What they will look like, the movements they will make as they carefully step over twigs and leaves. The way they will blend into the forest. For a moment I hear my father telling me that some men cannot shoot the deer once they’ve seen them, that they are captured by the wild grace of the animals and cannot make themselves pull the trigger. Buck fever, he called it.

1116. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:37:09 AM

I think of my father's words, last night in the heat and the firelight, the words spoken as we reached the tree stand, and as my mind attempts to discern the meaning behind them the anticipation comes again. It will be good, to make the kill. To test myself against the animal cunning of the deer and to emerge triumphant, bearing home a prize and newfound manhood.

An eruption of noise behind me brings me surging to my feet; shotgun barrel moving in a swiveling arc, coldness forgotten, thoughts forgotten. My eyes can find no movement, no target; I frantically crane my neck about, trying to find the deer but seeing nothing. For a moment the forest is as still with a cathedral hush, then abruptly the noise begins again. Two squirrels tussle on the icy leaves, leaping and chittering wildly, now chasing each other around the trunk of a dead oak tree. My breath comes fast from the start they gave me, and for a moment the shotgun wavers in their direction; but I recall the stories my father told about my brother's first trip deer hunting, and instead of shooting I offer a short, explosive curse and sit back down. The combatants freeze, rather comically, in their positions; their ears and whiskers twitching as they attempt to discern the source of the noise. Then they dash off like two grey blurs across the snow , their quarrel laid aside, and once again there is only cold and wind and thoughts that chase each other around my head like fighting squirrels.

1117. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:39:08 AM

Circles of flashlight bob up and down as we walk through the trees and thickening brush toward the first tree stand. Despite the chill, sweat has begun to build beneath the many layers of clothing and my breathing is deep and regular, for we keep a stretching pace. The scent of the dawn woods fills my mind; a rich scent of decaying wood and leaves, clean sap, snow and pure cold country air. My anxiety has passed, driven away by the pace and the concentration upon the day to come. Small strips of iridescent tape now gleam like eyes in the beams of our flashlights; unobtrusive markers left by my father to keep us on the path through the thickness of the brush in the confusion of a forest before dawn. When we pause steam curls from our mouths in crisply edged streams that hang in the air like smoke. The forest floor is dusted white with snow; the sun has not yet risen and the warmth that today is supposed to bring is as of yet unformed.

The first tree stand lies atop the far side of a low hill, overlooking a low area thick with cover, cris-crossed with animal trails and a meandering stream that runs cold and deep in the winter. We trudge up the slope to the stand, branches crunching beneath our feet like firecrackers in the icy air. At the top we pause for a moment beneath the blind, looking about, and then my brother murmurs, "Okay, then," and slings his bag up into the blind. Handing his shotgun to our father, he clambers up into the tree stand, awkward with heavy clothing; once he gets inside Father and I wait for him to make sure that everything is in order. He looks around for a moment, then shines his flashlight down at our father and says, "I'm all set."

1118. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:40:15 AM

Father smiles, the light emphasizing his dark beard and the strong lines of his face. "Good luck, Steve. Make those shots count." He looks as if he wants to say more, but doesn't.

The flashlight shines over to me. I grin and say, "Don't shoot any bushes this time. Even if you get bored."

Father snorts; I am sure that my brother is blushing from his silent posture. After a short moment he straightens and stares back down, and I am abruptly reminded that Steve has already gotten his first deer, and I have not. He smiles down without rancor and says, "Whatever. Just don't shoot your foot off. Doofus."

I want to respond but Father grips my arm and says, "Let's get to your blind." My brother sits down on his stool, and the two of us walk down the hillside toward the stream.

The sun is noon high in the sky. Far off in the distance I can hear gunfire – the deep roar of rifled slugs and the sharper crack of high-velocity sabot rounds. The shooting began in earnest about a half-hour after sunrise, peaking in the first two hours of light, and since then has been scattered and sporadic. Morning's icy chill has abated; the sun shines through the overcast sky like an insistent reminder of the promise of warmth, and it is a little easier to feel my toes. The snow has begun to melt, falling in clumps from the trees and punctuating the rustle of wind and leaves with the sound of dripping and the occasional muffled thud of impact. I scan the surroundings carefully; then, having assured myself that there are no deer in the vicinity, I carefully lay the gun against the railing of my blind and begin searching in the haversack for a sandwich.

In the course of my search I am struck by the many things I have brought with me; food, blanket, thermos, knife, poncho, tissue, extra shells, plastic baggies, flashlight, canteen, rope, matches and tinder, woolen socks, bandages, an amazing plethora of items to help me on my hunt.

1119. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:41:15 AM

Things that I will in all probability not require, many unnecessary things that I carried all the way out here, yet I am comforted by having them, and I know that I am prepared for any eventuality I might conceivably run across. Hunger stirs my thoughts and I resume searching for the sandwich.

I find it at the bottom of the haversack, compressed and cold in the foil, and eagerly unwrap it, taking a bite. Its taste takes my mind off the matters at hand; thick slabs of smoked turkey and cheddar, spicy mustard and mayonaisse on sourdough. Savoring the sandwich, I eat it slowly, washing it down with lukewarm coffee; I am wishing for another when the shooting starts again; a series of shots from the east, much louder this time.

Grabbing my gun, I come to my feet and stare off in the direction of the shooting; hearing it stop abruptly. The echoing from the trees gives the shots a curiously drawn out sound, somewhat like breakers upon the shore. I listen intently but the wind and the melting snow blot out any shouts of triumph or curses of dismay. It occurs to me, distantly, that the wind is dying slowly. I check the length of the trail, gun ready in my hands in the arms ready position my father taught me, but there is no movement, and despite the lessening of the wind I can still hear nothing else. My hat rubs at my forehead as I swivel my neck, and the gun begins to pull downward infinitesimally. I gaze at the trail for a while longer, but my father’s admonitions return to haunt me and shamefacedly I return my eyes to the east and wait.

There is another shot, finally, and then very faintly I can hear joyous shouts, tinny and distant in the wind. My heart sinks; someone has gotten their first kill and performed a coup de grace.

1120. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:41:27 AM

Visions of large, heavy bucks charging down the trail, away from the gunfire and into my waiting sights, fade away into nothingness. For a long moment I stand filled with the impatience of my time and wondering why I’m even here wasting it. The questioning and the anticipating, the wondering and the waiting, all is buried in a deep surging frustration, and with a sigh I slump down into my seat and give the forest one more cursory sweep of vision.

It is only then that I see the deer, two of them, small and brown, moving like ghosts across the forest floor towards my blind.

1121. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:41:59 AM

We cross the stream on a narrow log my father cut years ago for a bridge. It creaks and groans as we gingerly negotiate it; my father first to see if it will support us still, edging carefully in the light of my beam, then me as my father stands on the other side and waits for me to step carefully across the log and over the icy deep water running beneath it. My feet slide haltingly and with trepidation across the log, stepping uncertainly in the circle of light of my father’s flashlight. It feels good when I touch down on the other side and we move off together up the inclining path. We do not speak as we walk; there is a slowly growing sense of urgency to reach the stands and set ourselves up.
The second blind lies perhaps a quarter of a mile to the north of the first one, situated in the lower branches of a giant elm tree. Some ways to the west lies a large corn field and dense brush litters the ground along the edge of the trees, the kind of cover that deer are attracted to. When we eventually work our way through the brush to the blind it is an almost palpable easing of the urgency. My father walks around the blind, eyeing it for signs of decay, and then examines the surrounding woods with his flashlight as if to assure himself of its safety. I toss my haversack up into the blind and lean my gun against the tree, and am about to climb up when my father grabs my arm and says, "Wait."

1122. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:44:35 AM

(last post should be all in italics, mea culpa)


I look at him and he gives me a thorough once over with the flashlight. "Always make sure that your gun is on safe. Is it on safe now?" I retrieve it and check; the indicator is set to safety. He waits for me to nod my head, then continues. Your gun is on safe, and it stays on safe until you are going to shoot." I nod my head again impatiently; oblivious to my impatience he goes on. His face is serious; the cold has reddened it but his deep-set eyes bore into mine unaffected, twin pools of darkness in the winter-light skin." Be as quiet as you can; noise travels in the woods and deer hear very well. You’ll hear them before you see them, sometimes," --he grimaces – "at least when the wind isn't up like this. Don't get out of your blind unless you absolutely have to. Let the other hunters push the deer to you. There's plenty of deer sign on that trail," -- indicating the low path running off southeast to northwest – "but don’t just keep your attention there. "

" Once the shooting starts the deer will scatter and be coming from every which way. Remember to make sure of your target and aim for the ribs, just in front of the leg. For God’s sake don’t shoot unless they’re closer than the fifty-yard range markers, because these damned shotgun slugs won’t hit anything past that. I mean it. Shoot like I taught you to. Don’t you take a bad shot and end up just scaring the deer away. If you wait, they’ll circle around until they’re in range, or else they’ll head to Stevie or me. If you make a bad shot, you might gut shoot them and we don’t want to spoil the meat. And don’t forget… stay put, even if you hear one of us shooting. If we need you we’ll holler."

1123. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:45:46 AM

I nod. I have heard all this before. He looks at me steadily, our faces half-lit by the lights, and I know he is trying to help me, to give me what he can for my first time out. It feels curiously sentimental coming from my father, the man of iron and precise command of my youth; it feels like a moment of sharing in this ritual of manhood, and for a moment I wanted to thank him. For a moment there in the black woods I am six years old again and my father is teaching me to ride a bicycle, his hair darker and his face less lined in the summer sun, smiling as he shows me the pedals and the brakes, telling me how I’ll do fine. I am aware of how much all this means to my father in a way that I never was before. I know that I should let him know that what he’s doing is appreciated, and that I am glad that he cares enough to worry so, and I should hug him or at least shake hands. Instead, I look at him for a second and say, "I know, Dad," and, jamming my flashlight into a waist pocket I climb up into my blind. The wood is cold and slippery and I feel foolish and sentimental, climbing hand over fist, feet shifting from branch to hammered peg and back as I work my way up and into the blind. Inside the stand, I brush the snow from the floor and withdraw the folding chair from the plastic bag where it lies propped against the trunk, and I set it up. Retrieving my flashlight, I shine it down at my father, reaching out and taking my shotgun from his outstretched hand as he offers it up to me, then for a moment we watch each other from opposite sides of a yawning chasm of time, the wind blowing through our clothing.

Finally I look around and say, "Well, I think I’m all set up."

He nods solemnly up at me. "Don’t get buck fever, Jake."

"I won’t."

1124. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:46:50 AM

My voice must have been a little testy; he grins and says, " I know you’ll do fine. Good shooting." And with that he retrieves his shotgun from where he propped it and walks slowly off into the darkness toward his own blind, away to the northeast, and I am alone.

I have been waiting all day for the deer to come; playing out scenarios in my mind, romanticized notions of manhood and bravery. Now that the deer are finally here, as I ease the shotgun up and over the railing and slowly stand, they seem small and strange as they move up from the southwest.. They move with oddly jointed yet delicate motion over the leaves, heads turning about and eyes dark as they raise their heads and examine their surroundings, then lower their muzzles to the ground. With an odd fascination I realize that even now, with the roar of gunfire in the distance and hunters swarming the woods, that the deer are feeding. They will have been moving since the hours of darkness before dawn, separated from their companions by the chaos of the day, running from the shots and hiding in the scrub until the danger has passed, and now as they inch closer to me with their bobbing steps and furtive movements of their heads they are attempting to fill their stomachs. Their brown coats blend into the leaves, and their hooves make little noise as they carefully make their way between the bushes and around fallen branches and trunks of trees. I am struck by their adaptation to their environment. It occurs to me suddenly that they move so quietly that I may have indeed missed one earlier under the cover of wind, but now the wind has curiously and suddenly almost died, as if the world is holding its breath. As the deer near the blind I can see that one is a bit larger than the other, with tiny antlers that poke through the fur of its head. Though I have schooled myself to silence, both deer abruptly raise their heads and swivel their gaze over the forest.

1125. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:46:59 AM

The doe raises her nose questingly for a moment, jerking her head; she stamps a forehoof into the leaves in a curiously deliberate motion, and the two stand there motionless. I hold my breath, absolutely silent and still, wondering at first at the sound they might have heard, and then struck by the nature of the moment. For a long moment we three figures are frozen in a tableau, there in the trees, forest and plains stretching off into the horizon, frozen beneath a covering slate grey sky, in the gray light that glows through the clouds that gird this massive spinning globe as it hurtles around the sun in its ancient course, frozen, unmoving in this world of motion, a pause framing us like the purest instant of time – I am suddenly acutely aware of the thing my father meant when he spoke of buck fever, in a way that I could have never otherwise misunderstood, the surging magnificence of these animals as they stand perfectly in their being – then the buck lowers his head to the ground and pulls at a few low plants with his teeth, and the deer resume their feeding and their slow careful movement. I stand, the deer filling my vision, all thought vanishing under a roaring that swells in my ears, I see nothing but the two deer, there is nothing but the two deer, the muzzle of the shotgun swinging effortlessly and the bead centering on the buck’s chest, feeling my breathing slow and deep, no sound but the roar of blood, the hammer of my pulse, and the deer are coming closer, in range now, moving like ineffable destiny, and there is nothing, nothing, nothing at all but the waiting, moving deeper into range, closer, closer, the bead is locked, closer, the pulse and the roar in my ears and the buck and the gun and my breathing and the buck stops and raises his head and stares directly at me and I fire.

1126. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:48:26 AM

The shot echoes in my head like thunder and I jack the slide back and forth and fire again, arm pistoning, spent shell flying from the breech, the smell of gunsmoke reaching my nostrils instantaneously, an acrid metallic tang on the tip of my tongue, and then the deer are off and running impossibly fast through the trees, flashing and dodging between the trunks and sailing in great leaping bounds over branches and brush, and I duck through the flap of the entry and leap down to the ground, feeling a slight pulling at my ankle as I hit and scramble to my feet. I run off after the deer, and as I run, my body alive with adrenaline, in my mind’s eye I can see the hunching of the buck’s body as he leaped and I know that I hit him.

There are a few tufts of hair lying in the wet leaves where the buck had stood and gazed up at me. I stop and orient myself, turning to walk after the two deer, my pulse fast, my breathing hard, my body shaking. Twenty yards from where I started I begin to see a few drops of blood on the leaves and my pulse quickens further as I track the wounded deer. As I follow the track down the hillside, boots digging into the wet leaves and earth and the air still now on my face, the drops grow in number and in size until they become splashes on the leaves. Over one large blotch of blood, bright red, I stop, looking about for the deer. It cannot be too far from here, but I cannot see it.

The brush crashes. I swing my gun up, but it is my father. It occurs to me that he must have been moving very fast to get here this quickly, but I did not hear him coming at all until the last. I point the barrel back down, smiling crazily.

1127. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:48:37 AM

"Hit it?" His voice is pitched slightly high, with the faintest rush of breath.

Wordlessly I point at the splash of blood, but he is already looking at it, and says, ‘yep! Hot damn!’ We begin walking further down the hillside, following the blood trail, guns up and ready. There is a larger splash of blood at the bottom of the hill, and I am examining it, seeing the blood with a strange kind of clarity, when my father starts and looks up the hill behind us, and I hear my brother shouting, ‘Did he get one?’ For a second I wonder why the two of them left their blinds. What if I had missed?

1128. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:50:29 AM

My father shouts, ‘Yeah!" He looks down at the splash of blood and says, ‘Buck or doe?"

"Buck. Spike."

"Hot damn!" he repeats, and my questions are forgotten. A fierce joy suffuses my blood as my brother joins us, eyeing the blood briefly, then we fan off and start off after the wounded buck.

It is my brother who sees the buck first, shouting wildly and pointing his shotgun at it. The buck had run perhaps two hundred and fifty yards after I shot it; it lays sprawled at the base of a large oak, a trail of strewn leaves and earth behind it suggesting that it had collapsed and slid a few feet. My heart surges again and I sprint to the buck, my gun pointing down as I run, Steve and my father behind me. We circle around the fallen deer, and I look down at my kill, and then with a horrifying sickening wrench I realize that the buck is still alive and shivering against the cold earth. Its eyes roll whitely in its head and it grunts softly, breathing with great deep rattling wheezes. My slug had taken it just in front of the left shoulder and blood trickles weakly from the black hole of its entry. For a moment I stand there, transfixed, and then the buck lifts its head a fraction of an inch and looks up at me with dazed eyes and moans, a deep, lowing sound. Dropping its head back down to the earth with an audible thud, it feebly shuffles its legs, tremblingly pushing them into the ground, and I realize that the buck is trying to crawl away from me.

My father stares down at the buck happily. "Nice shot, Jake! Look at that buck!"

Numbly, I reply, "I aimed further forward." Our voices seem to echo slightly from the trees.

1129. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:51:45 AM

The dying buck moans again, writhing its legs, but my father is oblivious. He lays his shotgun against the oak and stands looking at the buck. "Got him right in the lungs. See that blood on its nose? Nice shot."

Steve says, "You okay, Jake?" His voice is hesitant.

I stare at the buck, watching tendrils of barely perceptible steam curl from its nose, seeing the blood that oozes out in bubbles with each labored breath.

Now my father swings his gaze back up to me. I raise my gun and point it at the deer’s head but my father’s arm pushes the barrel back down.

"Don’t waste the shot." His voice is stern. "Hear that rattling? He’s almost dead, now. That last with a touch of something strange, unidentifiable in his tone. He draws his large-bladed knife and eyes the deer, then looks at me again. I can feel his eyes, and when I look up and meet his gaze he stares at me with the look of a man who’s forgotten about something for a long time and found it unexpectedly.

Suddenly the buck gives a loud snort and pushes at the bloody, churned earth with tremendous effort that brings blood bubbling out of its nose. Straining and trembling, it raises itself to a half-crouch and gives a long, rattling moan, and then I am moving, the barrel coming up, and the shotgun roars and kicks in my hand and the buck slumps back to the earth, still and motionless, a large hole behind its left ear.

I shudder, and in the corner of my eye I see my father and brother exchanging looks.

My father shakes his head as I turn to them, his face showing nothing now, and Steve asks me if I’m really okay, and I say I’m fine, working the action on the shotgun, the spent shell tumbling end over end to land in the leaves several feet away.

1130. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:53:08 AM

My father gives the shotgun a pointed look, and I thumb the safety back on. Steve looks down and says softly, ‘Nice buck. Bigger than mine."

My father bends down and says, "Let’s gut him out."

Steve has returned to his blind , and Father and I are dragging the carcass out of the woods when the sun finally begins to break free of the clouds, its light lancing to earth between low-level clouds moving in the wind that has picked up again. My ankle aches dully now, protesting with each step. We walk in silence mostly, every once in a while my father clears his throat as if to say something, but catches himself. I do nothing but walk and keep my grip on the rope, thinking of the way they walked over the leaves and between the trees, thinking of the grace and speed they ran with.

Thinking about the way the buck rolled its eyes and moaned in pain and fear as it tried to crawl away, legs scrabbling in the dirt, the terror of its last waking moments on this earth surrounded by tall hunters with guns and knives and the deep tearing pain of the bullet and the rattling and the blood. I want to talk, but can’t find the words; want to say what I’m feeling but find that the feelings surpass speech. My brother and father are proud of my buck, I know, and maybe a little bit worried about me, and I feel ashamed that I let them down. But I still see the white, flickering eyes, the unbelievable speed as the deer launched themselves through the trees, and as we drag the buck’s body out of the trees and into the now wet grass of the field , I feel like I am that six year old child again, only now I have broken one of my mother’s lamps playing in the house and will get punished when I get home, and despite my shame it is a feeling I cannot shake.

1131. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:53:18 AM

We breast a low, rolling rise in the field and my father stops. Curtains of light are moving across the field, like waves in the soft hum of the wind that whispers through my hair. My father turns and nudges the deer with his toe, grinning. "Heavy bugger, isn’t he?" I look up at him, and he looks back down at the deer. Almost as an afterthought he adds, "Been eating the farmers’ corn. Lots of muscle. Good meat. Lots of good meat for the table." He looks steadily at me for a moment, then flits his gaze back over the grass and the chasing waves of light. "Ol’ buck lived a clean life. Cleaner than a cow in a stockyard. God, but I love getting out here in the fresh air on a beautiful day." He looks back at me, and because I feel I ought to I nod my head and we resume dragging the deer back to the car, and there is nothing left to do of it, it is all done. I am struck by the momentous nature of the day, how I could have never realized what it was like, how my father could never have told me what it felt like to kill a deer, as we sat last night by the fire and talked. I know that I never would have understood, even if he had said it as plainly as one could, and I wonder if I would have better off never knowing.

1132. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:56:01 AM

We sit and watch the fire, my father and I. It burns cleanly and the warmth feels good as it radiates in the firelit darkness. The flames glint off the wooden floor and shines orange from the glass picture frames hanging on the walls.

"Are you ready for the big day tomorrow, Jake?" His eyebrows waggle and he smiles, wrinkling his dark beard, nibbling meditatively on his pipe.

"I guess I’m ready for venison," I answer, and we both laugh. We sit like that for a moment without words and then I ask the question I’ve wanted to ask all day.

"What’s it like? The hunt, I mean, getting a deer?"

My father gazes at me for a moment, then taps his pipe out and carefully begins cleaning it. For a moment I fear that he will not answer me but he finished and says, "I can’t quite get the words. Oh, I could try, but… You have to just have that shotgun in your hands and see the deer coming at you to know. Mostly, it’s long, boring and cold but those few moments make up for it." He fumbles with his pipe for a moment, silent in the crackling of the fire, then adds, "It’s a sort of a test. You’re pitting yourself against nature. That’s why we don’t hunt with scent, or a lure, or a salt block – that isn’t sporting. What we’re doing, in our own way, is getting back to nature. It refines us, Jake. It’s where we came from and where we belong."

1133. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 3:56:16 AM

I struggle with this thought, and he waits for a moment, chewing his pipe, then continues, "You know, man is the only real predator left to hunt the deer in these parts. We’ve killed all the mountain lions and lynxes and bears and wolves because they went after the livestock. No we’re the only predators left, and if we don’t hunt them to take the weakest and the oldest, keeping the numbers down, then they breed and breed until there’s too many and they eat up all the food and then most of them starve to death. We made this situation, and it’s our responsibility to nature to control the population."

Father smiles. "It’s sort of a rite of manhood for the Browner family, too, Jake. Our family has been hunters ever since they came to these parts, and before then. My daddy took me hunting when I was younger than you are… and I didn’t know anything about it then, either." He pauses, then says, "But you’ll see more of what I mean tomorrow."

I sit there, wondering why he won’t tell me what it’s like, my mind brushing against the implications of what he has said. I want to say, "No, what’s it like?" But I know by now that I will get no further answer, and so I sit, the unknown growing in my mind like a dark flower coming to bloom as I stare at the fire. We remain like that for long moments, then my father reaches over and pats me on the knee – and says, "Off to bed. Your brother is already asleep. You have an early morning tomorrow, a big day. Be quiet and don’t wake your momma, you know she ain’t been feeling well."

I nod sullenly and he chuckles me under the chin. "Don’t you worry about tomorrow. You’re a good boy and I know that you’ll do it right. I know I’ll be proud of you. I know I‘ll be proud of my boy."

1134. Uzmakk - 11/1/1999 6:48:16 AM

A5:
My eyes are misting ever so slightly.

The woods, the squirrels, the sandwich, the hunt, the kill, the father, the son. I loved it.

I am printing it out and taking it to a hunter friend of mine who also has a father.

1135. cigarlaw - 11/1/1999 12:35:28 PM

?TO DIE IN HAVANA – Chapter 1
It is not easy to visit to a Third World
country when you are in the best of health ,
particularly one your own country officially does
not recognize and which threatens to prosecute
you for trading with the enemy if you go. It is
even more difficult when you have a terminal
disease and someone has to come with you to
take care of you. Cuba however, has been on my
mind since the day in 1959, I saw Fidel Castro
on television ride into Havana on a tank.
Perhaps it is my ingrained romanticism or, like
Danton, my belief that even a revolution can be
fun. Call it whatever it is called, I figured I had
waited long enough for the United States
government to realize that Castro was not going
to go away. The problem was, my wife refused
to go with me. So who could I pick?
In 1970, upon graduation from college
I bought a new motorcycle. I telephoned my
best friend, CHR, and suggested we take a cross-
country motorcycle ride. He thought was a good
idea, so I packed my backpack, put on my
helmet, and headed north. I rode from San
Diego to Seattle, but when I got there, he was
involved in other things and did not want to go.
He owed me, I said to myself. Perhaps it is time
to call in that debt.
I telephoned CHR and laid the picture
out to him. I was somewhat surprised when he
said okay. Since he has had business dealings in
Mexico involving a distillery, he understood a
lot more Spanish than I do, so I sweetened the
pot by telling him we could go to distillery
where they make rum and pick up a few
interesting ideas. Another plus was that I found
out I had corrupted him into smoking cigars
after 50 years of abstinence. Cuban cigars are
the best, after all.

1136. cigarlaw - 11/1/1999 12:37:59 PM

?After we had decided on the date to go
– he had appointments, and I was rapidly losing
control of my arms, so we both had a few
priorities to be met – it was my job to make it
legal, since he did not want to take the risk of
going to federal prison. I didn’t care. I figured,
what could they do to me – take care of me the
rest of my life?
I contacted two groups in the United
States who help organize tours to Cuba. The
center for Cuban studies in New York (124 West
23rd Street, New York, New York 10011 – (212)
242 – 0559) was very helpful in explaining what
has to be done to cover your butt with United
States government if you wish to go to Cuba.
There are essentially two ways you can
go legally. One is via a specific license for those
who are academics and/or journalists who wish
to lecture or write in 9r about Cuba. It is
necessary to apply for this in advance and to
receive a license from the government.
The second way to go legally is to
declare on a form that you are professional and
that you want to go to Cuba to study professional
systems in Cuba. I am an attorney, so therefore
I decided to go to Cuba to study Cuban criminal
justice systems. It is not necessary to make
formal application, nor do you have to have any
particular documents. The one thing you do
have to do sign a declaration under penalty of
perjury, stating you are they professional, and
that you are going to be spending your full-time
working, meeting with Cuban professionals,
and/or, basically not enjoying yourself. CHR
also signed one stating the same thing – after we
first checked with the State Department, that if I
needed caregiver the caregiver could go with me
on my license.

1137. cigarlaw - 11/1/1999 12:40:31 PM

? There is a much easier way to go, and
one I recommend. Fly to Mexico and then fly to
Cuba and pay the passport person a dollar not to
stamp your passport. When you come back, just
tell them you were in Cuba on a general license
doing some bullshit. Or don’t tell them
anything. After all this is the United States of
America, right? You don’t have to account to
the government. Who the hell is Bill Clinton to
tell you where you can go or what you can do?
Who does Jesse Helms think he is, after all?
The only reason why you may wish to inform
the government you gone to Cuba because it
may be easier to get your cigars and rum back
into the country. Of course, with the search they
gave me I could have smuggled an AK--47,
10,000 rounds of ammunition, 50 boxes of
cigars, three kilos of cocaine, and a couple
young Cuban girls in my luggage and no one
would have noticed – but more of that later.
What it boils down to it is this: if you
go you have a choice; tell them or don’t tell
them. Insofar as I’m aware no American
citizen has been prosecuted under the Trading
with the Enemy Act for going to Cuba. The
only hitch is, you have to have a visa from the
Cuban government to enter Cuba. If you get it
in advance from a travel agency you won’t have
to mess around with the Cuban Ambassador or
consul in Mexico.

1138. cigarlaw - 11/1/1999 12:42:36 PM

That out of the way, I needed establish
contacts in Cuba, in case some bureaucrat
wanted to know what I had been doing in Cuba,
I could the name names. In November I could
have taken a tour to do the same thing, however,
I did not know if I would be able to tour in
November, plus, who wants to hang around a
bunch of left wing lawyers all day long? I
figured they’d be shouting revolutionary slogans
all day long. Besides, back in my days in the
SDS, I was the only left-wing revolutionary I
knew who enjoyed fine cigars, good whiskey,
and good-looking women who shaved their
armpits. So, I telephoned the center for Cuban
studies and got some names of people to contact.
The center then put me in touch with a
travel agency. CHR and I wanted to fly to Cuba
in one day. The only way we could do on
October 6, was to fly from San Francisco to
Miami, from Miami to Cancun, Mexico, and
from Cancun to Cuba. The flight from San
Francisco to Cancun, via Miami, was in theory,
to take 11 hours. Little did we know.
We wanted to stay at a nice hotel, but
we wanted to also have some Cuban ambiance,
so we selected the Commodoro, and asked for a
two-bedroom bungalow. In October, the cost of
this was one hundred forty U.S. dollars per day.
Since the bill would be split two ways, that
seemed pretty reasonable.
In the last three days prior to the flight,
it was chaos. Fortunately, both CHR that I had
lists of things to take with us. My wife was very
helpful. She packed one bag for me, and I
packed my briefcase and she gave me a little
thing to hang around my neck to put my
passport and money in, with the advice, “Always
have your passport in your possession.” Good
advice – if I had taken it.

1139. Hashke - 11/1/1999 4:36:39 PM

Damn fine info, cigarlaw. My wife and I want to go there, so we'll have to think of some stupid excuse, I suppose.

1140. cigarlaw - 11/1/1999 6:23:33 PM

?Chapter 2
THE LIST

Everyone has their own specialized travel list. The list below, is just an attempt to tell you
what the bare essentials are and why.
Lightweight clothes – in 12 days I went through four pairs of khaki pants and half a dozen
Hawaiian shirts (of course they were sweaty, but hang them up for a couple days to dry out and
we put them on, walk outside and you won’t notice the difference because they are going to be
soaked in a few minutes anyway.)
Cigars – what kind of a fool takes cigars to Cuba? Remember, once you are out of California,
smoking is not considered akin to child molestation. And I assure you, if you are stuck in Cancun
for six hours you need a cigar.

cigar case – essential for traveling, because Cuban cigars are not cellophaned

lighter – what else would you use to light your cigar – cheap book matches?

sunglasses – even when it is cloudy it is bright in Cuba

credit card – only for emergency use in United States or Mexico. Remember, you can only spend
183 dollars a day, and credit cards leave a paper trail.

money – I took $5,000 in cash. I came back with well over $3000 left. Considering that we did
not scrimp on expenses, plus I bought a lot of cigars, and had a huge bar bill, you can see Cuba is
not an expensive place to be.

Passport – keep this on your person until you get into Cuba. Remember, a U.S. passport is like
money in the bank.

drivers license – you may want to rent a car.

1141. cigarlaw - 11/1/1999 6:24:59 PM

Kleenex – I never had to use the kleenex I took, but toilet paper in Cuba can be a hard commodity
to come by some points.

Sunscreen – the sun is very hot and bright in Cuba. If, like me, you tend to turn red whenever the
sun is out, you want sunscreen that is like +4000 when in Cuba.

T-shirts – to give to the people of Cuba. Particularly ones with logos. They are great gifts.

Condoms – go to your local high school and pick some up. You can buy them in Cuba for a very
small price, but those are made in China and break about 50 percent of the time.

Liquid hand soap – at major hotels you’ll find soap, but if you go into the countryside you may
not.

Anti-diarrhea medication – in case you get Cuban water into your mile.

1142. Angel-Five - 11/1/1999 7:43:17 PM

Cigars – what kind of a fool takes cigars to Cuba?

H'lo, Cigarlaw. Incidentally, how easy is it to return with Cuban cigars?

1143. cigarlaw - 11/2/1999 12:42:59 AM

if i had known how easy it was, i would have brought back 10 times as many

1144. Uzmakk - 11/2/1999 7:35:46 AM

Enjoying Cuba very much, cigarlaw. It troubles me to ask, but I assume that you are terminally ill?

1145. cigarlaw - 11/2/1999 3:21:49 PM

yep--lou gehrig;s disease

1146. cigarlaw - 11/2/1999 3:29:18 PM

btw web, i have been trying to post chap 3, to no avail. i am sending it by email. perhaps you can tell me why it says it will be posted, but never is.the

1147. cigarlaw - 11/2/1999 3:33:14 PM

actually i can't email you. i don't have your address. if you email me at maylen@thevision.net i will send it to you.of

1148. theDiva - 11/2/1999 3:40:09 PM

ciggy, this is wonderful stuff. I hope you're feeling okay these days. It's good to see you here.

1149. webfeet - 11/3/1999 11:17:52 PM

In case anyone hasn't noticed, I haven't been around. Thanks Angel Five and Cigar for sustaining this thread with your stories and travel anecdotia. There is no such word as anecdotia but maybe it should be.

I had such a shitty day. I was waiting for 45 minutes in the over-crowded bar of chic Hotel W on lex for a friend who never showed up. Pregnant, drinkless, examining the crowd in an armchair feeling like a complete bovine alien, I was completely relieved that none of that shit means anything to me anymore now that I have this lovely gold ring on my finger. A room full of overworked, balding, trenchcoated sex demons does nothing for me. I was imaginign them going to the bathroom (pooping specifically) and then watching MSNBC inthe morning before going to work. Not a sexy thought. Then I thought of Frenchcat who is having trouble finding the right job here, (when he will officially be able to work that is) spending the day all alone making financial calculations on his own website, or reading "Les Trois Muskateers" and I was filled with a pitiful, spiteful anger. At what exactly? Nothing except the fact that someone called him yesterday and asked if he wanted to sell life insurance. And, he was very polite and agreed to go for an interview.

And then I went ballistic with rage. I was crying hysterically like a total, quasi psychotic freak. I will not be married to a life insurance salesman--i would rather he wash dishes in Casa Cookoo Pollo on fucking roosevelt aqvenue then turn into real middle class losers. But he feels guilty and wants to earn money, and that is what is really touching. But no, he will never do that.

Now he wants to read what Im writing and I have to go.

1150. JonesAtLaw - 11/4/1999 1:37:44 AM

Ciggie- love the Cuba stuff- I've loved Cuban cigars since I was in college and a Soviet diplomat who spoke at the Model UN passed some around to the staff. Nothing like them, even the cheap ones... You moved from Kaui, no? Where are you now?

1151. ScottLoar - 11/4/1999 2:41:07 AM

Webfeet, someone I'm close to worked the night shift 4:30 in the afternoon to 1:00 a.m. for US$4.05 an hour at age 38. A year-old daughter at home and the wife with tears in her eyes asks if maybe the factory could hire her as well for only two bucks an hour. His education, talent and area knowledge stood useless until only pride was left, and that had to go too. 13 years later education, talent and area knowledge made a success which higher corporate hands are trying to arrogate to others, and only pride and some few allies remain. Still, it was a good ride.

Believe me, your day will come. Maybe not as soon as you wish nor in the manner you expect but... it comes. Don't let events twist you.

1152. cigarlaw - 11/4/1999 11:38:45 AM

jones, never been to0 kuai-- i'm a transplanted southern calif boy, stuck in the middle of the state--modesto to be exact

1153. JudithAtHome - 11/4/1999 11:47:17 AM

webbie:

Please try to remember you are in an altered state right now. Too many hormones and too much fright about the future. Frenchcat is going through the same fright. It's an enormous responsiblity to bring a child into world and it wouldn't make sense if this event caused nary a ripple in ones emotional life. Try to keep everything in perspective......

1154. cigarlaw - 11/4/1999 4:46:46 PM

?Chapter 3
SPANISH PHRASES YOU SHOULD KNOW IF
TRAVELING TO CUBA

One thing that is important for you understand is that,
like English, Spanish has many
different nuances and, like most people, those who speak
Spanish like to pretend they're being
very polite when actually they're saying something else. The
literal meaning of many phrases are
different than its implied meaning in the language. To give
an example, while in Cuba I received a
new nickname, el Cigarro. This is a shortened version of
the actual phrase, which I do not
understand at all. One day, shortly before we were to leave,
I saw one of the maids pointing at
me, smiling, as she uttered a phrase. I asked the bartender
what the phrase meant, making as
good an attempt at it as I could. He told me that it was a
nickname I acquired, given to me by the
staff of the hotel. It meant, "The Great American Who
Smokes the Big Cigars Will Live for
10,000 Years in the Hearts of the Cuban People," but
generally they just referred to me as el
cigarro. I thanked him for the information and gave him a
tip, and, as he smiled warmly, I went
and went back to the room. I proudly told CHR about the
new name, and gave him my best
Spanish rendition of it. He got out the phrase
book/dictionary to look it up. He told me the
literal translation seemed to be "The Fat American Who
Smells up the Bar with His Cigars, May
His Heart Be Ripped from His Chest, Chopped into 10,000
Pieces, sauteed in his own lard, and
Fed to a Syphilitic Cuban Pig." I must not have gotten the
Spanish right, but if I did, as you see,
some very interesting phrases lose in the translation

1155. cigarlaw - 11/4/1999 4:50:05 PM

? To give another example of how things lose the
translation, CHR and I had another
nickname. I was told by the bartender it meant "The
Yankee Adventurers". Upon my return to
America I looked in the phrase book just to see what it
meant literally. Translated literally it
means "The Two Yankee Queers in 710".
With that in mind, below is a list of Spanish phrases you
need to know, their literal
translation and what they actually mean:
Buenos dia good God it’s early (hello it’s morning)
Buenos tardes–I’m good and late (hello it’s qfternoon)
Buenos noches–good chips, salsa and cheese (hello, it’s
time to party)
con permiso with your permission. (Get out of my way
you filthy
[wog/peasant/tourist/etc.])
Pardono --pardon me. (To bad I ran over your foot and
broke your toes, you shouldn't
stuck your foot where I was moving my wheelchair)
Por favor please. (Say this all the time and people will
do wonderful things for you
your mother was right.- such as-Por favor, don't make me
shoot you.)
Daiquiri daiquiri. (A wonderful concoction the only
Spanish Fraser ruling faster it
was por favor, un dacquiri otravas.)
Ron rum. Need I say more?
Cervaza beer
auga natural bottled water. (The only water you allow
in your mouth in Cuba -- even
the locals boil it first.)
Chica bonita good-looking chick. This phrase is not to
be used in polite company.
Also, bear in mind that all Chicas are not prostitutes, but all
prostitutes are Chicas.
Jinatara literally a female jockey prostitute

1156. cigarlaw - 11/4/1999 4:51:36 PM

.
Casa particular private home. (Never call a person's
home a casa particular. It is used
in the following manner, " casa particular, sucky-fucky."
When you hear those words if you had
any doubt before about the occupation of the beautiful
young woman who just sat down next you,
you now know it is time to negotiate price. Of course,
many of them are seeking a single young
American man to marry and move to America. You may be
able to negotiate a much better price
if single.)
Palladar private restaurant. (Good food (maybe),
cheap price. There are licensed
palladars and unlicensed palladars. They are, theoretically,
forbidden to serve lobster and they
may only have 12 customers seated at a time. Generally
they do not have a large menu, because it
depends upon what was available in the market that day. I
had good experiences at every one I
ate and the prices are much , much lower than the
government restaurants.)

1157. CalGal - 11/4/1999 4:53:23 PM

Cig,

This is great stuff. If you are having trouble posting, could you mention it in the Tech thread?

1158. CalGal - 11/5/1999 3:11:52 AM

Cigarlaw is having trouble posting chapter 4, so here is is:

Chapter 4

Prelude to Cuba

The trip began for CH the day before mine. He drove non-stop from Bellingham, Washington, to Modesto. I do not recall how far that is, but it is a long way from the Canadian border to the center of California. He arrived at my house about 5: 30 in the evening. I had some advance warning of the mood he was going to be in, because I had received a very strange email before his arrival, from Elizabeth, his girlfriend, something about eradicating dust mites. Having known CH for 42 years, I knew he was allergic, or so he said, to dust mites. They gave him a good excuse to never vacuum because, he said, it just stirred them up. As he walked through the door, I handed him the email.

" God damn it, this stuff better work. Oh hello, Chuck. I can't believe she vacuumed my truck. I have been sneezing and sniffling for 14 hours because of her. Damn dust mites, she just stirred them up. I've been driving with the windows down for 14 hours because of her, and it was raining all the way through Washington and Oregon. This email is about some product that kills the dust mites. I mean, I hope it works, she tried to do me a favor and clean my truck."

" No good deed shall go unpunished," I replied. "How are you doing?"

1159. CalGal - 11/5/1999 3:13:54 AM

(Prelude to Cuba, Chapter 4)

"I'm just great. Just great." Somehow I knew he wasn't.

Just then my wife walked in and said, hugging him, "Hello. Would you like some dinner."

" Let me get my stuff in first and I would love some."

CH had been down to see me a few months before, so he knew of my physical problems and their impact upon my ability to function. I talked to him on the telephone a week before, so he was well aware of the problems my wife and I were having. In fact, I told him in no uncertain terms that I was leaving once I got back from Cuba and my business was closed. Notwithstanding my disability, I had reached the end of my rope with her. Of late, she had been constantly angry and upset with me I knew she had good cause to be angry, and so did I. It is not a pleasant thing to find out, just at the time when things seemed to be going our way the business was good, the money was good, and we had finally reached the point where she could quit the job that she had and hated the rug got pulled out from under us by Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis at 49 years of age. She was pissed and so was I. The thing is, I figured after two years she should be over it. I wanted to live my live as I saw fit, and couldn't do it. The worse I got, the less I could do with my hands and arms, the more frustrated and angry I became. She took it all personally. I viewed the trip to Cuba as a last great adventure, and Declaration of Independence. I don't know what she thought, but she seemed happy to see me go.

At any rate, we all went to bed early that night, knowing that we were going to have to get up at 3 a.m. to get to the airport on time

1160. CalGal - 11/5/1999 3:18:20 AM

(Prelude to Cuba, Chapter 4)

After five hours of sleep, I got up, my wife dressed me, we loaded the bags in the vehicle. My wife was driving, and CH was in the backseat trying to get some more sleep. As we headed for the airport the last song from the country and western opera "Jesse James" kept running through my mind:

"One more shot just for old times, one last stand. One more hit oughta do it then I'll quit while I can."

And then I realized, this was the first time in almost 30 years I had seen CH without at least one.45 automatic somewhere on his person. Strange thoughts swirled in my mind. Here we are, about to go to what could be a Caribbean North Korea, and we are completely unarmed. Even I began to get a little paranoid at that thought. `

We arrived at the San Francisco airport right on time to get in line and wait. Sometimes, there is an advantage to be in a wheelchair. For one thing, once you check in your luggage, they move you to the front of the line to get on the airplane. Of course, that means you get to sit in the medieval torture device airlines install on their planes as seats presumably so you will not stay long, or you will appreciate the booze when it comes around until everyone else stows their luggage and finds their seats.. Of course, I had an advantage. As uncomfortable as the airline seats are, you do not have to lock the wheels in place to keep them steady.

The plane left right on time for a rather uneventful flight. I had a window seat and spent my time looking out the window at things I knew I would never see again. I was impressed by the vacant spaces that stretch to infinity. My God, I thought, You could take twenty Cubas, drop them in the middle of this country and not hit anyone.

1161. CalGal - 11/5/1999 3:19:40 AM

(Prelude to Cuba, Chapter 4)

After five hours of flying time we were over Florida. From the air, Florida it looks like a vast swamp. My wife, who had lived there for a year and whose daughter had been born there, had told me that it was a vast swamp. She also said the swamp did strange things to people's minds, the first being, they were all mentally retarded, or at least seemed that way.

You could not prove that by me. All I saw of Florida was the runway, the swamp, the inside of the Miami airport, and a bunch of airline employees with Cuban accents.. We had just enough time at the airport to buy some bottled water and a couple of the best chocolate chip cookies I have ever had. Then we boarded the plane for Mexico. I turned to CH in said, "This is our last go 'round. Let's do it right."

CH, pushing the wheelchair down the ramp to the airplane, laughed and said, "You just keep thinking Chuck. You're good that." He had been saying that to me for years. I was always his Butch Cassidy and he was always my Sundance Kid. His Pike Bishop, my Dutch Engstrom. (For those ignorant of movie history, The Wild Bunch, our all-time favorite movie came out just before Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They told the same story, of outlaws at the end of the road, but The Wild Bunch was directed by Sam Peckinpah and was not funny. My favorite line of all-time (and the title of Sam Peckinpah's biography) was one of the first lines from that movie. Pike Bishop (William Holden), wearing an army uniform, walks into the railroad office, grabs the head teller from behind his desk, and throws him against the wall. There is a tight close-up on his snarling face as he says, "If they move, kill 'em." At that moment, you realize, this is not your typical William Holden film.)

