The urge to write is ultimately connected to an instinct to order the world. In the course of which, all writing might ultimately be seen as an expression of a quest to ascertain why the writer has been both placed within his or her situation, and also given the means to pursue that investigation in a form which will allow future readers to share the writer's curiosity/ anxiety/ journey.
+++
1.8.11
22.6.11
the eclipse behind the cathedral
It’s a Summer’s evening. The Eclipse is a Tudor fronted pub, black beams, white plaster. Inside it has a low ceiling and a tiny bar. Tables always at a premium. It has its regulars, who prop up the bar and have their own tankards. Although it looks like a village pub, this is a city, albeit one which froze in size around the time of the Crusades, and The Eclipse still has an edge to it, a place from where late at night drunkards will spill out onto the streets keeping the locals awake. Outside, there are twin benches either side of the door, set into to the fabric of the building.
That’s where we are. It’s around seven pm. We’re drinking lager, because aged 19, it’s what everyone drinks. There’s only the two of us, myself and a man called James, known at school as Muppet, who will go on in life to become a long-serving employee of the Bank of England, a reliable dad, a resident of Surrey. All these things are probably discernable in his frame and demeanour now, to the soothsayer, but at this point in our lives he still carries other possibilities around in his back pocket. We’re both negotiating our way out of childhood, on holiday from university, back from the growing-up wars. Our friendship runs deeper than any we have at university, but it’s also at its zenith. These are the last things we’ll truly share, after six years of school. For the next decade we’ll remain in each other’s lives, slowly drifting apart, the ties that bind, the common interests, eroded by time, geography and the atomization of the late twentieth century. Because really there’s no reason why James and I shouldn’t still be meeting and talking Economics until we’re old men, cozy in the complicity of the conversation game. But we won’t and we don’t and that’s just how it is.
This particular evening there’s an edginess around me and there’s a reason for it. My girlfriend, the one from University, is not with me. She’s gone back to her stomping ground, the wilds of Hertfordshire. Only, on this day, she’s meeting up with her ex-boyfriend. His name is Masa. He’s Japanese. He’s a multi-millionaire who was part of the Japanese Olympic skiing team. He lives in New York. A week after she met me, she took down the photo of him that lived on her wall. Destined to be together, until I appear. They are meeting in London. At his hotel. I don’t know where exactly. Somewhere on Park Lane.
I’m too self-absorbed to be really worried. She and I have been together a whole academic year, we’re about to move into a little house with a yard with roses in a place called Dunnington. We’re playing out some kind of fantasy of coupledom which we both need and which is already turning sour. Nothing will interrupt this sequence, I know, and even if something were to, I would recalibrate my horizon, suffer the crisis which will arrive sooner or later, the world would have shrunk, but then the world is expanding all the time anyway.
Although the truth is I’m not even contemplating any of this. I’m just edgy. On adrenaline and lager. James, because he knows me, picks up on my edginess. I explain the context. Perhaps he asks if I’m worried or not. I don’t remember. James says something along the lines of: “It’s good {or unusual} to see someone so passionate about things.” His thesis doesn’t quite ring true. Later others arrive and the evening changes or becomes more drunken. For the next three years whenever we’re back and we go out it feels like the end of an era.
I never learn what happened in Masa’s hotel room and I never force the issue. There are things you know in the heart which are more important than the things that are actually lived. As decreed we will spend the next two years of our lives together in a house with a blue door and a yard with roses. Sometimes he sends her envelopes stuffed with money.
For two years we fight a lot then we split up. She goes to New York and marries Masa. James has a child called George. James and I drift apart. The Eclipse is still there. To the best of my knowledge.
+++
That’s where we are. It’s around seven pm. We’re drinking lager, because aged 19, it’s what everyone drinks. There’s only the two of us, myself and a man called James, known at school as Muppet, who will go on in life to become a long-serving employee of the Bank of England, a reliable dad, a resident of Surrey. All these things are probably discernable in his frame and demeanour now, to the soothsayer, but at this point in our lives he still carries other possibilities around in his back pocket. We’re both negotiating our way out of childhood, on holiday from university, back from the growing-up wars. Our friendship runs deeper than any we have at university, but it’s also at its zenith. These are the last things we’ll truly share, after six years of school. For the next decade we’ll remain in each other’s lives, slowly drifting apart, the ties that bind, the common interests, eroded by time, geography and the atomization of the late twentieth century. Because really there’s no reason why James and I shouldn’t still be meeting and talking Economics until we’re old men, cozy in the complicity of the conversation game. But we won’t and we don’t and that’s just how it is.
This particular evening there’s an edginess around me and there’s a reason for it. My girlfriend, the one from University, is not with me. She’s gone back to her stomping ground, the wilds of Hertfordshire. Only, on this day, she’s meeting up with her ex-boyfriend. His name is Masa. He’s Japanese. He’s a multi-millionaire who was part of the Japanese Olympic skiing team. He lives in New York. A week after she met me, she took down the photo of him that lived on her wall. Destined to be together, until I appear. They are meeting in London. At his hotel. I don’t know where exactly. Somewhere on Park Lane.
I’m too self-absorbed to be really worried. She and I have been together a whole academic year, we’re about to move into a little house with a yard with roses in a place called Dunnington. We’re playing out some kind of fantasy of coupledom which we both need and which is already turning sour. Nothing will interrupt this sequence, I know, and even if something were to, I would recalibrate my horizon, suffer the crisis which will arrive sooner or later, the world would have shrunk, but then the world is expanding all the time anyway.
Although the truth is I’m not even contemplating any of this. I’m just edgy. On adrenaline and lager. James, because he knows me, picks up on my edginess. I explain the context. Perhaps he asks if I’m worried or not. I don’t remember. James says something along the lines of: “It’s good {or unusual} to see someone so passionate about things.” His thesis doesn’t quite ring true. Later others arrive and the evening changes or becomes more drunken. For the next three years whenever we’re back and we go out it feels like the end of an era.
I never learn what happened in Masa’s hotel room and I never force the issue. There are things you know in the heart which are more important than the things that are actually lived. As decreed we will spend the next two years of our lives together in a house with a blue door and a yard with roses. Sometimes he sends her envelopes stuffed with money.
For two years we fight a lot then we split up. She goes to New York and marries Masa. James has a child called George. James and I drift apart. The Eclipse is still there. To the best of my knowledge.
+++
12.6.11
on the way to queensway station, 7am
I once knew roses that grew in back yards.
I’d wait for them and most years they’d show up.
When they did, I was grateful, if not inordinately.
I thought we’d grow old together, somehow, the roses
And I, in our back yards. Duplicate that course of
Nature, inherit a thoughtless rhythm. My roses –
Although they were never mine, they belonged to no-one –
Came back to haunt this morning, cascading over
City walls, crying for gravity, flexing dormant
Memory muscles of shared seasons, long-forgotten.
+++
I’d wait for them and most years they’d show up.
When they did, I was grateful, if not inordinately.
I thought we’d grow old together, somehow, the roses
And I, in our back yards. Duplicate that course of
Nature, inherit a thoughtless rhythm. My roses –
Although they were never mine, they belonged to no-one –
Came back to haunt this morning, cascading over
City walls, crying for gravity, flexing dormant
Memory muscles of shared seasons, long-forgotten.
+++
3.6.11
unfinished 4am poem, written in a hotel near barajas airport, madrid
Four in the morning is a transient moment in
A Spanish night. For some, the final minutes
Of a day which has ended in the soft
Enveloping grasp of alcohol and friendship.
For others in this functional hotel, it
Will be the last gasp of a day’s business
Which, far from soft, has gone on longer
Than was ever planned (twas ever thus),
And a night fuelled by lust for profit, or
A colleague, or mere security, which can
Only be attained at the price of nights like
This, a mortgage paid towards the family
Redoubt, the sound of your children’s
Exuberance of a morning still five years
In the future, a sound already heard as
The door is shut and you fall into bed, the
Fog of alcohol on your breath, an
Unfulfilled desire tempered by the knowledge
Of the investment you’ve made towards
The future you shall not dream about tonight,
But live one day, the day when the sight of
Your child in a sunhat playing beneath the
Pine trees beside the lake will trigger the
Memory of a bad joke, or the strange
Juxtaposition of pompous sixties
Architecture with the medieval wall
Hangings someone has chosen to adorn
The hotel’s walls. When your child trips,
And cries, you’ll smile at the investment
You’ve made to hear the sound of their
Bitter tears, and for a few perfect minutes
It will all make sense. Four in the morning
Is also the hour at which the earliest of
Risers make their way to the airport,
Wiping sleep from their eyes, leaving
Their partner and offspring behind to
Catch a bus, arriving as the lights come
On again, the bustle of international
Travel on the verge of spinning the world
Like a top; a world measured in the
Dead hours taken to trawl the very skies.
june 2010
+++
A Spanish night. For some, the final minutes
Of a day which has ended in the soft
Enveloping grasp of alcohol and friendship.