1162. CalGal - 11/5/1999 3:20:56 AM

(Prelude to Cuba, Chapter 4)

It seems strange to have to fly 500 miles to Mexico to reach a city only 90 miles a way, but such is the political climate in the United States today. Before we arrived in Cancun, we flew over the Yucatan Peninsula and, for the first time a my life, I saw a jungle. As we landed at the airport I could see it had been literally hacked out of the jungle. It lay only about 20 meters away from both sides of the runway. I wanted to go exploring and look for Mayan temples, and realized that was another dream that would never be fulfilled. I was sad for a moment, but I realized I was fulfilling a much bigger dream.Then, I left the airplane.

`Apparently, they were having problems with the air conditioning at the airport. We left the air-conditioned comfort of the airplane and walked into a steam bath. How lucky I was to be wearing my blue blazer, long-sleeved white shirt, Panama hat, my leg brace, and long pants. They were soaked with sweat in about five seconds and, as I was pushed toward customs, the passing breeze cooled me to about 180 degrees.

They wheeled me to the passport check spot and I told CH that my passport was in the little bag hang around my net (along with a stack of 100 dollar bills). CH reached down, got out the passport, and told me, "I guess I'll hang on to this. I will need it when we get to Cuba."

That turned out to be a prediction he will never forget.

1163. CalGal - 11/5/1999 3:21:48 AM

(Prelude to Cuba, Chapter 4)

After stamping our passports, they pushed us to Customs. Mexican Customs is quite interesting. They randomly select whose bag to search. The way it is done is, as you approach the entrance areas, you see a red light and a green light on a poll, very much like a traffic light. A lovely young lady asks you to press a button on the poll and then if a red light comes on they search everything, but if the green light comes on (which it does about 90 percent of the time) you go on through with no questions asked. Well, that is not exactly true. I got a green light, but I had a cooler filled with my drugs and syringes sitting on my lap. A Customs officials saw my cooler, and asked, "What is in the cooler?"

Surprised, I answered, "Drugs and syringes." As soon as I said it I knew it was a mistake. Suddenly, I had visions of spending the rest of my life lying in my own feces in a Mexican jail cell, the floor covered with vomit from the drunken Mexicans and tourists that shared it, or taking off the little bag around my neck filled with all my money and handing it over as a bribe to the official. I did not know which was worse dying in jail, or going to Cuba without any money.

" Do you have any vegetables or fruit?" The official asked.

I wondered how many years I would get for smuggling a banana or some broccoli into Mexico. "No," I answered.

" Do you mind if I look," he said, grabbing the cooler and taking it from my lap.

He opened the cooler and immediately lifted up the syringes, the ice, and the medication, and finding no fruits or vegetables, zipped the bag up, and handed back to me. I suppose the lesson is that in Mexico, they don't give a damn about drugs, but by God don't bring in a zucchini.

1164. CalGal - 11/5/1999 3:22:46 AM

(Prelude to Cuba, Chapter 4)

Once through Customs, we rushed to the Mexicana Airline counter as we had 50 minutes to catch the plane to Cuba. On the sign we saw the flight was delayed. Here we were, stuck in the steam bath, both of us wearing jackets, to look professional and get better service, so we thought, and our flight is late.

So we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

For six hours, we waited in little plastic chairs (at least I had my wheelchair and butt pad).

Fortunately the Mexican beer was ice cold, because that is what we did for the next six hours, drink ice cold Mexican beer. At about the four and a half-hour mark, I decided to do something I had not done for years. I pulled out my cigar case, handed CH one, stuck the other in my mouth, and lighted up. I come from California, land of clean-air and anti-smoking zealots. Smoking in public was a rare treat and the lack of complaints seemed to make the rest of the wait go much faster.

In a mere six hours the plane arrived. As we boarded, CH was setting difficulty pushing me up the ramp and carrying his luggage at the same time. A friendly airline employee told him that he would take his bag even makes her did got on the airplane and he could push my wheelchair with both hands (which he needed, since we had consumed mass quantities of Mexican beer by that time. When we got to the plane, I walked on and took my seat, the stewardess told me that my wheelchair would be stored in the luggage compartment, unlike American Airlines, that stored it in the front of the plane, where was handy. I did not care. We were on our way:

TO CUBA.

1165. cigarlaw - 11/5/1999 6:54:26 PM

thanks cal. i was runningn out of patiencve and knew you could do it. chapter 5 -- lost at jose marti is in the works.

1166. webfeet - 11/6/1999 11:07:04 AM

cigarlaw

Going back a bit, it seemed that 'Tales from Cuba' seemed to be a hot editorial topic. There was a piece in Harper's on Castro that was very good. Unfortunately, I can't remember all of it, but I think it was something like Castro's 9 lives and it at least was newsworthy at the time. Then, maybe several months ago, a lame "tales from Cuba" piece appeared in Salon, which tried to be appropriately edgy, sordid and cool, but came off instead sounding trite and contrived; it was too slick. In the first few bars, the journalist is dancing in a 'smoke-filled' room with a young prostitute, who he refuses to go upstairs with. "But dont you think Im beautiful?" she asks. "Im sorry, but I have a girlfriend," he replies..that kind of self-conscious, superifical c-grade dialogue set the tone for the entire piece, and I declined to read the rest. Your travel tales, however, are a much better read, far more realistic and sincere. Maybe it's not too late to bring back 'Tales from Cuba'.

1167. cigarlaw - 11/6/1999 9:27:27 PM

web -- i/ve been debating fiction v nonfiction. thus far everything in it is the absolute truth. i thought the first paragraph of chapter 4 would be a good start for a fictional work ala-hemingway. i dabced with a prostitute also, with my eyes if not my feet/ had not my friend forgot the condoms i ny not havew been as relutant as the solonista, however. things are better at home since the trip, so it is probably just as well.

1168. RickNelson - 11/7/1999 8:02:21 AM

Cigarlaw,

I love to read your world. No amount of response is adequate to relate what I've gained from you and this time. No words seem adequate to express the desire of wanting to read what you will give.


It's not really amazing that we grow fond of the personnas we share here. I've been true to myself throughout as I've read in you. And of course the many, many here who share this same style. I wish Ariel would stop in and read with us, sharing the old times as well as the new chapters in our experiences. Yet, that thought is really just one geared toward you. I don't suppose it's totally necessary to have Ariel stop in and read your latest. I just remember how we were back then.

Well, post more poems too. I always read your poems. Always.







I saw a man being pushed around the gardens I love yesterday. It was a dignity I related to you. It is dignity and human strength I see in you. With a love and passion for what you want. Keep wanting, and speaking for myself, keep sharing.

Man, I love to read you, man. My response to your terminal illness has internal passion for you. I teared up seeing the man in the gardens, then remembered your strength. Reading you I see you're as strong as ever.

1169. ScottLoar - 11/7/1999 8:45:11 AM

Those are very kind thoughts RickNelson.

1170. webfeet - 11/7/1999 10:35:40 AM

Yes, there is a lot of love in this room.

Scott, the storyof your friend and his wife put minein perspective. Now, that is a difficult situation. We're far from having to work in a factory, but nonetheless, it is reassuring to know that your friend eventually rose to the level he deserved to reach. Maybe I should let frenchcat volunteer to wrap christmas presents like he suggested if he cant find a job. After all, It's not a question of pride since he still has his french impot (taxes) to pay.

Speaking of french, my aprtment has been Eurohostel for the past month. Since we've livedhere, Jackson Heights is HOT and HAPPENING. An American friend from Paris has been living with us for the past month to find a job here, and no sooner did she leave than my husband's best friend and his wife arrived to stay with us for a week.

I was just lectured in french for 45 minutes this morning on the subject of an american sugar company's production of genetically engineered sugar granules which can't be replanted and therefore threaten to sterilise the global sguar granule universe. This is a project, needless to say, that was financed by the americna government. I imagined myself being coached by a new age guru and I adapted a placid, serene expression on my face to mask my utter frustration and boredom.

Now, we're off to watch the New York City Marathon. And I have a total, f---ing, blinding headache.

1171. ScottLoar - 11/7/1999 12:48:45 PM

Webfeet, as to your headache please remember - love hurts.

Let Frenchcat get the job wrapping Christmas presents. Believe me, let him do it and encourage him, laugh about it later, but get him out of the apartment and keep him busy.

1172. cigarlaw - 11/8/1999 4:28:13 PM

rick, thanks. don't know what else to say. working on chap 5, as soon as i finish reading the trial transcript of a paranoid-schzophenic kid sent to the youth authoprity for assaultive behavior..

1173. cigarlaw - 11/9/1999 3:28:29 PM

?Chapter 5
LOST IN JOSE MARTI AIRPORT

It began innocently enough as we boarded
the plane in Cancun. I was in my wheelchair with
my medicine chest on my lap and CH was
attempting to push me and pull his carry-on luggage
behind, a monumental task when one considers my
bulk (although we’re the same height, I outweigh
CH by over 100 pounds). One thing I learned about
wheelchairs, is that while most people in the United
States ignore you and pretend you are not there, I
suppose from some inner voice that tells them, “ If I
don’t see someone in a wheelchair, it can’t happen
to me,” people in charge of mass transportation, and
amusement parks, at least, go to great lengths to
show everyone how humanitarian they are by always
moving you to the front of the line. (If you ever go
to amusement park, for example Universal City in
Los Angeles, or Disneyland, always remember to
rent a wheelchair before you go. If you do, you will
find that you and your entire party will never have to
wait to get on a ride, even the “Back to the Future”
ride. As everyone else in the world is taking hours
to get to the entrance of the ride you will always be
moved to the front, which is just about the only
advantage being in a wheelchair has.)
At any rate, as we were boarding the plane,
one of the airline employees offered to help.
“Senor, let me help you. I will make certain
your luggage is put on the plane for you, you just
push your friend in the wheelchair.” I thought this
somewhat odd, since no American airline employee
had bothered to help us, but being new to this area
of the world, I assumed it was a Latin courtesy. I
was right, it was a Latin courtesy, with typical Latin
efficiency – but I am getting ahead of myself.

1174. cigarlaw - 11/9/1999 3:37:26 PM

? I was surprised when CH handed his bag
over. I have known this guy for 42 years, and I have
never seen him do anything like that before. Since
he had, in the past several years, traveled to
Mexico’s several times, and, as he confessed over
dinner the night before we left, he had actually
consented to go on a Caribbean cruise with
Elizabeth (which he admitted was somewhat strange
on his part, since it was the first time he ever went
anywhere unarmed -- perhaps this was a measure of
his devotion to Elizabeth, or maybe his ingrained
paranoia was getting better. I must admit, that I
never traveled anywhere, other than England,
unarmed until I was diagnosed ALS -- but I was not
paranoid, only prudent.), I assumed he knew what
he was doing --a big mistake.

1175. cigarlaw - 11/9/1999 3:53:46 PM

the rest of this is been sent to CalGal, with a request that she post it, since I cannot seem to get into work.

1176. cigarlaw - 11/9/1999 4:47:05 PM

? When we got to the airplane, they asked me
if I could walk to my seat or if I needed assistance. I
told them that I could walk, and they told me that
they would take care of my wheelchair. My
paranoia then kicked in.

“Where are you going to put it? Is it going
to be stored in the front of the plane?” I asked,
assuming that it would be stored with the
stewardess’ luggage as it had been on the American
airliners.

They muttered something in Spanish, and
with and when it met with a look of bewilderment,
in halting English they said, “There is not room,
Senor. It will be stored in the luggage compartment,
but we will make certain you get it when we get to
Cuba.”

I muttered thanks, and placed myself in their
hands. CH did not. As says we found our seats he
muttered something about his luggage and, against
the flow of traffic, worked his way to the front of
the airplane. A few minutes later he reappeared, and
muttered something about his luggage being in
storage also. About that time I looked out the
window to see my wheelchair being wheeled to the
back of the airplane and CH’s luggage going with it.

1177. cigarlaw - 11/9/1999 4:52:39 PM

? Soon the plane began to move, and the
stewardess began giving her demonstration of what
to do the should the plane come to a sudden stop in
the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. I had heard it
many times in English, but it was far more
interesting in Spanish, particularly when the
stewardess threw her hands before her face and
began shouting, “ Madre de Dios ! Su morte!”
(What ever that means). She then repeated the
whole thing in English, but when it came time to are
where she explained what to do if we crashed, it was
the standard spiel you get on U.S. airliners. I have
no idea what the added Spanish things were, but
they were certainly interesting to watch --
particularly all of the passengers who began crossing
themselves and playing with the beads many of
them0 carry.

It is a one-hour flight from Cancun to
Havana, which arrived two hours after you left,
something to do with time travel distortions I
suppose – I know on the way back we arrived in
Cancun 15 minutes before we left Havana, so I
wonder what other secret inventions, besides time
travel, the Soviet bloc had come up with before they
collapsed and wondered why I had never heard of it
– then I became really paranoid thinking, maybe the
government knows of it and are keeping it is secret
so they can spy on us. But that is another story.

The flight to Cuba was uneventful, the
chicken, goats and small children calmed down
within a few minutes and the two-hour flight to
Havana seemed to take less than an hour.

1178. CalGal - 11/9/1999 4:53:20 PM

Cig--I think I just got the file open, if you want me to post the rest.

1179. cigarlaw - 11/9/1999 4:54:11 PM

When we began our approach to Jose Marti
Airport, I became interested in the surrounding area.
It is difficult to survey an airport at night, but I did
my best. Frankly, the runway and surrounding area
looked like photographs of the international airport
in Uganda. A few yards off the runway was very tall
grass. I could almost see the enemy snipers, peering
through telescopic sights, and/or wild-eyed Cubans
with machetes that were standing by to hack the
passengers to pieces as they fought their way onto
the airplane to escape their repressive government.
(See, I’m not paranoid it all.)\

1180. cigarlaw - 11/9/1999 5:02:25 PM

? After the chickens, goats, small children, and
other passengers left plane, CH and I began exit
ourselves. I was very happy to find my wheelchair
waiting for me. A Cuban grabbed the chair and
began pushing me up the ramp into the terminal. So
far, it was just like I was arriving in any airport in
the United States. Once we were in the terminal,
they pushed me into an elevator which took us to
the second floor and passport control.

Passport control looked sort of like the gate
at a racetrack – the one the horses are held at before
they start running. There were about 10 open
doors, each of which open to a very small hallway,
blocked by another door that was closed. Inside the
hallways, which were about eight feet long, there
were glass windows, behind which sat unsmiling and
officious-looking men and women in green military
fatigues. Pacing back and forth in front of the open
doors was an officer, with two stars on his
shoulders, followed by 3 or 4 other men with pistols
on their hips. I found almost as disturbing as my
first view of England,, when I arrived in Heathrow,
the first thing I saw were two policeman carrying
submachine guns. I asked myself what the Major
General (actually he was only a lieutenant colonel)
was doing there at 2:30 in the morning, as they
wheeled me into one of the small hallways.

1181. cigarlaw - 11/9/1999 5:04:59 PM

“Passporte, por favor,” asked the young,
mulatto woman, who appeared to be a captain, since
she had 2 bars on her green fatigues, from her seat
behind the glass wall.

“He has it,” I announced to the officer,
looking back and moving my head in the direction
CH.

As I turned to look at the officer, over my
shoulder I heard a moan, coming from CH, followed
by, “Shit. It’s in the carry-on luggage.”

“So what’s the problem?” I asked
innocently.

“They took it from me in Cancun. When I
had to push you on the plane, remember?”

The passport officer did not look amused.

Neither did CH.

I, on the other hand, innocently asked, “So,
what’s the problem? We just go through this door,
get the bag, take our passports out and give them to
her. Hell, if there’s a problem, she can come with
the us, can’t she?”

The vacant look in the face of the passport
officer and the snarl that suddenly appeared on CH’s
face, caused my travel-addled brain finally kicked in,
and I realized that they were not going to let us into
the country without passports, and our passports
were in the country beyond the door.

An airline employee overheard this and
asked, “What is the color of the bag? I will go get
it.”

1182. cigarlaw - 11/9/1999 5:08:12 PM

? “It’s dark green.” I replied.

`“Huh?” She replied.

“What the hell is ‘green’ in Spanish?” I asked
CH.

CH, looking as if he had not slept for a week
and he had just been told that he was going to be
castrated at dawn, muttered, “Verde.”

“Verde,” I repeated rapidly.

“Verde,” she replied, smiling and exited the
room.

We were escorted into holding area and
politely asked to wait.

The room was huge. It was about 50 feet by
50 feet with periodic pillars holding up the ceiling.
The floor was tiled and, all in all, the whole place
was well lighted and looked fairly new. There were,
however, only eight seats, in banks of 4, one bank
on each side of the room, all occupied by Cuban
military personnel smoking cigarettes. CH, with
look of a man who is so exhausted he does not care
when they tell him he is to be castrated the following
morning, leaned against one of the pillars and slid to
the floor shaking his head as he squatted with his
back against the pillar, muttering to himself. I
thought perhaps he had developed a sudden case of
schizophrenia and his hearing voices and answering
them. Then I heard, “Shit.. God damn Mexican
airline. He was going to help me. Big God damn
help.”

1183. cigarlaw - 11/9/1999 5:21:43 PM

? I looked over to him and said, “You know,
of course, we are men without a country. They’re
not going to let us into Cuba without passports, and
we cannot go back to Mexico without passports,
and we have no way to get back to the United
States. We may have to spend the rest of our lives
here.”

Somehow that did not seem to cheer him up.

About this time, the airline employee came
back to the door. She was pulling my suitcase and
carrying CH’s blue bag that he had checked at the
Cancun airport. She said, “There is no green bag.”

CH began to mutter one obscenity after
another, low enough that only I could hear it.

“But I saw it being taken with my wheelchair
to the luggage compartment. This is my wheelchair.
Why wasn’t not with my wheelchair?”

“Here is the claim check, it was given to me
by the man who took it,” the CH muttered, handing
over the paper.

“It has to be there. Can’t we talk to the
general over there and see if he will let us go
through with an escort to find the bag?” I asked, my
voice becoming somewhat shrill, notwithstanding
my attorney training.

The employee a looked as if I had just asked
to sodomize her on the steps capitol building at high
noon. Then, I looked over at the “general”, and
realized quickly the had a better chance with her
than him. “Please, check again,” I begged. If there
is one thing being a criminal defense attorney has
taught me, it is how to whimper and snivel. The
employee appeared to take pity upon me and said,
“Now that have the tag, I will try again.”

1184. cigarlaw - 11/9/1999 6:28:11 PM

?“Thank you so much,” I whimpered.
CH, in the meantime and slid and down the
pillar again and was sitting there, muttering to
himself.
I, with my best parental voice, said, “How
the hell, could you put our passports in your bag?
You should always have the passports with you.”
“I thought I did have them with me. How
was I to know that idiot was going to put them in
the luggage compartment?”
“If he put them in the luggage compartment,
you mean.” I realized at that moment I was
beginning to sound like my wife, so I chuckled to
break the tension, and said, “Oh well, I wanted
adventure. We certainly have that.”
“About 10 minutes later the airline employee
came to the door again trailing a dark green bag
behind her. “It looks black to me,” she said. Just
my luck to get the only color blind female airline
employee in the world to help me. CH immediately
pounced on it grabbing it from her hand and ripping
open a zipper on the side. In a few moments, a look
of triumph passing across his face, he held two
United States passports in his upraised hand.
At 3:30 a.m. Cuban time, we made it
through to passport control.
Then, of course, there was Customs. The
asked us to put our bags on the conveyor belt
leading to an x-ray machine. I was ready this time
when they asked me about my ice chest. I was
going to boldly tell them I had no fruits or
vegetables. With a yawn, the Customs agent asked
me, after observing my ice chest go to the x-ray
machine, “Do you have medication in that green ice
chest?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Okay.”
I wondered if perhaps she was too tired of
fuck with the Yankee tourists, but I really didn’t
care because, after we ran over the foot of a man
with long white hair who was being met by his entire
family, we got a taxi and...
WE WERE IN CUBA!

1185. ScottLoar - 11/9/1999 7:45:58 PM

Passports in the luggage: a Fergi-style boo-boo.

1186. cigarlaw - 11/10/1999 5:36:33 PM

yep. ch will never live that one down.

1187. Schehezarade - 11/11/1999 3:26:49 PM

Great story so far!

1188. cigarlaw - 11/11/1999 8:06:38 PM

to be continued when i get two new batteries for my mic. standing over my keyboard and typing with my thumb is too tiring.

1189. JonesAtLaw - 11/11/1999 10:39:42 PM

Cigarlaw- fine posts. Get the batteries soon, please? Can't wait to hear more.

1190. Uzmakk - 11/12/1999 7:51:07 PM

I was stuck in traffic behind a step van today. On the back doors was painted "Tangent City--home of the somnambuloids"

1191. cigarlaw - 11/15/1999 6:19:16 PM

batteries have been ins6talled. chap. 6--ch blows off the hooker is written in my head, so it should be up by noon. haven't decided whether chap 6 will be digression on als, or, ciggie meets 5 pa ti.


if you are interested.

1192. Lucky - 11/15/1999 6:33:00 PM

Good Cuban stories, cigarlaw. I'm still reading and waiting.

1193. theDiva - 11/16/1999 8:42:34 AM

Very, very interested. Great stuff, ciggy.

1194. cigarlaw - 11/16/1999 2:06:58 PM

?Chapter 6
CH BLOWS OFF A PROSTITUTE.

Seeing Havana for the first time, after dark,
is like the first time you make love to an older
woman. In the dark, wrinkles and lines are softened,
and sagging breasts become firm, and when she
guides you into her body, you know, if you did not
know already, within lies a woman, vibrant, still
young, exciting, and wanton.

It was four in the morning when I saw her
for the first time. I stared intently out the window of
the taxi trying to remember every detail. Now, it all
seems hazy, as if looking through cloudy glass. I
remember the paint peeling off the buildings and the
potholes that seemed large enough to swallow a
horse, but mostly my memory is of large numbers of
people on the streets. These were not the typical
gang bangers you see at 2:00 a.m. on American
streets. No, these were two distinct classes of
individuals. The first, and by far the fewer, were
working people. I remember one old man with gray
hair, baggy pants and an open shirt walking down
the street. I don’t know where he was going, but he
was not the typical bum (i.e. “Homeless person”)
one sees wandering aimlessly down the alleyways of
the United States, because this man looked like he
knew where he was going. The glow from the
cigarette hanging from his mouth lit his face enough
to show its deep lines and furrows.

1195. cigarlaw - 11/16/1999 2:10:10 PM

? The second, and by far the largest group of
people we saw, were young women in short skirts,
and high heels. The ubiquitous chicas of Havana.
At first, I was somewhat taken aback by the large
numbers of young women or walking the streets at
4:00 in the morning. I had read Havana Bay, and I
knew the author had said that Cuba was now the sex
capital of the Caribbean, but, I could not believe that
all of them were prostitutes, particularly when I saw
them traveling in groups. As it turned out, they
were not -- at least not professionals. I found out
later, the discos, where young people go – many
hoping to meet young American men -- do not close
until 5 a.m.

“Chicas Bonitas”, our taxi drivers said,
matter-of-factly.

“Si,” we responded, drooling, and our
tongues hanging out like male dogs finding a bitch in
heat.

“ This may be a better trip than we thought,”
I told CH from the backseat.

“ Yep. It may be,” CH replied.

Driving down the Malacon we saw several
young women with their hands outstretched.
.
“Jinatera,” the Taxi Driver Said, making it
clearer that not all Chicas were necessarily
prostitutes, since we knew from Havana Bay that a
Jinatera is a prostitute.

1196. cigarlaw - 11/16/1999 2:11:40 PM

? After a few days in Havana, we began to
recognize the prostitutes from people who just
wanted rides. As we learned over time, there are
not many private automobiles in Cuba and the buses,
for the Cubans, are called “camels”, because they are
long trailers with two humps over the wheels pulled
by a semi. In fact, they look a great deal like horse
trailers, except no one would put horses that close
together. The way the Cubans pack themselves into
“camels” would make a Nazi death camp
administrator envious and demand the railroads pack
Jews into the railroad cars as tightly as the Cubans
voluntarily place themselves..

Because of this, many people try to avoid
riding buses unless they have a long ride to take.
So, as you drive down the street people waive their
arms in the air. It is very common in Cuba, unlike
United States, to see a young woman with a child or
her arms get in a total stranger’s car and drive off
with him with no fear. When the person is near the
place where they wish to be they exit the vehicle,
generally at a stop light, get out, and hand the
person a few pesos. This is taxi service for the
average Cuban.

Dependent upon what one wants, of course,
he must pay attention to the way of person holds
their hand. The average Cuban who wants a ride in
your car holds their hand at shoulder height or
higher. A prostitute, however, holds their hand
much lower, at about 45 degree angle, with their
palm outstretched at groin height. In this way you
know they wish a ride, but not in your car.

1197. cigarlaw - 11/16/1999 2:16:00 PM

? After a few days in Havana, we began to
recognize the prostitutes from people who just
wanted rides. As we learned over time, there are
not many private automobiles in Cuba and the buses,
for the Cubans, are called “camels”, because they are
long trailers with two humps over the wheels pulled
by a semi. In fact, they look a great deal like horse
trailers, except no one would put horses that close
together. The way the Cubans pack themselves into
“camels” would make a Nazi death camp
administrator envious and demand the railroads pack
Jews into the railroad cars as tightly as the Cubans
voluntarily place themselves..

Because of this, many people try to avoid
riding buses unless they have a long ride to take.
So, as you drive down the street people waive their
arms in the air. It is very common in Cuba, unlike
United States, to see a young woman with a child or
her arms get in a total stranger’s car and drive off
with him with no fear. When the person is near the
place where they wish to be they exit the vehicle,
generally at a stop light, get out, and hand the
person a few pesos. This is taxi service for the
average Cuban.

Dependent upon what one wants, of course,
he must pay attention to the way of person holds
their hand. The average Cuban who wants a ride in
your car holds their hand at shoulder height or
higher. A prostitute, however, holds their hand
much lower, at about 45 degree angle, with their
palm outstretched at groin height. In this way you
know they wish a ride, but not in your car.

I have represented many prostitutes as a
criminal defense attorney. In Modesto, where I
practiced, a good-looking prostitute, is one that had
no running sores. I will say this for Havana, it had
the best looking streetwalkers I have ever seen.

1198. cigarlaw - 11/16/1999 2:18:21 PM

? Before you think that prostitution is the only
reason CH and I went to Cuba, let me explain. We
went not only for the prostitutes, but for the rum
and cigars as well. Accomplishing two out of three
goals is not a bad average. As things turned out, it
was a very good average.

We found out in a few days that the
government had cracked down on prostitutes in
Cuba shortly before we arrived. This had something
to do with the Presidents of the Americas
conference that was to take place in Cuba shortly
after we were due to leave. There was some
discussion, and many people who talked about it
were certain, that President Clinton was going to
visit Havana. I figure, if they wanted him to come
to Havana, why would the government crackdown
on prostitutes? I suppose they really didn’t want
him to come after all.

At any rate, we also found that prostitutes
are not allowed in your hotel room. Unlike the
United States, where it is quite common for out-of-
town businessmen to entertain young women in their
hotel room (or, be entertained by them) in Cuba, in
every hotel where there are tourists, they have
guards at the entrance. Unless you’re willing to buy
them off, you are allowed on the hotel grounds with
a Cuban woman, unless you are a Cuban. And
Cubans, may not rent rooms at the tourist hotels.
You quickly get used to having people examine the
interior of your taxi as you pull in to your hotel.
They do not wear uniforms, and are relatively
unobtrusive, but it remains unnerving.

1199. cigarlaw - 11/16/1999 3:22:15 PM

? Eventually we arrived at the Comodoro.
Apparently it was being remodeled when we arrived
and being upgraded. This also was due to the
Presidents Conference. The Comodoro is rated as a
four-star hotel. Having seen several five star hotels
in Havana, I can to you, the Comodoro is not a five
star hotel. On the other hand, what is a hotel, but a
place to sleep? The Comodoro makes up for any
loss in glitz, in ambiance.

We did not know any of this when we
arrived, and we were to punch drunk from traveled
to care.

When we passed through the gates of the
Comodoro and drove toward the reception counter,
the first thing that I noticed was a lovely young
woman with short brown hair, a very short miniskirt,
and very long legs, engaged in conversation with
two men on the steps leading up to the lobby. CH
got out of the car and walked up the steps. He was
immediately approached by the woman. She says
something to him, and he waived his hand at her and
walked into the lobby.

1200. cigarlaw - 11/16/1999 3:28:26 PM

? Shortly thereafter, the young woman walked
off with one of the two men she had been talking to
earlier. CH came down the stairs and told the driver
to take us to the bungalow entrance near the bar.
When we arrived, we were greeted by a man in a
light blue shirt and black-tie (which seems to be the
uniform of the hotel employees in Havana). CH and
the taxi driver removed my wheelchair from the roof
of the car and CH gave the driver a tip (what the
driver was going to do with information about
Microsoft stocks is beyond me). Shortly thereafter
CH and the hotel employee disappeared into the bar.
A few moments later they reappeared walking
through the French doors that led to our bungalow.
CH came and pushed me toward the bungalow door.

“ What does the room look like?”

“You’ll see. We’ll be there in a second.”

“ What did that woman say to you as you
were going to registration.”

“ She wanted to know if I had a light.”

“ Well, why didn’t you offer her one.”

“For what?”

“Well, for one thing, she wanted more than
you to light her cigarette, she wanted to light you as
well.”

“ What the hell you talking about?”

I knew how tired and befuddled he must be
at that moment. “She was a hooker, you know.”

CH stopped, and behind me, I heard him
moan, “Ooooooooh Fuuuuuuuuuck,” in that long,
drawn out, tone of voice that means you screwed up
big-time -- as opposed to a moan of pleasure. “ She
was pretty good-looking, too. I’m so wasted, I just
blew her off. Shit.”

1201. cigarlaw - 11/16/1999 3:33:01 PM

? “ Your damn right she was good-looking. I
didn’t see one running sore on her. She certainly
had nice legs.”

“ That wasn’t all that was nice about her. I
mean, she came up to me and asked if I had light. I
saw her cigarette, and I didn’t have any matches
anyway. What was I supposed to do?”

I decided to rub it in. In my most innocent
voice I said, “ Light her cigarette.”

“With what? I told you, I don’t have any
matches.”

Now for the coup de gras, “Did you lose my
cigar lighter I gave you in Cancun?”

This time the “Oh Fuck” was longer and
more drawn out and was the sound of despair. “ I
forgot.”

“ Oh well,” I said cheerfully.

Then CH began a refrain that was to recur at
least once a day, as I cheerfully reminded him of
what he did our first night in Havana, and as the
jinatera became more beautiful with each day
without her, “ Man am I wasted. Hell I’m so tired I
don’t know what is going on.”

But I, being me, was not about to let him get
off that easily. “ If I ever get that tired, just shoot
me.”

1202. cigarlaw - 11/16/1999 3:33:52 PM

CH began moving again, more rapidly this
time, perhaps thinking she was still available if he
just got me to the room immediately. As the
wheelchair went through the French doors, I saw the
room for the first time. It was beautiful. The living
room which was about 18 by 18 feet had two sets of
French doors on opposite sides of the room, a bay
window on one side, and on the other side there was
a hallway, a doorway, and an opening. The opening
went into a small breakfast room that had a
refrigerator and sink. Beyond the sink were double
doors that I could hear if not see led straight to the
bar. We went down the hall, following the hotel
employee. He opened one door into a huge
bedroom that had to double beds in it. CH threw his
bags in there and I claimed the other bedroom that
had the largest single bed that I have ever seen. I
mean, this bed must the been left over from the
original version of “Bob , Ted, Carol, and Alice”,
called “Bob, Ted, Carol, Alice, Seymour, Susie, Sam
and Elizabeth”, because they all could fit in that bed.
CH put my bags in there and said, “I’m crashing.”

I walked out and looked into the door
leading to the bathroom. When I noticed the toilet, I
said to myself, “Houston, we have a problem.”

1203. cigarlaw - 11/16/1999 7:08:12 PM

?Chapter 7
DIGREESSION ON ALS
(the squeamish should pass this chapter.)

The toilet seat had an open front.

I am dying from the nose down. Each
morning I wake up and wonder how much is left of
me today. That is what ALS does to you.

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (Lou Gherig’s
Disease) is a neurological disease that attacks the
voluntary muscles. In about 10 percent of the cases,
it is familial. That is to say, end about 10 percent of
the cases , if your parents had it chances are you will
also. That means that in 90 percent of the cases no
one knows why the you get it. You just do.

ALS hits approximately two people per
100,000 per year. My doctor pointed out at one
time, when I questioned why did I know so many
people that had ALS (I knew someone who died of
it, and my wife worked with someone who was
diagnosed with it two weeks before I was, and she
and I know approximately 14 to 15 people who are
one-person removed from the disease (that is to say,
their brother, aunt, Uncle, or other close relative had
the disease)). He told me that if two people of
100,000 get it each year, considering our average
lifespans, 1 percent of the people now living will die
of it. That seemed to satisfy him that it was not
unusual to no great number of people with the same
disease you had. I had no choice but to go along.

1204. cigarlaw - 11/16/1999 7:15:25 PM

? The average life span once a person he is
diagnosed ranges from three to eight years. It can be
a matter of a few weeks, or if could be many years
beyond that, if, of course, you call sitting in a
wheelchair, being fed through a tube, and having a
machine do your breathing for you living. Because
of the short life span following diagnoses, only
approximately 30,000 people in the United States
have the disease at anyone point in time. The rest
are dead. Thus, this is not one of the “sexy”
diseases that gets a lot of research money. ALS
victims or PALS (People with ALS) generally do
not live long enough to develop a political
constituency, nor do they have the ability to talk to
educate people about the disease for very long.

ALS, is a disease of the spinal column. It
kills the upper motor neurons. The upper motor
neurons are what sends signals from your spine to
your extremities that allow you have voluntary
movement, such as scratching your head, blinking
your eyes, talking, eating, walking, wiping your ass,
or standing up. It is insidious in many ways. It
generally strikes people in the prime of life.
Although the aged and the very young can also get
it. It strikes men only slightly more often than
women. To name a few people who had ALS, Lou
Gehrig, “Catfish” Hunter, Sen. Jacob Javits, jazz
musician Charlie Mingus, actor David Nivin, and
boxing World Champion Ezzard Charles all had the
disease.

1205. cigarlaw - 11/16/1999 7:17:09 PM

? Of course, the reason that we know these
people died of the disease, is because it is so rare.
As I said, it is not one of the “ sexy” diseases.
Alzheimer’s disease and AIDS receive
approximately 40 times the funding per patient as
ALS. The last statistics I saw were that ALS
research grants amount to approximately one
thousand dollars per patient per year. Alzheimer’s
and AIDS receive approximately 43 thousand
dollars per patient per year in research. I am not
complaining (at least not too much), but to
understand the discrepancy in the funding per
patient, one asked to consider the numbers of people
who get these diseases, for whatever reason.

Frankly, it is my belief that if any kind of
cure or amelioration for ALS is to be found it will
come from research in Alzheimer’s disease. Last
night on the news I learned of an experimental
program where they plan to inject genetically
engineered neurons into people’s brains in the hopes
it will counteract the loss of neurons from
Alzheimer’s. If that works, it is one short step to
doing the same thing to a spinal column.

1206. CalGal - 11/17/1999 2:26:27 AM

The next posts are per Cigarlaw's request, picking up where he left off.

1207. CalGal - 11/17/1999 2:26:48 AM

There is a book that has been on the best-seller list for over two years, called Tuesdays with Morrie. It is soon to be a motion picture on television, starring Jack Lemmon. I read these books and watch these movies, not because I admire people with the disease, but because I hope that if the ratings are high enough, someone will pay attention, and may be something will be done before I die. I confess, I am not noble, or understanding about this disease. I live with it. That is all that I can say. When not working, I rage against the dying of the light. That of course is the true insidiousness of this disease. It has no effect upon your brain. Therefore you know, right to the end, everything that is happening to you. You lose no desires, your brain tells a you to continue living your life, enjoying wine, cigars, whiskey, and women. Alas your body doesn’t follow along with you. Your heart will continue beating, your bowel and bladder will continue working, and you will continue having sexual desires and sexual functioning (yes Virginia there are erections after ALS – the problem is, what do you do with them?). Notwithstanding these activities there are a few things you will not be able to do by the end. You lose the ability to blink your eyes, talk, swallow, move your arms or your legs, or breathe. Of course, if you can get by with these minor little problems, life will just be a bowl of cherries. I am told that slowly drowning in your own fluids when you have pneumonia, which is the major cause of death of those with ALS, is actually a pleasant way to go. My doctor told me that the lack of oxygen and excess carbon dioxide will slowly cause my brain to cease functioning, and I will slowly go to sleep and not awaken. Then again, no one who is died of this disease has come back to tell how wonderful the death is, so what hell does he know?

Now you see why I warned the squeamish away from this chapter. It is not a pretty picture.

1208. CalGal - 11/17/1999 2:28:04 AM

By now you’re wondering, what does is have to do with the toilet at the Comodoro? Well, let me explain it this way: in the book Tuesdays with Morrie when the main character appeared on Nightline, Ted Koppel asked him about his greatest fear. Morrie answered that he did not think he could say that on national television. Ted Koppel said, " We are all adults here, you can say whatever you want." Morrie replied, "My greatest fear is that will not be will wipe my own ass." When I was being tested and I knew ALS was a possible diagnoses, I called my father and talk to him on my cellphone on my way to a court appearance in Merced County. I told him " Dad, the worst thing is, I won’t be able to wipe my own ass.." Just over year after I was diagnosed with ALS, my father and I took a train ride to San Diego from San Jose. The morning we left, we had coffee and pastry in a hotel. I had a sudden urge to defecate. I did so in the hotel restroom, and then found that with an open front on the toilet seat, it was almost impossible for me to get the leverage a needed to wipe my ass. I managed, but just barely. That was a year ago. My arm is much weaker now. I knew CH was my best friend, but I would do anything to avoid having him wipe my ass.

That was my trepidation when I saw the toilet seat with an open front. I didn’t think I was going to be able to do it, but by God I was going to do my best. CH was already going to have to give me a shower, wash my hair and dry me off each morning, since I could not raise my arms above my shoulders. I did not want him to wipe my ass.

This is one reason why 80 percent of the spouses of those that have ALS divorce them. They knew when they married it was for better or for worse. They just did not know how worse it could get.

1209. CalGal - 11/17/1999 2:29:04 AM

As I said in an earlier chapter, I told CH I was going to leave my wife after I returned from Havana. The reason for this was that we were constantly fighting, and I could not recall the last time she had smiled at me and told me that she still loved me. I knew, she would not leave me. She would do her duty, but that was it, and she would let me know every day, how much she resented it. I had little desire to spend what time I had left totally dependent upon someone who did not want me around, but wouldn’t get rid of me. The trip was to be the last great adventure, and, I think in my own mind, I viewed it as sort of a Declaration of Independence. As it turned out, it was far more than that.

Looking back, I see that it was also a journey of self exploration. I began to realize the my problem was not so much my wife, as myself. I went to Havana one-person, and came back someone different. All journey is our journeys of no return. Part of me remains in Havana, whether for good or for ill, I do not know. I am relatively at peace now. I don’t know if anyone else notices it, but I do. Whatever happens, I will always have Havana. And that is so much more than most. In my book, that makes me a very lucky guy.

When one receives a terminal diagnoses, particularly one like ALS, he is confronted with a basic choice, he can live with it, or he can die of it. My choice, if it had not been made before was certainly made after Havana. I will live with this as long as possible. I will go the distance. When I can no longer breathe I will die. I personally know that is not the end, but that is another story.

So, having had this brief little to chat with you, I will return to the main thrust of the story.

1210. CalGal - 11/17/1999 2:29:44 AM

Chapter 8

1211. ScottLoar - 11/17/1999 5:35:56 AM

Vidi.

1212. Uzmakk - 11/17/1999 6:27:45 AM

Lurking and reading, Cigar.

1213. floater - 11/17/1999 11:40:51 AM

Cigarlaw,

I love you.

1214. cigarlaw - 11/18/1999 1:37:54 AM

so far this story has been written using dragon naturally speaking software. tonight mytwife confirmed that beginnibg monday she begins telecommuting. therefore i will have to talk after she goes to bed., so... the next chapter will take a while, since i am going yo a wake in sausalito tomorrow and ucsf on friday.

1215. JonesAtLaw - 11/18/1999 2:02:29 AM

Ciggie- great stuff!

1216. JudithAtHome - 11/18/1999 11:02:25 AM

cigarlaw;

Take your time; it's well worth the wait.

1217. Lucky - 11/18/1999 6:32:51 PM

Would it be an intrusion for me to post a story while we are waiting for Cigarlaw's next chapters?

1218. Uzmakk - 11/18/1999 6:36:06 PM

Absolutely not, Lucky. Give it to us.

1219. Lucky - 11/18/1999 6:51:44 PM

When you are invited to flyfish on the best private and completely closed trout stream in the Southeast, sleep is hard to come by the night before. It seems that we have become semi-famous raggedy fishermen with a reputation as mystic "local eccentric trout bums" and the doctor who owns the stream called to see if we would like to come fish there. Charlie, Jay Barefoot and I spent Friday afternoon drinking, telling stories, checking our gear repeatedly, and trying to appear casual. I trundled off to play music while they took a separate rattletrap vehicle to drink some more, listen to my music and eat barbeque baby back ribs and cornbread. At two a.m., we were back in the living room rechecking gear and consuming mass quantities of quasi-legal and downright illegal substances.

The alarm at five a.m. was a nightmare, but moans and groans didn't help much. We piled in the truck, all fairly nauseated and trying not to smell each other too closely. The long potholed dirt road to the stream became more and more festooned with No Trespassing signs, eventually turning into handlettered plywood signs reading "Trespassers will Be Shot," "What Part of No Trespassing Do You Not Understand," and "Attack Wolf Present, Don't Even Think About Getting Out of Your Car." We looked at each other nervously as a gigantic white wolf placed his front feet against the driver's window, tongue lolling out and looking in at eye level.

1220. Lucky - 11/18/1999 6:55:06 PM

Dr. Troy came out of his chestnut cabin, leashed the wolf, led him away, and then returned to take us down to the stream. In the early chill, steam rose off the water like apartment-fire smoke. The mountains rose steeply on each side of the stream with laurel, rhododendron thickets, and spruce trees towering. Small to medium-size waterfalls muttered and ran into plunge pools where eye-opening swirls of huge trout occasionally slopped water onto the banks. As we walked along the trail next to the stream Jay stopped suddenly and crouched, his braided hair flopping forward onto both sides of his chest. Beyond a half-submerged tree it sounded like a deer had just jumped into the water. "What was that?" I hissed, and he glanced back at me and said "That was a trout feeding, maybe twelve pounds worth."

Really big trout, perhaps state record trout, have an almost pornographic appeal. They can take your finger off if you are stupid enough to stick a hand near their hook-jawed mouths. They are seldom seen by most fishermen, let alone hooked and landed. There is in me an irresistible childlike impulse to catch one of these things and just have a look at it.

Charlie took one look at Jay and I staring mesmerized at the pool where we had seen the hog trout, snorted and disappeared upstream.

Dr. Troy came puffing up behind us and said "Ya gotta use a really big fly to interest this fish. I've been watching and fishing for him here for the last five years and have never ever gotten him to strike. He will come look at big minnow imitations sometimes." Jay kneeled on the bank, tried a large minnow pattern to no avail and came back away and sat down. We sat and smoked and let the pool rest, hoping that the fish had not spooked and disappeared quietly under a rock forever.

1221. Lucky - 11/18/1999 6:56:20 PM

I decided to go wrong-headed and tied on a size 20 mayfly nymph. A size 20 hook is somewhere around 1/16 inch long. In your palm the tiny thing looks like a piece of sawdust with legs and a sharp point. On my first cast the flyline shook in the water and disappeared. I pulled back on the line and set the hook, and all Hell broke loose. I was in trouble, and the three of us knew it. Jay said "You put on a size 20 fly for this monster? Now what are ya gonna do, smart boy?" The rainbow jumped three feet out of the water and shook his head. It was a slow-mo shot with water flying off a 30+ inch leaping wild being. This fish is almost three feet long, and I am playing him with a 2 ounce rod and a leader rated at two pound test line.