For others in this functional hotel, it
Will be the last gasp of a day’s business
Which, far from soft, has gone on longer
Than was ever planned (twas ever thus),
And a night fuelled by lust for profit, or
A colleague, or mere security, which can
Only be attained at the price of nights like
This, a mortgage paid towards the family
Redoubt, the sound of your children’s
Exuberance of a morning still five years
In the future, a sound already heard as
The door is shut and you fall into bed, the
Fog of alcohol on your breath, an
Unfulfilled desire tempered by the knowledge
Of the investment you’ve made towards
The future you shall not dream about tonight,
But live one day, the day when the sight of
Your child in a sunhat playing beneath the
Pine trees beside the lake will trigger the
Memory of a bad joke, or the strange
Juxtaposition of pompous sixties
Architecture with the medieval wall
Hangings someone has chosen to adorn
The hotel’s walls. When your child trips,
And cries, you’ll smile at the investment
You’ve made to hear the sound of their
Bitter tears, and for a few perfect minutes
It will all make sense. Four in the morning
Is also the hour at which the earliest of
Risers make their way to the airport,
Wiping sleep from their eyes, leaving
Their partner and offspring behind to
Catch a bus, arriving as the lights come
On again, the bustle of international
Travel on the verge of spinning the world
Like a top; a world measured in the
Dead hours taken to trawl the very skies.
june 2010
+++
18.5.11
central line early morning
An Australian woman, hair curly, reddish,
Sits next to an African man who looks older
Than she does. She coaches him in the art of
Closing the sale. Explains how, once the direct
Debit has been agreed, he needs to cut to the chase.
He takes out a notebook to ensure he's got it all
Down. She glances at some figures on a page.
Asks, shocked: 'Is that how much you owe?' He
Looks sheepish. 'You have to pay twelve thousand
In a year?' He explains the details of his father's
Debt. She says it's a lot. He looks like a lost
Sheep being reminded he's lost. His arm, it
Is noted, is placed behind her, across her seat.
Neither betraying an intimacy, nor denying
The possibility of an intimacy. They get off at
Loughton, carrying London Energy backpacks.
+++
Sits next to an African man who looks older
Than she does. She coaches him in the art of
Closing the sale. Explains how, once the direct
Debit has been agreed, he needs to cut to the chase.
He takes out a notebook to ensure he's got it all
Down. She glances at some figures on a page.
Asks, shocked: 'Is that how much you owe?' He
Looks sheepish. 'You have to pay twelve thousand
In a year?' He explains the details of his father's
Debt. She says it's a lot. He looks like a lost
Sheep being reminded he's lost. His arm, it
Is noted, is placed behind her, across her seat.
Neither betraying an intimacy, nor denying
The possibility of an intimacy. They get off at
Loughton, carrying London Energy backpacks.
+++
2.5.11
south london stories #19901
I go round to visit my friends who live in Herne Hill.
There's a freezer in the hallway.
The freezer is full of clothes. I think I spy a handbag there as well.
Later my friend has to locate his suit.
He needs it because he's going to be a vodka-distributing, confession-taking priest between the hours of 10pm and 2am.
He goes to the kitchen and starts throwing plastic bags out of the freezer section of his fridge-freezer.
Finally he finds the suit.
He takes it out and places it on a wooden chair to defrost.
It's chilled and has a texture like paper, not cloth.
We go to the pub. At half nine he will come back and put the suit on. It will have defrosted somewhat, but still be at a sub-normal suit-wearing temperature.
+++
There's a freezer in the hallway.
The freezer is full of clothes. I think I spy a handbag there as well.
Later my friend has to locate his suit.
He needs it because he's going to be a vodka-distributing, confession-taking priest between the hours of 10pm and 2am.
He goes to the kitchen and starts throwing plastic bags out of the freezer section of his fridge-freezer.
Finally he finds the suit.
He takes it out and places it on a wooden chair to defrost.
It's chilled and has a texture like paper, not cloth.
We go to the pub. At half nine he will come back and put the suit on. It will have defrosted somewhat, but still be at a sub-normal suit-wearing temperature.
+++
5.4.11
why there's no point doing interviews
Literary writing does not explain, does not teach: It simply offers the presence of its own mystery, its own experience, in its absence of explanation, thus inviting not some illusory ‘understanding' … but precisely a reading.
Hence the vanity of asking the writer what he ‘wanted to say' ... as if writing came from his wanting, from his free and sovereign will.
+++
Jonathan Littell, quoted here: http://bit.ly/esUPo6
+++
Hence the vanity of asking the writer what he ‘wanted to say' ... as if writing came from his wanting, from his free and sovereign will.
+++
Jonathan Littell, quoted here: http://bit.ly/esUPo6
+++
15.3.11
what to do in event of exposure to higher than normal levels of radiation
General Decontamination Procedure (if water is unavailable)
• Remove your clothes and shoes and place them in a plastic bag.
• Wipe yourself down with cloth or a wet tissue (afterwards place the cloth or wipe in the plastic bag and throw the bag and its contents away).
General Decontamination Procedure (When water is available)
• Remove your shoes and clothes and place them in a plastic bag.
• Wipe yourself down with cloth or a wet tissue (afterwards place the cloth or wipe in the plastic bag and throw the bag and contents away).
Follow the procedure below if shower is available
• Wash your hair with shampoo.
• Wash your face. (with soap or body wash)
• Wash your body. Including the inside of your ears and under your fingernails (with soap or body wash)
• Wash the clothes in the laundry or if you are still concerned, dispose of the clothes.
+++
• Remove your clothes and shoes and place them in a plastic bag.
• Wipe yourself down with cloth or a wet tissue (afterwards place the cloth or wipe in the plastic bag and throw the bag and its contents away).
General Decontamination Procedure (When water is available)
• Remove your shoes and clothes and place them in a plastic bag.
• Wipe yourself down with cloth or a wet tissue (afterwards place the cloth or wipe in the plastic bag and throw the bag and contents away).
Follow the procedure below if shower is available
• Wash your hair with shampoo.
• Wash your face. (with soap or body wash)
• Wash your body. Including the inside of your ears and under your fingernails (with soap or body wash)
• Wash the clothes in the laundry or if you are still concerned, dispose of the clothes.
+++
14.3.11
the jesus sutras
This comes from a 7th Century Chinese text, as quoted by Martin Palmer, offering an insight into how 7th Century Chinese Christianity was evolving, incorporating elements of Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism
+++
The Four Essential Laws of Christian Dharma
Now, what are the Four Essential Laws of the Dharma?
The first is no wanting. If your heart is obsessed with something,
It manifests in all kinds of distorted ways.
Distorted thoughts are the root of negative behavior . . .
The second is no doing. Don't put on a mask and pretend to be what you’re not . . .
The effort needed to hold a direction is abandoned,
And there is simply action and reaction.
So walk the Way of No Action.
The third is no piousness. And what that means
Is not wanting to have your good deeds broadcast to the nation.
Do what's right to bring people to the truth
But not for your own reputation’s sake.
So anyone who teaches the Triumphant Law,
Practicing the Way of Light to bring life to the truth,
Will know Peace and Happiness in company.
But don't talk it away. This is the Way of No Virtue.
The fourth is no absolute. Don't try to control everything,
Don't take sides in arguments about right and wrong.
Treat everyone equally, and live from day to day.
It’s like a clear mirror that reflects everything anyway:
Green or yellow or in any combination-
It shows everything, as well as the smallest of details.
What does the mirror do? It reflects without judgement.
+++
quoted from: http://www.sevenpillarshouse.org/article/the_jesus_sutras_an_ancient_message_for_a_post_modernist_future/
+++
+++
The Four Essential Laws of Christian Dharma
Now, what are the Four Essential Laws of the Dharma?
The first is no wanting. If your heart is obsessed with something,
It manifests in all kinds of distorted ways.
Distorted thoughts are the root of negative behavior . . .
The second is no doing. Don't put on a mask and pretend to be what you’re not . . .