After 25 minutes of madness and mayhem I managed not to screw up and got the fish in. We took pictures and released her (it turned out), and she measured 32 inches and 11 pounds. Not quite a state record rainbow trout, but close. I am still excited, and Jay and Charlie are already sick of me retelling the story. They both left and said I was a lucky asshole, but I have learned my lesson concerning fishing with those two maniacs. I went into Jay's vest secretly and took the camera that he used to take pictures of the trophy trout. I'll return it to him after developing the pictures, or otherwise they would mysteriously disappear.

1222. ScottLoar - 11/18/1999 8:08:37 PM

Good story, and I envy you the experience.

1223. Lucky - 11/18/1999 9:27:14 PM

Charlie used to own a bank, and gave it all away to his horrified ex-wife when he decided to move up here and be a trout bum. Jay Barefoot is a full-blooded Cherokee Indian who still lives on the Reservation in the middle of nowhere and is a psychedelic Shaman and revolutionary leader of his tribe. I'm a one-eyed blues musician. We are an unlikely group of friends who fish together for trout. I could tell more stories and may do so eventually. I'm still waiting for the rest of the Cigarlaw Cuba stories right now.

1224. cigarlaw - 11/19/1999 2:33:07 AM

don't wait for me. i liked it alot.

btw, ch and i attended school from 4th grade thru hs with a guy named tom barefoot. while in cuba we were musing on where he is now. the other day i ran across a supreme court case in which thomas barefoot was the def. i wonder...

1225. Lucky - 11/19/1999 11:45:14 PM

"Wanna go catch some really big trout?" Jay Barefoot asked over the phone. "Um, maybe. Where?" I replied cautiously, knowing what trouble I could be getting myself into. "It's not too remote, is it?" "Naah, it's just some private land here on the reservation. I know the owner. It's an easy hike, and I have permission to fish there. Don't be a pussy. Come pick me up at dawn. My truck's dead."

Shaking my head at my own folly, I started packing fishing gear. Jay Barefoot is a full-blooded Cherokee Indian almost half my age who specializes in tirelessly fishing steep-gradient mountain trout streams. Sometimes I fish with him, and I knew from the tone of his voice on the phone that he was keeping secrets from me. This was going to be either an impossibly hard day of hiking, rock climbing, and fishing, or possibly a poaching expedition on private property, or both. I set the alarm for 3 and tried to get some quick sleep.

By dawn I was negotiating the potholes of his dirt driveway on the Cherokee Reservation, scattering chickens and Guinea fowl, and being pursued silently by a large bluetick hound with a scarred face looking in the window of my Subaru. When I pulled up at Jay's cabin the hound recognized me and relaxed. Jay came out onto the porch in jeans and his hair braided down his back and quickly grabbed his gear. I could see his wife Della looking out the window at us, smiling. "Now honest," I said, "we have permission to fish wherever we're going?" "You got it" Jay said earnestly.

1226. Lucky - 11/19/1999 11:46:56 PM

After a long drive on dirt roads we came to a weathered gate with a hand-painted NO TRESPASSING sign square in the middle of it. "We're here," Jay said. "I'll get the gate. It's not locked." We drove on another mile or so until the road petered out and got out, gearing up. The hike down to the stream was extremely steep and muddy from the last rains, and I was already thinking about how hard it was going to be to get back out later.

While we were finally tying dry flies to our leaders, Jay spilled the beans. "If the old fucker sees us at all, he'll just shoot a .22 rifle a few times. He's a lousy shot. Just stand still and he'll miss. This is cool, virtually risk free." I sighed and said "Man, you told me the gate was unlocked." Jay snorted "I sawed off the lock last night. You said you wanted to catch some big fish. You're such a pussy."

Several large trout started rising against the far bank by an undercut, and it hardly seemed to matter anymore. Jay laughed and started wading that way without a backward glance. I saw the snout of a huge brown swirl with that telltale slowness below me, and all bets were off.

1227. Lucky - 11/19/1999 11:51:16 PM

We fished all morning, and it was so good I almost forgot about the fact that we were trespassing until I saw Jay wading in front of me with a stringer of five big trout wallowing in the water behind him. "Della will cook us some good eats tonight," Jay said. I mentioned the fact that we were already on private land, and that keeping fish made this poaching. "I'm not a poacher," he said. "I'm a hunter/gatherer exercising my God-given right to live off the land. Fuck the system, and fuck landowners. My people own this land."

When we came around a bend in the river the woods ended in a field of tobacco plants with an old farmhouse. At the bend pool I hooked into a truly huge trout. Finally getting him to my net, I shouted for Jay to come look. "Jesus, he must go 26 inches, five pounds maybe!" "Shhhh! Shut up, man. Keep that sucker for dinner. Come on quick," Jay whispered. I looked up to see an old white man hurrying out the back door of the farmhouse with a rifle bouncing across his potbelly. I stuffed the fish into the back flap pocket of my vest as the first shots cracked. Frantically rolling into the rhododendrons for cover, I saw Jay calmly standing there on the bank, reaching in his vest and coming out with a pistol. He just held it and looked at the old man, who stopped in his tracks and started shouting at us.

"Shit! Come on," I hissed, and Jay followed me through the brush and back up to the trail. We could hear the old man crashing around behind us for a while, but the sounds finally stopped. Back in the car, Jay looked at me and burst out laughing. "Man, you looked funny rolling through those rhododendrons. Look at you -- you're all scratched up and everything."

1228. Lucky - 11/19/1999 11:53:43 PM

Driving back to Jay's cabin, we were greeted by Buck the hound and Jay's beautiful wife Della, who is one of the most striking women I have ever met. She has the nose, cheeks, and perfect skin that only a young Cherokee woman can have. It was only after our third beers that I started laughing and relaxed. Jay hooted and said "It's not my job to obey the system. It's the system's job to deal with me." Della smiled, looked at me with gorgeous brown eyes, and said "You'll stay for supper, won't you? These trout are really gonna be good."

1229. RickNelson - 11/20/1999 8:25:41 AM

Lucky,

Thanks man!!

1230. ScottLoar - 11/20/1999 8:36:46 AM

Wished I was there.

1231. theDiva - 11/22/1999 11:32:34 AM

Cigarlaw

Two years ago, you posted a very beautiful and moving poem you had written and planned to read at your family's Thanksgiving feast. Do you still have it and if so, will you please post it again?

Thanks.

1232. alistairConnor - 11/23/1999 11:31:31 PM

Heck, Stogieman, I hope you don't find this offensive, but I don't see what's the big deal about wiping someone else's arse, or having it wiped. Perhaps having small children de-sensitises me. On the other hand, I helped my father to pee for the last few days of his life, and sort of felt it was a privilege. Very intimate.

1233. floater - 11/24/1999 12:17:58 PM

Lucky,

Great story. You make me want to do more fly-fishing in Michigan.

1234. alistairconnor - 11/26/1999 5:50:36 AM

Story freaks, my story is here.

You may want to skim the rest of the thread for context.

1235. Candide - 11/27/1999 8:12:18 PM

cigarlaw


I hung on your every word. Your story is terrific and so is your spirit.

1236. ilyavinarsky - 11/28/1999 12:45:30 AM

A great story by somebody who agreed to fly to Kharkov to meet Valery Ivanov (see my travelogue).

1237. Uzmakk - 11/29/1999 8:56:13 PM

I found a rattlesnake's skull in my jacket pocket this evening.
This is an odd occurrence, is it not?

1238. Nostradamus - 11/29/1999 9:04:09 PM

I hope the rattlesnake wasn't still attached to it.

1239. RosettaStone - 11/29/1999 9:05:37 PM

You better find that post to Lucky, nostril.

1240. Uzmakk - 11/30/1999 9:41:39 AM

For god sakes, Nostradamus, isn't it odd enough that I find a skull in my pocket. There was no snake attached.

1241. JudithAtHome - 11/30/1999 10:00:20 AM

Uzmakk:

Wear this jacket often, do you? :-)

1242. PelleNilsson - 11/30/1999 12:42:14 PM

Where is cigarlaw?

1243. PelleNilsson - 11/30/1999 12:44:08 PM

Uzmakk

Tell us the story: How I Got a Rattlesnake Skull in My Jacket.

1244. ChristiPeters - 11/30/1999 12:51:44 PM

Lucky - thanks for the trout fishing stories. I first held a fly rod on my hands at the tender age of 4, on the kiddy stretch of the Au Sable in Northern Michigan not far from where my Dad grew up. You have brought me back to some fond memories with your stories.

1245. ChristiPeters - 11/30/1999 1:06:09 PM

cigarlaw - thank you for your story. I am looking forward to the next installment.

1246. Candide - 11/30/1999 7:19:50 PM

WORSE THAN DEATH: A New Zealand WW2 story.


Death lived in our street.

From our gate the Gothic tower and weather-vane of the town morgue were visible above a tall hedge.

The chief pathologist lived next to his work in a charming house, which, like a vicarage, was slightly superior to other houses.

Dr and Mrs Murdoch had no children. Daily they walked their black Labrador dog past our gate. We greeted them respectfully. He not only saw dead people but — ugh — he cut them up.

The year was 1942. Two refugees from London came to live with the Murdochs. One boy of fifteen and a younger boy. The older boy’s hairy legs looked strange in his short serge school trousers.

One day, the older boy asked me to play with him in the orchard and rainforest patch which divided the morgue from the residence.

I didn’t wonder why a fifteen-year-old boy would want to play with a six-year-old girl.

My mother had told me that the boys had experienced terrible things in the blitz and that they had risked a perilous voyage across submarine-infested seas to reach the tranquillity of our town and the house by the morgue.

I was honoured to be chosen.

The boy took my hand and led me deep into the wood. The black dog accompanied us.

The boy told me that the next part of the journey was secret. He said that he wanted to do something which I should not see. He explained that this was the reason he was now obliged to blindfold me with his not too clean handkerchief.

Then I became cunning.

I knew nothing of life or sex. We are ancient animals and at this moment I discovered the wisdom which has propelled humans through their primeval climb.

I pretended we were still playing. I said things which prevented him from suspecting that I was afraid.

1247. Candide - 11/30/1999 7:20:11 PM

He picked me up and carried me. He said it was to keep my white sandals clean and to prevent my knowing the way to his secret place.

He put me down. I heard the splash of water on the ground and recognised the smell of warm urine. Then he put something in my hand. ‘What is it?’ he said. ‘If you can tell me what it is I’ll let you go.’

I was as alert as an Iroquois war party.

‘I’m not sure’, I said.

‘Try and guess’, he said.

Then I became very old.

‘It’s the dog’s nose’, I said.

A silence.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes’, I said.

A long pause.

Then he said. ‘We’ll go back now.’

I could tell the danger was not over. He carried me still blindfold, part of the way then untied the filthy handkerchief from my eyes. We were near the morgue and the street. His face was red and his manner abrupt.

‘I’ve got to go now. Goodbye’, and he walked quickly away.

I didn’t tell my mother.

1248. Candide - 11/30/1999 7:29:34 PM

Have I frightened the horses folks?

1249. Lucky - 11/30/1999 7:30:41 PM

Haw! I love it!

1250. Candide - 11/30/1999 7:32:44 PM

I'm glad. Thank you.

1251. JudithAtHome - 11/30/1999 7:45:36 PM

Candide:

I guess those sorts of experience are universal...

1252. Candide - 11/30/1999 7:49:09 PM

JudithAtHome

Yes they are. But in those days I would have been punished if I had told. It was, of course, a real experience. The medical nabobs were the local aristocracy in small New Zealand towns. My parents would never have complained.

1253. JudithAtHome - 11/30/1999 8:09:56 PM

Candide:

Same sort of story; only my was just a flasher. Ah, youth!

1254. JudithAtHome - 11/30/1999 8:10:22 PM

my=mine

1255. Candide - 11/30/1999 8:16:17 PM

JudithAtHome

Flashers abound, I hear.

I think my case was nearly one for the tabloids.

Little girls are so confiding.

That's how sexism starts. Parents trying to protect little girls deny them all sorts of freedoms allowed to their brothers. I spent a good deal of my time climbing over the fence while my brother just walked out the gate.

1256. Uzmakk - 12/1/1999 6:37:23 AM

Candide:
"That's how sexism starts. Parents trying to protect little girls deny them all sorts of freedoms allowed to their brothers."

Oh, Gawd!

1257. Candide - 12/1/1999 2:29:33 PM

Uzmakk


Your problem? I didn't say it was the entire explanation. I meant it was often the first impulse towards discrimination in the life of a female. It was in mine. Of course there were others.

I don't know what gender you are so I still don't know where you are coming from.

Did you like the story?

1258. PelleNilsson - 12/1/1999 2:32:16 PM

As Lord of the Steppe, Uzmakk is beyond gender.

1259. Candide - 12/1/1999 3:09:39 PM

1258. PelleNilsson - 12/1/99 7:32:16 PM
"As Lord of the Steppe, Uzmakk is beyond gender."

Lord of the Steppe! Say no more!

1260. Candide - 12/1/1999 3:12:07 PM

Come on Uzmakk.

Some amusing narratives of rape and pillage are in order.

1261. PelleNilsson - 12/1/1999 5:18:29 PM

Re Uzmakk check here.

1262. Candide - 12/1/1999 6:53:32 PM

PelleNilsson

Currently unavailabe for viewing. My curiosity is aroused however.

I enjoyed what I have so far read of your Swedish history.

1263. Uzmakk - 12/3/1999 12:44:32 PM

(2000)

The following will be posted to:
Stories, Tall and Short

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you, Pelle Nilsson.

I pass this along to you all--

I don't know about the validity of this, but it is a great software
development story.

CARELESS CODE RECYCLING CAUSES KILLER KANGAS

Mutant Marsupials Take Up Arms Against Australian Air Force

The reuse of some object-oriented code has caused tactical headaches
for Australia's armed forces. As virtual reality simulators assume
larger roles in helicopter combat training, programmers have gone to
great lengths to increase the realism of their scenarios, including
detailed landscapes and -in the case of the Northern Territory's
Operation Phoenix- herds of kangaroos (since disturbed animals might
well give away a helicopter's position).

The head of the Defense Science & Technology Organization's Land
Operations/Simulation division reportedly instructed developers to
model the local marsupials' movements and reactions to helicopters.
Being efficient programmers, they just re-appropriated some code
originally used to model infantry detachment reactions under the
same stimuli, changed the mapped icon from a soldier to a kangaroo,
and increased the figures' speed of movement.

Eager to demonstrate their flying skills for some visiting American
pilots, the hotshot Aussies "buzzed" the virtual kangaroos in low
flight during a simulation. The kangaroos scattered, as predicted,
and the visiting Americans nodded appreciatively... then did a
double-take as the kangaroos reappeared from behind a hill and
launched a barrage of Stinger missiles at the hapless helicopter.
(Apparently the programmers had forgotten to remove that part of the
infantry coding.)

The lesson?

1264. Uzmakk - 12/3/1999 12:47:02 PM

The lesson?

Objects are defined with certain attributes, and any new object
defined in terms of an old one inherits all the attributes. The
embarrassed programmers had learned to be careful when reusing
object-oriented code, and the Yanks left with a newfound respect for
Australian wildlife.

Simulator supervisors report that pilots from that point onward have
strictly avoided kangaroos, just as they were meant to.

-- From June 15, 1999 Defense Science and Technology Organization
Lecture Series, Melbourne, Australia, and staff reports

1265. Candide - 12/3/1999 2:37:50 PM

1264. Uzmakk

Sounds dinkum to me.

1266. Uzmakk - 12/3/1999 2:42:58 PM

Yes, Candide, but is this not the dinkum thread. Sounds dinkum to me also, but quite funny.

1267. Candide - 12/4/1999 12:29:32 AM

Uzmakk

Tell me what you understand 'dinkum' to mean? It's an Aussie word meaning 'genuine'. (I was being ironical when I used it.) It obviously has roots in older places. If I once knew I have forgotten. My dictionary says it's from an English dialect word of unknown origin.

1268. Uzmakk - 12/4/1999 9:14:23 AM

Candide:
I took my meaning of "dinkum" purely from context. I assumed it meant "hokey", "bit of a tall tale" etc. Your meaning came across rather clearly, but its good to know that the word actually means"genuine, authentic". It is in my Random House Collegiate Dictionary. Dinkum English.

1269. Candide - 12/13/1999 6:11:53 AM

The Dog - A New Zealand tale set in 1948
My mother trained us to say ‘table napkin’, never ‘serviette’. ‘Drawing room’ or ‘sitting room’, never ‘lounge’. She considered the word ‘laundry’ to be a pretentious vulgarity. Her indignities and miseries found their full expression in the ‘wash-house’. The other women in her circle owned washing machines and rotary clotheslines. My
mother suffered a wood-burning copper, two wooden washtubs with a
hand wringer and, in the back garden, a wire stretched between two
posts and when in use supported by a wooden clothes prop.

Her years of slavery on her parent’s farm seemed to be perpetuated
as she chopped kindling wood to burn under the copper in order to
boil the ‘washing’. Washing was always boiled within an inch of its
life in our home. Reckitt’s blue bags were used in the rinse which
was performed by hand after using a wooden stick to haul the heavy
burning sheets out of the adjacent copper into the wooden tubs.
Starch was used in various dilutions according to the article
undergoing treatment. Table cloths and napkins were starched within
an inch of their lives.

1270. Candide - 12/13/1999 6:12:40 AM

My mother’s sense of injustice was intensified by the fact that our
back garden was overlooked by the two-storey house next door. This
house was occupied first by a party-giving piano teacher who drank
cocktails at night and appeared, still in her house-coat at mid-day.
Later the house was occupied by an upwardly-mobile estate agent.
Both households were fully equipped with regulation
‘American-Dream’ white-ware. An ex-Beauty Queen from a large city
lived in the house on the other side. The Beauty Queen was invited
to the piano teacher’s parties. My teetotaller parents were not. My
mother felt like a member of some primitive tribe being studied by
missionaries. ‘No other woman…’.

1271. Candide - 12/13/1999 6:15:55 AM

The wash-house opened off the high back porch from which concrete
steps descended to the sloping lawn. My brother and I played cricket
on the lawn and rode our bicycles in circles, ducking our heads under the clothesline as we revolved. The beautifully tended vegetable
garden, which supplied most of our needs, lay beyond the lawn. The
fowl-house was at the bottom of the garden abutting the back fence
which divided us from the descending paddock beyond. My brother
and I used to perch our bantam rooster on the clothesline. The poor
little monarch rocked back and forth like a fretwork parrot. We didn’t understand that a bantam’s feet couldn’t grip the wire. We loved the
rooster and meant no harm. Tiny bantam chickens slid down their
mother’s back in infant games.

1272. Candide - 12/13/1999 6:18:10 AM

One day I arrived home with a puppy. It was the last to leave its
mother and had taken full advantage of the extra nourishment. It
could hardly squeeze into my bicycle basket.
My parents hadn’t liked to refuse. In books about children and dogs,
nice people always let pleading children keep puppies. My parents
knew I had read such books. The trouble was they only knew the cold
impersonal relationship of the farmer and working dog. I had been
trained to fear dogs. ‘You never know what they will do when they
sneak up behind you’ said my mother. Dogs always chased me. This
was my first chance to make friends with a dog.
The dog took me for walks, belching and straining ahead of me on its
leash. It became a cartoon dog sliding along the footpath as it
crossed the road to avoid dangerous territories of larger dogs. It
barked and howled. It urinated on my father’s vegetable garden. It
tore my mother’s first pair of nylon stockings. It swung on her
laboriously boiled and hung linen.

It took to lying in wait to bark at passers-by at our front gate. Once when a large dog attacked me I called my dog’s name and it came with eyes like blow lamps to defend its own. It was a hunter and chaser—a mixture of sheep dog and spaniel.

1273. Candide - 12/13/1999 6:20:56 AM

We took it with us when we stayed at the seaside for a holiday. It
urinated in a nervous tracery of circles as it dragged me all over the station platform and its howls from the guard’s van could be heard
for the entire hundred-mile train journey, particularly when we
entered tunnels. It swam miles out to sea snapping at teasing
seagulls. It was a happy beach-urchin.

It was the dog that revealed to me the underlying uncertainty of life.


Our school text books burgeoned with reproductions of such moral
paintings as The Boyhood of Raleigh and Faithful Unto Death, which
depicted the Roman soldier standing motionlessly on guard in
Pompeii as the embers fell around him. The Boyhood of Raleigh
showed an enraptured child transfixed by a swarthy sea dog who gestured towards the horizon. We found our own living sea-dog story-teller in the person of Mr Eathorne, a retired boat builder who earned small sums in the district by putting up shelves and making fire screens. Rather, he made firescreen frames for hideous wool-tapestries obsessively embroidered by our mothers. There were two predominant emblems. A vase of flowers, usually on a nauseous fawn background, or a sailing ship on stormy blue woolly seas.Variants included Frans Hals’ Laughing Cavalier, famous for its eyes that followed you round the room—although when interpreted in wool this quality seemed somehow to vanish. There was also Landseer’s Monarch of the Glen.

1274. Candide - 12/13/1999 6:25:20 AM

My brother and I used to visit Mr Eathorne in his garage where he did mysterious things with vices, saws, glue and sandpaper and where
half finished objects seemed nascent masterpieces. Mrs Eathorne
was a large shapeless woman whose role was respectable maintenance of house and husband. I never heard her express an opinion or a preference. She was the traditional ‘home body’.

Mr Eathorne had lived and worked with his father and brothers, in a
fjord at the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island. They had
built boats for fishermen, whalers and even for coastal traders. His
tales were of seabirds, whales, terrible storms and ship wrecks. He
lamented the lost life and found solace in our eager attention. From
him I developed an image of a life of great beauty and hardship. He
told us how important it was to handle wood correctly and how lives
of sailors could depend on the trusty craftsman’s hand. I worshipped Mr Eathorne.

1275. Candide - 12/13/1999 6:25:55 AM

One day he came across the street to talk to my parents about some
shelving. My dog rushed confidently up to him, wagging its tail and
pawing his feet. Mr Eathorne bent down and picked up my dog by its head and swung it round and around above his head. The dog screamed and I screamed. Then I kicked Mr Eathorne hard on the shins and he
dropped the whimpering dog. I never spoke to Mr Eathorne again.

One day when we were motoring in the hills, near the agricultural
college over the bridge on the opposite side of town, we saw our dog with a gang of dogs, chasing pedigree sheep in the college grounds.

The dog was home before we were. It was a solid ball of mud, panting
like a steam train and its face had a terrible innocence.

My father built a wire pen in which our dog was enclosed. The dog
became snappy. It paced all the grass into a muddy bog. It no longer reacted to us in a friendly way. I became scared of it and didn’t take it for walks.

One day the pen was empty. ‘It died of flu’ my parents said.

1276. Candide - 12/14/1999 2:31:12 AM

I can stop a thread in its tracks just like that!

1277. theDiva - 12/14/1999 9:54:35 AM

Has anyone heard from Cigarlaw? I'm worried about him.

1278. Uzmakk - 12/14/1999 5:51:00 PM

I have been thinking the same thing, Diva. Don't worry, Candide, I used to think that I stopped threads too.

1279. Candide - 12/15/1999 6:53:23 AM

Uzmakk
Thanks. I've been wondering about Cigarlaw.

1280. Uzmakk - 12/16/1999 11:09:01 AM

And how about our dear thread host, Webfeet. I have communicated with her once by e-mail since her disappearance. Anyone else?

1281. cigarlaw - 12/16/1999 1:12:31 PM

i'm notb dead yet, just sans computer for a whuile

1282. theDiva - 12/16/1999 1:17:06 PM

THERE you are!

I KISS YOU!

Good to see you!

1283. Candide - 12/16/1999 9:35:25 PM

Glad to "hear your voice" intrepid voyager cigarlaw.

1284. webfeet - 12/21/1999 10:16:45 PM

Thanks, Candide for keeping this thread alive in the last few weeks, or is it months, since my disappearance. I find I have less and less patience with the internet, and only use it when forced to--for work or for an occasional bout of Christmas shopping, sparing me the exhaustion and aggravation of waddling around HMV records or B&N pregnant and angry.

Pregnant and Angry. That has become my theme. My father had a massive heart attack six weeks ago and is recovering from bypass surgery. (they say it's as routine as having your tonsils taken out, but let's face it--they stop you're heart--and it's a pretty slow-go, difficult recovery from there on in.)The bad news is: he can't have steak and cigarettes. The good news is: he's alive. His condition, and the numerous hospital visits I have gone on to see him, have contributed to a sort of pre-millennial weariness and seething hostility toward mankind exacerbated by the fact that in my pregnant state, no-one ever volunteers to give up their seat for me on the E train.

That may sound Nancy Kerriganish, doesn't it? Why me? WHy doesn't the world recognize that I am pregnant kind-of-thing. But, frankly I don't care. A good friend of mine carrying twins says she fights the urge to curse violently at passengers on the train who look the other way. Take a liberal, get her knocked up and then send her to live in Queens and watch how fast she turns into Rush Limbaugh.

Yesterday, as a matter of fact, a woman upbraided me on a crowded morning train for asking to be seated. It turns out, she didn't like my "attitude". Apparently, Jesus sent her on a special mission to put pregnant women in their place and she didn't like the way "Missy" asked to be seated. It was A) psychotic B) embarrassing
C) totally unwarranted. Not to mention deeply troubling and scary in a reverse Rosa Parks way on what it implies about race.

1285. webfeet - 12/21/1999 10:35:02 PM

I think the hormone factor is upped a little, too, during the third trimester; I am prone to uncontrollable weeping and childish sensitivity. The other fun part, is the prospect of labor. My mother, in her red-lipsticked fifties way, tells me to just let them give me a little injection and then it'll all be over and I'll wake up with a baby in my arms. Instead, I've decided to take LaMaze class in January but am also anticipating a contingency plan to putinto effect in which I will have to resort to drugs, an epidural, or whatever, to get me through the damn thing. And what happens to my stomach? Does it deflate? Does the flesh start to sag, like a flat beach ball, drained of its air once the critter is popped out?

Well, enough about me. That was another reason, in addition to my weariness, why I haven't been around. I felt I was getting too narcisstic and literally, could not post without looking beyond my navel. I can't imagine anything more excruciatingly dull than pregnant women, who are at the mercy of bodily functions, and I sort of went like a female cocker spaniel, to give birth to my pup behind a tree somehwere out in the woods, with the intention that I would find my way back home and return once it was all over.

But, I just came back just to say that I wish everyone the best this holiday season and hope you all have a sparkling, happy New Year. Crack open the Veuve Clicquot and celebrate the passing of another century. Joyeux Noel and see you in Deux Mille.

1286. alistairConnor - 12/21/1999 11:17:54 PM

Salut Bibiche bouboule! ça boume?

1287. ScottLoar - 12/22/1999 1:18:18 AM

Webfeet, your every post remains a pleasure, some of the finest and honest prose hereabouts that always enlivens.

Attitude. Failing any genuine criticism or focus the piqued lapse into comments about one's attitude.

1288. Candide - 12/22/1999 7:27:48 AM

webfeet

My heart goes out to you. I become incredibly cranky when people don't offer their seats in buses, trains etc.to people who obviously need a seat. It's interesting that Chinese youths (male and female) are by far the best at offering seats in Sydney. God knows I'm not young but I often give my seat to an old man. The other day I was trapped behind a crowd, but a young man carrying a suitcase and a baby was left to stand for miles in a crowded bus. It was unbelievable!

My very best warm wishes for your coming delivery and for your father's recovery.

1289. Candide - 12/22/1999 7:29:32 AM

1287. ScottLoar - 12/22/99 6:18:18 AM

The only attitude I have is that a man who can cook fish can't be all bad.

Cheers

1290. Candide - 12/22/1999 7:32:53 AM

And here's a one-line essay that a teacher friend of mine got from a six year old.

ONCE UPON A TIME THERE LIVED A HUGE DWARF.

I thought it suited the title of this thread.

1291. bubbaette - 12/22/1999 7:36:47 AM

Webbie

Sorry for your travails. When my sister was at the end of her term with twins, sometimes she'd have to sit on the floor in stores when the lines got long -- every reason to be cranky, IMO. And from everything I've heard and seen about pregnancy, it's an understandable time for self-absorption.

1292. marjoribanks - 12/22/1999 3:32:03 PM

Hey Webbie,

You can always come to gripe here, you know. I've found your pregnancy diaries highly illuminative.

Is your tyke kicking like a bandit? It's really really bizarre to see my wife's stomach move as our child hammers at it from the inside. Some of the blows are really solid. And the painful tautness of the belly! It's astonishing that evolution hasn't worked to improve this child delivery system that we're saddled with. I say "we" in a convival manner, I'm so fucking happy i'm not the one who has to go through with it.

BTW, which hospital are you having the kid in? NYU, you should know, specializes in "walking" epidurals and the few mothers we've spoken to there were quite happy with the speed with which they were given medication when in discomfort. Sadly, they refuse to give the expectant fathers some, I'm lobbying heavily to be knocked out myself the moment the contractions begin.

1293. marjoribanks - 12/22/1999 3:40:32 PM

On the plus side, and I'm sure it's the same for you, my wife looks gorgeous. Her skin and hair is lustrous, her eyes even clearer and more luminous than usual, and there is a certain halo of well-being which envelops her. So what if she waddles, breathes and eats heavily, and stops frequently to rest.

1294. Uzmakk - 12/23/1999 4:12:20 PM

A agree with Banks. Your several paragraphs were quite illuminating. I am quite sure that my wife felt some of what you are feeling, but my impression was that those feelings were pushed quite far to the rear by other stuff. The thing I recall about my wife's pregnancys is that she seemed quite confident throughout the whole process. I say "seemed". But what do I know but what I observe.

1295. Uzmakk - 12/23/1999 4:12:41 PM

?

1296. Uzmakk - 12/23/1999 4:13:12 PM

Forgot that question mark again.

1297. Uzmakk - 12/23/1999 4:20:29 PM

I haven't post much most recently, but now that I have a bit of time I thought I might post some Tales of Igor. For those of you who don't know, Igor is my new assistant. I would try to make them as interesting as possible. Fanciful tales of life in the shop. I shan't go forward unless I get some encouragement.

1298. PelleNilsson - 12/23/1999 4:50:09 PM

Carry on Uzmakk!

1299. alistairConnor - 12/23/1999 5:48:11 PM

1292. marjoribanks
...the few mothers we've spoken to there were quite happy with the speed with which they were given medication when in discomfort. Sadly, they refuse to give the expectant fathers some, I'm lobbying heavily to be knocked out myself the moment the contractions begin.

... well I nearly managed that when my wife was in labour with our first born... I came close to a fist-fight with the anaesthetist. He insisted that my wife sit up and bend forward to make his job of inserting the epidural easier. And he got quite angry with her when she had difficulty doing this - she was having intensely painful contractions every ten seconds. I was supporting her morally and physically, she was leaning on me. That's when he asked me to leave the room. In case I fainted or something. I was going to tell him that one of us was helping her with her distress, and one of us was making it worse, and that if anyone should leave it should be him.

But I just pretended I hadn't heard instead.

My wife told me later that she had been on the verge of telling him to fuck off and leave her alone. Then he got the needle in. I think he hit her with a really strong dose, because she was shivering uncontrollably, chattering teeth and all, for the next 20 minutes.

That's what you get in the French baby factory - it's a lottery, it depends who's on duty at the time.

In fact, France is light-years behind with pain relief in general, not just in childbirth. Must be the Catholic attitude that suffering is character-forming, or something.

1300. alistairConnor - 12/23/1999 5:52:22 PM

Hmmm. Isn't Igor the traditional name of the Doctor's assistant in the Frankuzzmakinstein films?

1301. Candide - 12/24/1999 6:17:27 PM

In the language thread ScottLoar spoke about the speech of his grandparents. This gave me an excuse to post in another of my boring childhood reminiscences of smalltown, rural New Zealand. My mother came from farming stock. My father came from landed stock! What's the difference you ask? What indeed!

1302. Candide - 12/24/1999 6:18:12 PM

Grandfather

When I read Elizabeth David’s description of French provincial life I recognised the New Zealand home of my maternal grandparents.

The rich black soil brought forth prodigious vegetables, fruit and flowers. My grandmother’s freesias surpassed any I have seen, as did the gooseberries, quinces and vegetables. A tall hedge surrounded their property and the paths between the manicured lawns and flower beds were made of tiny white river pebbles. My grandfather allowed me to play with the pebbles as long as I didn’t spread them onto the lawn.

At the bottom of the large garden a fowl run was well stocked with a variety of birds. Buff Orpington, Rhode Island Red, Leghorn and others I can’t remember. I doubt whether my grandparents had ever bought an egg or a vegetable from a shop. Every morning was announced by the tenor voice of a rooster.

1303. Candide - 12/24/1999 6:19:11 PM

My grandfather, a retired farmer, and his delicate pretty wife, were both capable of beheading a loved bird for the table. My mother too was raised to face reality in this fashion. Years later, my mother refused to eat battery chickens.

The food at my grandparents’ was simple roasts and traditional boiled or baked vegetables. It was the quality of ingredients and the perfection of preparation which made it memorable. No vegetable was over-cooked. The table was always spread with starched white linen, the silver gleamed and the thin engraved glasses sparkled. There was no alcohol. My grandparents were presbyterians. There was a glass pitcher of water. The baking was traditional Scottish and that is one of the best baking traditions. The New Zealand national sponge-cake floated proudly above its plate with its filling of whipped cream and little cubes of jelly. Sometimes meringues were the excuse for eating the superb local cream. New Zealand farm people were accustomed, like their French equivalents, to lavish quantities of delicate nutty cream.

The common understanding of quality and freshness and the ceremonial aspect of the family table is a universal rural trait. My mother brought this tradition to her married home, only to have it treated as a sign of greed and indulgence by my father, raised at Flora’s (my paternal grandmother) stingy unsensuous board, and later fed by land ladies who rented rooms to bank clerks. My father used to eat slowly and disdainfully which made my mother comfort herself with two helpings. My father would silently raise his eye brows.

1304. Candide - 12/24/1999 6:19:57 PM

I wondered as a child why my mother’s parents used ‘funny’ grammar. They regularly used sentence structures which would have caused me to be corrected had I used them at home. Double negatives such as ‘I haven’t got ‘nothing’ instead of ‘anything’. Haven’t got ‘no’ rather than ‘any’.

Both my grandparents were very formal and well dressed. When I asked about their speech I was told that people of their age spoke differently. My mother and her sister both spoke correct English, despite the sister having married into a German farming community.

To the child I then was, my grandfather seemed a huge man. He had thick white curly hair and silver framed glasses. He used to sit in ‘his’ cut plush patterned chair with its turned mahogany wood and read the newspaper. The many polished pendulum clocks would tick loudly and chime when it pleased them. Some would recognise the quarter hour, others the half, and all the hour. Almost at the same time.

1305. Candide - 12/24/1999 6:21:10 PM

Above an outhouse door, my grandfather used to keep a ‘switch’ with which to chastise his grandchildren. I didn’t love my grandfather. I almost loved my small pretty grandmother, but she was too busy for a child to love. She was an extension of her house and her husband. Her hands and chin shook with the first stages of the Parkinson’s Disease which later killed her. My grandfather then took to drinking and to giving away all his money to strangers in the street. This caused his children to take him to live at my mother’s sister’s farm. They used to find half bottles of whisky in his wardrobe, under the bed and in the fireplace. He used to escape out his bedroom window and walk miles to the farm gate where he caught a bus to the nearest town.

1306. Candide - 12/24/1999 6:22:07 PM

When my father’s sister summonsed me, at my boarding school, to tell me of his death, I wanted to laugh at her conventional expectation that I should feel grief for the man who kept a switch to hit me. I remembered that he had made me a rag doll and then I did feel genuine regret. I also remembered how I used to help him to make the chooks’ pollard with hot water on winter mornings and how he had shown me his plants and walked with me to buy his newspaper. A Martian and a dolphin doing their best to communicate. My grandfather’s huge black boots, conforming fascinatingly to his bunions, heavily treading on the black volcanic soil which asserted itself through the fine gravel footpaths. People would greet him pleasantly as if glad to meet him and he would joke and chat with them in a way he seldom did at home.

1307. Candide - 12/24/1999 6:22:29 PM

My grandmother’s house was fragrant with lavender. The furniture was antique and polished till it shone, as was the dark wooden floor between the faded pink and gold rugs. Long straight dusky pink silk curtains framed a view of the coastal North Island town’s volcanic hills and white water-tower. A chelsea dog guarded either side of the fire place with its brass coal scuttle and tongs. No individual object was particularly beautiful; it was in the harmony and maintenance that the beauty lay. Apart from the rarely used sitting room it was a place for people and never an object in itself. The sunny dining room always had a fire burning in the grate and was the true sitting room—a custom my mother continued in our own home.

The kitchen had unvarnished wooden benches and a table which were scrubbed white and spotless. The back porch had tree ferns on either side of the entrance and led to the wash house. No ‘laundry’ nonsense here. In the wash house, piled high on shelves attached to every wall, were copies of Punch extending back to the last century. Gerald Du Maurier’s aristocrats with their long necks and lorgnettes were part of my infant mythology. I poured over them for hours every time we visited my grand parents. Old calendars with wonderfully coloured pictures of clothed chimpanzees fishing, hung on the walls of both the wash house and the lavatory which also opened off the back porch.

My grandfather drove a ‘Dodge’. A huge brown car with extra seats in the back that you could pull out, like a London taxi. Once he drove us to the beach. He wore his suit and waistcoat complete with watch chain and my grandmother and my mother wore hats. We had an uncomfortable picnic.

1308. Candide - 12/24/1999 6:24:32 PM

Well that's my Christmas Card folks. I have nothing to do this morning. I'm a guest for all essential ceremonies and Christmas radio is insufferable.

Cheers to all.

1309. Uzmakk - 12/24/1999 8:59:45 PM

That was really very very nice, Candide. I never even thought to go back and try to remember and analyse my entire childhood environment like that.

1310. Uzmakk - 12/24/1999 9:06:12 PM

1300AlistarConnor:

Yes, said Uzmakk, with wary delight.

1311. Candide - 12/24/1999 9:15:49 PM

1309. Uzmakk - 12/25/99 1:59:45 AM

Thank you Uzmakk.

I wrote all that stuff instead of going to a shrink. I had spent years in political activism after arriving in a new country having abandoned a vocation rather than a career. It all caught up with me in the end.because of the political activities in my new country I met and became friendly with and had a telephone relationship with the great and wonderful novelist Patrick White. We used to talk about all sorts of things. I didn't tell him I was writing about my buried memories, but his example of unvarnished honesty gave me the courage to sort of go into a trance and let the forgotten memories come. It was very helpful and restored balance to a rather unbalanced life.

1312. Candide - 12/24/1999 9:17:58 PM

Because!

1313. Uzmakk - 12/24/1999 9:29:48 PM

Because! ?

1314. Candide - 12/24/1999 9:40:07 PM

A sentence in my preceding post lacked a capital. Sorry for the mundane explanation of an apparently metaphysical statement!

I should have said that I came from England to Australia. That's quite a bump! Especially as I came as my husband's wife rather than with my own identity which previously had been clear enough. I was plunged into a life I would never have chosen. I never regretted choosing my husband I hasten to add and we both endured cultural shock supported by each other. (My husband was my oldest New Zealand student friend so we understood each other's travails.)

1315. marjoribanks - 12/28/1999 1:04:04 PM

I liked Candide's alternate therapy revisitation of her childhood and thought them very interesting and meaningful. So, I will post some of my own recollections of my grandparents, particularly since I am thinking of them a lot these days, as I sit high above the Hudson river musing over what processes brought me here.

1316. marjoribanks - 12/28/1999 1:31:52 PM

My grandfathers are like twin deities to me. They were miniature giants in their time, diminished not by their talents, strivings and achievements, but by the strictures of the societies they were born into and the circumstances of pre and post Indian independence. They never gained the world-class recognition they desired and worked towards.

When my maternal grandfather was born in 1902, it was in something resembling a completely British India. He was raised in a cantonement, a place where English customs and rule were enforced and embraced at the same time. Where success for a boy like him meant clerkship with an English agency, where education was imparted by Irish priests, and the Billy Bunter and G.A. Henty books were what one read when one grew up. But he had higher aspirations, these ambitions fuelled by a social-climbing mother, and took to the thankless task of studying and sitting for the civil service examinations that were nominally open to Indians (no Indian had yet qualified through them, they included such tests as horsemanship and dinner-table niceties).

Astoundingly, he somehow made it through these arcane rituals, and was established as The First Indian in one of these civil services. In a way, these exams had a permanent crippling effect on him.

At the cusp of Independence, he was plucked from British service by Nehru and given a series of Extremely Important National assignments, but he retained his bone-deep allegiance to the custom that was drilled into him by his civil service background. Even in independent India, even in the tumultuous colorful seventies, he couldn't think of venturing outside the house (casually) in anything but a sola topee and linen suit. Dinner table conversation was conducted in French. Something as mundane as a walk along the Cuffe Parade promenade or tea at the club was a mannered ritual, as ceremonious as the installation of a Pope.

1317. marjoribanks - 12/28/1999 1:45:41 PM

This is the grandfather I loved more than anyone else when I was growing up as a child. He delighted in me, an eager little "chokra-boy", with a tremendous appetite for his stories, advice, books, and, simply, company. And he despaired about my unruliness, my equivalent appetite for little-boy-brawls, Archie comics, street food and misadventures of all types.

I hope one day to achieve the patience my grandfather extended to me as a child. I wanted to go everywhere with him in my half-pants and grimy shirts. I interjected my comments in solemn conversations he held with ministers and cardinals, I threw stones at crabs and birds even as he was conducting his dignified walks. I spurned his Buttered Toast And Tea for chicken tikka and ice-cream. And then I started insisting on wearing Indian clothes to his gatherings where everyone was attired as he was.

But he was indulgent, and strove to impart lessons to me, in which he succeeded. To this day, I often hear his voice in my ear. Hell, I feel him working in me. If, for instance, I am guilty of somewhat exaggerated formality in this forum, it is my grandfather in me.

But he was also capable of childish caprice. he taught me to play carrom (an easy shot was greeted with "it's a sitter, by Jove!). He taught me how to tie and spin a wooden top. He even taught me how to tie a tie. He introduced me to the world of Childrens Classics by pressing his own favorites and many others on me, and then *wonders* discussing them with me. He bought me an OED. He slapped me on the back most resoundingly on my cricket achievements. He reassured me when I griped about my family moving to the USA. And when he descended, most tragically, into Parkinsons, he still sought to comfort me despite his own rage about his condition.


(more in the next few days)

1318. theDiva - 12/28/1999 1:47:15 PM

lovely, Banks.

1319. marjoribanks - 12/28/1999 2:01:49 PM

Thank you, Diva.

1320. PelleNilsson - 12/28/1999 2:19:47 PM

Good stuff marj. Looking forward ...

1321. proudnerd - 12/28/1999 2:46:00 PM

marjoribanks,

As this article shows, there were Indians in civil service way back in the 19th century. Your grandfather, born in 1902, couldn't have been the first.

Maybe he told you a tall tale!

1322. marjoribanks - 12/28/1999 2:47:30 PM

Pelle,

There will be more. But why don't you contribute something along the same lines? I invite everybody. Candide has opened a very sensitive and meaningful vein, particularly as we stare at the new millennium.

1323. marjoribanks - 12/28/1999 2:48:50 PM

Nerd-bhai, I said A civil service. I don't want to expose myself, though I will if you do.

1324. proudnerd - 12/28/1999 2:51:21 PM

I wasn't aware that there were different kinds.

1325. marjoribanks - 12/28/1999 2:52:42 PM

Nerd-bhai,

There were several civil services other than the ICS.

1326. marjoribanks - 12/28/1999 3:05:12 PM

Nerd-bhai,

I do find it slightly annoying that you feel justified in making false snipes at what I post without being decent enough to at least share what your own stake in the subcontinent is.

I, in contrast, have been open.

1327. marjoribanks - 12/28/1999 3:09:59 PM

Nerd-bhai,

Go research the Indian Engineering Services, for one.

1328. proudnerd - 12/28/1999 3:31:00 PM

What difference does it make ?

I have read enough about the history of India to know that Queen Victoria opened up the Indian Civil Service to Indians in the 19th century and hence felt only obligated to point out so when I read your post. Obviously, I didn't know about the other civil services and I now stand corrected.