The effort needed to hold a direction is abandoned,
And there is simply action and reaction.
So walk the Way of No Action.
The third is no piousness. And what that means
Is not wanting to have your good deeds broadcast to the nation.
Do what's right to bring people to the truth
But not for your own reputation’s sake.
So anyone who teaches the Triumphant Law,
Practicing the Way of Light to bring life to the truth,
Will know Peace and Happiness in company.
But don't talk it away. This is the Way of No Virtue.
The fourth is no absolute. Don't try to control everything,
Don't take sides in arguments about right and wrong.
Treat everyone equally, and live from day to day.
It’s like a clear mirror that reflects everything anyway:
Green or yellow or in any combination-
It shows everything, as well as the smallest of details.
What does the mirror do? It reflects without judgement.
+++
quoted from: http://www.sevenpillarshouse.org/article/the_jesus_sutras_an_ancient_message_for_a_post_modernist_future/
+++
14.2.11
el pibe de 17 anos
Today, a footballer known to the world as Ronaldo retired. He's 33 years old. If you pay any attention to football he's been around for what seems like forever, in footballing terms.
There's a famous story which I found myself repeating about my first night on Latin American soil. I was taken to see a football match. I was hugged by a fat, sweaty man on the terraces. Thanks to him I learnt my first Spanish words the hard way. Saltar. Cantar. It was a fitting introduction to what was to become the other side of my life.
What I didn't realise, when telling this story, was that there was a kid of 17 playing for the Brazilian team, who scored two goals and ended up on the losing side. Because he was young, he wasn't famous in Europe at the time. There would have been no reason for me to have heard of him. His name was Ronaldo.
It's only this evening that I've worked out what team he played for in Brazil before he went to play for PSV in Holland. The same team that was playing against Nacional, in the Estadio Centenario, that night. The 28th October 1993.
The details of the match itself have always been hazy. I know Nacional won. Largely because of my capacity to learn in no time at all what the Spanish word for 'to jump' meant. I remember there were penalties involved. But not how many, or how decisively. Though now it comes back to me.
On that night, I was still a 'pibe', albeit of slightly more than 17 years. I had long hair and honey coloured skin. I didn't have the faintest idea that the internet existed and that it would become part of my life. Therefore I had no way of even conceiving the fact that one day I would be able to rediscover that night. That I would rediscover my first night in Latin America on the day that the kid who scored two almost immediately forgotten goals would eventually choose to retire.
Thanks to this thing called the internet, I would see the faces of the people who were all around me again. Hear the sounds of the stadium again. It's the sounds which, above all else, remain familiar. All of which I rediscovered here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvjtFM4vKrg&feature=related
+++
This match was the quarter final. In the semi final, I learn, Nacional were eliminated by Flamengo. The game was "Suspendido a los 77 minutos por incidentes." I suspect that translates. I wasn't there to saltar.
Ronaldo and the internet and myself. And everyone else. We've all been a long way round the houses since that mad, spectacular first night of victory and defeat in Montevideo.
+++
There's a famous story which I found myself repeating about my first night on Latin American soil. I was taken to see a football match. I was hugged by a fat, sweaty man on the terraces. Thanks to him I learnt my first Spanish words the hard way. Saltar. Cantar. It was a fitting introduction to what was to become the other side of my life.
What I didn't realise, when telling this story, was that there was a kid of 17 playing for the Brazilian team, who scored two goals and ended up on the losing side. Because he was young, he wasn't famous in Europe at the time. There would have been no reason for me to have heard of him. His name was Ronaldo.
It's only this evening that I've worked out what team he played for in Brazil before he went to play for PSV in Holland. The same team that was playing against Nacional, in the Estadio Centenario, that night. The 28th October 1993.
The details of the match itself have always been hazy. I know Nacional won. Largely because of my capacity to learn in no time at all what the Spanish word for 'to jump' meant. I remember there were penalties involved. But not how many, or how decisively. Though now it comes back to me.
On that night, I was still a 'pibe', albeit of slightly more than 17 years. I had long hair and honey coloured skin. I didn't have the faintest idea that the internet existed and that it would become part of my life. Therefore I had no way of even conceiving the fact that one day I would be able to rediscover that night. That I would rediscover my first night in Latin America on the day that the kid who scored two almost immediately forgotten goals would eventually choose to retire.
Thanks to this thing called the internet, I would see the faces of the people who were all around me again. Hear the sounds of the stadium again. It's the sounds which, above all else, remain familiar. All of which I rediscovered here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvjtFM4vKrg&feature=related
+++
This match was the quarter final. In the semi final, I learn, Nacional were eliminated by Flamengo. The game was "Suspendido a los 77 minutos por incidentes." I suspect that translates. I wasn't there to saltar.
Ronaldo and the internet and myself. And everyone else. We've all been a long way round the houses since that mad, spectacular first night of victory and defeat in Montevideo.
+++
12.2.11
new writing in new places @ #royalcourt
Hungover, I just make it in time for the start of the talk. Three writers and a director. Most of the things said seem reasonable, with everyone careful to stress that the purpose of the new writing initiative abroad is not to produce a 'royal court' play, but to explore and exchange. The writers relate how much they've got from the trips abroad, something that doesn't really seem surprising. There follow a few questions which are too complicated for my addled brain to follow, ably fielded by the panel.
It's only at the very end that the discussion threatens to explore the subject in more depth. The last questioner in particular raises an issue which anyone who's worked in theatre abroad will be aware of, the pros and cons of the subsidised system, and by implication the increased motivation required to work in a non-subsidised theatrical culture (ie most of Latin America, Asia, Africa etc). The question is rebuffed with the bland assertion that "there are no cons to a subsidised system" and there's no time to proceed further.
By this point, in part through Michael Wynne's engaging story of the Elephant and the Bus Engine play, which perhaps raises more questions about the scheme than it answers, the other side of the Court's agenda has emerged more strongly: the desire to find a play which will resonate with the Court's audience. Whilst this is of course a reasonable objective, what was never really touched on was the way in which the writers themselves (as I know from personal experience) are aware of this agenda and cannot help but be influenced by it in the engagement with the Court. (With the subsequent risk of what might be termed a beauty pageant.)
Throughout the talk there seemed very little disposition on the part of the speakers to place themselves in the shoes of the writers who participate in the Court's international schemes. Perhaps its because it's very hard to do this within the context of a passing visit which, as Wynne suggested, is also likely to be a formative event for the writer. The Court's International playwrighting scheme is a laudable endeavour which undoubtedly benefits writers across the globe. But like any scheme, it will have both its pros and its cons, and it seemed a pity that given the opportunity to engage in a public debate, there was so little impetus to explore both pros and cons within a wider, global, context. More time for questions would have helped as it seemed as though there were many theatre practitioners from around the world whose opinions we didn't get sufficient opportunity to hear.
+++
It's only at the very end that the discussion threatens to explore the subject in more depth. The last questioner in particular raises an issue which anyone who's worked in theatre abroad will be aware of, the pros and cons of the subsidised system, and by implication the increased motivation required to work in a non-subsidised theatrical culture (ie most of Latin America, Asia, Africa etc). The question is rebuffed with the bland assertion that "there are no cons to a subsidised system" and there's no time to proceed further.
By this point, in part through Michael Wynne's engaging story of the Elephant and the Bus Engine play, which perhaps raises more questions about the scheme than it answers, the other side of the Court's agenda has emerged more strongly: the desire to find a play which will resonate with the Court's audience. Whilst this is of course a reasonable objective, what was never really touched on was the way in which the writers themselves (as I know from personal experience) are aware of this agenda and cannot help but be influenced by it in the engagement with the Court. (With the subsequent risk of what might be termed a beauty pageant.)
Throughout the talk there seemed very little disposition on the part of the speakers to place themselves in the shoes of the writers who participate in the Court's international schemes. Perhaps its because it's very hard to do this within the context of a passing visit which, as Wynne suggested, is also likely to be a formative event for the writer. The Court's International playwrighting scheme is a laudable endeavour which undoubtedly benefits writers across the globe. But like any scheme, it will have both its pros and its cons, and it seemed a pity that given the opportunity to engage in a public debate, there was so little impetus to explore both pros and cons within a wider, global, context. More time for questions would have helped as it seemed as though there were many theatre practitioners from around the world whose opinions we didn't get sufficient opportunity to hear.
+++
10.2.11
west london tales 12 - egypt
Playing on my laptop, beside this screen, a woman with a blue scarf talks from Tahrir Square. The noise from the square slips down cables, slides through oceans, emerges through speakers, sings in my sitting room. Everything connects?