1329. Candide - 12/28/1999 4:42:29 PM

marjoribanks. Very lovely. I can hardly wait for the next instalment.

Thanks for your kind words.

1330. KuligintheHooligan - 12/29/1999 8:13:01 AM

Then I thought to myself, "Why not post in every thread?"

1331. cigarlaw - 12/29/1999 4:32:07 PM

I'm still not dead. Just lazy. Send what I've written so far to CH two weeks ago. I have not heard from him since. I don't know why, it's a mystery. I suspect he is writing something back. I will begin writing tomorrow -- I hope.

1332. ChristiPeters - 12/29/1999 4:48:24 PM

I hope so, too.

1333. JudithAtHome - 12/29/1999 5:57:43 PM

I love all these stories. Nice New Years present from all of you; thanks!

1334. Candide - 12/31/1999 3:47:17 PM

marjoribanks

Your readers are becoming impatient. Actually it isn't something one can just cook up. One has to be in exactly the right mood. We don't want to strain your muse, but when she blesses you we eagerly anticipate further tales of bygone days.

1335. Candide - 12/31/1999 4:01:03 PM

I wrote this years ago and so no stirring of the muse was needed. Patience folks. More provincial childhood. This time a protestant girl learns music from a catholic nun.

1336. Candide - 12/31/1999 4:07:17 PM

Different lives
.
I loved almost everything about my piano lessons at the convent.
Even getting there was an adventure. It meant riding on my bicycle up to a street corner with an old brewery The heady smell of hops, from the brewery was associated in my mind with the strangely mediaeval surroundings soon to be encountered inside the high brick wall and iron gates of the convent.

Nuns worked in the vegetable gardens and the convent’s pet donkey grazed under apple trees in the distance. Sometimes the Mother-Superior would appear with a fanfare of important noises. Her clanking keys combined with the creaking leather of her belt and shoes and swishing habit. The Mother Superior was the recognised monarch of the entire walled kingdom — or so I had thought until I saw the exaggerated deference with which the stern old lady greeted any visiting priest. All of the nuns twittered like birds whenever a priest or a Marist brother paid them a visit.

1337. Candide - 12/31/1999 4:08:21 PM

Officially I was a protestant. I wheeled my bicycle through labyrinthine paths leading to the separate building where Sister Cecily taught piano and music theory.

The floor of the large room was polished wood with rush matting over heavily used areas. Vases of tall grasses and lilies sat on dark wooden stands. A large polished table of some antiquity was surrounded with wooden benches for students of theory. Over the piano hung a dreadful picture. The head of Christ, eyes rolled heavenwards in agony as the crown of thorns bit deeply into his brow, causing blood to run down his face. Over the table there hung another painting of a bloodstained cloth.

In the middle of this was the amazingly vital Sister Cecily. Bubbling with perpetual excitement and enthusiasm and a great deal of temperamental authority, she charmed and bullied her students into passing exams they hadn’t wanted to sit. "Now you’ll do your Grade V. This Czerny study is fun. I want you to learn the fingering before you start it. Notice the phrasing marks."

1338. Candide - 12/31/1999 4:09:01 PM

The menu was usually the same. One deadly dull test of dexterity and accuracy, one mediocre mood piece composed by some deadheaded academic in the College across the globe from which emanated the examination and indeed from whence travelled the examiners. Then, the one compensating decent piece of music by Mozart, Beethoven or Schubert that actually fed the soul and the senses and made the rest of the nonsense tolerable.

Sister spent most time on the study piece — the one designed for dexterity and accuracy. Her pupils always attained high marks and her reputation was considerable. Several "famous" pianists had been her pupils and still visited the fiery little individualist who had chosen to be buried in a cloister.

1339. Candide - 12/31/1999 4:09:47 PM

Between examinations there were the Competitions to be thought of. All her pupils learned to play romantic showy duets. Brahms’s Hungarian Dances, Liszt’s Rhapsodies and the prize pupils shone at Rossini’s William Tell Overture for eight hands on two pianos.

Sister Cecily would wheel and dance and clap her hands. A combination of a saint in ecstasy, a flamenco dancer and a whirling dervish. One day when I was playing a Hungarian Rhapsody Sister’s habit caught fire in the electric heater. "Ooh! My tail!" shrieked Sister. She beat the flames out with her hands and the lesson continued as though nothing unusual had occurred.

1340. Candide - 12/31/1999 4:10:25 PM

In a small separate building Sister’s latest prize-pupil taught piano or practiced dramatic chunks of Brahms. These titanic showpieces were produced by the frail and beautiful Audrey Jerome. Audrey had pale skin that showed the veins at her temples, large soulful eyes, a tumble of gold-brown hair and a body almost too frail to live. She was the personification of the consumptive Victorian heroine. She suffered from asthma and usually collapsed after a long performance. Within that slight frame dwelt a warm, humorous personality and a considerable musical talent. Audrey was the only child of a possessive mother who managed a small exclusive dress shop and who devoted all her waking hours to Audrey, much to Audrey’s chagrin.

1341. Candide - 12/31/1999 4:11:05 PM

Audrey was a naughty girl. She could play Liszt because she had much in common with that wild arrogant spirit. Sometimes Audrey taught me and we talked about men and parties and adventure. Many years later I learned that Audrey had eloped with a wild uneducated youth. Mrs Jerome, I was told, had been heart-broken.

Sister Cecily had a strange metal ruler with which she would score manuscript for plainchant while she instructed her theory class on Saturday mornings. Once again the examinations were paramount. The various grades were painstakingly exhausted before the next step was introduced.

No matter what the weather the starched white wimple framed her energetic face. A heavy silver ring signified her marriage to God. As a protestant, I was awed by this. It seemed even better than being married to a member of the royal family. I used to wonder whether Sister was completely bald under her wimple or did they let them keep a bit of hair— just enough to cover the skin?

1342. Candide - 12/31/1999 4:11:32 PM

Gradually I became less satisfactory as a pupil. Adolescence was difficult enough without the burdens of scales and arpeggios. I started to fake my performances, substituting my quick ear for accurate rendition. Sister was not deceived. Her disappointment was painfully obvious.

Soon afterwards I was sent away to boarding school and never again visited the convent. When, with the passing of time, nuns discarded the mediaeval costume for short skirts, I could never imagine Sister Cecily in such a lewd irreligious costume. For me, Sister danced eternally in her long, voluminous, black habit. The heavy cross and rosary still tucked in the leather belt, her bright face forever surrounded by a starched wimple.

1343. cigarlaw - 1/2/2000 6:25:13 PM

Chapter 9
WE AWAKEN IN HAVANA

When we got to sleep, which took awhile (I must have tossed and turned for good 20 seconds before I passed out), we did not know what to expect when we awakened. Was Havana to be the Havana we read about in Havana Bay? Or was it truly a Caribbean North Korea? On the ride from the airport we discussed nothing we were going to the next day. It was understood, if not said, but tomorrow was a day of rest.
CH awakened me the next morning (well, it was really about 12:30 PM) with a knock on my bedroom door. Once I was up and breathing, it was time to try the toilet. I do not wish to be indelicate, so sufficed to say I managed it okay -- it is amazing what one can do if one puts one's mind to it. Then it was shower time. CH told me we did not have hot water. He also told me it was okay, but don't get any in my mouth. He warned me again about dysentery and its evils. I had visions of blood running from every orifice as I showered in the cool water with my lips tightly clinched. Then came the first real test of CH's friendship with me. I called his name and he came into dry me.
When you have a disability such as mine, you realize early on, you have no business being modest. For over a year, every trip into the bathroom required someone to pull up and button my pants for me -- for the past year it had been my stepdaughter. Yet, it is a bit unnerving for a man (I assume it is the same for a woman) to stand naked in front of another man and let him dry him off. At any rate things worked out okay. I told CH to pretend he was drying his car and I would pretend I was a beached whale. It seemed to work fairly well.

1344. cigarlaw - 1/2/2000 6:28:18 PM

Then we walked outside and I caught my first view of the Cuban sun. I did not know how bright sun could be until that day. We meandered to the resort dining room and ate lunch. I really do not remember what it was, but I do remember having a cup of coffee followed by a Heineken beer. CH had a bottled water.
The thing I remember most about the lunch, however, were the chairs. As my neck muscles have atrophied, I become exceedingly sensitive to chairs. If a chair does not hit me in exactly the right spot in the back when seated, or have the right angle to it, it not only is painful but it is virtually impossible for me to hold my head up. The chairs in the restaurant, indeed, the chairs in every restaurant I was in Havana were leftover from the Spanish Inquisition. I am certain that heretics were forced to sit in these chairs for hours before being burned at the stake. No, that's not correct. If they had sat in these chairs for hours, being burned at the stake would have carried no fear. They would have welcomed it. That was the last restaurant I went into without my wheelchair.
CH and I then left the restaurant and sat down at some white plastic tables and chairs that were placed between two swimming pools, the restaurant, and the bar . He asked if I wanted something to drink. I said I would like a beer, something Cuban this time. CH then left on the quest for first Cuban beer. Shortly thereafter I watched a beautiful young girl in a very short skirt walked by my table. "Things are looking up," I said to myself. Being a leg man, believe me when I tell she had beautiful legs. She walked from the bar into the restaurant, and, as of yet, not knowing anything about what was going on in Cuba, I thought she might be a prostitute. I hoped so.

1345. cigarlaw - 1/2/2000 6:30:39 PM

A short time later CH returned with two cans of beer in his hands. They were a tobrand called Crystal. It is not bad beer, but then again it is not particularly good beer either. It is, I suppose, the Cuban equivalent of Budweiser. Only not as good. It was a poor substitute for what I imagined I would be doing, drinking frozen daiquiris, but, with visions of dysentery in my head, I was not anxious to try Cuban ice, and I knew I needed to keep myself hydrated. It was about 90 degrees and it was threatening to rain.
"Did you see the girl?"
"What girl?"
"The one who just left the bar that you were in."
"Man, I tell you, I am so wasted I didn't see anyone."
"If you didn't see her, man, you must be wasted. Just like you didn't see that hooker last night."
"Don't remind me. She was beautiful."
"Man, if I ever get that tired, like I say just shoot me. I may not be able to do much with her, but I would notice."
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean? I find you told me that's not affected by ALS. You mean we came all the way to Cuba, and if we get some you can't do anything with it?"
"Well, just before we left, I found that I have Peroni' s syndrome."
"Oh Christ, what the fuck is that mean."
"It means my dick is curved."
"Which way? Right? Left?"
"Up."
He laughed gently. "Shit man, that's not a problem, that's an asset. They'll be paying you to have sex with them. Women love that."
I was about to ask him how the hell he knew that, when She walked by again.
"There she is."
"Ummmmn. Nice."
"Do you think..."
"I hope so. What do you think."
"I think I'd like to meet her. "
"Buddy, so would I. This trip is looking better every minute."
"0oh--oh. She has a boyfriend. She has four boyfriends."

1346. cigarlaw - 1/2/2000 6:36:57 PM

"Huh?"
"She must be part of the band. They're coming our way."
"I hope she didn't hear what we set about her."
"What the hell you have to worry about? You can get up and run."
About this time, five people carrying guitars, drums, and bass wandered into ear shot. I shut up.
The apparent leader of the band, a tall, gangling man with thick glasses and guitar began to speak to us Spanish. CH began to translate into English, when the bandleader began to speak in halting English is well.
"My English, not so good, but you understand?"
"Your English seems to be better than our Spanish by a long way."
"I like to practice my English. Thank you very much. The band's name is Cinco Pa Ti. It means, Five For You in English. It is a play on words."
"Oh yes, like syncopation."
"Si. Yes. Yes. That is right. We would like to play for you. Would you like us to play?"
"Certainly."
"Wethe would first like to play a song by the Temptations. We see if you like, no?"
They then began to play "It Was Just My Imagination", in English. That was when I learned the beautiful young woman that I had seen in the short skirt was the lead singer for the band. And she was quite good, even if she was singing in a foreign language to herself. The song had that strange sound to it that one finds in music where the person who is singing has obviously learned the words by listening to a foreign language. Nonetheless, she did a very credible job.
We thanked them when the song was finished and asked them to sing something from Cuba.

1347. cigarlaw - 1/2/2000 6:39:36 PM

They then sang two songs in Spanish, and for the first time in my life I heard something absolutely new in music. A brightness, and aliveness, that I not heard in years, combined with the rhythm that was totally new to me. I did not need to know what the music was saying, because I knew from the rhythm. It was a melding of Spanish and African rhythms and melodies. Almost totally foreign to a country whose musical roots lie in Celtic and African rhythms. I say almost foreign, because in the last several years Cuban music has filtered into this country and hit the charts with such groups and singers as Miami Sound Machine, and Ricky Martin.
Where I come from in the Central Valley of California, one hears a great deal of Latino music, but it is primarily from Mexico, who has its own unique roots, combining Spanish and German. This may not have been a new sound, but it was new enough to me.
When they finished CH whispered to me, "How much you think we should tip them?"
"How does a dollar apiece sound?"
"It sounds good to me."
They smiled, thanked us, and left to go to the next group of tourists.
CH, then asked it was okay if he went to bed for awhile and take a nap. I knew how tired he must've been after 14 hour drive, followed the next day by a 24 hours a plane flight and an hour sitting on the floor in the airport waiting for his passport to appear. So I did not have a problem at all. He asked if he couldn’t get me something before he left. I told him I would like having another and different kind of beer. He left for a few minutes and returned with a Buccanaro (sp.) This beer, with a marginally high alcohol content, and marginally better flavor than Crystal became our Cuban beer of choice from then on.

1348. cigarlaw - 1/2/2000 6:40:07 PM

After awhile of sitting in the Cuban sun and baking it began to rain. The rain came down in buckets for about an hour. I never before seen a real tropical rain storm. It was a new experience, and it was interesting and fun, and resulted in my going back into the bar.
I asked the bartender for another beer and looked around. I saw the band, with the beautiful young lady sitting across the room. I then did something I had never done before. In retrospect, it was one of the bass things I did in Cuba and something to have lasting consequences.

1349. Candide - 1/2/2000 7:42:23 PM

cigarlaw

go on. Go on....

1350. marjoribanks - 1/3/2000 11:25:05 AM

Eh, I'll get back to my recollections sometime soon.

In the meanwhile, cigarlaw, I look forward to more of your travel diary. Your last segment was interesting, but I must take some exception to the segment on music. Cuban music has more than "filtered" into this country in "the past few years", it has had a profound influence on the American sound for almost the entire last century, especially on Jazz but also definitely in popular rock and roll. Believe it or not, songs like 'Louie, Louie' or even 'Twist and Shout' could not have come about if not for Cuban influence.

Post-Castro Cuban music has similarly been extremely popular in some parts of the West even as the embargo continues. I've been a fan of contemporary Cuban popular music for around a decade, and in that time I've seen virtually every major group or performer live without ever having visited Cuba. In NYC, you can see at least one great Cuban band or performer on virtually any random weekend. And albums by these and others cram store shelves.

You may know that the kind of music you likely listened to is based most probably on the 'son' , a varied but distinct groove, that largely came from Oriente and Guantanamo. Both salsa and merengue are heavily derived from this, though other elements have seeped in from Colombia and Puerto Rico.

If you're interested, i can recommend some easily available and illustrative compilations of cuban music that are very enjoyable.

1351. marjoribanks - 1/3/2000 11:30:25 AM

By the way, Cuban music has also had a very interesting impact on the popular music in Africa. Records made their way over in the 50's and 60's and have produced some exceedingly enjoyable cross-fertilization particularly in the cities of the Congo, Kenya, South Africa and all of West Africa. One of my all-time favorite bands is Senegal's Orchestra Baobab which in many ways can be simply described as a Cuban-style big band combined with African drums and typically liquid guitar solos. I highly recommend anything by them.

1352. PelleNilsson - 1/3/2000 2:10:35 PM

Marj

Tsk, tsk. Two 'virtual' in close succesion. Watch it, mate.

1353. Candide - 1/3/2000 2:55:52 PM

PelleNilsson
Passion rises above petty structure you know. Cigarlaw would understand. Sometimes yah jes gotta get it OUT...

marjoribanks
I was pleased to learn about the Cuban music. I've always been fascinated by the little I've heard and by most music emanating from Mexico down.

1354. marjoribanks - 1/3/2000 3:11:17 PM

Candide,

I doubt that someone of your training (heh) is likely to really let it all hang out when listening to Latin music, but for me stuff like tropicallisimo and samba from Brazil, salsa, merengue, cumbia, even mambo really hit a spot which is highly particular. I treasure my albums of these kinds of music almost beyond any other.

Pelle,

I thought you would have noticed before this that my prose in the mote/fray is often very sloppy. The reason: I stopped previewing at least a year ago. It takes too much time, and I'm lazy. One trades maximum output for maximum prose performance if one is truly diligent. I'm mostly interested in hanging with my buds, not carefully crafting masterworks. In any case, I have a fast rule - want edited chiseled prose? Pay me.

1355. marjoribanks - 1/3/2000 3:14:47 PM

Bossa Nova too, in my eternal sleep I hope the piped-in music is bossa nova.

Pelle,

Please note, I haven't bothered to edit the above post either.

1356. PelleNilsson - 1/3/2000 3:38:30 PM

How much?

1357. marjoribanks - 1/3/2000 3:42:47 PM

$5 Pelle, for five bucks a post I will fully edit my every throwaway utterance on the Mote.


BTW, you now owe me $5

1358. marjoribanks - 1/3/2000 3:53:08 PM

Now, where is Pak Hashke with his travel story?

May he co-me along with one, O story genies.

1359. PelleNilsson - 1/3/2000 3:56:56 PM

marj

On further consideration I think your posts are generally quite OK.

I join you in calling for Pak Hashke. He has posted but once or twice since his return.

1360. PelleNilsson - 1/3/2000 3:59:21 PM

cigarlaw

Appetites are wetted all around. What did you do?

1361. Candide - 1/3/2000 4:48:14 PM

marjoribanks
I doubt that someone of your training (heh) is likely to really let it all hang out when listening to Latin music

Don't you believe it. In London I used to go to calypso performances; and once I lost my voice totally when I had a dream job, because I stood open-mouthed with amazement for over an hour, in deep snow, watching and listening to a steel band of beautiful African-Caribbean men with white teeth and red scarves, playing limpidly in a vast expanse of snow during the Belfast Festival (which hoped to emulate the Edinburgh Festival and bring PEACE hahaha). The Italians were in their hotel rooms with scarves over their mouths. Talk about STOOPID.

1362. Candide - 1/5/2000 7:08:42 PM

We were speaking on the International thread about private church schools. Since CigarLaw and Marjoribanks have not manifested here's some more dusty memories:

Hope
It was definite. My father’s sister had declared the state school, where she had taught, to be unsuitable for me.

Instead I was to be enrolled at Carncot, an Anglican preparatory school for girls. My mother took me along to meet the head teacher, an English Oxford graduate called Miss Broadhead. I could tell immediately that Miss Broadhead found neither of us ‘quite what she was used to’. Miss Broadhead preferred her girls to be either daughters of academics from the local agricultural college, daughters of the clergy or failing these qualifications, to be exceedingly rich. My mother and I failed both these tests. Still I was accepted and enrolled for the following year.

The school was situated in an old wooden house with large grounds. There were only two classrooms. Children of both sexes from five to seven years were taught in one room and girls from eight to twelve or thirteen years were taught in the other. There was a piano around which we sang and a fireplace from which cheap firewood shot forth huge sparks and embers in the winter.

1363. Candide - 1/5/2000 7:09:18 PM

It was the best school I ever attended. At last I was with companions who shared some of my interests. We put on plays and sang Gilbert and Sullivan. One girl was loud, disobedient and uncouth. She was also fabulously rich. Miss Broadhead occasionally disciplined her, but respectfully.

Most of the girls owned ponies and were enrolled as future pupils of the school for which Carncot’s preparatory services were designed. I knew my parents lacked the means to send me there. There were a few of us, set somehow apart by our secret poverty. I can remember being told by Miss Broadhead once when I was chattering that she wanted none of my public-school-manners here thank you.

1364. Candide - 1/5/2000 7:09:59 PM

We crept to the window of Miss Broadhead’s bedroom—she lived on the premises—and saw a crucifix over her bed. She was ‘High Anglican’ and lived a life of self-denial.

Miss Broadhead’s handwriting betrayed her lack of experience. Although she must have been in her fifties her writing was that of a good child. I had always written a wild unruly hand. I was determined to win Miss Broadhead’s respect. I slavishly copied her handwriting and at the end of the first year won first prize for handwriting. I finished her off by choosing a volume of Shakespeare comedies as my prize.

1365. Candide - 1/5/2000 7:10:24 PM

Miss Broadhead read to us as we pretended to be learning to sew. We worked by hand at bloodstained aprons. She read Stephen Leacock and Conan Doyle’s White Company. She also read Olive Schreiner’s Life on an African Farm.

She taught us Latin from Longman’s Latin Grammar. The school ‘library’ was a motley collection of British Imperial books such as Tell England, Girls’ Own Annual and Chums.

Our science lessons were conducted with candles and jam jars. In the French class serious little girls sang of ‘Fraira zharka dormy voo, sonnay lamattina, dang dang dong’, and: ‘soola pong darvinyong, longdy donsa, too tong rong’.

We were all in love with the Reverend Mr Plaistow who gave us weekly Scripture lessons. He was English, young, handsome and married to, so I was told, the fat daughter of an English bishop. I recognised them both years later when I read Anthony Trollope. When he was absent his classes were administered by Miss Bethel, a relieving teacher of sinister appearance who left out parts of the Lord’s Prayer. ‘Like Catholics’ the girls hissed to each other.

Princess Elizabeth got married and we were all ecstatic. A Scottish professor, father of one us, said of Prince Philip after the radio broadcast of the wedding ceremony: ‘He has a deep voice for a young laddie.’ We agreed rapturously.

When the poliomyelitis epidemic closed the schools, Miss Broadhead cycled dutifully to all the homes of her girls and supervised our home lessons. My mother served her tea from our best china. Miss Broadhead was gracious. Her visits blessedly coincided with the floral display of my mother’s sweet peas and wallflowers.

1366. wonkers2 - 1/7/2000 12:08:24 AM

Great stories, beautifully told. I have some to tell, but fear I couldn't do it so well.

1367. Candide - 1/7/2000 2:12:04 AM

Wonkers2. That's nice. Do write your stories. I wrote the stories here years ago and never thought they'd be posted in The Mote. Just ignore us and let it all hang out. It helps in a way to know that someone is interested, which slightly contradicts my advice about ignoring us.

1368. marjoribanks - 1/7/2000 12:42:04 PM

In 1912, a girl was born to a rich Catholic family in Karachi. Unlike Goan clans in other parts of India, those in Pakistan had done particularly well at the assimilation process with the British upper class. They went to the same schools as the British, spoke lovely English and no native languages, dressed and ate entirely as their peers did in London, and lived exclusively Europeanized lives.

Being a girl, even a bright girl, however meant other things. And college was not one of them. Despite this convention, this pretty young girl managed to get a first class university degree, which in effect made her unmarriageable in her community. With her sisters she formed a notorious flapper-like trio in the early thirties, the only women to drive cars around, enter and abandon romances, and generally have a good time.

Into their circle fell a well-positioned young Goan man, a person anointed by a civil service and assured of status and income. Trouble is, he had been betrothed already in an arranged match by his scheming mother.

That gentleman was the grandfather I wrote about earlier. The girl born in 1912 became my grandmother, despite the betrothal hurdle. The story within is rich indeed, but I don't have the time to recount it all. In any case, this lady is my sole surviving grandparent and I will do her justice as soon as possible.

1369. marjoribanks - 1/7/2000 12:42:56 PM

----those in WHAT BECAME Pakistan-----

1370. Schehezarade - 1/7/2000 3:43:49 PM

Should we all bow before you now your highness?

1371. Schehezarade - 1/7/2000 3:49:56 PM

I know this. I know that. In fact I know everything. I've been there, I've seen that, and I bought it, too. In fact, my collection is bigger than yours or anyone's. I hang out there, I piss on your cretin tastes, and I'll tell you about it daily. World events? Just ask me about them. Famous people? If they're not in my immediate family, I know them personally or had lunch with them last week. Please, just ask me about me. Wait! Forget the please, I'll volunteer it daily anyway.

Any questions?

Signed,

MarjoriBanks, the man, the myth, the legend.

One more thing, I'll be glad to repeat the above in well-educated, fabulously rich, and all-out PERFECT Hindi.

1372. hashke - 1/7/2000 3:54:00 PM

Paks marj and Pelle:

I do have a Mexican story or two, the cogent telling of which alludes me as yet. Would you entertain another ballooning tale if and when I get the get-go?

1373. Candide - 1/7/2000 4:01:22 PM

marjoribanks

That little profile of your intellectual flapper grandmother was absolutely lovely. It was a period of enormous social change and portraits like the one you just created are crucial to understanding it as a real experience.

Ignore that Schehezarade low-life. And what a nasty manifestation of low-life it is and not even the courage to use its usual name. Can there be twoof them? Horrors!

1374. Candide - 1/7/2000 4:03:45 PM

hashke

I would appreciate your picture of Mexico.

1375. hashke - 1/7/2000 4:20:20 PM

Candide:

My picture of Mexico? Volumes are needed. Read Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, the whimsical 'Instrucciones para vivir en México' of Jorge Ibargüengoitia.

I posted some personal stories of Mexico in the old Fray, one of them about the el foco desnudo. They may be archived somewhere, but don't know for sure. CalGal might.

Who the hell is Shehezarade and why his bitterness? Go ahead, S., let's see your Hindi -- since we've just seen your hind end.

1376. PsychProf - 1/7/2000 4:21:59 PM

Banks is also a terrific Basketball Player, Shez...

1377. PsychProf - 1/7/2000 4:22:41 PM

Hash...very funny.

1378. theDiva - 1/7/2000 4:23:55 PM

toys, toys, toys.....

1379. theDiva - 1/7/2000 4:24:40 PM

Let's not forget that he's a Yankee fan, which is enough to recommend him......as if he needed it.

1380. Uzmakk - 1/7/2000 4:49:17 PM

schehe?!?!?!?

1381. Uzmakk - 1/7/2000 4:53:51 PM

Ah mo tell a storeh here tomorrow.

1382. PelleNilsson - 1/7/2000 5:00:45 PM

hashke

I think I speak for Pak marj when I say that not only would we entertain your story but we would be hugely entertained by it.

1383. PelleNilsson - 1/7/2000 5:09:36 PM

I reread your post, Hashke, and saw that you used "Paks". Do you really mean that?

1384. Candide - 1/7/2000 6:38:54 PM

For Scheherezade, and any other mean spirit,

while it is not essential to have known famous people in order to be an interesting individual, some people, through the accidents of life, have met people whom most other people have heard of. This makes mentioning their names interesting to the other people and is not necessarily a sign of sycophancy nor of an attempt to self-glorify by association.

While it is true that some individuals do use famous names for self-enhancement, I don't believe that marjoribanks has ever done such a thing.

1385. hashke - 1/7/2000 7:14:24 PM

Pelle:

Yes indeed, though Pak Gurubesar must make the official dub.

1386. PelleNilsson - 1/7/2000 7:22:16 PM

Of course.

1387. marjoribanks - 1/8/2000 12:05:04 AM

Hehe, what exactly is your problem with me expressing myself freely in these pages? By the way, your message was not unfunny, I quite enjoyed it.

Pak Hashke,

Surely we must make Mr. Pelle Nilsson abandon himself to perverse and unrestricted punning for at least a fortnight before Pak Gurubesar anoints him with that most refined honorific. This exercise can be referred to as Pak Pelle's Canon.

1388. marjoribanks - 1/8/2000 12:24:42 AM

Ah, el foco desnudo.

Where the hell is A5? Candide, you will love and be staggered by A5's story-telling. He is remarkably gifted.

1389. hashke - 1/8/2000 12:33:20 AM

Pak marj:

LOL

Johann would certainly not mind unpaching the bels (bhels?) for that exercise!

1390. marjoribanks - 1/8/2000 12:36:39 AM

This may actually spak some punning from the aspirant.

1391. Candide - 1/8/2000 2:27:08 AM

Bean to Mexico and jumping to know. I have Mexican tales but they are only anecdotes.

1392. PelleNilsson - 1/8/2000 9:35:21 AM

Ah. The punning requirement. It shall not come to pass then. Unless, in his infinite wisdom and matchless grace, Pak Gurubesar shall make an exception for a foreign-born, punningly challenged wretch.

1393. Bob Embick - 1/8/2000 11:02:11 AM

1372. hashke - 1/7/00 8:54:00 PM
Paks marj and Pelle:

I do have a Mexican story or two, the cogent telling of which alludes
me as yet. Would you entertain another ballooning tale if and when I
get the get-go?

Mesko...did someone say Mesko?

I'm new here. Is this thread about stories? If so, I've got a pretty interesting story about what happened to me last month in Baja California and my bus ride to hell.

But I don't want to tell it if this is not the proper venue.

1394. PelleNilsson - 1/8/2000 11:15:07 AM

Bob

This is the proper venue.

1395. Uzmakk - 1/8/2000 1:17:55 PM

TALES OF IGOR



How best to begin? Not some type of chronology, not some structured account weaving time into my complex and multifoliate relationship with Igor. No, no, none of that. A picture, a vignette, a memorable moment that is the way to begin.

I recall vividly Igor, hunched by the heater, one shoulder against the wall saying to me, with a slight smile curling his lips, "Igor likes it much better when master says nice things to Igor." I can not recall whether I had just beaten him, or given him one of the severe tongue-lashings that I used to dispense in the early days. I had and have little time to train Igor being so busy myself trying to put bread on the table for my starving children, but he has been a Godsend to me and he is learning quickly. He no longer leaves deep gouges in the tabletops after being told that finesse is everything, nor does he tighten delicate machinery to a point of malformed sponginess. His instruction consists of being shown something once or twice and then being turned loose on the project to sink or swim. He swims quite frequently these days, and he will soon be asking me for money rather than the colorful bruises and the bowl of mid-day gruel with which I currently supply him.

I ask you, how far would my role model, Dr. Frankenstein, have gotten if he had had to rob graves without assistance, if he had had to turn all the knobs, throw all the switches, pull all the levers by himself, especially those on opposite sides of the laboratory which must occasionally be thrown simultaneously? Truth be told, Igor and I are working on a sort of cloning process right now whereby we shall end up with two roughly equivalent entities, two incubi, housed within the gothic woom. When this comes to pass, and it shall come to pass……………I tremble, I tremble.

1396. Uzmakk - 1/8/2000 1:19:23 PM

I often release Igor from his obligations to me for weeks at a time, so that he may roam the earth, hang about in the marketplace, on college campuses, or any other imaginable venue, and bring stories and popular artifacts of the 21st century back for analysis and incorporation. One may wonder why he returns given my treatment of him, and the answer is, as he has often said himself, "the woom and the work". Stated another way, Igor and I are in bondage, as are you all, to the brotherhood of the book.

1397. PelleNilsson - 1/8/2000 2:56:40 PM

Uzmakk.

So very good. So essentially Uzmakkian if I may use that expression.

1398. Uzmakk - 1/8/2000 3:21:03 PM

You may certainly use the term Uzmakkian as long as it is not paired with words such as drivel, pap, bullshit, hogwash etc., etc.

1399. PelleNilsson - 1/8/2000 3:44:07 PM

Nothing could be further from my mind. I hope for more.

1400. hashke - 1/8/2000 4:37:20 PM

As I came in for a landing that early Sunday
morning I knew too late that the area was
very small for the wind conditions and the
balloon skidded over the edge of the plateau
and down a sharp slope, a barranca,
the basket toppling and throwing all three
of us out onto the precipice into rocks
and weeds where we rolled, one woman
and two men out of a tub, rubadubdub,
the balloon lifting away alone over a road
below and then higher and higher away
over buildings and power lines to the west,
headed for the suburbs, a grotesque sight
it was, partially inflated and flying all distorted,
one hundred and ten thousand cubic feet
of nylon fabric and an empty gondola,
all of it reminding me of Mastroianni's dream
in Tutti Stanno Bene of the ghastly
black balloon lifting from the beach, his children
holding onto halyards, or of the mangled gondola
at Albuquerque last year from which four people
had jumped from two hundred feet to escape
badly-plumbed exploding propane, and all three
of us now on our feet watching the great beast
float away, and brushing off and trotting now
down the slope, my wife with astounding chutzpah
at the road stopping a car and telling the
stranger follow that balloon and the startled
fellow answering right you are and we all piling
into his wagon, my wife saying and to think that
I almost grabbed a handling line to hold it down

(continued)

1401. hashke - 1/8/2000 4:53:43 PM

(continued)

as we saw the balloon whose name was Sunrise
disappear over a hill and we driving along up and
over the curves where again we saw Sunrise now
descending into a thickly populated area,
a cul-de-sac full of houses and Sunday morning
parked cars where arriving we saw
that the balloon had come down missing all of the
cars and hitting only a mail box, bending the
stanchion into a > and draping itself over the
front of a house, covering all of the windows
and where there was now a mulling crowd and
three or four good ole boys looking at the
gondola and the still burning pilot lights, saying
reckon there's a way to turn it off and
my wife repeating to think that i almost
grabbed that handling line to hold it down
and a small boy coming from the house
with pancake on his mouth
mouth and wandering back forth saying
all of a sudden everything got dark,
all of a sudden everything got dark.

Finis

1402. Candide - 1/8/2000 5:07:38 PM

Last first. Hashke.
Was that real or invented - the rogue balloon I mean? Strange how balloons can represent so many things. A very strange and powerful little tale Hashke. You reminded me of that terrible moment when Mastroianni's family float away. Insecurity your name is balloon.

Uzmakk
I've met your Igor at seminars and waiting at table in restaurants. Are you sure that you are ill treating him sufficiently? I personally think he has plans of his own. Excellent.

1403. Uzmakk - 1/8/2000 7:07:26 PM

Another interesting thing about Igor is that he will be leaving me in the summers to study in the land of Pak Hashke. I say, Hashke, how close are you to Santa Fe?

1404. Uzmakk - 1/8/2000 7:09:50 PM

Candide:
I think you are right. Igor has plans of his own.

1405. hashke - 1/9/2000 9:55:20 AM

Candide:

Thank you. 'Rogue balloon' is a good term.

The tale is entirely true, a personal ballooning experience. I suppose that in a sense it allegorizes the fear about piloting that any sensible aviator feels and respects. After 13 years of ballooning and over twenty of flying fixed-wing aircraft, I have always experienced that knot of angst about crawling into the cockpit-- quite aware that it is always possible to do something stupid. or that the absurd, unbidden, might make its appearance.

1406. hashke - 1/9/2000 9:58:46 AM

Uzmakk:

One hour as the crow flies and three by autobahn.

Is it you or your alter Igor who is eager to study in Santa Fe, and what will be the subject matter?

1407. Uzmakk - 1/9/2000 10:53:25 AM

Hashke:
It is my alter ego, Igor, who wishes to study at St. John's College in Santa Fe. Some type of graduate program in the great books.

1408. Schehezarade - 1/9/2000 1:42:49 PM

Candide


In response to Message # 1384, my only defense is that it literally drives me insane when people continually practice self-promotion. I'll barf if I hear one more time how important MarjoriBanks thinks he is.

1409. PsychProf - 1/9/2000 1:44:25 PM

Schez...I am much more important than Banks, and a Yankee-hater to boot.

1410. Uzmakk - 1/9/2000 1:46:36 PM

schehe:

Funny, I said to Igor just the other day, "You know what the internet allows, Igor, old buddy?................rampant self-promotion."

1411. Schehezarade - 1/9/2000 1:52:56 PM

I was a bitch, I admit it, but it does drive me crazy.

1412. Uzmakk - 1/9/2000 1:55:23 PM

Absolutely understood, Schehe.

1413. PsychProf - 1/9/2000 1:59:02 PM

U & S...what do you think we "self-promote"...no one knows who the hell we are for the most part.

1414. Uzmakk - 1/9/2000 2:16:41 PM

Quite so, Psychprof. You don't and many people don't. I haven't up to this point other than to reveal that I am a semi-clever,1/2 intelligent dweeb. If there is nothing to worth revealing there is nothing to promote. We use the simple formula-

Revelation=Promotion

Which holds true only when what is being revealed is interesting, poetic, or otherwise captivating..

1415. Uzmakk - 1/9/2000 2:26:40 PM

As I said, PP, the internet allows self-promotion. I haven't followed Banks posting enough to determine whether or not he is a rampant name-dropper of either the vacuous or non-vacuous type.

1416. Schehezarade - 1/9/2000 2:55:13 PM

PsychProf and Uzmakk

Of course all of us could create fiction in our reports here in this forum, but I think that most people want to be liked for who they "really" are. Because of this desire, an insecurity and a form of competition runs rampant. Surely you cannot deny that a clique-ish mentality exists in here and certain people try and out do one another with who they know and what they know. Try reading the International thread on a regular basis, it's a place where approximately five euro-centric elitists continally report what they know, criticise others who do not know or don't care, and all the while they applaud one another. There's PseudoErasums, the whizkid for sure, but everyone else is his epigone and is sickeningly conceited.

1417. PelleNilsson - 1/9/2000 3:29:49 PM

Sche*******

Please advise us of your preferred short form of your difficult handle.

I just addressed you in Spiritual Issues where I said that I rather liked the term Euro-centric elitist and may adopt it as my tagline in TT. Now you have gone one better. I mean what could beat Sickeningly conceited euro-centric elitist?

For your information my current tag is The dour and humourless Swede but I'm thinking of giving it away to a chap called cazart. All he has to do is to change the S to lowercase and it will be perfect.

But I rush to defend marj. He is not sickeningly conceited. He is amusingly conceited.

1418. Uzmakk - 1/9/2000 3:37:55 PM

Who better to dominate the International Thread than 5 European Elitists. They can be deposed at any time the masses decide to revolt.

Schehe, I promised pseudoerasmus a posting a long time ago which I never delivered on; it has been simmering for quite a while now. You have inspired me to bang a few rivets into it and post it.

1419. Uzmakk - 1/9/2000 3:41:09 PM

Pelle:

Dour and humorless Swede? What a bunch of nincompoops.

1420. PelleNilsson - 1/9/2000 3:47:38 PM

In fact there are only 2½ Europeans frequenting International. The ½ is Alistair. If there is any bias it is rather Asian/Antepodiean.

1421. PelleNilsson - 1/9/2000 3:48:40 PM

Uzmakk

One chooses one's one tagline. The one I have is designed Pseuder.

1422. Schehezarade - 1/9/2000 4:02:30 PM

PelleNilsson

I can be rude, I admit that. I just don't care for gratuitous snobbery. Like it or not, this place (the Mote) is a clique. I've only been here a short while and already I've learned that unless I have unlimited time, am a registered Democrat, enjoy crappy film noir, can talk ad nauseum regarding the word "is", am active in rallying behind the Indonesian political system, read out-of-print travel memoirs, eat loads and loads of Bovril, and have met Chief Onumanmboju of the Zimbabwe Security Council, my posts which require time and honest thought are ignored.

1423. Schehezarade - 1/9/2000 4:03:01 PM

One last thing, Zara is sufficient.

1424. proudnerd - 1/9/2000 4:08:22 PM

schehe Message # 1422

Now a post like that will not remain unnoticed!

1425. Schehezarade - 1/9/2000 4:10:37 PM

Thank you proudnerd.

1426. proudnerd - 1/9/2000 4:11:37 PM

Besides, most people around here ignore whiny little twerps.

1427. Uzmakk - 1/9/2000 4:19:01 PM

Pelle:

"Uzmakk,

One chooses one's one tagline. The one I have is designed Pseuder."

What does this mean? And what gives at my website?

1428. KuligintheHooligan - 1/9/2000 4:23:24 PM

"Like it or not, this place (the Mote) is a clique. I've only been here a short while and already I've learned that unless I have unlimited time, am a registered Democrat, enjoy crappy film noir, can talk ad nauseum regarding the word "is", am active in rallying behind the Indonesian political system, read out-of-print travel memoirs, eat loads and loads of Bovril, and have met Chief Onumanmboju of the Zimbabwe Security Council, my posts which require time and honest thought are ignored."

Then leave. It really is that simple.








And Chief Onumanmbujo is a reeeeeeeally nice guy.

1429. Schehezarade - 1/9/2000 4:25:27 PM

Make that six euro-centric elitists.

1430. PelleNilsson - 1/9/2000 4:29:16 PM

But Kuligin posts from Namibia. Look it up. It's not Europe.

1431. Schehezarade - 1/9/2000 4:34:41 PM

If you want to get technical, but I was kinda thinking that promotion of Europe and Africa lumped your cabal together. I don't recall him posting anything about the US, ever, so he's qualified enough.

1432. Candide - 1/9/2000 4:40:10 PM

Scheherezade 1408
What a boring old Mote it would be if people can't reminisce and offer interesting examples to back up their ideas. What a mean and jealous and ungenerous and America-centric (is there such a word?) nasty little market-forces bunch of dweebs (thanks whoever gave me that word) if modest, reasoned argument was all that this forum is about.

Let me drop a name brick although the ultra-centrics won't have heard of a mere Australian Nobel laureate novelist: I declare myself at one with marjoribanks, except he would do nothing so crass— I am the proud possessor of a book by Patrick White in the front page of which he has written "To ***** ***** the singing politician". He did that because my he thought it described me. I was happy and flattered.

1433. Candide - 1/9/2000 4:40:41 PM

Now if one's activities have been confined to the quiet rooms of academe or to working away at some uncompleted but potentially magnificent theory, one will prefer not to talk about it. But if one's family has lived in many continents as has the family of marjoribanks, or if one has travelled from a tiny provincial town on the fringe of the planet to central and exciting places and to find oneself interacting with people from one's own childhood reading — well that is exciting and interestng. Why must those of us who lack scholarship, but can contribute adventure, refrain from talking about it?
That's elitism of the worst kind.
This resentment of Europe is stupid. America, Australia, New Zealand are all the children, mainly, of Europe and we need to remain in touch. The language in which we communicate came from Europe. We also need to welcome new contacts—in Australia and New Zealand that is mainly from Asia and the Pacific—and to have confidence in our own developing worlds but not, for gawd's sake to become narrowly self-congratulating.

I love marjoribanks's stories that trace an elegant connection born from pain. I also intend to drop names like confetti, with renewed energy, and I look forward to hearing your cogent arguments concerning the meaning of life and everything and the number 44.

1434. Schehezarade - 1/9/2000 4:42:32 PM

Are you running for office Candide?

1435. PelleNilsson - 1/9/2000 4:44:40 PM

Zara

Now I understand. Anybody who posts something that Zara cannot immediately relate to and in particular if it concerns non-US issues is a sickeningly conceited elitist.

Very well then. And any follow-up had better take place in Inferno.

1436. KuligintheHooligan - 1/9/2000 4:45:27 PM

I'm a "euro-centric elitist?" What a hoot!

1437. Schehezarade - 1/9/2000 4:46:12 PM

Let's give Candide a round of applause everyone. Not only has she succesfully managed to again schmooze MarjoriBanks, she has also strengthened her love of the inner-circle, thereby increasingly her likeliness of being 'tolerable' to the epigones of Erasmus, and has tried her derndest to insult me in a not unfunny way.

Now, I'm off to go type up my reasoned response to the big question "Why" and share it all here.

1438. KuligintheHooligan - 1/9/2000 4:47:16 PM

"I don't recall him posting anything about the US, ever, so he's qualified enough."

This coming from someone who just moments earlier said she has been here just a short time.

Quick with the labels ain't ya Zara?

I'll bet you make friends reeeeeeeal easy.

1439. PelleNilsson - 1/9/2000 4:50:23 PM

Hashke

I liked your Message # 1400 and next very much. A good story, beautiful composed. A single long sentence without the slightest sign of awkwardness. In fact I didn't notice on the first reading because I focused on the story. The next time I thought: What, what what? No full stops? I must have taken a great deal of polishing to get the flow and the rythm right. Or does it just come naturally?

1440. Schehezarade - 1/9/2000 4:50:40 PM

KooligantheHooligan

Exactly my point, the short time I've been here I've observed your posts, too. Off topic, you've been on a particularly long time today, what gives? Normally you make one post and leave.

1441. Uzmakk - 1/9/2000 4:56:05 PM

Holy moly, Pelle, you are right on Hashke's incredibly good run-on sentence.

1442. Candide - 1/9/2000 4:58:43 PM

Scheherezade

Re your question about my running for office?

Not bloody likely!

Don't get the hump. I have been a principle target of the Erasmotic barb. I still admire the talented lad.

If a New Zealander can cope with Europe why can't you?

1443. KuligintheHooligan - 1/9/2000 4:59:05 PM

Somebody put your toys away!!

Zara, I had a long nap this afternoon, then I was online "watching" the Cowboys get slaughered by the Vikings. So I figured I'd also post some stuff about Namibia, you know, that European country.

Anyway, if you have only been here a short time, it really isn't your place to proclaim you know it all about the posts of others.

But you are correct, I have been here quite infrequently lately. Haven't found much fun in it to be honest. If you think *you* feel like an outsider here, you ought to wear my skin for a while!!

1444. KuligintheHooligan - 1/9/2000 5:00:16 PM

Did that work?

1445. Candide - 1/9/2000 5:00:53 PM

Back to the stories.

1446. Uzmakk - 1/9/2000 5:05:45 PM

Candide:

How can you be experiencing the Pseudoerasmic barb without my knowing about it. I have not had the dreaded Zohtanharrassus moniker show up on my screen for several weeks now.

1447. Candide - 1/9/2000 7:12:17 PM

Uzmakk

Your answer is in 'Inferno' except it caught fire. Bold italics in all directions. I swear Dr. I didn't touch it.

1448. Uzmakk - 1/9/2000 7:33:57 PM

Schehe:
May I offer a word or two of explanation wrt being an epigone of Erasmus. I speak only from my own experience. I do not recall my first encounter with PE, but what is left in my mind is a recollection of being hit by some kind vicious whirlwind. What is one to do in this situation? Be nice? Ha!!! One had to get tough or die, and, as such, all of us here bear, to one degree or another, the effects of our interactions with the great Zohtanharrassus, Warrior Prince(insufferable tit blister that he is). Don't forget, Pseudo is the man who lobbied for Gengis Khan for man of the millenium, rather than wakeup call of the millenium.And my own moniker, shehe, my own moniker, though bestowed upon me by our own Zena (bless her, her family, and her new child), I am certain had its inception in the presence and effects of PseudoErasmus.

In order to self-promote my aforementioned post to PE,inspired by you, and my first in a long time, let me say that I intend to insert my breezer stoutly between the cheeks of my master and grovel in the dirt. Sob.....sob...sob,sob,sob,sob,sob,sob, sob...and I call myself a...sob...man. Sob.

1449. Candide - 1/9/2000 7:45:34 PM

hashke

A single long sentence without the slightest
sign of awkwardness. In fact I didn't notice on the first reading
because I focused on the story.

That goes for me too. I usually find such long sentences in English unidiomatic. You couldn't get away with it for too long though. The Italians and French do it by resorting to semicolons. I usually find that in English a full stop is required, with judicious selection of commencing words for each sentence. The Moncrieff Proust falls into the long latin sentence trap. Yours worked. But it didn't go on as long as Proust in English.
I've been talking about this with Ilya. he is unconvinced. You've just undermined my case!

1450. theDiva - 1/9/2000 9:19:41 PM

excuse me, but Uz's final paragraph in #1448 made me cackle very, very loudly. One of the funniest damned things I've read here in a while.

1451. Schehezarade - 1/9/2000 9:24:22 PM

Yes, and I think I love him.

1452. marjoribanks - 1/9/2000 9:48:52 PM

I'm a "eurocentric elitist"? How wonderful.

Hehe, you're being quite interesting. Have I slighted you in any way to have caused this wonderful diversion? Or is it just me being me that rubs you the wrong way?

1453. RickNelson - 1/9/2000 10:03:55 PM

hehe

1454. ScottLoar - 1/9/2000 10:21:10 PM

I rather liked #1422. Read it twice I did.

1455. Candide - 1/9/2000 10:47:31 PM

How does the team feel about a story with a fair bit of Anglo-Saxon language of the four-letter variety? I wrote a story a couple of years ago to help me to cope with an appalling neighbour.

1456. marjoribanks - 1/9/2000 10:49:54 PM

But I haven't read the hehe posts that were ignored, therby causing the no doubt worthy young thing such untold anguish. Were there many? Were these on international topics?

I feel quite bad that this person feels slighted. But then, I'm just like that: modesty defined, magnanimous, generous to a fault, welcoming, understanding. It is these qualities which make me so beloved in this forum and everywhere I venture in life.

1457. Candide - 1/9/2000 10:52:37 PM

marjoribanks

It will do you no good if I defend you. I think it's because you're better looking than they are.

In my quarter of the Mote you are highly steamed.

1458. Candide - 1/9/2000 10:57:46 PM

I looked up the 'rules of engagement' and there was nothing about off language. I must stress that ALL the language in this story is a reflection of life, not art. Writing the following was my way of coping, before lining the ceiling with a lead blanket. Despite wall to wall, floor to ceiling books, we can still sometimes hear this charmer, although I think he's now on prozac.
He seems to have given away the garment industry. He lives with the house's owner, a partner in a major law firm. BUT - I think he got a kareoke set for Christmas!

1459. Candide - 1/9/2000 10:59:58 PM

738 words
LISTEN I SWEAR TO GOD
"Six hundred thousand dollars for a rat-shit semi!"
The adjoining semi to Robin and Fred’s had sold by auction.
They hadn’t looked out at the buyer. Didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot.

Two weeks later he moved in. They barely glimpsed him. One small truck was unloaded in five minutes.

Robin worked at her computer in the back room. The windows were open to let in the sun and warm air.

Then it started.
Ring ring...ring ring. In the garden. A portable phone.
"Sam Sale speaking."
The voice was indefinably Middle-eastern.
It said: " Listen, don’t mess with me. You don’t know me. Listen, I want that fucking money. Fuck you, you bastard. You took the goods. Eight hundred pairs. Italian imported. Listen. I’ll send round Johnny and Wayne to kick your lights out. I mean it." ......ring ring.... "Hold the line..."

"Hullo. Sam Sale speaking. Listen, I’ll get the money. I swear. I swear on the head of my mother. Trust me. Listen! I have a client who owes me four thousand. He can get it. I swear you’ll have your money tomorrow. Listen, how’s Ginny? Good. God bless her. I love that woman. She’s precious to me. I promise you’ll have four thousand tomorrow and the rest within two weeks when another client will pay me what he owes. Goodbye, trust me!...."

1460. marjoribanks - 1/9/2000 11:00:05 PM

Candide,

As a story, hehe's musings on me have been quite enjoyable. I eagerly anticipate the next.

By the way, I am extremely handsome, funny you should pick that up from my prose.

1461. Candide - 1/9/2000 11:00:39 PM

Then the voice said: "Hullo. Are you still there you bastard? Johnny and Wayne are coming round now and they’ll go to the bank with you. You’re dead mate if there’s no fucking money. You’re dead."

"Do you think it’s just the way he talks?’ said Robin to Fred that night.

At three a.m. they were awakened by a voice through the wall. They had never heard voices through the wall before but Sam had no furniture worth mentioning and his voice was always pitched at full volume.

"Ma. Is that you ma? How are you? How’s New York? Look Ma, has Vic paid you yet? Has he given you the full twenty-thousand? Why hasn’t he? I set him up in that deal. He must have it ...... I’m dead meat Ma if you don’t send me the money. I need it as quickly as possible. Tomorrow! I’ve got stuff arriving and I need the money. Tell Vic he’ll never walk again if he doesn’t get that money through to me. I mean it Ma. I love ya’ Ma. You tell Vic, d’ya hear me?"

1462. Candide - 1/9/2000 11:01:18 PM

"I can’t work with that man’s life crowding mine all the time", Robin said.

Next morning Sam repeatedly played the same melancholy Arabic recording. He sang in unison with the singer.

Ring ring .... The music stopped.
Sam spoke: "Hullo. Sam Sale speaking. Listen you fucker. I’ll come round and I’ll fuck your whole family then I’ll burn the fucking house down with your whole fucking family in it. Well, just you get the money! Otherwise, you’re dead meat mate."

Ring ring
A different Sam: "Hullo. Sam Sale. I swear. I swear to God. I talked to my mother. She’s sending the money from New York. No. Wait. Trust me. You’ll get the money."

Sam’s voice, desperate now: "Ma? Ma? Yes I know it’s night time in New York. Listen Ma. The money. Now Ma! Electronically. Ma send it to me. Listen, I’m scared Ma. What are you telling me? What do you mean? You can’t? It’s not your money? It’s yours, yours and Vic’s! You and Vic got married? Ma! My father promised me. I’m your own son Ma. Ma. Ma. Are you there? Hullo? Hullo?"

1463. Candide - 1/9/2000 11:01:39 PM

Later a car pulled up. A door bell sounded. Sam opened the door.
Footsteps. About four people?
Sam’s voice: "Would you like a drink? I can give you lunch."
Grunts.
Sam’s voice: "I promise, the money’s on the way. My mother swore on the head of my father God rest him..."
Grunts.
"I promise you! Listen, I’ve got a wonderful deal. Big! You’ll be interested. You’ll love it. Listen! The money will be here. Trust me. I swear to God!"

A muffled sound and then nothing. Footsteps in the empty hall. The door. The car drove away.

Robin heard nothing from the next house all day.

When Fred came home she said: "Should we contact the police?"
"Better not", said Fred. "They might find out we heard things."
"They, who?"
"Exactly".

1464. Candide - 1/9/2000 11:06:16 PM

marjoribanks

Your pulchritude shines forth like a light from your prose. I'm good at picking up prose as the surrounding filth should convince you!

1465. Schehezarade - 1/9/2000 11:20:19 PM

Candide

You certainly are prolific.

1466. Schehezarade - 1/9/2000 11:22:11 PM

MarjoriBanks

You haven't slighted me yet. I think it was your incessant name dropping and self-promotion than finally pushed me over the edge. Now it's like old news. I expect you to plump up the volume.

1467. Candide - 1/9/2000 11:26:53 PM

Scheherazade

Prolific?

After your thousand and one nights you've got a nerve!

1468. Candide - 1/9/2000 11:30:36 PM

After all that very proper childhood stuff I felt that my image needed a bit of roughing up.

1469. Uzmakk - 1/10/2000 6:43:48 AM

A fucking bit of all right, Candide.

1470. Candide - 1/10/2000 6:52:46 AM

Jeez thenx Uzmakk.

1471. hashke - 1/10/2000 10:22:58 AM

Pelle:

#1439

Thanks very much for those comments. The story is very close to first draft done in works with some adjustments here and there when mote rejected it for being too lengthy. I'm glad it worked for you!

The ending got screwed up somehow with the changes. For the record the ending should read:

and a small boy coming from the house
with pancake on his mouth
wandering about saying
all of a sudden everything got dark,
all of a sudden everything got dark.

1472. marjoribanks - 1/10/2000 10:25:51 AM

Pak Hashke,

That was a masterwork. I didn't notice the lack of punctuation either on first reading.

1473. hashke - 1/10/2000 10:27:45 AM

Candide:

#1449

Agreed, such a piece has to be relatively short. The entire incident, with all of its Sturm, Drang, and Comedy, seemed an Augenblick.

1474. hashke - 1/10/2000 10:32:31 AM

1441. Uzmakk - 1/9/00 9:56:05 PM

Holy moly, Pelle, you are right on Hashke's incredibly good run-on sentence.

LOL. Probably better described as 'run-away sentence', à la 'rogue balloon'.

1475. hashke - 1/10/2000 10:34:07 AM

Pak marj:

Thanks for that. I do have a Mexican story, but may be a while before I can get it together.

1476. marjoribanks - 1/10/2000 10:36:40 AM

Looking forward to it Pak Hashke, I have only been to Mexico (the capital and the Yucatan) once, loved it, and have been threatening to return for far too long without fulfillment.

1477. Uzmakk - 1/10/2000 12:16:46 PM

Hashke:
What does LOL mean? Not lots of luck.

1478. theDiva - 1/10/2000 12:22:33 PM

Laugh(ing)
Out
Loud

1479. Uzmakk - 1/10/2000 1:36:38 PM

Thank you, Diva.

1480. theDiva - 1/10/2000 1:40:05 PM

I live to serve the Lord of the Steppe.

1481. Candide - 1/11/2000 12:19:36 AM

HASHKE'S THREAD
Because it was possible, oh yes,
to unravel the scarf without dropping a stitch
nor forgetting a line, because the plan for the invasion was part of the pattern, a pattern that must be destroyed before THEY,
the ‘they’ one fears in the dark recesses of dreams, found the plan, destroyed the planners and overran the planet
while appearing to be nurses, doctors, teachers and computer programmers, for oh this, this, this, must never be, and
when they give signs like peeling an apple without breaking
no never breaking the peel and not smiling while they did it, so that children came to trust them and offered them their hand and trotted off with them into the never-never and were never seen again
until they returned with paler eyes and no affection, not even for their puppies and offered passionless cheeks for kisses from frantic parents
who wondered but dared not confess that this moon child is not ours no never our little Fred who laughs at everything and hates to be kissed and if it isn’t Fred then who the hell is it and where oh where is Fred
the boy who never behaves and who won’t have a bath, so the scarf must be unravelled quickly, quickly before they come on their canvas and rubber shoes to empty our brains and suck out the plan that
we with our inferior talents have made to wind them up in a huge ball of woolen thread made from all these scarves and to
tie the thread to a satellite
and to launch the beings back into the cold, dark
pitiless space where they will disappear in a vortex of
nothingness

Finis

1482. Candide - 1/11/2000 7:12:22 PM

Yes! Well is was a gentle joke that showed no disrespect to the polished original. It was fun to write actually. The layout went to pieces in the transfer from Text-edit and I didn't notice until it was too late.

1483. hashke - 1/12/2000 11:59:52 AM

Candide:

I have been under with the crud and just gotten around to reading with any clarity the above. Che vuol dir 'hashke's thread'?

I perceive no disrespect, but the deeper meaning of the text eludes me -- unless it has to do with the inner concatenations of 'Tutti Stanno Bene'. A gloss, please?

1484. Candide - 1/12/2000 3:08:33 PM

hashke
It's a homage. Totally superficial in content. Continuity.

I have a friend who 'teaches' writing at an American university and she says that all her students want to write the great novel and all use stream of consciousness and despise punctuation.

I realise that your piece was an educated exercise in control while theirs are the opposite. You can place my piece in the students' category. It's a sort of science fiction if it's anything. Beings from elsewhere move into the bodies of children and gradually take over the planet etc. etc. It's been done before.

1485. Candide - 1/12/2000 3:10:05 PM

Sorry about the crud. Is it the evil Sydney crud that has gripped Clinton?

1486. hashke - 1/12/2000 4:12:15 PM

No, and it's a lung story. I flu off the handle when I got it. But alveolar lot better soon.

1487. Candide - 1/12/2000 4:34:12 PM

Bonza.

1488. Uzmakk - 1/19/2000 12:47:50 PM

THE IGOR DIARIES

As I have said, Igor is a delight to have around. As I have also said, he brings me artifacts. A week or two ago he brought me a primitive bow and arrow such as would be used in the jungles of South America. The arrows had ohsosharp rough metal tips capable of holding a lethal dose of kirari(sp?) Please, help with the spelling.
He also brought me the Compact OED.

1489. Uzmakk - 1/19/2000 12:48:49 PM

You know, the bow would have to be shot sideways?

1490. hashke - 1/19/2000 11:09:37 PM

1489. Uzmakk - 1/19/00 5:48:49 PM
A week or two ago he brought me a primitive bow and arrow such as would be used in the jungles of South America.

That'll you an Igor believer.

1491. Candide - 1/19/2000 11:33:21 PM

Uzmakk
Curare or curari.
Igor is now out of control. He is trying to lull you into trusting compliance. By duping you with dictionaries and feigned scholarship he is hoping to mask the intention behind his lethal weapons of crass destruction.
Accept no food from this creature.

1492. Uzmakk - 1/20/2000 5:29:52 PM

He is not a creature, Candide! He is a man!

1493. Candide - 1/20/2000 5:59:37 PM

Uzmakk

Ein mensch? Himmel!

Does he have a moustache and a stray lock of hair?

1494. Candide - 1/20/2000 6:23:20 PM

A small epilogue to my tale of the foul-mouthed neighbour. Two days ago as we awaited a taxi and were gazing out our front window, a drama erupted across our green swarded little street. A particularly lady-like English woman was being abused, chivied and harried in very loud obscene language by two sinister looking louts wearing white business shirts and ties.
"Where is he?" the roared shaking her by the arm. "Where is the expleted deleted?" "Tell us where he is?" "He owes over $2000 for (something inaudible) and $30,000 for (something else inaudible)"

They were really man handling the woman and my husband was going to go over like a hero and stop them but I said "I'll go. They're less likely to attack a woman". And then we were on the point of telephoning for the police when the door of our colourful neighbour's house opened and a stentorian voice called:"How dare you use language like that! There are children present!" And then he put his always present mobile phone to good use and called the police. Then he siezed an empty bottle and strode across the street and talked (roared) them down. The louts climbed into their car and drove off still shouting imprecations but we all got their car's number plate down. Three police cars arrived.

Our taxi arrived and we were swept away from the drama.

1495. Candide - 1/20/2000 6:24:55 PM

expletive deleted.

1496. cigarlaw - 1/20/2000 8:11:03 PM

Chapter 10
The Rincon Bar

Some of my best memories of my youth revolve around bars. Some years, my only memory is of bars. You see, my father made an attempt to be a professional singer at one point in his life. He was a very good Irish tenor and he was very handsome man when he was younger. His major problem was stage fright. To sing he had to first loosen his vocal cords with about six drinks. Once he was drunk enough, he could mount the stage and sing up a storm -- for awhile. His major problem, beyond his stage fright, was that he figured if he sounded this good, and felt this good with six drinks, imagine how good he would sing and how good he would feel if he had 12 drinks. Needless to say, after awhile it became a self-defeating method of singing.

When I was a young boy and my mother could not get a babysitter, she would take me with her to watch my father perform. Thus, I learned early age bars aren't that bad a place to be. In fact, bars, from my experience, are generally pretty neat places to meet people. I like hanging out in bars, if for no other reason, just to watch the drunks.

As I was saying, some of my best memories revolve around bars. "The Timbers" in Santa Barbara, where one could get literally the best vodka collins in the world until it went under new management in the late '60s, "The Ivanhoe" in Poway, about a block from my parents house, where my father and I used to hang out a lot singing for all the patrons, and "Che'Root", the only place in Modesto where it is legal smoke inside and where I attempted to hold many legal meetings with clients, are burned indelibly in my mind. "The Rincon Bar" in Havana will also live in my memory for the rest of my life. For in my adult life, the Rincon Bar is where I finally had enough money to buy whatever I wanted, without someone telling me constantly that I had enough to drink.

I wonder if anyone can have enough to drink

1497. cigarlaw - 1/20/2000 8:13:31 PM

In a previous chapter I discussed the routine of going to the bathroom. I will not bore you with that again, except to say, that now that my life seems constrained by times of urination and defication and the assistence that I need from others when I do these things, these simple bodily functions loom large in my mind -- far more than ever before. At any rate, the first thing I did after I awakened in Cuba was attend to these bodily functions, and then take a shower. I will discuss this routine later, in another context. .

After I finished my shower, and CH dried me down, I was ready to face the day. We opened the door from our room to the hallway. To the right, there was a double set of French doors with a stairway going up and about 10 feet from our door the hallway turned left. I could hear music playing, but did not know from where until I turned the corner and found myself in the Rincon Bar.

The music came from a modern CD/video jukebox. I don't remember what the first song I heard was, but I do remember hearing Meat Loaf singing, "I would do anything for love (but I won't do that)" sometime during the day.

I did not take in much when I first saw the bar, we were going to eat lunch at the restaurant across on the other side of the pool (CH already done a recon while I was showering) and I was more concerned with being able to walk and go down the steps without breaking my head open (I tried to fill out a durable power of attorney before I left, but my wife, as soon as I asked her assistance, she began to complain and say things like, "I don't understand why you haven't already done this." As a consequence, I still do not have a durable power of attorney. But, that again, is another tale).

1498. cigarlaw - 1/20/2000 8:16:22 PM

As I recall, I was about to tell you what I have never done before in a bar. I am not a very sociable person when sober. Some say (primarily my wife) that I am not a very sociable person when drunk either. I seldom talk to strangers in bars. I generally sit in a corner by myself or at the bar, and observe. I go to bars to get drunk and observe other drunks. Getting drunk is not something that I like to share with others except as an observer. (Actually this is a lie. I enjoy getting drunk and having a good time no matter who is around.) I think what I am trying to say here, at 5 o'clock in the morning, just after my wife dragged me out of bed after I went to bed about 1 AM, is this, I don't approach people in bars very easily, at least I did not earlier in my life. Perhaps it is old age setting in, my chosen profession as an attorney, or simply my diagnosis, but for the first time in my life I approached total strangers and asked them if I could buy them a drink.

You see, during the tropical rain storm that drove me inside, I saw this beautiful young woman who is a member of the band and the other bandmembers sitting about killing time. I had no one else to talk to and my beer was getting warm. So, bold as brass, I just walked up in asked the band if they wanted a drink. At first, there was some reticence, I think possibly, because they knew I was an American, and, as CH told me, all of the hotel of employees are government employees, which in a Communist country has a meaning far beyond what we expect in the United States. So, I decided I would be the ugly American, and insisted.

At any rate, the band leader, Israel, eventually realized I wasn't going to just walk away and so, he asked for a Coke. I asked him if the other bandmembers would like a Coke as well. Eventually they all said yes. As it turns out it was the best five dollars I ever spent, buying drinks in the bar for the band.

1499. cigarlaw - 1/20/2000 8:18:10 PM

Israel introduced the other bandmembers to me. Joel played the bass, Frank played the drums, Angel played guitar (and, as I found out later, is pretty good piano player as well), Israel played guitar, and Eurylia (SP.) sang the blues (sorry, that was the title I originally picked out for this story, and it does have a nice ring to it, but will have to wait.) I attempted to pronounce all their names, but when I came to the girl I just couldn't get it right. So I christened her "la Bonita", something I called her from that point forward.

I had noticed Israel played an unusual guitar -- at least unusual to me -- it had five strings, four of which were doubled, as one might see in a 12 string guitar. I asked about the guitar and he said that it was called a "tres". Apparently, it is a Cuban adaptation of a basic six string guitar that one can utilize like a 12 string. I asked Israel why he only had five strings on his guitar. I also asked him why Angel only had five strings on his guitar -- Was that also a Cuban adaptation? He told me that they had broken the guitar strings, and could not afford to buy replacements. (So, like so much else in Cuba, it was an adaptation to necessity.)

1500. cigarlaw - 1/20/2000 8:18:26 PM

At that point, I told them my son-in-law has a recording studio (true) and he could get me guitar strings slept wholesale (also true, if I can get him to remember to put in the order). I went on to tell them that if they gave me their address, once I got back to the United States I would get them the guitar strings, since I figured it would not cost much money, and I would send the strings to them, because of their music sounds good with five strings on the guitar, I wanted to hear them with the full stringed instrument. Israel told me that the band was about to cut an album (I suppose, with CDs now dominating the market, one should say "burn a CD"). I told him that I wanted a copy of it and I would gladly send in the money for it. I gave Israel my business card so he had my address and my fax number. As I indicated, this was to be something that was to have lasting consequences. For me, making friends has never been easy. When I make friends, they are my friends for life. I made several friends. I shall never forget it.

1501. cigarlaw - 1/20/2000 8:19:43 PM

After awhile, the rain stopped and Israel told me that the band had to leave. We said our goodbyes, and they left. About 20 miss later, CH came wandering out of the bedroom and in the bar.

"What's happen' man. You okay? "

"I'm doing just fine," I said, "but you missed the band."

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, the band came in and I bought them a drink, and I spent about an hour talking to them about various things."

"You're kidding?"

"Nope. In fact, the band leader said he would be back tomorrow with his wife and son to go swimming at the beach. He said he would stop by and talk to us. See what you miss by sleeping? I keep telling you, you get enough sleep when you're dead. Why waste the day by sleeping? By the way, I could use another beer and we have to go somewhere to get cigars today."

"Well, sheeit. We got to find someplace to score some cigars man."

1502. cigarlaw - 1/20/2000 8:20:22 PM

CH had brought his copy of Cigar Aficionado that had the articles about Cuba in it. He looked up and address and asked an employee of the hotel standing in front of our room where we could get a taxi. He called for the hotel Mercedes-Benz. We learned a great lesson about capitalism. It is alive and well in Cuba. When CH first talk to the driver and told them where we wanted to go he said was $20 round-trip. After a ten minute car ride that took us to a beautiful location, and we had no idea where we were, he said it was $20 one-way. Since he said he spoke no English and are Spanish was limited to just a few words, we assumed we were wrong when he first offered to take as for $20 total. As we found out later he really did take us for a ride, but not just in the limo. I guess he figured we were just a couple rich Yankees who had more money than they knew what to do with, but he cost himself a lot more money in the long run, because he missed the future tips he could have gotten.

At any rate, we were going to go to the Havana Club mentioned in Cigar Aficionado. Instead of telling him what we were looking for, we gave him an address. We figured, how many Havana Club’s can there be in Havana? We found out later, every hotel has a cigar outlet and they are all called Havana Club. What we did not know at the time, cost us about 40 bucks round-trip, instead of a ten minute walk across the parking lot. Oh well, we got to see a lot of Havana. Of course, we could us sat down and smoked one in our local Havana Club, and enjoyed some Cuban coffee (café Cubano), or the best rum in the world, also called Havana Club.

1503. cigarlaw - 1/20/2000 8:21:49 PM

When we got to where we were going we walked in the biggest place that we could find. I have no idea what it was, but I know that it had a nice bar, marble floors, and lots of people in suits. I felt shabby in my Hawaiian shirt, khaki pants, and my outstanding Panama hat (for 30 years I always wore a hat going outside, and I had acquired a really nice Panama hat some years ago– in fact it was sort of my trademark, a Panama hat in the summer and a fur felt gray fedora in the winter, and I missed being able to wear hats, so I insisted on taking my hat with me, even though I could no longer put it on or taken off myself -- I did not care if it made me looked like a colonial merchant or ugly American. Hell, I am an ugly American.). I happened to insult some people by stepping in front of them (they opened the door and I walked through it, thinking I was what they were holding the door open for, primarily because I could not see but about three feet in front of me since I couldn’t hold my head up because of the ALS and I couldn’t see because of the hat. They were actually holding the door open for some ritzy looking women.
“Hey man,” CH said as we walked down the hall, “Don’t insult people by walking in front of them.”

“What people?”

“The ones you almost knocked over getting through that door.”

“Hell, I didn’t see anyone. Why didn’t you grab me? All we need is some international incident while we’re down here because an American knocks Fidel on his ass in a public building. I don’t think they are going to be too happy with that regardless of the reason.”

1504. cigarlaw - 1/20/2000 8:23:11 PM

To make a long story short, the bartender told us were to go when we told him we wanted to buy some cigars. Eventually, we winded our way through several hallways until we saw a small wooden sign that said Havana Club. We went inside, thinking we were going to find a luxury store with leather chairs and beautiful women waiting on us. (We did not subscribe to Cigar Aficionado for nothing.) Instead we found a fat man in a dirty white shirt and boxes all about the room. I asked if he had any Bolivar Corona Gigantes. He replied that he did and opened the case --he said the he had just received a fresh shipment from the factory. I asked if he had any that could be purchased as a single, because I had never smoked a Bolivar before. He said, “No” , pointing to his humidor, well stocked with Cohibas and others that I had little interest in trying, and continued, “The only ones we have as singles are those.” (I found out later, if you don’t know what kind of cigar you want when you get Havana, you are going to spend a lot of money finding out which ones you like the best, since with the exception of the most expensive cigars that the tourist’s all buy, all cigars are sold only by the box. Fortunately, I had read about Bolivars before I came and decided to buy at least a box of them, finding out that they were amongst the strongest, most highly flavored, and least expensive premium cigars in Cuba. So, I bought a box for $138.00, and told him that if I liked them I would be back to buy more. Fortunately, but for the draw, I loved them.

1505. cigarlaw - 1/20/2000 8:23:47 PM

We went back to the hotel and the first thing I did was open the box and look at 25 of the prettiest cigars I had ever seen. I pulled one out, went into the bar, ordered a beer, and guiltily lit it up. I say “guiltily” because I’m from California, home of anti-smoking zealots and general assholes, who have nothing better to do but complain about someone else’s smoking and demonstrate their concern for the other person’ s health by pouring water over his head if he dares smoke in their presence. I quickly found out that in Cuba, almost everyone smokes, and they are not concerned about your health. In fact, in Cuba it is expected that one finish a fine meal or drink with something to smoke. In that sense, Cuba is very much like I remember America used to be before the government figured out that they should try to get money from “big tobacco” for what the citizens have done to themselves.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We went to dinner at the hotel dining room and I had salmon, that was a little old and overcooked, and a beer for dinner. As I recall, CH had chicken of some sort. We sat outside the rest of the evening watching a show put on for the benefit of the patrons of the resort in which we stayed. As I recall, it was a group of African musicians and dancers doing traditional African and Cuban songs and dances. I was busy smoking one cigar after another and drinking beer and loving every minute of it.







.

1506. ScottLoar - 1/20/2000 10:23:12 PM

Your work is eagerly awaited here and earnestly appreciated.

1507. Candide - 1/20/2000 11:28:30 PM

I second that.

1508. cigarlaw - 1/21/2000 1:32:52 AM

i think this mat be a good time to digress on the art of the cigar.

1509. PelleNilsson - 1/21/2000 2:59:55 PM

I like it CigarLaw. Uncontrived, a bit of the funny, a bit of the moving, a bit of the philosophical, no self-pity, completely free of conceit.

1510. hashke - 1/22/2000 12:08:14 PM

Pelle:

I have in mind posting a Mexican tale of some length, the following being an intro, but I don't want to untimely interrupt the excellent disquisitions of cigarlaw. I'll wait for your go-ahead.

Some Mexican villages are addicted to nocurnal
fiestecitas which are distinguished by electronic-acoustic
devices: un tocadiscos (record player) and the M.C.'s
mirófono, proffering horrendously vulgar canciones rancheras
and a locutor's announcements and dedications over a
private address system, all easily audible throughout
the region, even to inhabitants afflicted with severe
congenital deafness. The trumpets of Doomsday would
sound muffled by comparison; and the horns of Jericho
would have had a muted ring when compared to the
stentorian roar of these village tocadiscos. These scenes
are often garishly illuminated by the iconic
foco desnudo -- a dangling, singularly bare, light bulb.

1511. hashke - 1/22/2000 12:41:05 PM

Sorry. Above should have been addressed to host webfeet.

1512. PelleNilsson - 1/22/2000 1:46:35 PM

Who was Stentor?

1513. hashke - 1/22/2000 2:22:25 PM

The loud herald Stentor, of the Iliad.

1514. hashke - 1/22/2000 2:31:03 PM

stentorian
Stentor was the herald of the Greek army at Troy, who could speak with the power of fifty men. Today we may liken a powerful orator to Stentor and designate the effect of his voice as stentorian.

1515. PelleNilsson - 1/22/2000 2:42:49 PM

I know that you know and you should have known that I know.

1516. hashke - 1/22/2000 3:38:57 PM

Your question indicated that you didn't know and how would I know that you knew had you not intimated that I knew and you didn't know?

1517. sakonige - 1/22/2000 3:49:07 PM

hashke,

It was interesting information to me. I had heard the origin of the word stentorian before, but not so precisely put.

1518. sakonige - 1/22/2000 3:50:25 PM

hashke,

I'm also looking forward to reading your story of Mexican fiestas.

I have so little real knowledge of Mexico even though I lived in California with Mexicans in the midst of Mexican culture for much of my childhood. It wasn't obvious to me then, but I can see now that especially my mother's family made an issue of not being mistaken for Mexicans to the extent of avoiding any close association with Mexicans. As a result, I thought the Mexican culture all around me was distant and foreign, and I didn't pay attention to it. I can remember only one childhood friend who was Mexican, Maria.

1519. PelleNilsson - 1/22/2000 3:57:00 PM

Hashke
It's not easy to know as you and I know.

1520. hashke - 1/22/2000 4:12:55 PM

Sakonige:

Ah, María!

1521. hashke - 1/22/2000 4:14:15 PM

Pelle:

But difficult to know what we do know.

1522. Candide - 1/22/2000 4:25:09 PM

hashke

I eagerly anticipate your Mexican mole.
I didn't know the origin of 'stentorian' but now that you explain I recall that reincarnations of the original have shouted into my ear (opera) on many an occasion. One longed for an Abstentor.

Sakonige.

You should read My Place by Sally Morgan, an Australian Aboriginal writer. I think you would appreciate it.

1523. hashke - 1/22/2000 4:30:00 PM

Pelle:

Isn't about your bedtime up there in that tundral permafrost, time to lop off the top of an enemy's (any old Dane will do) head, scrape out the skull, and with a quart or so of aquavit, watch a Bergman (The Virgin Spring would fit), say 'skol' to the world -- and thence merrily to bed?

1524. hashke - 1/22/2000 4:33:42 PM

Candide:

One longed for an Abstentor.

But it was mole than one could hope for.

1525. Candide - 1/22/2000 4:40:15 PM

In Stentor's case, moler his cavernous molars so that he could no longer molestar the oreja. Stenor. Forget the T.

1526. hashke - 1/22/2000 4:53:15 PM

The polestar on the Tejo?

1527. sakonige - 1/22/2000 4:59:00 PM

Thanks, Candide. I may get a chance to read it during a journey through Mexico someday soon. It's important to me to gain a good understanding Latin America and especially Mexico. I intend to spend a lot of time there in the next few years.

1528. PelleNilsson - 1/22/2000 5:01:12 PM

Hashke

You're absolutely right. Nowadays we don't literally chop of heads, but half an hour ago we humiliated the Danes in the European Handball Championships. And, in my case, the aquavit has been replaced by red wine. The Virgin Spring is appropriate as light entertainment.

1529. hashke - 1/22/2000 5:02:04 PM

Pelle:

Spoken like a true Viking!

1530. Candide - 1/22/2000 5:02:41 PM

Sakonige

It wouldn't help your understanding of Mexico, but it might help your understanding of people's attitudes - an understanding that you obviously already possess.

1531. sakonige - 1/22/2000 5:03:52 PM

Mole is definitely one of the things I'm looking forward to learning more about in Mexico. A local restaurant makes an excellent mole using apples, chocolate and magic that they sell by the pint. There are all sorts of interesting, mysterious things in moles.

1532. Candide - 1/22/2000 5:05:02 PM

Tornero subito al'italiano dove nascondo col'esperanto mio.

1533. hashke - 1/22/2000 5:12:05 PM

Capisco ben le due lingue.

1534. hashke - 1/22/2000 5:15:37 PM

...bene...

1535. Candide - 1/22/2000 7:14:44 PM

Ho comprato un dizionario Spagnólo/Español (Collins) cosi buon mercato che tutte le lettere sono diffusi all'orli. Ho sempre voluto ad imparare Spagnólo. Cervantes è motivo sufficiente. Ne ho cantato, che almeno mi ha dato uno squarcio. La grammatica mi pare, rassomiglia al quella Italiana. Passato remoto in Spagnólo sembra ancora piu in giro che in Italiano.

1536. Candide - 1/22/2000 7:16:23 PM

Ma— narra - narra.

1537. Uzmakk - 1/24/2000 6:44:17 PM

1493Candide:
I just read this and understood it. It was such a nonsequiturian for me. How was it for you?

1538. Candide - 1/24/2000 8:42:14 PM

Uzmakk

Deep waters over my head is what it was for me.

hashke

Webfeet is busy being pregnant. I planted all my childhood ephemera simply because this thread was dying from neglect.

If your Mexico tale is ready - we'd love you to post it.The 'we' is not the royal variety, but a confident feeling that I am not alone in this.

1539. hashke - 1/25/2000 12:13:51 AM

Thanks, Candide. I'll try to find the time tomorrow, unless cigar decides to go.

1540. sakonige - 1/25/2000 12:20:49 AM

I hope cigar doesn't decide to go yet. I hope he stays for a while.

1541. sakonige - 1/25/2000 12:23:32 AM

(fixed yer pun)

1542. hashke - 1/25/2000 10:45:16 AM

LA PACHANGA

Some Mexican villages are addicted to nocturnal
fiestecitas, or more appropriately pachangas,
fiestas of great noise and disturbance,
which are distinguished by electronic-acoustic
devices: un tocadiscos (record player) and the M.C.'s
micrófono, proffering vulgar canciones rancheras
and a locutor's announcements and dedications over a
private address system, all easily audible throughout
the region, even to inhabitants afflicted with severe
congenital deafness. The trumpets of Doomsday would
sound muffled by comparison; and the horns of Jericho
would have had a muted ring when compared to the
stentorian roar of these village tocadiscos. These scenes
are often garishly illuminated by the iconic
foco desnudo -- a dangling, singularly bare light bulb.

1543. hashke - 1/25/2000 10:50:25 AM

We were asleep in a small village in Sinaloa,
when at about three in the morning there was
suddenly a noise of the intensity of the
Archangels' trombones awakening the dead at the
Apoclyptic Second Coming, a commotion that
could be heard in the far reaches of the
area, perhaps even in Tepic. A loudspeaker
seemed to be right under the mattress. I
slipped on a bathrobe and a pair of
huaraches over my bare feet and crept
out into the tar-black village streets,
determined to locate the source of this
ear-shattering thunderation of brass
winds -- next to which the Ode to Joy
( 'Freude, Freude, schöne Götterfunken,
Töchter aus Elysium...') chorus at the
end of the Ninth was but a timid
kindergarten ditty.

1544. hashke - 1/25/2000 10:55:51 AM

After zigzagging through the alleyways
I came to a low rock wall (barda).
I gazed across this barrier into a garden
from whence emanated this infernal acoustic
pandemonium. In the States the police
would have made short shrift of such an
outrageous disturbance of the peace.
Pero no en Méjico... Around a crude mesa,
under a eucalyptus tree, were sitting four
hombres, guzzlers of heroic intent, tippling
jarros con pulque (fermented dishwater suds
and the acidulous slop of that peculiar
planta cactácea), carried to them by
submissive, braided Aztec women, who came
from within the plastered adobe vivienda.

1545. hashke - 1/25/2000 11:08:49 AM

Not unaware of the delicacy of this
mission and the diplomacy required
(la diplomatie de ma mission délicate),
and blinking, half-mesmerized by the
single naked light bulb (el foco desnudo)
dangling from the eucalipto, painting
bizarre shadow-work about the garden, I
addressed myself to one of the machos,
the only one who displayed a modicum of
sobriety, and inquired with consummate
courtesy whether it would be at all possible
to turn down the volume of their deafening
bullhorn, dado que mi familia (en la cual hay
una enferma) no puede dormir en absoluto a
causa de este enorme ruido -- given that my
family, (one of whom was not feeling well)
cannot sleep at all because of this terrible
racket. The man's sole response was a mere
gesture: he stretched out his thumb and
forefinger (el pulgar y el dedo índice),
holding their tips about one centimeter
apart -- a Mexican folkway Gebärde
signifying that it will be only un
ratito -- the tiniest little bit of time,
which, according to the unlimited elasticity
del concepto indefinido de la duración,
may indicate five seconds, five minutes,
five hours, or five days.

1546. hashke - 1/25/2000 11:21:37 AM

The sincerity of the attitude
accompanying the gesture enlivens
the hope that el ratito will
not mean more than five minutes.
Mais cet optimisme n'est jamais justifié.
This gesture serves only as a crude sort
of tranquilizer. The denouement
(more like a coup de théâtre)was no
surprise. As I was expressing my request,
my supplication for a mitigation of this
orchestral onslaught in the dead of the night,
a disembodied voice answered me, apparently
the voice belonging to the M.C., who was
half-hidden behind the eucalipto
where he operated the microphone, the record
player and his diabolical loudspeaker --su
diabólico altoparlante -- through which,
with slurred words, he shouted:

No venga molestarnos aquí! Vuelva a su tierra!
Vivimos en el Estado libre de Sinaloa, y
somos mejicanos libres! No nos moleste!
(Don't come around here bothering us! Go
back to your own country! We live in the
free State of Sinaloa, and we are free
Mexicans. Don't bother us!

1547. hashke - 1/25/2000 11:34:49 AM

Thus blared the bullhorn operated by
this hombre empulqueado. It was his
constitutional right to deprive the
whole village of sleep with the acoustic
bedlam, and he would not allow this goddam
gringo to tell him what to do. I could
have rejoined by quoting the hallowed dictum
of Benito Juárez: El respeto al derecho
ajeno es la paz! -- The respect for another's
rights means peace!, but I realized that
any further argumentation would be futile.
So I left this stage of lo Absurdo y de
lo Ridículo and returned to the inn in full
rout. It was now already approaching four
in the morning, dark as coal, una noche
negromanta, sin luna ni estrellas -- moonless
and starless. The only light was the foquito
desnudo -- the little naked bulb, hanging
sadly --lúgubre y asustador -- from a branch
of the tree en un jardin proletario during
this idiotic party. This was the only unpleasant
reception I ever experienced in much travel in Mexico.

(continued)

1548. hashke - 1/25/2000 11:50:17 AM

Defeated, I went back to the hotel
where my wife repeated to me word for
word the embarrassing and preposterous
'dialog' with the voice of the invisible
cabrón -- goatish fellow (asshole).
Since his hellish noise must have kept
most of the village awake, nearly
all of its inhabitants did probably
eavesdrop on the dressing-down I sustained
over the ubiquitous sound waves of the
loudspeaker. The demented música ranchera
continued for one hour longer -- for the
principle del macho had to be upheld
-- he could not lose face by turning off the
tocadiscos right away. La dignidad del mejicano
soberano must be maintained. Around five
in the morning, the inebriated operator of the
amplifier collapsed over the switch (el esuiche)
and everything went off the air. Once
more the 'law of the bare bulb' -- in Mexico's
unwritten constitution, perhaps symbolizing
unyielding timelessness and continuity --had
prevailed! In Puerto Rico they might say la
bombilla bárbara -- the barbaric little bulb.

(continued)

1549. hashke - 1/25/2000 11:53:49 AM

Later that day I talked in the plaza
with villagers who had heard the ruckus.
They said that they were tired of being
disturbed until all hours of the morning,
but were very afraid of the consequences
of interrupting this particularly notorious
and sinister group of pulquerized pachangueros.

Finis

1550. hashke - 1/25/2000 11:54:55 AM

I have no idea why everything turned to italics! 'Check for Dust' showed normal.

1551. Candide - 1/25/2000 6:39:12 PM

hahaha

Very funny.
Very nicely told.

1552. marjoribanks - 1/25/2000 6:44:56 PM

Formidable, Pak Hashke.

El foco desnudo has inspired me, tomorrow I will bare another piece in homage to yours.

1553. Candide - 1/25/2000 6:48:30 PM

When my last message was on the next "page" it wasn't in italics.

marjoribanks

Go for your life.

hashke, we want and expect more of the same or similar or even different.

1554. marjoribanks - 1/25/2000 6:53:04 PM

Candide,

The theme of el foco desnudo has been intermittently maintained for several months here. Why don't you contribute? Surely the naked bulb has been occasionally a part of your life.

1555. Candide - 1/25/2000 7:09:31 PM

marjoribanks

Your turn I think. I have a tale about noise in a foreign lodging but I haven't crafted it.

Whatever happened to your grandparents?

1556. cigarlaw - 1/25/2000 8:29:11 PM

shit. either i got a batch of bad batteries, or there is somethig seriously wrong with my condenser mic. haven't been able to work at all for two weeks--even on suff i'm paid for.

1557. Candide - 1/25/2000 8:33:17 PM

cigarlaw

You of course, have precedence. Your Cuban adventures are awaited eagerly. Sorry about your technical difficulties.

1558. Candide - 1/25/2000 9:38:10 PM

I do have an el foco desnudo and seeing that cigarlaw is noot ready I hope that this will not seem an intrusion.

1559. Candide - 1/25/2000 9:39:51 PM

The Naked Lightbulb

It was done. My mother’s ashen face had peered through a crack in the door as I left in a taxi with all my worldly goods.

I had cut the chord. The unsuitable but loved daughter had declared her separateness.

It felt like death.

The taxi deposited me at the front door of the rambling tenement mansion where I had rented a room. I paid the driver with money borrowed from a friend. It drove away.

My student friends who lived there were all away doing the things that adequately financed students do.

I entered my room. It was higher than it was wide or long. It was next door to the bathroom and every water pipe in the house ran through the room.

Desolation overcame me.

I looked at the gas ring in the corner. I had never cooked a meal in my life. My mother claimed the kitchen as her domain. I was to be a lady. An artist. My mother would say this with resentment. She was not an easy woman.

I had obtained a job as a waitress in order to pay my rent and buy my food. My honest father had punished my desertion by informing the university that I would not be attending all the lectures and therefore should forfeit my scholarship. He then sold the piano which had come from my mother’s family anyway. My lecturer had said he would sign me in as having attended but my father was honest.

I was expelled from the world. An outcast. The naked lightbulb, hanging by a ragged cord from the ceiling of my damp room, swung in the draught.

continued

1560. Candide - 1/25/2000 9:40:14 PM

The unpainted wooden house was over a century old. It had two storeys, an over-grown garden and a sweeping gravel drive. It was inhabited by life’s flotsam. Students, refugees, displaced persons of all varieties. A dwarf-like woman collected the rent from this and other similar houses crowded with misfits.

I cycled to my job as a waitress. The owner of the restaurant had a soft spot for students and often gave me a huge left-over helping of boiling stew in a tall stainless steel bowl which immediately became red hot from the stew. I would cycle home in the dark, balancing the bowl of stew on the handlebars of the bicycle and desperately avoiding the tram lines in the road. The feared fall never happened.

I shared my stew with the other larrikin students who were usually waiting with famished faces.

Then I became ill. Very ill indeed. I had quinsy, a disease that was not supposed to exist any more.

A kind student let me move into his room and use his better bed. I was too ill to be moved to a hospital. The student slept in an old armchair with a broken spring.

One morning there was a knock on his door.

My friend, still in pyjamas opened the door and there was my mother. My gallant difficult little mother had traced me to the mansion.

Yes, I did return home, but not for long. There was a new distance between us. I was not quite one of the tribe any more.

I was the alien who done an unspeakable thing.
I left soon afterwards and have lived happily ever after.

1561. hashke - 1/25/2000 9:43:13 PM

Candide and Pak marj:

Thank you for your very kind remarks! I, along with the other hypothetical one or two readers of this penumbral thread,
lit only by a single foco desnudo, shall look forward to
your stories.

1562. hashke - 1/25/2000 9:48:08 PM

Candide:

Our posts crossed. I thoroughly enjoyed your tale. 'Larrikin' is nicely used.

1563. hashke - 1/25/2000 9:49:51 PM

cigarlaw:

You are confusing your batteries with your fecking cigars. ;-)

1564. hashke - 1/25/2000 9:51:11 PM

Candide:

The 'foco desnudo' has a close cousin in 'the broken spring'.

1565. Candide - 1/25/2000 9:52:16 PM

hashke

Thanks. It was the most naked light bulb of all the other naked light bulbs in my life.

1566. Candide - 1/25/2000 9:54:37 PM

hashke
The broken springer is still my companion. And not because of the incident with my mother.

1567. Candide - 1/25/2000 10:52:27 PM

The line beginning par.2 describing my departure from home is not meant to be a musical pun. It should read "I had cut the CORD". An Italian expression.

1568. hashke - 1/25/2000 11:02:28 PM

Candide:

Accordato!

1569. Candide - 1/25/2000 11:06:31 PM

Ne ho scordato.

1570. sakonige - 1/25/2000 11:13:47 PM

Candide, thank you for sharing your lightbulb story. It gives a better understanding of you and why you misunderstand me.

1571. Candide - 1/25/2000 11:18:21 PM

sakonige

I don't think I really misunderstood you. I respect you very much.

We were in a very difficult area if you remember. I over reacted.

Thanks for your message. It makes me happy.

1572. hashke - 1/26/2000 9:35:28 AM

And where the helle is Pelle? He was earlier vociferous in requesting a messcan story.

I wrote it partly for him to bring him into the land of the huarache. I picture him sitting up there on the ice floe, shivering, wrapped in a blanket, wearing his Viking helmet, red-eyed and -nosed, feet in a steaming tub, reading Strindberg, all whilst fending off Belial with gluggings of glögg.

1573. Jenerator - 1/26/2000 11:13:37 AM

Candide,

I liked your light bulb story (and the way you write!). Please post more.

1574. marjoribanks - 1/26/2000 11:16:50 AM

One of the interesting things that happened when electricity came to the little island is that people who were invisible became visible for the first time. What do I mean? Well, there were shadowy formless ignored people who lived there among the titled ancients and decaying grand houses and whitewashed chapels and crumbling ramparts. Most of these were the children or grandchildren of slaves, and as I mentioned before, were handed down like property through the generations, like the mango trees and laterite quarries and rights to ancient wells.

Indians have a wonderful ability to only see what they want even when other things are staring them in the face. This applies to dirt, and flies, and sores on dogs. And also applied to these mulattoes, they flitted about in the marketplace and in the dark hallways and balcaos of the old houses, even on the buses and auto-rickshaws that still cough up and down the village steets. But no one saw them, or even really knew that they existed.

This changed when electricity came to the island. All of a sudden, shadows that hid generations of these people were illuminated and the cloak of darkness that kept them invisible was lifted. It was uncomfortable for the old-timers, they'd sat in the balcaos and walked their dark corridors as though alone. Now, the naked bulb cast unfamiliar rays shadows where none had been experienced, even inn their own faces, and what had been concealed for so very long became apparent. Darkness had become comfortable to the old-timers, after so many years, but never again could they seek its solace and imagine that they lived alone.

The end.

1575. Jenerator - 1/26/2000 11:21:15 AM

I love this thread.

1576. hashke - 1/26/2000 12:19:49 PM

Pak marj:

Bravo! Beautifully written!

It is Egypt, too!

I am reading 'Biswas', a fine work indeed.

1577. hashke - 1/26/2000 12:43:44 PM

In Nayarit I met, sitting in a plaza, an engineer (ingeniero civil). After chatting for a bit, he invited me to look a new house he had built for himself in the pueblecito.

It was a pretentious mansion made from elaborately hand-hewn and churigueresco-shaped granite and lava-rock (piedra labrada).
But from the ceiling of the very formal Sala hung a proletarian -- you guessed it -- FOCO DESNUDO, with its slummy aura of poverty.

1578. KULIgintheHOOLIgan - 1/26/2000 1:24:48 PM

"Indians have a wonderful ability to only see what they want even when other things are staring them in the face."

marjoribanks, aren't you Indian? This explains a lot.

1579. PelleNilsson - 1/26/2000 3:06:38 PM

Hashke

I did read the Mexistory. The story was great but the writing left something to be desired. You are a master of the sparse, understated prose, but less happy, in my very humble opinion, in the flowery genre you went for in that story.

I don't mean to offend you.

1580. hashke - 1/26/2000 3:28:30 PM

Pelle:

De gustibus non est...etc., etc.

I'll try to make the next one as sparse and understated as the back leg of a Giacomettian lemur.

Btw, did the sketch of Pelle in his hibernal lair touch a nerve? Where humor is involved one must treat a Viking with kid gloves, you know. ;-)

1581. hashke - 1/26/2000 3:37:17 PM

Pak marj:

I just watched Charlie Rose interview the great Naipaul. Charlie had great difficulty in pinning him down. He did not want to open up about 'Biswas' -- said he had not looked at it since he wrote it. And about Theroux he was also evasive, saying that he had not read what Theroux had written about him, that he had known Theroux for only about nine months. Charlie kept digging but N. clammed up and dismissed it as something 'that one does not talk too much about', or somesuch.

Perhaps you also saw the interview?

In all a strange and fascinating fellow.

1582. PelleNilsson - 1/26/2000 3:45:18 PM

Hashke

It didn't strike a nerve at all. Quite funny. And I've said my piece, and you yours. Die Sache, meine ich, ist beendet.

1583. Candide - 1/26/2000 4:06:21 PM

marjoribanks

It painted a vivid picture. The interruption of an ancisnt attitude.

Thank you.

hashke

At least Pelle read yours.

Jenerator

Thank you. Have you got a naked light bulb tale?

1584. hashke - 1/26/2000 4:12:13 PM

And I've said my piece, and you yours. Die Sache, meine ich, ist beendet.

Ausserordentlich ungebührlich! Es gibt gar keine 'Sache' und auch keine Ursache für 'ist beendet'. Das ist das Schimpfen einer xantippischen Frau.

Naja, wahrscheinlich ein Beispiel des wikingischen Humors, etwas zwischen Klopapier und Kinderwindeln. (g)

1585. PelleNilsson - 1/26/2000 4:36:09 PM

Hashke

I don't get all of the German but the gist of it seems unkind. So be it then, although I did not intend it to be so.

1586. Candide - 1/26/2000 4:39:59 PM

PelleNilsson

Have you got an el foco desnudo tale? Or did you write one before I became aware of the tradition?

1587. PelleNilsson - 1/26/2000 5:39:31 PM

Without Major Bank's permission here is the original story for the benefit of our new friends:

"Electricity only came to the island in 1972. The rest of the state, and the rest of the country had "modernized" earlier, but somehow, the ambitious planners and movers and shakers skipped the two islands in the river, ignoring them even as everyone else had ignored them for the centuries since the Old City was abandoned due to the Pestilence. The old ancestral house stood on the hill as it always had, only now it was half-shuttered, no longer the seat of religious and political power and the center of a bustling agricultural empire. The sons of the house had found power and empires elsewhere, and the only caretakers were an aged grand-uncle and his childless wife, and their companion, the daughter of African slaves who had been passed down in the family as surely as the cashew plantations and mango orchards.

When electricity made its way to the island, it was only fitting that the old ancestral house should be the first private recipient. And the house stood proud on the island again. Every evening, little groups of shy children (and older fok) drifted to the grand balcao. "Tio, can you put on the light?" they'd say, and the old grand-uncle, his station vastly improved by this development, would illuminate for their pleasure a small naked "made-in-Hungary" bulb which cast unexpected shadows all along the grand decrepid space."

1588. PelleNilsson - 1/26/2000 5:40:28 PM

"And the evening rosary was now illuminated with modernity, the leader's lilting Portuguese somehow easier to understand.As the shadows increased and night fell even more impenetrably outside the house, the balcao remained a pool of light. And then, in the silence broken only by frogs and a distant dogs bark, the daughter of slaves would sing. Portuguese songs, fados, mandos, dulpods, the songs of nostalgia and saudade, yearning for a country and a time she had never seen and would never see. And the bulb would flicker on defiantly, holding back the darkness."

1589. Candide - 1/26/2000 6:33:03 PM

PelleNilsson

Pestilence threw me for a moment but that must be Goa and Marjoribanks.

It is indeed a powerful series of images, and it has colour and smell.
Strong.

1590. hashke - 1/26/2000 7:25:26 PM

Nej, Pelle, aldrig ovänlig -- jag försökte bara en humoristisk kommentar, og tydligen har jag misslycklades!

1591. hashke - 1/26/2000 9:22:49 PM

...misslyckades...

1592. marjoribanks - 1/26/2000 10:58:12 PM

Thanks for the kind words, folks.

But, Hooligan, whatever do you mean by your crack? This wouldn't be because I still refuse to toe your evangelical missionary line, would it?

1593. marjoribanks - 1/26/2000 11:01:26 PM

Candide,

The Pestilence was the plague, which forced the outrageously grand capital of Golden Dourada to finally decay, become abandoned, and shift just a few decades after its heyday - when it was one of the richest cities in the world. Of course, the lengthy and bloody Inquisition which forced a goodly portion of the population to flee Goa (Hindus and conversos alike) helped this process as well.

1594. Candide - 1/26/2000 11:07:37 PM

marjoribanks

Inquisition?

The one that no one escapes? The same one? Or a private subcontinental inquision? When?

There are great books to be written by someone like yourself.

So much to learn.

1595. marjoribanks - 1/26/2000 11:18:16 PM

Candide,

The "great" Catholic "saint" St. Francis Xavier, whose body is still interred (miraculously preserved, doncha know) in Goa and pulled out every ten years for an Exposition, called for the so-called Spanish Inquisition to be imported to Goa when he spent some (quite unsuccessful) years there. Some years later, after his death in Japan in fact, the monarch of Portugal followed through. What ensued was an exceptionally bloody, century+ reign of terror, which managed to rid Goa of a good portion of not only Hindus but sincere conversos and IMO permanently ruined the chance for the extended spread of Christianity in the largely tolerant multi-religious Indian subcontinent. Of course, ancient and valuable temples were destroyed etc. etc. And of course, missionaries are still trying but I very much doubt they'll make much of a dent.

It's not an unexplored area of history, actually.

1596. marjoribanks - 1/26/2000 11:23:22 PM

Pak Hashke,

I missed the interview, I'd have liked to see it. But Rose can be such a churl at times, it's possible it would have enraged me despite my interest in the subject. Naipaul is an odd man, but I really admire him and his writing and his fastidious brand of adventuresomeness.

After you read Biswas (one of my all time favorite books) you may enjoy the earlier Trinidad novels, ligh-hearted and loving but so so well-crafted. he turned sour somewhere around Biswas, and is only now getting somewhat over it.

1597. Candide - 1/26/2000 11:25:29 PM

Marjoribanks

Today I am pretending to throw out un-needed papers. I have found a print-out of a piece about Naipaul from NY Books, "The Writer and India" 20 February, 1999. It is about Naipaul's shock at seeing beyond the ravages of the British, to earlier ravages that were fashionably ignored by modern nationalists. "The independence struggle, the movement against the British, had obscured the calamities of India before the British.Evidence of these calamities lay on every side. But the independence movement was like religion; it didn't see what it didn't want to see."

Like your el foco desnudo.

I can't seem to find the author. The name David Pryce-Jones is mentioned at the beginning.

1598. Candide - 1/26/2000 11:26:24 PM

I see the actual article is dated March 4, 1999.

1599. marjoribanks - 1/26/2000 11:30:58 PM

I buy that quote, Candide, to some extent only though. Naipaul has become a teensy bit of a Hindu triumphalist and I find that equally a teensy bit distasteful. In addition, he's a tad too affected by the North of India and tends to see the nation writ large only in its travails and tempestuous history. You see, I'm fundamentally part of the far less troubled and "wounded" South and refuse to accept that our history, experience and contemporary reality is any less relevant to gauging the state of Indian affairs and society as a whole.

These are quibbles only.

1600. Candide - 1/26/2000 11:38:50 PM

marjoribanks

But quibbles of quality.

What a seductive beast this nationalism is.

1601. Candide - 1/26/2000 11:41:04 PM

I can't remember which place in Italy has St Catherine's finger perfectly preserved as a relic.

And there's an old codger in a glass case in Milan somewhere. All of him, apart from the bits that have fallen off or crumbled.

1602. marjoribanks - 1/26/2000 11:50:34 PM

Candide,

I'm leaving now, but wish to leave you the tidbit that Francis's arm was cut off by the Church authorities and sent as a relic to Rome. There, I kid you not, a portion was ground up to provide a curative application for the Pope's haemmorhoids.

Also, re your comment about nationalism, you're not kidding. Here is a column by a fervent Hindu nationalist ideologue (from the ruling BJP party no less) on the Inquisition in Goa. Enjoy!

1603. Candide - 1/27/2000 12:05:23 AM

marjoribanks

It makes the traditional Italian gesture of striking inside the arm joint with the other hand, while maintaining a raised clenched fist seem almost a genuflection.

Papasterarse tail.

1604. rdbrewer - 1/27/2000 6:48:25 PM

Hi, folks. I was trying to explain to some people on a mailing list to which I subscribe the origin of the word "sandwich". Here is our dialogue:

...and, let me guess, hamburgers come from Hamburg.
--Adam

That issue has been in dispute for over six hundred years.  We do know for sure, however, that sandwiches come from the Sandwich Islands.
--Darren

I read that sandwiches were named after an 18th century English aristocrat, the Earl of Sandwich.
--Adam

I wonder what land gave the Earl of Sandwich his title.  The island of Wales, maybe?
--Darren

Not the Sandwich Islands, that's certain.  They were named after an earlier Earl of Sandwich. The Earl of Sandwich was an avid gambler.  He like gambling so much that he wouldn't stop even to eat.  He was in the habbit of ordering slices of meat and bread, he would use the bread to hold the meat so that he could eat while playing cards.   Friends of his liked the idea so they began doing it too, they named these bread meat holders "sandwiches" after the Earl of Sandwich.
--Charles

That Earl of Sandwich played poker in the Sandwich Islands palace -- in reality, a fort.  And the reason why the islands were so named is because the native inhabitants believed in a beautiful goddess of the beach, a sand goddess. In the same fashion the English called us "yankees," they disrespectfully referred to the goddess as "the sand witch"; hence, the name, "Sandwich Islands".  The "t" was dropped from the word on recognition of the fact that the English would frequently drop their tea while walking across the sandy beaches.
--Darren

1605. Candide - 1/27/2000 10:50:42 PM

rdbrewer

We did the Sandwich family and comestible and indeed diplomatic careers some time ago. Down to the last crumb and colonial bastardry. I couldn't bear to type it all out again. I think it was on the language thread but wouldn't swear to it.

The best thing one could say about the Sandwich family was to recognise the gift from one of them to the fast food industry.

1606. sakonige - 1/27/2000 11:49:12 PM

hashké,

I loved your foco desnudo story with its Spanish translations. The elements of noise and contention complement the peppery Spanish flavors of the language and location. I so much admire your language ability. Thanks for sharing it. I don't have a foco desnudo story of my own to share yet. I can think of too many possibilities.

hashké, what exactly does 'foco' translate to in English? What kinds of lights other than lightbulbs does it describe?

1607. Candide - 1/28/2000 12:31:29 AM

sakonige

In my cheap Spanish dictionary they give "focus" and "flood-light" as well as light bulb.

I too would welcome more of hashke's writing whether florid or sparse. Writers have to experiment and should not feel inhibited in any way. How else can a style be formed and all areas of understanding explored?

1608. hashke - 1/28/2000 12:36:01 AM

Sakonige:

I'm glad that you enjoyed the story. Thank you! I decided to write it in a somewhat Gongoristic style, leaving in Spanish expressions and so forth to try to reflect the concussive aura or environment of that dark and noisy night. I'm pleased that it succeeded for you.

A 'foco' is a focus or center, and in Mexican parlance, 'light bulb'. When one says in Mexico 'Se me prendió el foco'
(literally, 'the bulb caught fire for me') the extended meaning is 'I had a good idea, I solved the problem', somewhat like English 'I saw the light'.

1609. hashke - 1/28/2000 12:40:30 AM

Candide:

Thanks. Agreed, and criticism is inevitable -- as it should be.

1610. Candide - 1/28/2000 1:00:15 AM

hashke

Indeed.

1611. Candide - 1/28/2000 1:08:18 AM

I would like to mention a film on this thread because it doesn't seem to be the sort of thing that interests most of the film thread Moties, although I will also post something on that thread.

I saw a film that has affected me profoundly. I had recorded it a few days ago and played it last night.
A Dutch film, directed by Mike van Diem. From the novel Karakter ("Character") by Ferdinand Bordewijk. I found it to be a powerful experience from start to finish. It was compared by the program's presenter as being a mixture of Dickens and Kafka. Yes, and more than that. It was filmed in Rotterdam and set in the 1920s and 30s. There was not a bad frame in the whole film. The industrial urban landscape was a setting for austerely dramatic characters. The acting was formidable and the casting perfect. The musical score was exactly right.

I believe that Mike van Diem has a reputation for arrogance. He can afford to be arrogant.

1612. Candide - 1/28/2000 1:09:27 AM

Sorry about the "compared by" sentence.

1613. Candide - 1/28/2000 1:14:01 AM

"Karakter" made in 1997

1614. rdbrewer - 1/28/2000 10:54:44 AM

Candide:

The "t" was dropped from the word in recognition of the fact that the English would frequently drop their tea while walking across the sandy beaches.

You see, it was meant to be humorous because of the plausiblity of the bullshit . . . and, ah . . . Oh, well. Guess you had to be there.

--Quasivoltaire

1615. JudithAtHome - 1/28/2000 11:04:11 AM

Candide:

If you will go to MoteMovies, CalGals movie review site, you'll see a review of Character by me.

I loved the movie and was very shaken by it. My husband commented to me that he felt as though he'd lived through the young mans life during the movie. It was brutal.

We have been to Rotterdam and thought the film represented the atmosphere there quite well...even in sunshine, it feels chilled.

1616. Candide - 1/28/2000 3:09:28 PM

JudithatHome

I did later read your review and I'm sorry that I was a little critical of it although I realised that you had appreciated the film. I felt that you gave emphasis to the plot, whereas it was the atmospherics and photography, plus the pace of the plot that made it exceptional. I felt that for someone who hadn't seen the film, the power of the experience was not conveyed.

That was obviously just my overwrought personal reaction.

1617. JudithAtHome - 1/28/2000 3:33:00 PM

Candide:

Well, that was my first effort at writing a review and I wanted to give an idea of the plot because many people want to know what a film is about before they will attempt to watch it. And many people will avoid a film if it is dreamily waxed eloquent over concerning camera work, subliminal meaning, eerie musical score, etc.

Maybe our current discussion of it will pique more interest in seeing it for those who like one type of review or the other. That's the main point, right? :-)

1618. PelleNilsson - 1/28/2000 3:41:10 PM

While we are waiting for CigarLaw to re-appear here is some more canned stuff for the amusement of newcomers. The following is by Angel-Five, one of the Mote's finest writers. Don't read too fast. There are small gems to be found in the way he invokes ambiance.

1619. PelleNilsson - 1/28/2000 3:54:34 PM

592. Angel-Five - 9/15/99 7:38:27 AM

The ground, a reddish clay, is still sodden from the rainy season when the young man steps out of the taxi; it clings to the bottom of his leather clogs in moist clumps, and his feet leave grooved tracks as he turns to lift his battered suitcase from the rear of the ancient Chevrolet. There is a conical bundle of paper and scent tucked under his arm, which he is careful to not crush as he hefts his travel-worn bag into the air.

The air is hot, even to his seasoned senses -- crashing waves of dull heat and the stink to which he is already accustomed to, filth, bamboo, smoke and human motion. It washes through him as though he is already a part of it.

The young man bends with the sore-legged grace of a traveling athlete who hasn't quite forgotten the playing field, setting the suitcase on a drier patch of earth, his left hand dipping into the pocket of his Bermuda shorts to pull out a wad of different currencies. He frowns at the wad, as if wondering what he has bought with it and already forgotten, as if he sees ghostly folds of spent currency in his hand, traveling with him like the memory of endless dingy hotel rooms and hurried meals served with a dozen different languages.

1620. PelleNilsson - 1/28/2000 3:55:51 PM

593. Angel-Five - 9/15/99 7:39:05 AM
The driver shifts on the seat and the young man abruptly selects and peels a few tattered notes from the wad and places them in the outstretched hand of the driver. There are a few words exchanged in an Asian tongue -- << thank you, kind driver >> and << it is nothing >> -- the kind of words two professionals exchange once they have recognized each other in this world of transit before they part forever
--

and then the taxicab growls into gear and speeds off down the muddly lane, and the young man shoulders his suitcase and turns to walk down the lane, his eyes sweeping through the throng of moving faces to and along the muddy storefronts, his wad of bills long since deftly tucked away within the recesses of his clothing. Behind him stretch his footprints in the reddish soil, slowly filling in with muddy water.

The crowd doesn't hinder the young man. Indeed, he slips through them with the practiced ease one sees in a matador's flicking red flag, the way a dim sum chef blurs his knife into a knot of vegetables and slices them all exactly the same. Without thought. For the young man is not thinking of his steps, or the crowd, or the people. He is thinking of a curled slip of paper, browned by the sweat of his hands from the many times he has held it and looked at it by the dim light of a foco desnudo --a shred torn from a restaurant bill, with words hastily scrawled upon it in bold black characters.

They look like gibberish for the young man, dazed at the time, had inadvertently slipped into several different languages while writing -- but to him they were the purest language of love, serene and true, that slipped into his consciousness with the ease of water lapping over the transom, soothing him and yet filling him with happiness and expectation.

1621. PelleNilsson - 1/28/2000 3:56:33 PM

594. Angel-Five - 9/15/99 7:40:22 AM
The words, were they to be translated, would read like this: Meet me in the Castellan Bar, in Quezon City, on the anniversary of our first meeting.

Underneath them, in a hand even bolder than the rest, with strokes that looked as though they'd nearly torn the paper, one could read remember to bring roses!!!! And, in the young man's mind, a face beautiful beyond measure, straight, shining black hair framing a face with dark, luminous eyes and burnished pale skin, with exquisite angel-bow lips... remembering the earring she wore, a stunningly large single black pearl on a gold hoop. He'd never seen another one like it, and in his dreams he would run his fingers across it and the ache of wanting her would spill through him like rain spilling out of a tropical sky to soak the earth beneath... and always, before he would wake, he would hear her speaking the words that he hastily transcribed... "Meet me at the Castellan...".

And it was the Castellan that he was looking for, his eyes flicking from storefront to storefront as he walked down the street, a faint smile of expectation playing upon his arched lips, the paper-wrapped bundle (which he had bought at the airport that morning, selecting with exquisite care from a smiling, rumple-faced flower vendor) wafting hints of attar about him, mingling with his careful dabs of asafetida and clove oil.

1622. PelleNilsson - 1/28/2000 3:57:11 PM

595. Angel-Five - 9/15/99 7:41:52 AM
Abruptly the young man begins to hum, a low, haunting tune of beauty that might have echoed across riverbeds and off banyan trees, a song that could have resonated in the low-roofed buildings of his hometown or whispered through the air of Khyber pass... a song of travel that has, after long years of searching, finally found a meaning and a home... The young man's humming intensifies as he turns a corner and walks up a slight sloping lane. At the end of it one can see a terraced pavilion, spotted with tables and umbrellas and the soft glowing lights of candles, and people moving into them, couples, hand in hand. A splendid hand-carved and painted sign floats above the bevelled roof. As the young man draws near it, moving toward his destiny with slow, painful, irrevocable steps, we can see that the sign proclaims the following --

THE CASTELLAN...

__________________


At the corner of the long, wooden bar, polished by generations of bartenders until it shone like obsidian, we see a distinguished looking gentleman. He is dressed in a flawlessly white suit, complete with hat, and he does not sit alone -- in his one hand is a half empty tumbler of rum and ice, and he is currently using the other to dandle a stunningly attractive woman on his knee, his aristocratic hand wrapped about her side, imperceptibly inching upward to the silken swell of her bosom. Next to him is a row of empty glasses -- a few tumblers, but mostly smaller glasses for sake, with bits of lipstick smeared on them -- and, propped against the bar, an elaborately carven cane, the head of which is shaped cunningly into a foreboding dragon's head and covered with bronze.

1623. PelleNilsson - 1/28/2000 3:58:25 PM

596. Angel-Five - 9/15/99 7:42:43 AM
The man is murmuring sweet, alcohol-soft nothings into the woman's ear as she giggles and shifts on his thigh, her one-piece black silken dress rustling as she moves. At a sudden, almost shocking insinuation from her distinguished partner, her body tenses --and then relaxes, slumping even closer to the pressed white fabric of the man's suit. His fingers slip up over her arm, to caress her neck, and almost idly fingers her earring -- a stunning black pearl.

<< you're so nice, >> She mumbles into his hair. << and thank you for all the drinks, but I was supposed to meet someone -- >>

<< Now, now >>, the man murmurs flawlessly. << Now, now. Plenty of time for that later, sweetling... >>. With his free hand he gestures toward the barman, his aquiline face resolving into pure, patrician command as he motions for two more drinks to be brought. Then, with the sure grace of a predator with one more conquest nearly in the bag, his triumphant eyes swivel over the bar, scanning the faces with leonine pride, face to face, seeing the workers and the hsiao jen and the call girls, eyes locking then onto a young man who is climbing the steps, a worn suitcase under one arm, a look of pure, unadulterated bliss waiting to spill out onto his delicate features...

Abruptly the ringed fingers clench at the young girl's neck. The man hisses in anger.

<< That young pup!! He's here for the girl!!! The prophecy!! It is true!! Damn that sorcerous wench -- this is her doing!! >> he spits, his face contorting in anger.

1624. PelleNilsson - 1/28/2000 3:59:58 PM

597. Angel-Five - 9/15/99 7:43:14 AM
The young, obviously drunken woman starts. << What?? Who?? >> And she turns her head, to look down the length of the bar.

At that exact moment the young man turns his face towards her, and his eyes meet her with an almost palpable discharge of electricity.

For a moment -- a single, heart-bursting moment -- all the love in the world flows out from his eyes, like a flood of creation myth, and his face comes alight. << My love! >> he nearly gasps. << Oh, my life!! I have found you again, and this time there will be nothing to stand between us!! >> And then his gaze somehow takes in the man holding the young woman on his knee, and in a single wrenching instant all of the young man's world comes crashing to a broken halt. The package of carefully folded paper slips from his arm, cartwheeling slowly to the bamboo floor, where it tumbles off his ankle and rolls back down the steps.

598. Angel-Five -9/15/99 7:43:43 AM

The young woman suddenly realizes who she is looking at, and she involuntarily draws a breath inward. Her lip trembles.

<< Marjori? >> And then the reality of ths situation hits her. << Oh, no, Marjori.. Oh >>

There is a pause. Then the aristocratic man -- and there is now an air of academia about him now -- slowly stands, the drunken young woman nearly falling from his thigh as he does so. His eyes narrow. Behind him, unseen, his hand stretches for his cane, and the deadly secret it contains.

The young man's face looks back at the woman, and starts to crumple -- and then goes dead still. He fixes his gaze on the man, the way he once fixed his gaze on a wrought-iron hoop, and he speaks a word in guttural slow malice. In English.

"Emeritus."

1625. PelleNilsson - 1/28/2000 4:01:45 PM

599. Angel-Five - 9/15/99 7:44:10 AM

The bar has fallen deadly silent, and behind the young man people, sensing death in the air, are hurriedly finding reasons to be elsewhere.

The older man smiles venomously back, his eyes flicking to the young girl and then back to the man in front of him. A look of lazy indifference crosses his eyes.

"Banks. So. You escaped from that tiger pit in Hue. One day you will have to tell me how -- I trained those beasts myself." His smile twists, becoming even more malicious -- the smile of a cobra with fangs full of venom, seeing a neck. "Shame about the girl, there, though, wasn't it? What was her name? Hui something? I take it she didn't get out? Ah, well... you never could take care of your women... delicious as they all are. Much like this delectable young fruit. I picked her myself just an hour or so ago, for less than five hundred pesos. She was... hungry... for it." and he smiles, victoriously. "Not one of yours, was she? (pause) A shame. I have a video of it, if you'd like..."

The young man's hand reaches for his suitcase, unzipping it.

"You bastard, Emeritus."

The young girl, slowly absorbing the horrible lie that Emeritus has just told, rocks back on her heels like she has just been slapped. Then she fixes her gaze on the face of the young man, a face like rock.

1626. PelleNilsson - 1/28/2000 4:03:48 PM

600. Angel-Five - 9/15/99 7:44:39 AM
She takes a single, hesitating step toward him, her arms outstretched.

"Marjori, no, no, Marjori, no, it's all a lie..."

The granite of the young man's face shivers, and for an aching second breaks asunder. "Don't," he says in a quiet, small voice. "No, don't." The girl steps back, uncertain, and then turns and runs out of the bar, her face contorted in tears, sobs streaming out behind her like the death of a dream. The young man watches her run out into the street, his heart bleeding bitter pain inside him.

Then his face swivels back up to the older man's, and fills with rage.

"Emeritus. You vile old pimp." The young man pulls out a worn basketball from his baggage and begins spinning it in one hand. It looks... lethal, somehow. "I"'ll -- "

"You'll what, Banks? Kill me?" He laughs harshly. "I think our friend Irving will have something to say about that. You do remember our friend Irving, don't you?" He gestures with a hand and a hulking bit of darkness behind him disengages from the wall, stepping into the light to reveal a huge, menacing expatriate in a UMICH jersey and purple mesh shorts. A malign sneer crosses his face, and he cracks his knuckles, flicking his ponytail from side to side, predatory eyes focusing on the much smaller man in front of him.

1627. PelleNilsson - 1/28/2000 4:06:15 PM

601. Angel-Five - 9/15/99 7:45:11 AM
As we see him in the light we can tell that his face is covered with knife scars, and it looks as though he's had part of an ear bit off. The huge bodyguard, still sneering, takes a step in front of his boss, and with a twisted grin says "Look at the little man again. Remember me, little man? Think you're any better with that -- " pointing at the basketball "this time? I hope so. I want it to last longer, this time."

Behind him the older man mutters, "Kill him this time, Irving. I want no more complications." And he turns and smoothly walks behind the bar and into a shadowed door.

The leering bodyguard takes a step toward the young man. "Come on, punk. I ain't got all night."

And for a second there is no bodyguard, there is no man, there is no bar, there is no Quezon, no Manila behind him, no tropical monsoon in the dying, just a worn bit of tarmac and a solitary, lonely hoop, and the sound of a basketball slapping off it as it is dribbled, then the lofting and the thin, satisfying swoosh of a buried jumper...

Marjori looks up at the man, entirely focused. In his mind, he tells himself, -I have a gift- and it resonates throughout his body like a voice in a temple, filling him, filling the world, for in the end he knows that all he has anymore is not the woman, not the love, not the travel, not the home and the tears and the anger and the hope, but just the gift --

and he smiles at the brute before him, and whispers.

"There can be only one."

(THE END)

1628. Candide - 1/28/2000 4:10:43 PM

Something weird is happening to the sequence of this thread. Every time I try to go to the end it shoots back.

I have read the tale.

1629. Candide - 1/28/2000 4:40:23 PM

PelleNilsson

Comical references apart, I realise now what it is that you expect on this thread.

No first-person, though that excludes a large body of literature. A good manly approach. Repeated use of the same word in the same sentence rather than a cascade of language.

Ingmar Bergman would have to be excluded from this thread as would Katherine Mansfield.

It was amusing but much more over-written (I think deliberately) than hashke's complex anecdote. The references to Moties was a neat trick and seems to have worked.

1630. PelleNilsson - 1/28/2000 4:52:21 PM

No Candide. I emphatically did not post the story as some kind of example of what "I want". You are reading much too much into it. I posted it because I think it is funny, and I admire A-5's ability to set a scene that clearly plays somewhere in SE Asia although he has never been there.

I bet you would have thought it good too had you not known that A-5 is the author.

1631. Candide - 1/28/2000 5:06:50 PM

PelleNilsson

No. I've already secretly admired A-5's colourful language, even while I was the recipient. I'm cool enough to do that. I particularly liked it when he really lost his control and had a good rave. Honest!

I found the ambience less riveting than you did, but in these parts we get a great deal of SE Asian stuff, so perhaps the impact would always have been less powerful on me. I just didn't find the ambience strong enough to make the sexism and Boys' Own Paper style acceptable.

If you knew how many Australian journalists who were 'the last man to leave' I've had to listen to you might understand.

1632. Uzmakk - 1/28/2000 5:08:47 PM

Ah, Pelle Nilsson, another fortuitous posting. You will recall that I was very impressed by A5's deer hunting story. I must tell you what I had(have) planned for it. I have often thought of taking a trade name, Bluebuck seems to suit for many reasons. My location, my interests, and some poetic coincidences-- my town's former name, before we started naming everything after the glorious was Venison Market. And then A5's story appears, not too long, well written, the perfect nugget for an initial publishing venture. I have never brought it up. I have never approached him about it. I am glad for your post or the whole idea may have become water under the bridge where it should, perhaps, have become something else, I know not what.

1633. PelleNilsson - 1/28/2000 5:28:59 PM

Uzmakk

Yes, the deer hunting story was very good indeed, although I thought the storyline a little bit predictable. But, again, the setting, the ambience, was very fine. You were thinking of a slim little volume? Perhaps supplemented by a story or two by yourself? Very appropriate.

But that one, too, is very manly so it might not pass muster with our local critic.

By the way, it's a long time since we heard from A-5. I wonder if anybody is in contact with him.

1634. sakonige - 1/28/2000 5:30:49 PM

A5's stories are kind of overblown. It's his poetry that has true power.

1635. sakonige - 1/28/2000 5:35:32 PM

The impatience of his youth comes across too clearly in his prose sometimes, like a nervous twitch of too many words. But that same impatience gives his poetry an extraordinarily alert vision.

1636. SnowOwl - 1/28/2000 5:35:36 PM

Perhaps I read it wrongly, but I thought the style was a very clever parody of some of the other writing that is found here at times. I found this particular story very funny indeed. Thank you, Pelle, for posting it again.

1637. rdbrewer - 1/28/2000 6:03:24 PM

I thought A5's story was entertaining. What is the inside joke? Is there a hoop shooting rivalry between Irv and Marjori?

Anyway, although I liked it, I did find the use of the present tense distracting. The metaphors were original and emotive, but I thought they shifted too quickly at times. Maybe my judgment is skewed a bit, however, by a personal preference for writing that avoids flirting with "kitsch" by using fewer, well-crafted tropes and more well-crafted schemes.

1638. sakonige - 1/28/2000 6:14:04 PM

I agree that A5's stories are very witty and bright. They just pale in comparison to some of his poems. The person behind the words is easier for me to see in his poetry.

1639. Uzmakk - 1/28/2000 6:18:29 PM

Well, well, surprise,surprise. A bunch of editors and critics. I say we get a5 back here and hammer that deer hunting story into something worthy of publication. Stories by me, Pelle?. I don't think so. But perhaps some presentations by other Moties. To me what is important is that A5's story be the first piece in the first printing of a production produced by Uzmakk and Igor at the sign of the Bluebuck.

1640. Candide - 1/28/2000 6:43:40 PM

Everybody

My comments were within an earlier context and meaningful only in that context. Pelle had been a touch magisterial and academic in a literary judgement and then produced a story with rather blatant (but forgiveable rudimentary faults - all of which I may very well commit in the next sentence).

SnowOwl

Yes, not only a parody but I suspect one of the same school at heart.

Uzmakk
I wasn't being nasty to A-5. I wouldn't dare!

Rdbrewer

At last we can meet. I did get the Sandwich joke and I should have communicated my laugh.

1641. Uzmakk - 1/28/2000 7:17:51 PM

....at the sign of the blue buck in the town of Venison Market. I can hardly wait to work up the title page.

1642. Candide - 1/28/2000 8:30:40 PM

And already I have given myself a kick up the bracket in par.1 of #1640. Bracket should have closed after 'forgiveable'.

1643. PelleNilsson - 1/29/2000 4:44:37 AM

Uzmakk

Indeed, if one were to go through this thread, and Poetry, one would find quite a few things worth publishing. Hashke has produced a few gems. Remember the tale where he looked into the eyes of the eagle? It moved me. Also his recent poem on the death of his brother. And if humour were to be considered there are the bodice-ripper parodies of the early days and the Mote Party stories, but they may be too internal.

1644. PelleNilsson - 1/29/2000 5:04:56 AM

Candide

A-5's story on the deer hunt starts at Message # 1112. It is long and manly but there is a twist at the end.

1645. marjoribanks - 1/29/2000 10:48:18 AM

What? No mention of my own small masterpieces? I'm now regretting not previewing any post and writing directly in the entry box. But maybe you guys simply don't like my style.


BTW, Pak Haske has also produced magnificent puns here. Some of the best I've ever seen/heard/read. Surely there is place in the Uzmakk-compiled tome for a few of these.

1646. marjoribanks - 1/29/2000 10:53:03 AM

I also recommend a section on the criticism that has appeared here. People like cellardoor and Mondaugen have shared some staggeringly astute pieces with us.

1647. Candide - 1/29/2000 2:54:44 PM

Marjoribanks 1645

At least you have been mentioned occasionally.

I find your small masterpieces a constant delight.

1648. KuligintheHooligan - 1/29/2000 2:59:16 PM

marjoribanks

"But, Hooligan, whatever do you mean by your crack? This wouldn't be because I still refuse to toe your evangelical missionary line, would it?"

No, it was just a friendly jab your way, that's all.

But if you are game, could you please define my "evangelical missionary line" in the "Religion" thread? Not sure exactly what you are talking about there. But if it refers to your over-generalizations and misconceptions about missionaries, nearly two years ago now, you were just simply wrong, nothing "evangelical" about that.

1649. JudithAtHome - 1/29/2000 3:01:08 PM

Candide:

Went back and read your remarks in Movies about Character...you expressed that so well. I did appreciate those aspects of the film, just couldn't translate them so eloquently as did you.

1650. Candide - 1/29/2000 3:04:38 PM

JudithatHome

Oh Judith. It's so nice to read something kind. And after I was so uppity. Thanks. I thought your review was by a professional reviewer so that's not too bad is it?

1651. JudithAtHome - 1/29/2000 3:08:05 PM

Well, if we get much more complementary to one another, we'll start rumors! (Thanks...)

1652. Candide - 1/29/2000 3:16:43 PM

JudithatHome

Why don't you write a story for us?

1653. JudithAtHome - 1/29/2000 3:24:42 PM

I plan to...my friend from highschool and I are semi-composing a book consisting of letters back and forth, starting with notes passed in school and then letters sent to each other while we were young marrieds, having kids, etc on up to present time where I am JudithAtHome with my antiques business and she is president of her own real estate company. It's going to be in that form but with the notes, letters, e-mails actually written now.

We're trying to recall all the slang terms we used in school and get the real life historical events laid out so that when we refer to them in our "letters", they will ring true. We've both lived all over the world and done some interesting things.

But I have toyed with the idea of writing a piece for this thread and will get around to it some afternoon...

1654. Candide - 1/29/2000 3:27:27 PM

JudithAtHome

I'm glad. There is a balance here to be redressed. I look forward to reading you.

1655. Toenails - 1/29/2000 5:17:24 PM

Isn't there a way that the masters of this thread could arrange to make possible the publication of stories "unbroken," i.e., remove the word-count restrictions and allow a cleaner, easier-to-follow message?

A threefold increase in the number of words permitted would do it for most stories published here, while preventing people from filibustering.

1656. Candide - 1/29/2000 5:19:27 PM

Toenails

Ah that it were so. But you have to allow a little filibustering.

Overtures to the big event.

1657. Uzmakk - 1/30/2000 9:43:39 AM

1645 Banks:
Consider this my words of sincere praise. But we can't be patting eachother on the back all the time. A considerable amount of good passes without comment.

1658. Candide - 1/30/2000 3:27:19 PM

Uzmakk

pat pat

1659. hashke - 1/31/2000 12:05:19 PM

Pelle and Pak marj:

Thank you for those generous comments! Don't underestimate your own writings, Pelle's fine history of Sweden and Pak marj's superbly crafted pieces about the old ancestral place. I am intrigued especially by the balcâo. Is it still there?

1660. Candide - 1/31/2000 3:17:06 PM

hashke

marjoribanks has made me want to see Goa. I never will.
Pelle already knows that I think his Swedish history is wonderful.

1661. Cellar Door - 2/1/2000 10:44:29 AM

CONGRATULATIONS: BY READING THIS POST YOU HAVE JUST CONTRACTED HIV

(This message was brought to you by the Dan Savage For God Committee)

1662. marjoribanks - 2/1/2000 10:56:42 AM

Uz, I was kind of kidding.

Pak Hashke, the balcao is very much there. In fact, the balcao is an institution in Goan life and the villages. In most older homes, the balcao is where one did most of the living, and these are carefully sitauted to catch the breezes and amply provided with built-in seating. I have spend literally months of my life hanging out in the ancestral balcao, and further months in other balcaos. People sit out there in the evening and every passer-by is greeted and pleasantries are exchanged, particularly about village scandals and the price of fish.

In fact, the word 'balcao' slightly corrupted to 'bolcao' has come to mean chit-chat, familiar discussion, hanging-out, in Konkani. I'm going to see if I can find some images to show you somewhere on the WWW.

Candide, it is extremely cheap to get to Goa and astonishingly cheap to stay there for weeks on end. If you want further details feel free to ask.

1663. marjoribanks - 2/1/2000 11:15:37 AM

Well, I'm shocked. There are about 5 million beach photos of Goa on the WWW and barely one depicting the grand old houses. This is alleviated by the fact that there is a magnificent Portuguese volume called 'Palacios de Goa' available but that's little consolation.

So here, a highly inadequate image of the left wing of a fairly typical old home, though nowhere near representative of the grand residences of the real gentry.




Note the balcao, it stretches along the entire front of the house. Typically, one would enter from there into a very large ballroom type of formal receinving room complete with blue pottery from Macao and heavily ornate carved wood furniture, followed by a large dining room. Then there would be two wings stretching out in back partly surrounding an open courtyard. Typically, one wing would house bedrooms and at the end the bathroom and pig toilet. And the other would contain storage rooms for mangoes, rice and coconuts and finally a cavernous kitchen.

1664. marjoribanks - 2/1/2000 11:22:03 AM

On the really grand scale, you have these kinds of aristocratic homes. Note that while this one lacks that intimate close-to-the-road living space, it still maintains a front area for the family to sit in the evenings and hobnob with passers by. Goans would feel socially crippled without this space.

1665. hashke - 2/1/2000 11:24:07 AM

Pak marj:

Fascinating! The American equivalent would be the open front porches
of the older homes built in the earlier part of the century, elevated porches facing the streets, where one would sit with a glass of iced tea and rock or swing on summer evenings and wave to and chat with passers-by. My uncle and aunt had such a porch and I can still see them clearly sitting there, she in her gingham dress and white socks, he smoking his pipe and tapping his toe to some private, unheard tune, all the while dreaming of fortunes to be made and making preposterous statements about this or that -- which invariably garnered her rejoinder, "Oh, Fred..."

Is the second 'a' in your 'balcao', unanointed with the circonflex (â), nasalized in the Goan pronunciation?

1666. marjoribanks - 2/1/2000 11:40:03 AM

It should have the little squiggle Pak Hashke, and is nasalized. This article claims the institution has indigenous roots, something I believe because in several trips to Portugal I haven't seen the equivalent.

Along with the old planters chairs with super-long arms that are dragged out for the patrao of the house to sit in with his mates, the sides of the balcao are lined with cool built-in laterite-and-plastered seating, or benches. This, as far as I know is unique to Goa as well. Sadly, can't find an e-photo, I really need to get my act together and buy a scanner because I have hundreds of photos I'd like to share with everyone.

1667. theDiva - 2/1/2000 11:41:52 AM

what lovely homes....nothing like sitting on the porch on a summer evening, passing the time with the neighbors....this is a universal pastime, I see.

1668. hashke - 2/1/2000 12:41:53 PM

Pak marj:

And what does one see on the cover of the Penguin 1992 edition of 'Biswas' but a house of marvelous color (like those you show) with a balcony and the figure of 'Biswas' at ease.

1669. Indiana Jones - 2/1/2000 3:24:30 PM

Did someone mention Al Haig?

1670. Uzmakk - 2/1/2000 5:01:33 PM

I think that the first Mote publishing venture should be done in the Pelle Nilsson Samizdat style. Small format, sewn on three hemp cords, covered in paper.

1671. Candide - 2/1/2000 5:16:56 PM

marjoribanks

A lot of what you describe (minus the ballroom) is to be found in Australia. The balcao in Australia is the verandah. I'm speaking of colonial houses, not the spec builder horrors with phony colonial details growing like a cancer everywhere now. The planters chair was found on the verandah too. The best houses are in the country. Grand old estates with huge rambling houses entirely surrounded by a continuous verandah.

1672. marjoribanks - 2/1/2000 7:52:06 PM

Pak Hashke,

What are you thinking of Biswas anyway? I hope it doesn't bring you down too much, if you understand where it comes from you should be exhilarated.

1673. marjoribanks - 2/1/2000 7:54:25 PM

Candide,

Yes, the balcao is the verandah. But you must understand, these verandahs border on the street and all passers-by say hello and everything important is observed. I believe this is quite different from the estate verandah you are talking about.

1674. Candide - 2/1/2000 8:27:40 PM

marjoribanks

They have them here but they never use them. People sit in the back so as not to be bothered.

1675. hashke - 2/1/2000 9:42:34 PM

Pak marj:

Well, to me Biswas is a sort of Ulysses-Quijotean figure, full of inner travel, play, humor and struggle. You have told me that he is based on Naipaul's father. Naipaul never lets one down, and one must delight in his obsession with detail and his adroit handling of it.

I sense that Naipaul is a deep reader of the classics, from Homer through Chaucer, Shakespeare, Cervantes, and onword to the likes of
Goethe and the Moderns --Mann, Joyce, Proust -- though he might with that little grin of his, deny his pleasure, or like Nabokov, spit upon some of them.

But I only conjecture.

1676. marjoribanks - 2/2/2000 5:31:51 AM

The shortest story I've ever written:

Today, I will be a father. My wife's water has broken and we're off to the hospital.

1677. PelleNilsson - 2/2/2000 6:27:02 AM

marj

We eagerly await your return and the ritual distribution of cybercigars.

1678. Adrianne - 2/2/2000 6:38:31 AM

Marjoribanks

Blessings to you both and for the little one. I can't wait to hear about your new family, and I'm honestly (sentimental sap that I am) just beaming for you. Happy Happy Joy Joy, dollface.

1679. Candide - 2/2/2000 6:45:13 AM

marjoribanks

Bless you.

Happiness to all three.

1680. stostosto - 2/2/2000 7:35:29 AM

marj:

It may be the shortest story you have ever written, but it's inescapably going to be a continuing story for the rest of your life.

Congratulations, old chap!

1681. theDiva - 2/2/2000 8:38:43 AM

wubbidee!!!!!!!

God's blessings upon the Banks family....I am so very, very happy for you.

1682. Dantheman - 2/2/2000 8:54:14 AM

marjoribanks,
I hope you are able to fix your wife's water properly. Congratulations on the new arrival.

1683. Uzmakk - 2/2/2000 9:08:10 AM

Good luck, Mr. Banks.

1684. Uzmakk - 2/2/2000 9:08:59 AM

Does anyone know what is happening with our dear Webfeet?

1685. JudithAtHome - 2/2/2000 9:18:32 AM

marjoribanks:

Congratulations to you and yours.

1686. profemeritus - 2/2/2000 10:04:43 AM

Pak marj

Now you are about to really earn your honorific name. Pak is short for "bapak" which means father. Pak Hashke and I should really change your name to Bapak marj which carries even more honor than Pak. On the other hand I am not so sure since Suharto was always referred to as "Bapak."

1687. theDiva - 2/2/2000 10:39:49 AM

Uz

I haven't heard from her in a while, but I think she's due around this time, too. Or maybe next month.

1688. hashke - 2/2/2000 11:12:43 AM

Congratulations Pak marj!!!

It is interesting that you chose to write a short story even as the waters broke.

1689. theDiva - 2/2/2000 11:15:34 AM

hashke, if pak = father, what = mother?

1690. hashke - 2/2/2000 11:31:37 AM

Diva:

Ibu = mother

1691. theDiva - 2/2/2000 11:32:30 AM

Cool. Thanks.

1692. Seguine - 2/2/2000 11:57:46 AM

Banks: mazel tov!

1693. ProfEmeritus - 2/2/2000 12:20:11 PM

Diva

Ibu is a bit formal; the equivalent of "Pak" is "Bu" as in boohoo.

1694. theDiva - 2/2/2000 12:27:35 PM

So it would be BuDiva? Bu Diva?

1695. ProfEmeritus - 2/2/2000 3:41:36 PM

BuDiva

Yes, it would be BuDiva to your friends and all who respect you. In Indonesia you would be BuDiva to all who meet you, I imagine.

1696. theDiva - 2/2/2000 3:49:01 PM

aw shucks...and a nice play on words there, too....

1697. Jenerator - 2/2/2000 3:50:21 PM

Congratulations Marj!

Remember to BREATHE!!

1698. Fraaankster - 2/2/2000 4:10:16 PM

Marj,

Geez, you really weren't kidding in the Sports thread, were you ? I hope you were kidding about the "Jordan" part though. :-)

Congradulations sir! It's an arena ( parenthood ) I hope to enter in the next few years. I hope everything goes well !

( The wallpaper in this thread is rather drab me thinks. Change it, Webby! )

1699. arkymalarky - 2/2/2000 7:12:28 PM

Wow, Marj, Congratulations!!

1700. sakonige - 2/2/2000 9:55:11 PM

marjoribanks, I'm so happy for you and your family! I can't wait to hear whether you have a son or a daughter.

1701. MsIvoryTower - 2/2/2000 10:44:59 PM

Marj!

I'm so happy I peeked in today and caught the news. Congratulations, and best wishes for some sleep.

1702. CalGal - 2/2/2000 11:17:44 PM

Oh, there it is. Congrats, Marj!!!

1703. Adrianne - 2/3/2000 1:35:51 PM

Wonder how baby banks is doing?

1704. Candide - 2/3/2000 3:23:23 PM

And Mother banks and Father Banks? I wonder when marjoribanks will be strong enough to tell us?

1705. theDiva - 2/3/2000 3:24:58 PM

I wonder whether they had to scrape him off the floor. I'll bet not....

1706. hashke - 2/3/2000 3:44:54 PM

Pak marj followed the Aristotelian dictum for writing his shortest of all stories -- it must have a beginning, a middle, and an end -- with the exception that, with the dramatic breaking of the waters, marj's story had a beginning, a puddle, and an end.

1707. PelleNilsson - 2/3/2000 3:52:36 PM

hashke

Hahahaha!

1708. theDiva - 2/3/2000 3:57:50 PM

hashke

no-one ever accused you of having a dry wit.....

1709. hashke - 2/3/2000 4:06:44 PM

...a dry wet.

1710. theDiva - 2/3/2000 4:14:33 PM

heeheehee

once you get started, it just pours out....

1711. hashke - 2/3/2000 4:22:30 PM

Gush almighty!

1712. Dantheman - 2/3/2000 4:30:03 PM

Is this rain (reign) of puns going to end soon?

1713. rdbrewer - 2/3/2000 4:42:52 PM

Your highnass, you need butt assk.

1714. Candide - 2/3/2000 6:34:59 PM

Major Banks has raised interest.

1715. marjoribanks - 2/3/2000 9:06:36 PM

Thanks for the good wishes, friends.

It is a boy, a rather cute little dumpling with a close resemblance to me except for his mothers faintly east asian eyes. He emerged in an eruption of blood and gore after some 25 hours of my wifes labor and immediately impressed the staff of the hospital by (1) feeding as though born to it (2) producing voluminous amounts of that icky black-green newborn poo (3) feeding successfully again a couple of hours later (4) producing not one but two wet diapers. Clearly, he will not be a problem eater, and possesses the famed marjoribanks constitution.

I'm totally exhausted (as is the wife) and am looking forward to probably what will be the last unbroken night of sleep in my life since the hospital (bless them) has banished me and several other proud fathers to our homes due to the shortage of private rooms.

1716. marjoribanks - 2/3/2000 9:07:33 PM

Fraankster,

I was not kidding at all. The ancients in the marjoribanks lineage are apoplectic, but so it will remain.

1717. marjoribanks - 2/3/2000 9:16:32 PM

BTW, Lamaze is the biggest fricking joke ever perpetrated on a willing public. In the last, horrific, half hour I made the mistake of correcting my wife's anguished breath intakes by reminding her of the preferred technique we were taught. She, and the two (female) doctors there would surely have slit me from gill to gill for this if they hadn't been otherwise gainfully occupied.

1718. CalGal - 2/3/2000 10:07:27 PM

He suckled colostrum,
shat much meconium,
produced ample urine,
Pretty good for Day One!

1719. alistairconnor - 2/3/2000 10:51:09 PM

Congratulations Mr and Mrs Marj, and three cheers for Baby Banks... I will drink a toast to him shortly. I'm sure the girls will be thrilled.

1720. SnowOwl - 2/3/2000 11:32:07 PM

Congratulations to you and your wife, Marjoribanks.

1721. Candide - 2/3/2000 11:48:09 PM

marjoribanks

What to say, except he sounds beautiful, have a good sleep and your wife too. He does sound like a chip off the old block.
Felicitations.

1722. Candide - 2/3/2000 11:50:10 PM

CalGal#1718

Clever

1723. PelleNilsson - 2/4/2000 3:06:12 AM

Big congratulations marj!

1724. theDiva - 2/4/2000 8:42:45 AM

Banks

He sounds absolutely gorgeous, bless his heart. (hugs, pats on the back....) Well done.

1725. ChristiPeters - 2/4/2000 9:06:33 AM

Congratulations to all three of the Banks -

to Mr Banks for surviving the experience

to Mrs Banks for not slaying Mr Banks while in transition labor

to Baby Banks for grabbing onto Life with both hands immediately upon arrival

1726. Jenerator - 2/4/2000 1:19:29 PM

A boy!!;-) I'm so happy for you. Can you give any measurements? Height, weight, etc.

1727. theDiva - 2/4/2000 1:25:44 PM

Yeah, just how fat are this baby's cheeks?

1728. stostosto - 2/4/2000 6:12:50 PM

marj

Welcome to fatherhood! Enjoy! I know you will.

So what are you going to call him? Not something too Goan, like Chuchill, I hope? Or Kennedy?

Wait! I've got it! How about de Gaulle Banks? Goan, but with a non-anglosaxon twist. I think we go for that one.

1729. Candide - 2/4/2000 6:16:17 PM

marjoribanks

Teach him to type quickly.

1730. marjoribanks - 2/4/2000 9:06:47 PM

Banished again.

I'm going to be free in posting the following stuff because this has been the de facto baby thread for a while, and I want to coax our dear webbie out with her own details.

The kid is small, only 6 pounds even and 20 inches long. However, he has disproportionately large little feet so I'm putting my hopes of basketball success aside just yet. Let's feed him and see how he grows.

Names: he has a Sanskrit first name which happens to be the same as one of our far removed Motards childrens first name as well. I hope she won't let on. It also carries several grand ancestral Portuguese names, the last names of my wife and me, and for a Goan touch -Jordan.

Thanks for all the kind thoughts. Sto, believe it or not I know a De Gaulle Almeida. He's a breadmaker, a 'poder' in the village of Saligao in Bardez in Goa, and universally referred to as Diggy.

1731. marjoribanks - 2/4/2000 9:07:31 PM

BTW, sto, #1728 is very funny.

1732. Candide - 2/4/2000 9:19:31 PM

marjoribanks

Big feet eh? He's going to be a big dog then. No offence.

You must be in a condition of suspended disbelief.

Never has a baby had such an international arrival, apart from a few royals.

Hail to your little prince. It's been a happy time on the Mote.

Is Mrs Banks well?

1733. marjoribanks - 2/4/2000 9:39:09 PM

The wife is stoic, magnificent in her ability to shut out everything in the interest of what is on hand. i am deeply, truly, further impresssed by what is woman. And grateful, so damn grateful, that it was her and not me. I'm much weaker.

Since we're doing the whole cyber thing, I would be remiss in not mentioning that there are several fathers here who have inspired me and shown me that that there are ways to do well in the task: Pak Gurubesar for raising and still interacting in this public forum with his son. Sto, because everything he says about fatherhood (though rarely) is profoundly wise and moving. AC, because I saw in person what a good father he is. Irving, because whenever he talks about his kids I get a sense of how excellent he has been. PD, for the same reason. Labarjare, because I heard him speak with genuine and heartfelt pride about his sons. And Al Davis, though I've never so much as exchanged a word with him, for the second reason I cited for Pak Gurubesar (can't imagine this phenomenon.) And my agent, and the academy for this honor. Thenk yew, thenk yew all.

1734. marjoribanks - 2/4/2000 9:49:29 PM

Candide,

I've waited for this moment for years. I'm not suspending disbelief, I'm thoroughly enjoying believing.

1735. marjoribanks - 2/4/2000 9:52:55 PM

Also, I forgot PP. I deeply appreciate his unapologetic pride in his childs achievements and I hope he perforce finds himself rooting for the Yankees one day.

1736. Candide - 2/4/2000 10:00:24 PM

marjoribanks

Your joy is a tonic.

1737. theDiva - 2/4/2000 10:02:13 PM

Banks

Touching and beautiful. Parenting is a challenging and joyous vocation. That you are able to recognize those qualities in others, such as you've mentioned above, tells me that you are already a wonderful father. I am inexpressibly happy for you, for all three of you.

1738. SnowOwl - 2/4/2000 10:05:11 PM

Wonderful, Marjoribanks. Your fine son is going to grow into a fine man and I know you'll have as much pleasure in watching him do it as my husband and I have had watching ours.

Enjoy every moment. You'll be amazed at how time goes by and before you have time to catch your breath your 20 inch babe will be looking you right in the eye. I'm envious in a way. I'd love to be starting all over again. Parenthood has for me been pure pleasure and still is, even though I am burdened with layabout perpetual students who seem to have no wish to ever get jobs and who persist in eating me out of house and home.

1739. sakonige - 2/4/2000 10:20:17 PM

We are all blessed by marj telling us his son is in the world.

1740. marjoribanks - 2/4/2000 10:22:45 PM

Thank you, ladies, those are very nice sentiments.

I will now set up the cot, and arrange the household for the little fellow. Maybe I'll check in periodically. All in all, though I don't want to go through it again anytime soon, I am deliriously happy .

1741. theDiva - 2/4/2000 10:31:07 PM

I almost forgot....silly me....


Banks

I KISS YOU!

1742. IrvingSnodgrass - 2/4/2000 10:39:41 PM

Congrats, Marj. I'm sure you'll find parenthood is the greatest thing that has ever happened to you. I don't regret one minute of the past 15 years I've been a parent. I look forward to the reports of your adventures.

1743. sakonige - 2/4/2000 10:44:30 PM

Marjoribanks,

Please let him be American if he wants to be.

1744. joezan - 2/5/2000 1:12:58 AM

Belated congratulations, and blessings on the Banks family.

So...he's full of shit already, marj?

Where'd he get that from?

1745. Uzmakk - 2/5/2000 8:54:48 AM

I also find my children most fascinating.

1746. Uzmakk - 2/5/2000 8:59:14 AM

I am sure that you will have a similar experience, Banks. It's neat to watch them make sense of the world and carve out a little nitch for themselves.

1747. profemeritus - 2/5/2000 10:10:14 AM

Pak marj

Congratulations! A son will be a great joy to you. You can coach Little League baseball for him soon; you can take him to baseball, football and basketball games. One thing I advised my sons against was becoming economists. You may want to do the opposite, however, so he can eventually talk on the Mote with stars like Spence, PE (especially PE), Thoughtful and MsIT. What could be more rewarding to a young man and his Motie Father?

1748. hashke - 2/5/2000 10:24:46 AM

Congratulations again Pak marj!

And climb a mountain with the boy as soon as he becomes of age!

1749. MsIvoryTower - 2/6/2000 9:56:13 AM

Marj!

Congratulations again. I second and third all the comments about the joys of parenthood. Your son sounds like he's a good one from the get go, and speaking as the proud parent of a fabulous child, I think he'll soon be joining the ranks of the Motie SuperMunchkins.

Regards and contratulations to the Mrs., as well, 25 hours must have been exhausting.

1750. phillipdavid - 2/6/2000 10:20:56 AM

majoribanks,

Goshdarnit, what you have written makes me want to have another one! As Candide said, your joy is a tonic. The years to come are gonna take you deper into the well of joy; you are gonna laugh and cry and feel love knockin' on the doors of your heart harder than ever before.

My son is moving out on his own this weekend. Rented a house in another city, packed up all his music equipment yesterday (first things first, you know) and loaded up his car with it and his clothes and took off. He'll be back today to clean up his space (big upsatirs apartment) and get his furniture. I can't describe my feelings accurately -- they are so poignant that I can't put exact words to them. What I want you to know is that being a father and living with him for the better part of 20 years has opened up aspects of life and opened up aspects of my soul that would have remained hidden otherwise, and I feel (like Shakespeare wrote about in his sonnets) that having a child may ultimately be the most meaningful contribution I could make to life.

Remember, Patience is key.

Bless you and good luck.

1751. Al D - 2/6/2000 10:11:01 PM

marjoribanks
Well, I will say a word to you. Congragulations have been offered and I join in. Children are a joy, the greatest gift we can be given. I can truely say, I've never met a small child I did not like. Adults, now that is another matter. Enjoy.

1752. RickNelson - 2/8/2000 7:27:49 AM

Marj,
CONGRATULATIONS! Recalling those first joyous moments will be a lifetime of pleasure. Remember the first holding, as long as you do, the later times will stay in perspective.




PD,
Man, I'm not at your point yet, but, it just looms on the horizon. The prayers for our kids being universal; success to your son and peace to you.

1753. Webfeet - 2/8/2000 12:21:57 PM

What a happy coincidence that as I return from self-imposed seclusion, an anti-social, grumpy pregnant person am I, that I see that M-BANKS HAD A BABY!!! Felicitations! That is really tremendous! And, inspiring, from one who has crawled on the floor panting during lamaze class (total, utter merde de taureau--exploits fears of first time mothers) rehearsing for the Big Event. That is such a happy preview to what we can expect on March 2nd, if Nature doesn't intervene before then.

I really laughed when I read what your comment on lamaze--just last week I was on all fours pressed against an upside down chair against the wall, instructed by our teacher Eileen (who spontaneously spread-eagles on the floor to demonstrate with great effect the birthing process) gripping a handful of ice cubes while performing deep breathing exercises as Frenchcat, my coach, stroked my back. The whole scene was absurd and ridiculous. I wanted to demand a refund right then and there. As it was, I caused something of a shockerooni when I declined to watch the C-section video and French cat and I just left. Who in their right minds would stay to watch that? Haven't they seen enough episodes of ER ?

Weren't you a little early, though? I thought that Baby Banks was due on Valentine's Day. If he is premature, well, not by much--at least the little guy is healthy, hungry and happy in the arms of his nouvelle famille. Bonne Chance! I cannot wait to be in your shoes. I feel like I've been pregnant for years!

1754. Adrianne - 2/8/2000 1:09:10 PM

Darling, soon enough!

Anywhere from 38 weeks on is considered full-term, so babybanks isn't a premie. Besides, due dates are just a guess, in most cases.

Lamaze class is ridiculous, yes, although kinda interesting in a surreal way. Were the other couples as awful as the ones in my class? Did you hate them all? We did, and spent hours making fun of them, sometimes directly (but discreetly) to their faces.

Remember I wrote you about pain management? Taking that to heart, I hope?

Are we still going with Clement?

Thinking of you much, dearie, and you too, banks.

1755. theDiva - 2/8/2000 1:15:37 PM

WEBBIE!!!!!

I KISS YOU!!!!!

1756. Rivendell - 2/8/2000 1:15:56 PM

Marjoribanks,

Congratulations on the new addition to your family. If your little one learns to share your curiosity, and your respect for wisdom then he will be lucky indeed.

1757. Candide - 2/8/2000 6:08:40 PM

Webfeet

Lamaze sounds like those ghastly piano teachers who torture small children forcing their hands into the "natural hand position".

1758. Jenerator - 2/9/2000 11:22:27 AM

I've always heard that Lamaze is a great chance for men and women to share another experience in the whole "Having a baby" period. I think that it would be kind of romantic to have my husband go to class with me, help me do exercises, and breathe 'properly'. Whether or not I used the actual techniques during the birthing process, I'd feel just that much closer having my husband as my well-trained lamaze co-partner.

1759. marjoribanks - 2/9/2000 12:09:10 PM

Hey webbie! Good luck with the whole deal, get that epidiural in as soon as possible, and report back as soon as you can. Oh yeah, and best wishes (and a high five) to the husband as well. The latter because he doesn't have to actually give birth, and will still get that adorable tyke at the end of it.

1760. Indiana Jones - 2/9/2000 12:17:42 PM

marjoribanks: Congratulations and thanks for opening up with all your heartfelt emotions. Joy and peace and hopes for plenty of help.

Always remember how you felt about your wife during that time...the two of you may need it in the months ahead, heh-heh-heh.

1761. Indiana Jones - 2/9/2000 12:18:08 PM

Or should I say the three of you...

1762. Webfeet - 2/11/2000 4:15:26 PM

Adrianne, Diva! Je vous embrace, aussi!

The couples weren't too awful at lamaze, adrianne, there was just one very earnest couple who got sort of competitive about it. I found it very awkward and stupid, for some reason I never warmed up to the bunch and found the whole thing to be just incredibly dumb.

And frenchcat was like in space, he was trying very hard to rub my back and count aloud during contractions, but our movements were syncopated and it ended up aggravating me--so much of intimate, bonding moments, Jenerator. (very easily aggravated these days/I am so charming I cannot tell you. And glamorous? did I mention glamorous? I clocked in at 199 lbs. yesterday.)

And frenchcat and I can't do it anymore. It's like a comedy of errors, compounded with the fact that he has taken to calling me "ma belle vache" (beautiful cow) during these moments of botched ardor.

marj--thanks for the encouragement! Hope your wife is recovering well! I heard that after Indian women give birth, they are pampered by all the women in the family and are given milk baths and rubbed with almonds to replenish themselves. I hope Mrs. Banks gets similar treatment! As for me, I have a gift certificate at Aveda I can't wait to use!

1763. Uzmakk - 2/11/2000 5:56:24 PM

1758Jenerator:

You need a good traditional husband who will tell you, "You're on your own babe. Get with the ladies."

1764. Uzmakk - 2/11/2000 5:57:46 PM

Webbie:
I am certain that you are a beautiful cow.

1765. Uzmakk - 2/11/2000 6:46:26 PM

I have a new niece. Eleanor.

1766. marjoribanks - 2/11/2000 6:50:28 PM

Congratulations, Ooze, you weirdo.

Webbie,

The ma-in-law is indeed lavishing care on her daughter and so am I and everyone else who visits. No almonds but long oiled massages are part of the daily agenda. Both for her and the boy.

1767. marjoribanks - 2/11/2000 6:53:00 PM

Faddahood so far is a piece of cake. Easy. Untaxing.

Yes, I wake up anights to the baby's whimpers, clean and dispose of his personal bottom hygeine necessities. But then I merely pass him, adorable little fellow, to his mama. And that's the end of it for sevaral hours. Easy stuff. I recommend fatherhood to everyone.

1768. hashke - 2/11/2000 6:58:43 PM

Pak marj:

If you were in Lisboa, it would be fadohood.

There was a spate of punning in Selections today. Thought that you would be right in the muddle of it.

1769. hashke - 2/11/2000 7:03:49 PM

And Pak Gurubesar, as well!

1770. PelleNilsson - 2/14/2000 3:53:07 PM

I have started an effort to collect and publish stories from this thread and International.

So far I have done the home page and linked a story by alistair in order to show you the lay-out. Some observations:

The font is supposed to be Bookman Antiqua but for me it defaults to Times New Roman when I look at it in Netscape. Can anyone see it?

PE has put up his stories on his own site and I will link to there.

My next step will be to do the detailed table of contents. Before I actually link in the stories I will ask the authors if they have any objections to the category I've put their stories in, the titles I have given them, and if there is any objection to publishing them in the first place.

The blurb says "the best stories from The Mote", but in fact it will be all stories I have found. I'm not a critic who sets himself up to accept or reject.

I shall be glad for suggestions to improve the blurbs.

I shall also be glad for suggestions re the lay-out. But don't propose anything complicated unless you want to put it together yourself. I've not come very far in the subject of web design. Also, I favour a rather austere lay-out.

1771. alistairconnor - 2/15/2000 7:03:12 AM

Pelle, I'm flattered by your choice (random or alphabetical?) of first story.

As it happens, a couple of weeks ago we were on holiday and visited "The Buried Village", the site of the incident that inspired the story: hotel destroyed by volcanic eruption, Maori village wiped out, several hundred dead -in 1884 I think.

And while we were paddling around the lake in an inflatable boat, my daughter asked me to make up a story for her, as she often does. Lacking inspiration, I told her the story of Thisbe and Ropata. As I couldn't leave them hanging, I was obliged to tack on a happy ending (they got married under assumed names and lived happily ever after. Many children.)

1772. PelleNilsson - 2/15/2000 7:11:57 AM

Alistair

I got the Bodice Rippers in Word format from TheDiva and your name was on top of the list ... But you didn't tell it to your daughter exactly as it reads now, did you?

1773. alistairconnor - 2/15/2000 7:20:46 AM

Well, not exactly word for word, but pretty close... She loves fairy-tale romance.

1774. Candide - 2/15/2000 6:15:31 PM

Alistair and Pelle

And now we have proof that New Zealanders truly are the Corsicans of the South Seas, as a late eccentric Aussie writer friend maintained.

1775. Uzmakk - 2/15/2000 7:20:04 PM

1766 Banks:

I don't know why you would call me a wierdo. Perhaps 1763 and 64 in response to Jenerators 1758? If so, I must explain myself. I can see this Lamaze thing evolving into some kind of bizarre ritual where the hospital staff sings "Wonder of Wonders, Miracle of Miracles" while the father cuts the umbilical cord with his teeth. All in the name of bonding or the new fatherhood or some other appelation for modern fluff wad. Were I a woman I would much rather be in the hands of a bunch of competent women, or doctors, rather than having my bumbling ass husband there.

1776. hashke - 2/15/2000 7:22:24 PM

Uzmakk:

Hahahaha!

1777. Lucky - 2/15/2000 9:52:26 PM

Having a child is a wonderful thing. Congratulations.

On another note, is this still a story thread? Could I post one that doesn't have to do with children? I'm not sure, since I am obviously not a regular. If not, I'll give a hearty congrats again.

1778. SnowOwl - 2/15/2000 9:59:33 PM

Uzmakk,

My husband was relieved that his work meant he was not in the country for the birth of any of our children. And I was equally relieved, I did not want him there yet pressure for doing what was fashionable would have been hard to resist.

Lucky,

Please post your story.

1779. Candide - 2/16/2000 12:17:50 AM

Lucky

I second SnowOwl's request for you to post your story.

1780. Uzmakk - 2/16/2000 7:17:02 AM

It's time for a story, Lucky.

1781. RosettaStone - 2/16/2000 8:42:19 AM

Lucky: Thank you for coming back to mote. And I'm sorry about what happened to you at Christmas.

Uz: You're a new dad? I take everything back. Read with your fingers all you want.

1782. Uzmakk - 2/16/2000 12:25:39 PM

No new dad here, Rosetta.

1783. Lucky - 2/16/2000 5:26:38 PM

Hey, sorry. I wasn't trying to be rude by the question or the delay. I had to go to bed with aftereffects of the flu last night. Here's one for a friend.

At the edge of the stream, the horizontal bank is suddenly distorted by a great uplifting of roots. The oak that once stood beside the water had long ago fallen away from the stream and exposed its secret underside, creating a small backwater and a slight undercut below the mat of watercress. In the watercress, the insects of the stream take refuge, find food, mate, and die. The undercut backwater with its cover of watercress provides the trout everything it needs. The trout that holds the spot must be able to fend off continual challenges, for the spot is one of the best in the stream.By holding the spot for a season, a trout can thrive to the point of being almost certain to hold it yet another season. And so the backwater beneath the upturned roots invariably holds the largest brown trout in that part of the stream.

The landing net attached to the spring-loaded cable clipped to the back of his fishing vest was caught by an unnoticed branch as he moved through the woods. The branch held the net and drew the cable out of the retractor. By the time he felt the tug that signaled the extent of the cable's length, the branch released its grasp on the net. The spring in the retractor did its job admirably, and the net was yanked back by the cable until the wooden butt struck him squarely in the base of his skull.

1784. Lucky - 2/16/2000 5:27:29 PM

Reeling forward, he fell down the bank into the water and stubbed his foot on the submerged roots of the uptuned oak. Balance failed him as his feet could find no purchase on the slippery rocks underneath the surface of the watercress. His chest waders swamped and the surprising shock of cold water caused a gasp that sucked the stream into his lungs, and he thrashed and clawed in panicked horror at the realization that this had finally happened.

A female damselfly backed slowly down the watercress stem until her abdomen and ovipositor entered the water as the male damselfly stood guard above.. A large brown trout, perhaps the largest in the stream, rose quietly from his lie in the undercut backwater beneath the upturned roots and sipped her in without a sound. Only a perfect ring of disturbance on the stream's surface marked her passing. For a brief moment the ring enlongated, distorted, slid downstream, and rippled over the lifeless Cherokee face of my friend Kenny Blue Spruce, his foot firmly caught by a maple sweeper.

The male damselfly fluttered off into the woods to begin his pursuit of a new mate. A Carolina wren sang "see-see-see?" The stream breathed its eternal narrative to the woods.

1785. Lucky - 2/16/2000 5:29:30 PM

Durn, I messed up again. The italics were supposed to end after the first paragraph of the second post. This format takes some getting used to... Sorry.

1786. Candide - 2/16/2000 5:47:39 PM

Lucky

A lovely idyl with cruel undertones and then eternity as the stream continues and continues. Very nice.

Sorry about the flu.

1787. CalGal - 2/16/2000 5:50:37 PM

test

1788. CalGal - 2/16/2000 5:51:44 PM

Pelle,

Nice site! More comments in Try the Mote.

1789. Lucky - 2/16/2000 6:17:49 PM

Thanks for stopping the italics, CalGal. I "checked for Dust" and added the "end italics" html, and it still didn't work once posted. Sorry. Messed the story up, too (mutter).

1790. CalGal - 2/16/2000 6:24:26 PM

Lucky,

At the end of "base of his skull", you accidentally left off the / on the closing tag. Instead of typing </i> , you typed <i> . This not only didn't close your italics off, it nested another italic command, which meant you now had two to close off, instead of one.

If you have any more questions, post them in Try the Mote.

I like your stories.

1791. Lucky - 2/16/2000 7:15:40 PM

I would like to repost that story, if you will allow me that. If it doesn't matter to you, please scroll. The italics that I messed up on ruined the dynamics of the story, so I will try again.

At the edge of the stream, the horizontal bank is suddenly distorted by a great uplifting of roots. The oak that once stood beside the water had long ago fallen away from the stream and exposed its secret underside, creating a small backwater and a slight undercut below the mat of watercress. In the watercress, the insects of the stream take refuge, find food, mate, and die. The undercut backwater with its cover of watercress provides the trout everything it needs. The trout that holds the spot must be able to fend off continual challenges, for the spot is one of the best in the stream.By holding the spot for a season, a trout can thrive to the point of being almost certain to hold it yet another season. And so the backwater beneath the upturned roots invariably holds the largest brown trout in that part of the stream.

The landing net attached to the spring-loaded cable clipped to the back of his fishing vest was caught by an unnoticed branch as he moved through the woods. The branch held the net and drew the cable out of the retractor. By the time he felt the tug that signaled the extent of the cable's length, the branch released its grasp on the net. The spring in the retractor did its job admirably, and the net was yanked back by the cable until the wooden butt struck him squarely in the base of his skull.

1792. Lucky - 2/16/2000 7:17:30 PM

Reeling forward, he fell down the bank into the water and stubbed his foot on the submerged roots of the uptuned oak. Balance failed him as his feet could find no purchase on the slippery rocks underneath the surface of the watercress. His chest waders swamped and the surprising shock of cold water caused a gasp that sucked the stream into his lungs, and he thrashed and clawed in panicked horror at the realization that this had finally happened.

A female damselfly backed slowly down the watercress stem until her abdomen and ovipositor entered the water as the male damselfly stood guard above.. A large brown trout, perhaps the largest in the stream, rose quietly from his lie in the undercut backwater beneath the upturned roots and sipped her in without a sound. Only a perfect ring of disturbance on the stream's surface marked her passing. For a brief moment the ring enlongated, distorted, slid downstream, and rippled over the lifeless Cherokee face of my friend Kenny Blue Spruce, his foot firmly caught by a maple sweeper.

The male damselfly fluttered off into the woods to begin his pursuit of a new mate. A Carolina wren sang "see-see-see?" The stream breathed its eternal narrative to the woods.

1793. sakonige - 2/17/2000 12:53:05 AM

Lucky,

This story is beautifully told.

1794. sakonige - 2/17/2000 1:12:35 AM

...Cherokee face of my friend Kenny Blue Spruce

His open eyes, his vision, form the heart of this story.

1795. Candide - 2/17/2000 1:24:18 AM

Lucky

Yes I see. That is better. Impersonal nature.

A strange question, but do you know the Czech composer Janacek's opera "The Cunning Little Vixen"? If you listened you would realise that the question is not so strange nor unconnected with your theme. It's a pantheistic flowing on like your story. Nice.

1796. sakonige - 2/17/2000 2:12:58 PM

Impersonal nature? I don't see how nature could be more personal than it was for Kenny Blue Spruce at the moment of his death.

1797. PelleNilsson - 2/17/2000 3:13:06 PM

CalGal Message # 1788

Thanks. No comments found in Try the Mote, though.

1798. Candide - 2/17/2000 3:19:38 PM

Sakonige

Of course each death is personal and this one was powerfully depicted because of the brevity of the description. But the stream and the damselfly continued. The Carolina wren sang on. That's its beauty.

1799. sakonige - 2/17/2000 5:21:05 PM

In this story, nature and the man are the same. The scene is his vision, his open eyes seeing the world. This nature is personal, because it is his nature.

1800. Candide - 2/17/2000 5:42:14 PM

As they say where I live: "Australia? You're standing in it."

We are all part of the big machine. But unless some oaf starts a nuclear war the streams flow and the birds sing as we come and go.

1801. Lucky - 2/21/2000 8:33:41 PM

Big Two-Fisted River
(an unapologetic plagiaristic parody of Ernest Hemingway's Big Two-Hearted River)

Nick crawled out from under the pack. He had asked the baggage man to toss his pack off the train when they reached the river but had not meant while he was wearing it and he had not meant this river. He crawled out from under the pack. The river was two hundred miles away, and Nick would have to walk, the heavy pack hanging from his back like a dead bull.

It was hard going. Nick stopped after three days and smoked a cigarette. He slid the bull-heavy pack from his shoulders and propped it against a stump. The going had been hard. There was plenty more hard going to go. Nick did not mind because the going had been the hardness of good going. He smoked his cigarette.

Nick remembered how good it would feel to fight the trout, knee deep in the river. The trout always responded well to his veronicas, his muleta, his sword, and his final recorte. He always lured the trout from their deep holes along the banks with his cape. He had always been good with the cape.
Then Nick placed the bandirillos. He placed them well as the big trout made his upstream rush. He made the trout lower its head. Each time the trout charged the muleta it bled from the bandirillos. The bleeding brought its head down.

1802. Lucky - 2/21/2000 8:34:25 PM

After killing the fish, Nick was too tired to do anything. He was too tired to pitch a tent. He was too tired to build a fire.
Nick got out a bottle of whiskey and leaned back against the trunk of a pine and drank the bottle of whiskey. He was too tired to screw the the top back on so he finished the whole bottle of whiskey. It was not very good whiskey but he had carried it for hundreds of miles and through the satisfaction of killing the trout with the bandirillos and with the sword and muleta.

Nick opened another bottle. He struck a match on the side of his nose and lit a cigarette. There would be many more days to fight the trout.

1803. Candide - 2/21/2000 8:38:43 PM

Lucky

'struck a match on the side of his nose' hahaha'

I liked the ejection scene too.

1804. cigarlaw - 2/21/2000 8:43:06 PM

yes, cigarlaw really exists. see him here until midnight anyway.

http://www.modbee.com/metro/index/0,1151,,00.html

1805. dusty - 2/21/2000 8:57:53 PM

Nice to see ya cigarlaw

1806. robertjayb - 2/21/2000 11:53:20 PM

.
Handsome couple, cigarlaw. Or perhaps trio, if that's a standard poodle there in the corner. And congratulations on the award.

Distinguished Attorney, Adventurer Recognized

1807. PelleNilsson - 2/22/2000 2:03:25 AM

Congratulations, cigarlaw.

1808. cmboyce - 2/22/2000 2:20:20 AM

Wonderful cv, Cigarlaw. Admirable indeed.
Keep fighting.

1809. cigarlaw - 2/22/2000 3:43:51 AM

What I said, or would have said if I knew I was getting an award on Feb. 10, 2000


I have just a few things to say. Of course, everyone here knows how much I like to hear my own voice, but, I promise I will be brief. In my first murder trial, Nick over there, when he still worked for the dark side, once told me that the last ice age took less time than my closing argument. I won that case, so I guess the laugh was on him.

At any rate, this is a great honor. Greater than you might imagine. This award was something we discussed for several years. Of course, we're all a bunch of ego maniacs , so we could never decide who to give it to . I have no idea what the criteria for this award is, but, whenever it is, no one will want it contracting a fatal disease is one of them.

1810. cigarlaw - 2/22/2000 3:46:22 AM

Being recognized by one's peers is the greatest honor a person can have in this, the greatest profession there is. But more than a profession, we are really a fraternity. There are not very many of us to make our living solely from going into court and defending those people accused of its crimes. We all have a great time joking about it, gallows humor, literally. But we are a fraternity, a brotherhood.

So, brothers and sisters, someday the legal history of this time be written and we will be remembered. They will mention the big names, Johnnie Cochran, Tony Serra, Gerry Spence, and the other "big guns" of the profession. They will be remembered rightfully for what they did, but any time their names are mentioned, they really will be talking about us. Because we're the people who don't get the publicity, who don't get the big bucks, who go into battle with the government everyday, one client at a time. And when that history is written, none of us need hold our heads in shame. And, if the darkness should fall, as we sit with our grandchildren and they look up at us and ask what we did when we still had freedom, we can tell them without fear or reservation that we fought the good flight, but there just wasn't enough of us. The others may wonder how we can defend people we know her guilty, and don't we feel ashamed of ourselves, we need not reply, because we are the thin line standing between them and the tyrrany of government run wild.

1811. cigarlaw - 2/22/2000 3:48:38 AM

Before every trial I did, I sat down and read a passage from Shakespeare. You all know I like to work Shakespeare into my closing argument if possible. Unfortunately, try as I might I could never find a way to work this quote into a closing argument, but it is appropriate here. It's the words Shakespeare put into the mouth of Henry V just before the battle Agincourt, when he is trying inspire confidence in his troops who were outnumbered 8 to 1, which, as we know, are much better odds then we normally face -- normally we are outnumbered 14 to 1 , the prosecutor, the judge, and 12 jurors.

We few,
we happy few,
we band of brothers,
for he who sheds his blood with me this day shall be my brother.
Be he ne'er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition,
and gentlemen in England now abed shall consider themselves accursed they were not here,
and hold their manhoods cheap whilst any speaks of the deeds he did upon St. Crispin's day.

I give that quote to you, and hope you can use it.

1812. cigarlaw - 2/22/2000 3:48:59 AM

When I first started I shared office space with Howard Tangle. Howard used to say that we are the last gladiators -- the last people who walked into an arena to fight for something worthwhile. And only one comes out a victor, the other comes out carried upon his shield. I used to agree with that statement, but now, I think it is a bit too cynical. You see, gladiators went into battle to benefit themselves -- either for pay, or for their freedom or simply for their own life. No, we're not gladiators. We are knights. We go out and do battle for the freedom of others and to defend an abstraction called the Constitution --whether they like it or not. We could all make more money doing something else, but it takes a special person to go into the courtroom everyday and fight an uphill battle, knowing that you lose far more often than you win. We do it because, we know it's right. The measure of the greatness of a society is not measured by how it rewards the rich and powerful. No, it is measured in how it deals with the lowest of its low. Our clients

1813. cigarlaw - 2/22/2000 3:49:44 AM

Yes, we are knights, like Don Quixote, forever tilting at windmills. But you must always remember when tilting with windmills, you have to be careful, lest the arm swing around and knock you down into the mud. Of course, never forget, it may knock you down, but it may also lift you up, amongst the stars.

It has always been a privilege and honor to work with you. And I thank you so much for this award. It feels almost as good as a not guilty verdict.

I will have another ale now.

1814. SnowOwl - 2/22/2000 3:59:08 AM

Cheers, Cigarlaw. I'm glad we got to "hear" your speech even if your colleagues did not. Congratulations on the award and on showing us what being alive really means.

1815. PelleNilsson - 2/22/2000 9:54:32 AM

Lucky

I liked your story. A suggestion: Repost it tomorrow after all the regulars have had a chance to read cigarlaw's speech.

1816. msgreer - 2/22/2000 10:29:38 AM

cigarlaw

Bravo. It makes me feel good down to my toes to know you and your brothers and sisters are out there. You are a knight, cigarlaw. Perhaps the 60's were not for naught.

1817. profemeritus - 2/22/2000 10:34:17 AM

Cigarlaw

I am sure that all Moties are proud of you. If we had more citizens like you, we would have a much more civil society. Thanks for your contributions to society and to the Mote.

1818. Candide - 2/22/2000 3:37:29 PM

CigarLaw

You got to me. You really did.

1819. PelleNilsson - 2/23/2000 8:36:47 AM

I have now collected our old stories and have made up a table of contents. The page is not very nice because I'm still grappling with the design issues. It looks different when I preview in the editor to when I access the site.

Before I start to link in the actual stories I would like you to have a look here and tell me if

• you want another title for your story
  
• you think your story should be in another category
  
• you want to delete a story
  
• there is anything else I should consider

1820. PelleNilsson - 2/23/2000 8:41:30 AM

1821. Lucky - 2/24/2000 6:48:54 PM

Pelle, thanks for including a newcomer in your page. I have one request... if the story you titled as "Grappling with Trout" includes parts of the following story, could you replace it with this one? I see that you have not linked to it yet, so perhaps it could be done. If not, it's O.K. -- it's just that I have edited it extensively for upcoming publication in "Trout" magazine. The story as it stands now follows.

1822. Lucky - 2/24/2000 6:50:32 PM

You'll hear people say that birth is a miracle and death is a tragedy, but fishermen and poets eventually come to see that anything that happens every day is just plain ordinary. Life is just life, and the trick is not to get too bent out of shape about it.
On one empty fishing trip it rained constantly. Mind you, this was in Montana where I had spent big money getting there, had my gear lost by the airline for two days, and then watched my return flight coming chillingly closer on the calendar as the skies opened up and the rivers turned to dark coffee. We were sitting in a combination hardware-store-fishing shop-diner when I asked an old toothless Indian man how long it was going to keep raining.

The old man looked at the sky, held up one hand with the fingers spread and said, "It gonna rain five days."

It did, of course, but he could have heard that on the radio.

Last week I saw trout dead on the banks of a local stream due to yet another hot dry summer in the procession of our earth's climate change. We killed 'em, sure as shooting. Can I change it? No. Maybe next year we'll get some rain, and the trout will come back. Maybe I'll go back to Montana and it will rain the whole time. If not, maybe I'll write some poetry.

1823. Lucky - 2/24/2000 6:51:11 PM

Writing poetry is like trying to catch a really large brown trout. Both are a test. It is somewhat akin to attempting to fool one of your oldest friends into showing up for a surprise birthday party without him/her knowing what's going on.

No, that's not quite right. It's more like playing with a house cat with a shoelace. The adolescent cat is easy; flip the lace out onto the floor and she jumps on it. The adult cat is a little harder. The string itself isn't enough; it also has to act right. The most difficult is the old seven-pound, fourteen-year-old spayed calico. Her predatory instincts are still intact, but she has seen it all. Cast the shoelace to where she's sleeping and she will open one eye just wide enough to register her boredom with such a clumsy and obvious ruse.

It can take a half an hour to get her to bat at the string. If you're not patient enough, she will outwait you. If you get impatient and wiggle the string in her face, she'll get up and go find another soft place to sleep where you won't be bothering her. However, if you wait and twitch the string at the perfect time, she will hit it the way a huge brown trout takes a fly; without completely buying the idea that it's real.

Fishing is a collection of moments: instants when either it comes together with amazing perfection or goes horribly wrong. Never mind the vast silences between those times when something actually happens. The hours of driving and hiking and then not catching fish are like the the blank paper in Taoist paintings meant to suggest fog, out of which comes a single tree made more poignant by all that empty space.

1824. Lucky - 2/24/2000 6:51:56 PM

Or maybe fishing is more like poetry; a different, more organic way of putting things together that goes light on rules. There's really only one supreme rule in fishing and poetry -- namely, don't get too sappy about it or people will think you're a cream puff. The only secondary rule -- don't lie, or you'll get caught. Although neither of these rules are clear, fishing and poetry should be gone about properly or not at all. When you're looking for something that might be there but probably won't co-operate, the practical edge is off and you know you're on a more philosophical errand.
The cast is perfect, the fly hits the water, and those weeds look promising; a telltale bulge of water. You give the fly the subtlest possible twitch- the spark of life. Was that a bending of water just off to the left? A dark buttery-colored flash beneath the surface? Maybe. There's often no hint at all that a giant old fish is approaching, but sometimes there's just a little bit of one. You wait. If you twitch the fly again, the trout will wander off like the old cat; bored and irritated.

You wait, cast again, go through the same torture, and nothing happens. Is the fish looking at the fly right now? How are you supposed to know? You wait for long minutes. You didn't realize it, but it's getting dark. Maybe it's been hours. Behind you there's a liquid "whoosh" as a pair of geese land, but you don't look.

You aren't really trying to write a poem, either.

No question about it, something is about to happen.

1825. Candide - 2/24/2000 7:25:57 PM

Pelle
Did you receive my email while I was out of action?

1826. Uzmakk - 2/25/2000 3:53:01 PM

I can dig it, Lucky. I can dig it.

1827. PelleNilsson - 2/25/2000 4:38:34 PM

No Candide, I did not.

1828. Indiana Jones - 2/25/2000 4:43:22 PM

Pelle, thanks for doing this. I'm looking forward to reading all the contributions.

1829. Candide - 2/25/2000 5:58:22 PM

Pelle

I was cut out by technical problems but I sent 2 emails and then received one from wabbit asking whether I wanted then forwarded to you and I said that I did. Please let me know if they don't arrive.

1830. PelleNilsson - 2/25/2000 6:08:17 PM

Candide

I have not received anything. Please resend. Click on the link in Message # 1819 for the address.

1831. sakonige - 2/25/2000 6:10:51 PM

PelleNilsson,

Re: Message # 1820

I think you or I misspelled marjoribanks.

1832. sakonige - 2/25/2000 6:21:18 PM

I thought of him today when I read about Ujjal Dosanjh, the new premier of British Columbia.

1833. Candide - 2/25/2000 6:22:32 PM

Pelle

Both emails resent.

Thanks

1834. sakonige - 2/25/2000 6:23:30 PM

He came to Canada when he was 17 years old, arriving on December 31, 1964, from India's Punjab.

1835. PelleNilsson - 2/26/2000 3:23:51 AM

Sakonige

You are right about marj. Thanks

1836. PelleNilsson - 2/26/2000 3:44:10 AM

Candide

E-mails receieved. I'll take care of it.

1837. Candide - 2/26/2000 9:53:34 AM

Pelle

Thanks.

1838. PelleNilsson - 2/26/2000 2:23:27 PM

I have linked in the Bodice Rippers. Check here.

Those who were not around at the time may like to know that this was a competition, eventually won by vonKreedon. But its was a close race, very close.

It's a pity that our host is not around. She could have put up a permanent link in the butterscotch bar.

1839. Candide - 2/26/2000 7:05:29 PM

Pelle

Thanks for all your work and for your kind message in another place.

Thanks, truly.

1840. PelleNilsson - 3/2/2000 10:21:32 AM

I have linked in CigarLaw's Cuba stories. Click here.

1841. glendajean - 3/2/2000 10:44:03 AM

Pelle -- have you thought about hosting another bout of stories? Any ideas?

1842. marjoribanks - 3/2/2000 10:46:12 AM

Hey Pelle,

I just looked at your list. I believe the original el foco desnudo story was written by Pak Hashke, actually. It may have been brief. I do know the idea came from him.

1843. PelleNilsson - 3/2/2000 10:56:47 AM

glenda

I haven't thought about it and I don't have a lot of time these days. But it would be fun if somebody took an initiative.

While I was writing the above I suddenly thought of

"Encounter with The Mote --Diary of a Newbie"

But it's perhaps too narcisstic.

1844. glendajean - 3/2/2000 11:17:11 AM

a meta-motian story about a made up newbie encountering us?

1845. Angel-Five - 3/2/2000 11:18:54 AM

Perhaps a Swiftian commentary on the Mote?

1846. glendajean - 3/2/2000 11:20:10 AM

Angel -- I'm not sure Swift continued to dine at the same club every day with the people he was lambasting.

1847. stostosto - 3/2/2000 11:21:55 AM

"Gulliver in the land of Motieput" ?

1848. Indiana Jones - 3/2/2000 11:24:59 AM

Pelle: Your new link doesn't work, but I found them using the bodice rippers link above it.

1849. glendajean - 3/2/2000 11:25:00 AM

Instead of focusing on us, why not a collective, on-going story about characters who only communicate via the internet.

In our own community, most of us only know each other in cyberland. Let's create a fictional world and explore that kind of relationship. Off-line descriptions, thoughts, dialogue can be included to further develop characters who only communicate to each other on-line.

1850. glendajean - 3/2/2000 11:26:38 AM

An internetian soap opera.

1851. marjoribanks - 3/2/2000 11:30:37 AM

Or how the many pseudonymous pseuderasmussian characters of yore sucked me into a fraygrant fracas.

1852. Angel-Five - 3/2/2000 11:42:46 AM

And it will end with Sting singing a repeated chorus of 'Sending Out an SOS...'.

1853. Uzmakk - 3/2/2000 11:57:43 AM

Stop! Stop! Your plans are making me dizzy! Perhaps I could host such a thread?!

1854. Uzmakk - 3/2/2000 12:00:00 PM

Titter, titter, titter, titter,

1855. Angel-Five - 3/2/2000 12:05:24 PM

Just a cast-away,
an island lost at sea
another lonely day
no one here but me
more loneliness
than any man could bear
rescue me before I fall into despair...

I'll send an SOS to the world
I'll send an SOS to the world
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
I hope that someone gets my
message in a bottle...









...walked out this morning,
don't believe what I saw.
a hundred billion bottles
washed up on the shore
seems I'm not alone in being alone
a hundred billion castaways looking for a home...

1856. Uzmakk - 3/2/2000 12:21:20 PM

Woa bah, yeah.

1857. PelleNilsson - 3/2/2000 12:49:23 PM

This link works.

1858. Jenerator - 3/2/2000 12:56:43 PM

My friend Stefani had a 10 pound 2 ounce baby last week, his name is Jaeden Isaiah. Labor had to be induced since he was running late and because he was so big, (22 inches long, too!) the doctors had to perform an emergency cesearean. After he came out, he wasn't breathing, so more doctors filed in to help the baby cry and breathe. Stefani was running a temperature of 102F and the fear and pain only increased. After 6 hours in intensive care, her and Jaeden were moved to the regular delivery suite.

The baby is just as healthy as he could be -- he has a full head of hair and dimples, and Stefani has lost her fever.

1859. Uzmakk - 3/2/2000 1:07:26 PM

asa big baby.

1860. hashke - 3/2/2000 1:15:15 PM

1842. marjoribanks - 3/2/00 3:46:12 PM
Hey Pelle,

I just looked at your list. I believe the original el foco desnudo story was written by Pak Hashke, actually. It may have been brief. I do know the idea came from him.

Yes, thanks marj. The term came from my travels in Mexico. Not that it matters, but Pelle still has you as the originator. Mebbe it has to do with svenske envishet. ;-)) (gg)

(I take no chances with the Swedish sense of yuma)

At any rate, Pelle is doing a great job with that archive. A helluva lot of hard work!

1861. Jenerator - 3/2/2000 1:16:51 PM

Uz,

Stef is 5'11" and daddy is 6'4". The kid has a career in sports for sure.

1862. PelleNilsson - 3/2/2000 1:26:23 PM

hashke and marj

hashke's post (May 12, 1999) on El Foco Desnudo is not so much a story as an explanation. Here it is:

In Mexico there is the phenomenon of 'el foco desnudo' ('la bombilla desnuda') -- 'the naked bulb'. Even in well-to-do houses the family gathers to the garish effulgence thrown off by this flickering, undraped sphere, which ususally hangs from the ceiling and is of extremely low wattage. La gente mejicana eats, drinks, socializes, dreams within its phantasmal glimmer.

It may be that it is a metaphor for the unrealized, the inadequate, el mal gusto.

It will make up the Introduction.

1863. cigarlaw - 3/2/2000 3:48:34 PM

can

1864. cigarlaw - 3/2/2000 3:50:28 PM

we all?), but we will not ponder upon that here. The purity of cigars, however remains the same as 500 years ago. Today, to be a cigar it must be 100 percent tobacco. Even those cigars rolled in paper , such as used in many machine made American cigars, use paper made from tobacco leaves. The leaves make a difference. The leaves are dependent upon where they're grown. Like fine wine, the same leaf, grown in different areas will taste different, and so, connoisseurs around the world have appreciated Cuban cigars above all others for the past 500 years.

The Cigar in American History

Many people today forget, but once upon a time, virtually everyone in the United States smoked cigars. In the 1850s, for example, cigar smoking was practiced by people as young as three years of age -- it was a treatment for asthma. I assure you, if you have in asthma attack, smoke a cigar -- it works. Another amazing fact that everyone forgets is that lung cancer was virtually unknown in United States prior to 1930, notwithstanding the fact that almost everyone in United States smoked tobacco. It was only after World War I, when American tobacco companies gave free cigarettes to the soldiers going overseas that lung cancer rates increased roughly 20 years later. The reason for this is quite simple, only an idiot inhales tobacco smoke, even good Cuban tobacco smoke.

Most United States President have smoked cigars (except Franklin Roosevelt, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and we

1865. cigarlaw - 3/2/2000 3:51:33 PM

Chapter 11 – Part One
Digression on Cigars
Or
A Woman Is Just a Woman, but a Good Cigar Is a Smoke

I remember the first cigar I smoked. It was a White Owl, I was 20 years old, living in Santa Barbara, it was about the size a cigarette, and when I smoked it, my sinuses cleared up. I don't know why did it, probably because Winston Churchill, who was my hero at that time, and remains so, smoked them.

I have never smoked cigarettes (I think I have smoked about three in my entire life and hated every one of them). On the other hand, I have always smoked as many cigars as I could afford and often more. At first I smoked some awful green things that were huge and sold for the magnificent sum of 2 for 25 cents. One day, during an antiwar demonstration I was smoking one when I ran into an ROTC type on the other side of the picketline who asked me what I was smoking. He advised me that I was smoking trash, and invited me to his room after the demonstration was done. For some strange reason, probably because I realized he was also a pariah for being a cigar smoker, I took him up on the offer and we spent the evening smoking handmade cigars together. That was it, I never looked back. Handmade cigars were what I wanted from then on, and not just handmade but strong, full-bodied handmade cigars.

1866. cigarlaw - 3/2/2000 3:54:28 PM

Machine Made vs. Handmade Cigars

I am not going to go into the esoteric differences between handmade and made by hand cigars (there is difference, although it seems rather bizarre to even think about it). For every handmade cigars smoked in the world, there are probably 100 machine made cigars smoked. I confess, that when my finances were low, I smoked machine made cigars and enjoyed them. Occasionally, when I want a short smoke, I will still smoke a machine made cigar. There is nothing wrong with a machine made cigar, except that they tend to be like super cigarettes. Machine made cigars generally are not as full-bodied as a handmade cigar, but they do have one benefit -- they are always same.

I will be talking about handmade cigars in this digression. They are simply works of art, each one unique indifferent.

Long Filler vs. Short Filler

the first cigars were all long filler. As smoked by the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Caribbean, they were simply several leaves of tobacco rolled into a tube, which was then stuck into the nose of the smoker and lit on fire. The smoker would then breathe the smoke up his nose and had visions or something (I know I would have visions if this happened to me.

We have become more civilized than those ancient savages, however. Now we roll leaves up and stick them in our mouths and set them on fire. The President of the United States apparently has done a few other things with cigars (then again, haven’t we all?), but we will not ponder upon that here. The purity of cigars, however remains the same as 500 years ago. Today, to be a cigar it must be 100 percent tobacco. Even those cigars rolled in paper , such as used in many machine made American cigars, use paper made from tobacco leaves. The leaves make a difference.

1867. cigarlaw - 3/2/2000 3:54:59 PM

The leaves are dependent upon where they're grown. Like fine wine, the same leaf, grown in different areas will taste different, and so, connoisseurs around the world have appreciated Cuban cigars above all others for the past 500 years.

The Cigar in American History

Many people today forget, but once upon a time, virtually everyone in the United States smoked cigars. In the 1850s, for example, cigar smoking was practiced by people as young as three years of age -- it was a treatment for asthma. I assure you, if you have in asthma attack, smoke a cigar -- it works. Another amazing fact that everyone forgets is that lung cancer was virtually unknown in United States prior to 1930, notwithstanding the fact that almost everyone in United States smoked tobacco. It was only after World War I, when American tobacco companies gave free cigarettes to the soldiers going overseas that lung cancer rates increased roughly 20 years later. The reason for this is quite simple, only an idiot inhales tobacco smoke, even good Cuban tobacco smoke.

Most United States President have smoked cigars (except Franklin Roosevelt, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan, and we know about them don't we) Yes, cigars are a symbol of power. Ulysses Grant smoked a pipe until after the battle of Shiloh, when, because an artist drew him pointing to the battlefield with a cigar in his mouth, everyone in America seemed to send him cigars by the barrel load at no cost. Being a frugal sort and not wanting anything to go to waste, he decided he better start smoking cigars. He died of throat cancer after writing one of the great memoirs of all time.

1868. cigarlaw - 3/2/2000 3:56:50 PM

At one time there will literally thousands of brands of American-made cigars. In fact, Samuel Gompers, the founder of the American Federation of Labor (A. F. L.) was by trade a cigar roller. In fact, many of the best Cuban cigars were made in the United States. If you get into the esoterica of cigars you'll hear terms such as Havana Clear, which simply means that this is a cigar made 100 percent from Cuban tobacco, but made in United States. Cigars used to be so ubiquitous in United States that most cigar companies had a deal where they would put a person's a private-label on a cigar. At one time most restaurants, hotels, etc. had their own private cigar labels -- the same cigars, just with a different label.

A little-known fact is this: the best wrapper tobacco (the exterior tobacco wrapped around the cigar ) is shade grown (that is, grown under a covering of cheesecloth) Connecticut Broadleaf. It is still grown in Connecticut. There aren't is many acres as there used to be dedicated to it, but even the Cubans used to take some Connecticut Broadleaf for cigars. (For example, my favorite cigar, A La Gloria Cubana Churchill Maduro, it is wrapped with Connecticut Broadleaf. Try smoking one of those and then smoke the same cigar with a natural wrapper, which I believe comes from Ecuador, and you will see the difference immediately.) One of the largest tobacco growing regions of the United States used to be Pennsylvania.

Almost everyone can think of at least one person smoke who smoked cigars 50 years ago. Winston Churchill is always the obvious choice. Of course, it was Groucho Marx, who gave one of the funniest lines ever given on national television when he asked a man why he had 12 children, and he replied “I guess because I love my wife so much.” Groucho replied, "I love my cigar, but I take it out once in a while."

1869. cigarlaw - 3/2/2000 3:57:54 PM

One of the greatest cigar smokers in American history in pure volume, has to be Mark Twain. He smoked about 40 cigars a day. He used to buy them by the barrelful, and they were perfectly awful smelling things that no one liked but him. Many times people try to convince him to smoke better cigars, but he wouldn't do it. He was once quoted as saying "If I cannot smoke in heaven, I shall not go."

In recent memory is George Burns. He smoked about 14 or 15 cigars a day. He smoked, cheap cigars, that were given the him for free by the tobacco manufacturer. He liked them because they stayed lit on stage. One time the Milton Berle offered him a handmade Cuban cigar. Mr. Burns asked how much it cost. When Berle responded "$10," George Burns responded, "If I paid that much for a cigar, I'd have to sleep with it first."

Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill was without doubt the most visible cigar smoker ever. He smoked approximately 14 or 15 cigars a day, every day of his adult life. One of the few photographs you'll see of Winston Churchill without a cigar is the famous scowling photograph where he looks like a giant baby whose toy has just been taken away. In fact that is what happened. The photographer, wanting a scowl on his face, had just reached up and pulled the cigar from his mouth. In a book I have, there is a photograph from the same photo session within. It was taken just before the scowl picture, in which he has a cigar in his hand and a quite cherubic smile upon his face.

For those of you wonder, at current prices Winston Churchill smoked approximately $450 a day worth of cigars. In fact, once, his butler became quite agitated when he realized that Churchill paid more money for his cigars in one day than he made in a month. So, if you wonder why Churchill wrote all those books, it was because he needed the money, because he spent so much on cigars and champagne

1870. ScottLoar - 3/2/2000 4:16:05 PM

Continue. This is exactly the sort of subject and prose that I like. I may be inspired to counter with a treatise on my Chinese head.

1871. hashke - 3/2/2000 4:18:13 PM

It is of little consequence to me, so have it your way, Pelle. Macht mir gar nichts aus. You and I and Pak marj all know where the term 'el foco desnudo' originated. The passage quoted was an observation made during my travels and inasmuch as it has a beginning, muddle, and end, it is a sort of story within a story.

Mais quelle espèce de foutaise.

1872. PelleNilsson - 3/2/2000 4:43:37 PM

hashke
It is of little consequence to me, so have it your way, Pelle. Macht mir gar nichts aus. You and I and Pak marj all know where the term 'el foco desnudo' originated.


I don't understand you. As I said, your post will be the Introduction to the El Foco Desnudo category and I will add a few words saying how this term was coined by you and how it inspired a number of good stories.

If you want it to be treated in another way please tell me and I will do it. I'm just recording things; I'm not setting myself up as editor or referee.

1873. hashke - 3/2/2000 4:48:36 PM

That's fine, Pelle. Carry on.

1874. Angel-Five - 3/2/2000 4:54:56 PM

Hahahaha. I've seen that picture of Churchill. I know exactly what you're talking about.

Continue, Cig.

1875. cigarlaw - 3/2/2000 7:01:21 PM

Chapter 11 -- Part Two
"Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"
-- Sigmund Freud

Cigars are constant source of enjoyment. There is no way one can smoke a cigar and savor it while agitated or nervous. Cigars are not a pacifier. While they are pacific, they do not pacify Rather, they enlighten. In my life, my most pleasant experiences, even sex, generally have a cigar in them, or lurking about somewhere.

Unlike cigarettes, which are fine for old ladies and young girls wanting to appear sophisticated, and pipes, which are fine substitutes for a pacifier ring and generally are carried around by young men who wish to appear intelligent (ever notice how these people sit in their chair, with their patched elbow, tweed jackets and when asked a question they put the unlit pipe in their mouth and look at the ceiling for a few moments before they answer?), cigars are for men. Men who don't give a damn what you think about them, men secure enough in their own masculinity that they don't mind putting something that looks like a phyallic symbol in their mouth and holding it there for while.

In this politically correct world, the most politically incorrect statement one can make is to light up a cigar and walk down the street enjoying yourself. Women will come from miles to tell you how much you stink and put that smelly thing out. On the other hand, many women like cigars. Their fathers and/or grandfathers smoked them, and brings back wonderful memories for them. These women will adore you and throw themselves your feet begging you to ravage them. God knows they do that to me.

1876. cigarlaw - 3/2/2000 7:02:12 PM

Cigar smoking generally goes with good whiskeys, double barreled shotguns, hunting dogs, and three-piece tweed hunting outfit's. Of course in California things are a bit different. In California, it goes with everything except the three-piece tweed hunting outfit, unless you're three-piece outfit is blue jeans, commando sweater, and broad-brimmed, fur felt hat (in the winter -- the rest of the year, of course, it is khaki pants or shorts, Hawaiian shirts, and Panama hats.)

Cigar smokers in recent years (since the the first printing of Cigar Aficionado magazine) have become more effete. Now you see Yuppies running about in their new sports cars with the top down puffing away on overpriced, mild cigars, while everyone born before 1960 knows the only proper way to smoke a cigar in a car, is in a Lincoln or Cadillac with the windows rolled up (preferably while your chauffeur takes you where you wish to go.).

California is now the land of the anti-smoking zealots. Rob Reiner has demonstrated that all one has to do to pass an initiative in California is to blame smokers for smoking, hit them with a huge tax, and walk around saying "Do it for the children."
Right now in California the only place you can smoke is in your home, a cigar bar (so long as more than 60 percent of revenue comes from the sale of cigars), or outdoors. If one is foolish enough to buy cigars in California, a 97 percent tax rate applies to the sale. In other words, a good three dollars cigar costs you about $12 when you add in tax and profit margin. Hence, real men, to avoid taxes (not evade them) have their cigars shipped from out-of-state. Of course, this reduces revenue to the government and, the bluenoses, not wanting you to enjoy yourself without paying for it our now trying to come after us retroactively. Thank

1877. cigarlaw - 3/2/2000 7:03:05 PM

God they are going after the cigarette smokers first. By the time they realize that since January 1, 1999, the period for which they are now collecting money, I avoided paying about $4000 in to in state taxes, I will probably be dead. They will never take me alive.

Alas, I have just made a major digression within the second digression of my account of my trip to Cuba. Tough. I have a way of getting back at them besides just avoiding their silly taxes. There is a coffee shop just around the corner from my old office. After the smoking ban went into effect, they put some tables outside for smokers. One nice spring day I walked in to get my morning cup of coffee. I noticed some women outside sitting at the tables. They were not smoking. I bought my coffee, walked outside, stood over their table and stared at them. When they glanced the up to see if there was a problem, I calmly said, "You're not smoking." A woman replied, "That's right, it was such a nice day we decided to come outside."

"Do you smoke?"

"No, I don't. I can't stand smoke."

"So, I suppose you support the smoking ban."

"Not that it is any of your business, but I voted for it."

At that point, I reached into my jacket, pulled out a Churchill maduro, smiled, and said, "Then, you'd better get your pretty little ass inside so you can breathe all the good clean air you wanted."

Apparently, she took offense at this statement, because a few minutes later she came

1878. cigarlaw - 3/2/2000 7:04:02 PM

out with the manager. I was smoking my cigar peacefully minding my own business, when this anti-smoking fascist had the gall to come out with the manager and complain. Pointing her finger at me, she said, "He is the one."

The manager, a young woman that I knew smoked, look to me and said, "Sir, you will l have to leave."

"For what?" I said, blowing smoke in the direction of the fascist.

"Because, you took this lady's seat from her."

"I'm sorry what lady are you referring to?"

"This one right here."

"This is a lady? I only know one type of woman who hangs around on the streets and they are definitely not ladys."

"Well I never," said the fascist.

"I bet you have," I said smiling.

"Sir, you will have to leave."

"Well, I will. However, you should be advised that the next time I see someone sitting here not smoking, I shall come in and have you throw them out, or should I say in?" I then blew a smoke ring, laughed, and walked away.

The above, is a highly fictionalized account of an actual incident, in which I, went to the manager and asked the manager to remove woman because she was not smoking. This makes me look much worse than I actually am. This is probably the only occasion in the

1879. cigarlaw - 3/2/2000 7:04:48 PM

continental United States in which I smoked a cigar in public without asking permission first.

Of course, in original story he left.

But I see this digression has taken up another chapter. I promise, next chapter I will get back down to talking about cigars.

1880. PelleNilsson - 3/5/2000 2:10:15 PM

You can now read the Cheever stories and Moties on Moties. Among the latter is a personal favourite of mine -- Angel's Showdown at the Castellan.

Something in the newspaper reminded me of Liberia. I went there several times around 1980. During one visit I was called to the Finance Minister, a very sharp-witted lady called Johnson -- first name Elaine I think. She went on to a career with the World Bank and returned to Liberia as a presidential candidate after the civil war.

At the time she was about 35 and very nice-looking. We were facing each other over a low table. She had a loose-fitting blouse on. Every time she made an argument she leaned towards me and two things became evident:

1. She had nothing underneath.
   
   
2. She knew exactly was she was doing.

1881. stostosto - 3/6/2000 3:50:33 AM

Pelle
Excellent countertactics. I bet you had your way.

1882. Jenerator - 3/6/2000 10:58:18 AM

"...and pipes, which are fine substitutes for a pacifier ring and generally are carried around by young men who wish to appear intelligent (ever notice how these people sit in their chair, with their patched elbow, tweed jackets and when asked a question they put the unlit pipe in their mouth and look at the ceiling for a few moments before they answer?)..."


Pipes and cloves. All for poseurs if you ask me.

1883. Angel-Five - 3/9/2000 6:36:21 AM

They say that it's important to keep writing if you ever want to be a writer. Fortunately, I have a favorite target.



Miss Alyssa Rai leans forward and calls, in the splintered Hindi she learned from her grandparents, for the rickshaw to stop. The driver, a short man with curly dark hair, obliges her with no more response than a heaving breath; the rickshaw rolls to a shivering halt. Dust curls up from the parched earth into the flat dry heat of Khajuraho in late-afternoon summer.

Alyssa gingerly steps down from beneath the sheltering canopy of the rickshaw into the golden light of the sun. It is a strange light, for her – not harsh, yet it penetrates her light skin and pushes through her sunglasses, insistently, as if it were pressurized. The light seems to paint everything in a slightly tan shade. She reaches up for her traveling bag.

The driver smiles ingratiatingly. << The western complex of temples is still a few minutes distance, madam. I can certainly take you there much quicker than you can walk >>. His voice is slow, and tinged with a sly amusement that Alyssa does not recognize.

Alyssa shakes her head, dark locks swaying . She stops and thinks for a moment for what to say, then shakes her head in defeat and reaches into her pocket for her tiny tourist’s Hindi phrasebook. << No, thank you. I want to walk here. >> She looks around. << My grandparents walked. So will I. >> Said with the air of an American stubbornly intent on experiencing part of a heritage the accident of her birth denied her.
The driver says nothing.

She shoulders her bag, then turns to look at the driver, stripped to the waist and sweating terribly in the heat, then digs in her pocket for a handful of currency. She selects two notes and hands them to the driver, who smiles even more ingratiatingly – then a third. << For you. I’m sorry if this causes a problem for you . >>

1884. Angel-Five - 3/9/2000 6:37:37 AM

The driver shakes his head no, then yes, smiling obsequiously. << It is not a problem. >> He tucks the currency into a pocket at his waist.

<< Enjoy the temples. >>

Yes, enjoy them, you goose-brained American twit, he mentally adds in English as he turns the rickshaw around. Don’t get lost. He thinks of the way she stared at him and imagines the state she will be in when she returns to the hotel, chuckling, pulling the rickshaw back over the road from whence he came.

Alyssa does not hear him laughing; neither does she watch him leave. Standing resolutely in the quiet, dusty heat, remembering how brown and flat the land had looked on her flight in, she stares off at the temples which thrust above the horizon with the beckoning authority of a heritage she never really had but desperately wants, and then begins walking, her raised heels awkward over the dusty road.
*******************

Small groups of tourists are moving around the temple complex, their occasional high laughter and brazen, lewd statements loud in her ears as they snap photographs of one relief after another. Yet
Alyssa only half-hears them, as she stands staring upward at the relief-carven height of the Lakshmana temple, half-horrified. She’d no idea her ancestors had gotten up to this. Her grandparents had been such proper folk.


The peace and quiet of her atavistic walk into the temple complex had been broken by the roar of an American jeep full of tourists barreling over the road and down, past her, along it until it seemed it was floating in the heat waves. She had felt somehow cheated and embarrassed by their presence, a ruffling only partially soothed by the fact that she was quite near to the first temple now. The soothing had changed to puzzlement as she began to make out some detail on the temples, then the puzzlement had quickly given way to disbelief and then shocked confirmation.

1885. Angel-Five - 3/9/2000 6:38:36 AM

She wasn’t sure what was more unsettling – what some of the reliefs were depicting, or the casual and joyous way in which the acts were depicted. Her eyes settle in on the face a tall patrician figure among the statues, and then almost against her will she looks down his body toward the second figure kneeling at his feet. And then abruptly back up to his face. Her grandparents had certainly never done any of that.

A new group of tourists walks around the corner of the temple, and Alyssa forces herself to look down at them. A group of Americans, snapping pictures wildly and chattering among themselves, and behind them a young Indian in his early twenties, staring intently up at the statuary with an inscrutable expression. He has the look of a tour guide in his athletic, casual movements, noticeably short, clad in a half-open shirt and Bermuda shorts with worn leather sandals, yet he is carrying a piece of luggage, not a clipboard, and isn’t, at the moment, talking to anyone. Alyssa looks at him a moment, then looks back up at the reliefs, unsettled for some reason she cannot name.

She gazes up at the statues, dazed, slowly sidestepping along the wall. Some of the statues are relatively normal. She is looking at one that brings the blood to her face, side-stepping, eyes never leaving the relief, when she bumps into someone.

<< Oh! >> she exclaims, turning in embarrassment, reaching for her phrasebook. << I’m sorry -- >> and then stops. It is the young Indian male, smiling faintly up at her.

‘Think nothing of it,’ he says in fluent, British English with barely a hint of a native lilt. He smiles again, and then swivels his gaze back up to the statuary she had been contemplating. ‘The walls command nearly everyone’s attention; they’re rather entrancing, aren’t they?’

1886. Angel-Five - 3/9/2000 6:39:26 AM

Alyssa is taken aback. ‘You speak English,’ she finally manages.

The young man eyes her for a moment in silence, apparently oblivious to the heat. ‘Yes,’ he answers smoothly. He looks back up at the walls, brown, thoughtful orbs regarding the walls with absolute equanimity in the quietude surrounding them. She looks back up at them as well and the two stand in silence for a moment, then the young man gestures up with his right hand at the walls.

‘The tall one in the middle of this piece – it’s called a Mithuna -- is Vishnu, the god; this temple was built to honor him. The figures ministering to him are called apsaras.’ The young man smiles at where Alyssa’s gaze has fallen. ‘He does seem to be enjoying their attentions, doesn’t he?’

Alyssa flushes again, looking away. ‘It’s… it’s… I’ve never seen anything like this before.’

The young man regards her politely. ‘You aren’t from India, then?’ he asks in a tone which absolutely does not betray how utterly unnecessary the question is.

‘No, I’m from New York. My grandparents were from Varanasi.’ She sighs, looking around, fanning herself with her phrasebook. ‘And until now I had absolutely no idea just how far away that is.’

The young man smiles up at her. ‘Quite different than New York, isn’t it?’ His right hand sweeps up and around. ‘Hard to imagine they built all this, isn’t it? Eighty temples within a hundred years, only twenty of which have survived to tell us of the art of their builders.’ His hand sweeps back to the relief in front of them. ‘Indeed, one wonders how they found the time.’ And he smiles at her again, quite dazzlingly, feet planted firmly upon the dusty soil.

1887. Angel-Five - 3/9/2000 6:41:01 AM

Despite herself, she smiles, then presents her hand. ‘My name is Alyssa.’

The young man grasps it warmly. ‘Mine is Marjori.’

He looks around, and then back up at her. ‘It’s a massive complex and I’m probably a poor guide – in fact, (he grins self-deprecatingly) all I know about this particular temple is what I read on the plane flight here. If we’d bumped into each other at one of the southern or eastern temples, I could provide a near-endless dazzling flow of information, but the western temples are new to me. Still, I can point some things out to you if you’d like. There’s really a lot of history here that isn’t apparent at first.’ He releases her hand.

Alyssa dimples. ‘I’d like that.’ Then, thinking, ‘you’re not a tour guide, then?’

‘Oh, no.’ Marjori looks around, smiling. ‘Just a traveler. Humble Marjori Banks, tourist extraordinaire, at your service, if you please, Alyssa.’

Alyssa laughs. 'Alyssa Rai, very pleased. And what brought you here?’

‘Oh, nothing.’ Marjori’s eyes swing back to the temple, and seem to focus off into the distance behind it. ‘I suppose you could call it research.’ And he frowns momentarily, almost too quickly for Alyssa to see, his left hand slowly reaching down to press against the side of his traveling bag. Then he smiles again at her and with his hand directs her attention at another relief. ‘Now these standing figures here…’
**********************************

1888. Angel-Five - 3/9/2000 6:41:57 AM

The light is beginning to fail, although the heat still lingers, when the tour group catches up to them on the inside of the Devi Jagadamba. Marjori has, despite his protestations of ignorance, explained nearly every facet of the temple art they have seen thus far, in a manner that she found exceptionally appealing. Indeed, he had scanned nearly every inch of the temples with an intent expression that Alyssa could not quite place other than to say that he seemed to be looking for something. Through his explanations she found herself intuitively understanding the artwork in a way that, when she stopped to think abut it, pleased her immensely as an awakening of her Indian heritage.
She stops to point this out to Marjori, adding ‘You’re quite the Indian ambassador, aren’t you? If you ever give up tourism and tour guiding, you’ll have quite a future in educating Americans on the subcontinent.’

Marjori smiles, and answers her ‘Do you think?’ in a diffident tone. ‘Perhaps one day, when I’m older and slower and have completed my… quest.’ He sees the question in her eyes and hurriedly goes on. ‘Spending my days between familial pursuits and teaching the heathens of our glorious culture. It’s a noble calling for an aging subcontinental, wouldn’t you say?’ He looks around once more, with that same searching expression, then blinks and shakes his head as if giving up on something, and flashes an entirely different smile up at her.

Undeterred, Alyssa is just about to ask what he meant by ‘quest’ when the tour group strides into the interior of the temple. The guide gives her a knowing smile, which takes her aback until she realizes that she is standing mere inches away from the smiling Marjori, and she takes a halting step backwards.

1889. Angel-Five - 3/9/2000 6:43:00 AM

The tour guide looks back at her attendant gaggle and says, in an Australian accent, ‘Right. This temple is named the Devi Jagadamba. It was originally dedicated to Vishnu, but subsequently during its history has been dedicated to Parvati and also to the earth mother Kali, immortalized to Western audiences in the movie Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It’s important to remember that the depiction of Kali in that movie is extremely one sided… ‘

Marjori winks at her. ‘A real tour guide,’ he whispers conspiratorially. ‘Let’s tag along after her and see what she has to say.’ The two of them step closer to the guided party.

‘… right, now, unfortunately the light is beginning to fade on us, but you can still see the loving detail with which the sculptures and columns were shaped here. We see many depictions of Vishnu in this temple, in a subtly different style than in many of the other temples we’ve looked at thus far today, and of course on the top tier we see many of the… familiar… (the crowd titters) and frankly erotic carvings for which these temples are so well known. All of them have explainable motifs… ‘

‘I’ll say,’ an Australian booms out from the crowd, and there is more laughter. Marjori joins in it, and after a split second of tension Alyssa does too. The two of them step closer together and Marjori almost shyly reaches over to run a finger along her arm, whispering ‘these people you want me to educate? Can I just have my hemlock now?’ She stifles a giggle, her head swimming with the heat and the situation and the unmistakable awakening within herself which has been building the entire afternoon and evening.

1890. Angel-Five - 3/9/2000 6:43:37 AM

The tour guide allows the laughter to die, then continues, ‘No, seriously, it’s not just that. They all have symbolic meaning as well as serve as an expression of the purest joy of unrestrained love. In fact, most of this temple serves to tell an elaborate story, which is briefly outlined in your tour books and for lack of light I’ll skip for now.’

Alyssa leans over Marjori and whispers, ‘If they had been here earlier to listen to you, they’d have heard it already. And you said you didn’t know these temples,’ playfully, as she reaches over to entwine her fingers in Marjori’s. The two of them share a long glance.

‘In fact, there’s very little in this temple that we don’t have a good historical explanation for. Yet there is one curious element which I’m afraid that neither I nor the tour-book can enlighten you on…’

Marjori’s glance tears itself away in surprise – he turns to look fully at the tour-guide and she, a second later, follows. The tour guide is stepping over to the corner of the temple that the two of them had not yet examined, and she is reaching into her purse for something. ‘I know the light is low, but… hold on,’ she digs further in her purse and then with a triumphant expression produces a police flashlight, which she turns on and adjusts the lens for maximum lighting.

‘Right. Now, direct your attention to the corner, to these pieces… here.’ The light illuminates a solitary statue of an athletically muscled, faceless male. His hands are open in front of him, as though he is holding something invisible. He is surrounded by strange oval carvings which cause Marjori’s breath to catch. Over his head, perhaps ten feet, a flat smooth square of stone emerges from the wall. In stark contrast to the surrounding statuary, it is entirely unmarked by any marking whatsoever save for three deep holes bored into the stone in a triangle.

1891. Angel-Five - 3/9/2000 6:45:10 AM

‘We have absolutely no idea what the function of this piece seems to be. It’s like nothing else in the complex, at all. There’s almost no writing about it in the literature surrounding the site, because, well, frankly, it’s sort of embarrassing to the historians that they can’t figure it out. I think in Jameson’s book on the temples it’s not ever referred to at all. In Atkinson-Rowland’s book, the figure is mentioned, but only as a symbol of Vishnu of eclectic design.’

The guide lowers her voice. ‘That’s historian for ‘we don’t know what’ when they don’t want to say it outright.’ It looks as though he’s meant to hold something, but we don’t know what. The local historians have offered various theories have been proposed that this is indeed a symbol of Vishnu, because of the trinity of off-centered holes in the flat piece above, but no one is really convinced by that. What’s more interesting is that the stone of this piece is subtly different from the rest of the temple.’

‘Do you mean it was added later?’ A woman from the crowd in a querying voice.

‘No, ma’am. We’re not sure why or how, but we actually believe that this piece predates the rest of the temple, and the temple was actually built around it. But then again no one wants to explain that, because then they’d have to explain why the builders chose to build their temple around this strange piece…’ The tour guide looks up. ‘So there you have it. The ‘mystery man’. Our mystery.’

The crowd laughs dutifully. Alyssa, who has been watching the tour guide intently, is suddenly aware of pain shooting up her arm. She looks down at her hand, where Marjori’s grasp has grown white-knuckled tight. He is staring at the figure with an expression that actually sends a thread of fear snaking down her spine.

1892. Angel-Five - 3/9/2000 6:45:55 AM

‘Marjori,’ she says. ‘You’re hurting my hand.’

‘What?’ Marjori looks at her blankly for half a second, then instantly releases her hand and assumes a contrite expression. ‘Oh, Alyssa, I’m so sorry.’ He looks back at the figure, then up at her again, and when he does so his expression is the one she remembers from earlier – as though he was staring through the temple, scanning some landscape she could neither see nor imagine. Looking for something.

And now he’s found it.’ she thinks abruptly.

She shakes her fingers slightly and looks at the crowd, which is beginning to file out into the rapidly darkening heat.

‘Is there a bus or something that runs back to the hotels? I’m at the Chandera.’

‘So am I. There should be a bus at the gate; if there isn’t, there will be rickshaws and taxis.’ The two of them file out behind the tourists into the open air of Khajuraho.

Alyssa walks in a confusing welter of emotion and the rising awareness of her own body, in silence, looking straight ahead.

1893. Angel-Five - 3/9/2000 6:47:34 AM

Get a grip on yourself. All these statues fucking each other catch-as-catch-can have got you off kilter like a sorority girl after two double margaritas. Aren’t you going to ask him what was going on back there? What was he looking at? You don’t even know this guy and you’re holding his hand and – Christ – you’re going to ask him to your room, aren’t you? And you don’t even know anything about him. For all you know he cold be some kind of psycho. No. He’s just intense is all. Art moves some people. It moved you today. That’s it. I’m going to ask him. What happened. I’m going to ask him.

As the crowd nears the fence she clenches her fist and then relaxes it.

I’m going to ask him. I bet he’s an artist, is all. There’s nothing wrong with him.

She walks ten paces, and then, cursing herself for a coward, says without turning:
‘Do you want to share a taxi? There’s a lot I want to ask you about.’ Her left hand rises, palm up, and then falls. ‘You know, the temples. The Chandera has a nice bar (she winces inside) and. And-‘
Silence. She turns her head to the footsteps behind her.

They belong to a tall blond, in round mirrored shades and a black turtleneck. He pushes the shades up, exposing a pair of amused blue eyes. ‘I’d love to. I haven’t checked out the bar yet. Have we met?’

Alyssa looks back and forth; Marjori is nowhere in sight. ‘Where’d – Where’s Marjori?’

The man behind her smiles through a strand of his long hair. ‘You know Marjori? He’ll be along later tonight.’

Alyssa shakes her head, looking up at him, thinking, wildly, I’m going to get a crick in my neck if this sort of thing keeps up. ‘How do you know that?’

The man, oddly enough, pushes the shades back down. ‘I’m his friend.’ He gestures toward the gate. ‘Come on, let’s get to the hack stand before they all get fares.’ He begins walking again.