I took the lift this morning and saw my downstairs neighbours for the first time since I got back. More often than not the reason we talk to one another is because there's been a leak from my flat downstairs to theirs. (Generally arising from the Ethiopian couple who live upstairs.) In spite of this, I get on OK with my downstairs neighbours, an old man and his middle-aged daughter. But today, in the lift, they were distracted and made little attempt to communicate. The daughter was on the phone, talking in Arabic and her father, a hunched man with big specs who's always in slippers, looked concerned, trying to work out what the person on the other side of the phone line was saying.
Then I remembered. They are Egyptian Copts. They had bigger things on their mind.
+++
I took the lift this morning and saw my downstairs neighbours for the first time since I got back. More often than not the reason we talk to one another is because there's been a leak from my flat downstairs to theirs. (Generally arising from the Ethiopian couple who live upstairs.) In spite of this, I get on OK with my downstairs neighbours, an old man and his middle-aged daughter. But today, in the lift, they were distracted and made little attempt to communicate. The daughter was on the phone, talking in Arabic and her father, a hunched man with big specs who's always in slippers, looked concerned, trying to work out what the person on the other side of the phone line was saying.
Then I remembered. They are Egyptian Copts. They had bigger things on their mind.
+++
9.2.11
pace kipling, but in spanish
La lucha siempre era, siempre es, y supongo siempre seria contra el fracaso.
Aveces pierdes, aveces ganas.
Aveces sentis que estas perdiendo cuando realmente estas ganando.
Y aveces sentis que ganas, cuando la realidad es que nunca puedes ganar todo el tiempo.
Hay epocas de victoria y epocas de fracaso y es asi la vida.
El truco es acordarte de lo que no esta pasando cuando esta pasando lo que esta pasando.
+++
Aveces pierdes, aveces ganas.
Aveces sentis que estas perdiendo cuando realmente estas ganando.
Y aveces sentis que ganas, cuando la realidad es que nunca puedes ganar todo el tiempo.
Hay epocas de victoria y epocas de fracaso y es asi la vida.
El truco es acordarte de lo que no esta pasando cuando esta pasando lo que esta pasando.
+++
4.2.11
Going running in Montevideo
My friend Mr Kemp informs me the optimal method of fat-burning exercise is light jogging. Around the age of forty, when I lived near some fields for a while, I took up running. It killed me. I’d go round and around a field I’d known for 25 years until I was fit to drop. The first lap might have been a pleasure but subsequently it became a torture. The trouble was the challenge. It’s hard not to be competitive. If I did three laps one day I’d want to do four the next. And so on. The most I ever managed was eleven. But every peak was followed by a descent. Sometimes you were back to three. It lost its charm. I moved. I didn’t have to run anymore.
A while later I was living where I live now. I felt self-conscious about the idea of running in public. I didn’t want people to see me suffering. Across the road from me was a gym. It cost more than a £100/ month. I couldn’t afford it. A year or so later, I decided my health was more important. Whatever that means. I joined. Basically to run on the treadmills. They had a device to measure how far you’d run and how fast. I started on 3K and built up to 5K. Soon I was back in the trap of trying to go faster higher further than I’d ever been before. After a Summer of running whilst watching cricket on the monitor, the enthusiasm waned. The gym remained across the road. Costing me as much as it taunted me. It was relief that I finally got round to cancelling my membership, knowing I was going away.
I brought my running shoes with me. It’s always a risk. Maybe you’re going to end up leaving them in a corner, goading you. The second day I was there we had a row. These things happen. It was one of those getting-back-together-after-being-apart-for-a long-long-time rows. It was stupid. There was no logic to it. We sort of got over it. I said I was going to go for a run. Which I did. It killed me. All over again. The row was soon forgotten. The next day I went again. I got as far as the disused railway station. Curious, I swerved to go under an arch and check it out. As I did so I pulled a muscle in my side. I had to walk back.
It’s cold in Montevideo in September. The houses aren’t made for Winter. The cold seeps into the walls, there’s no central heating, and it stays there. You wear layer upon layer. Everyone gets ill. I got ill. I got horribly raking-cough ill. I had to work but the only thing I wanted to do was go to bed. I couldn’t. C was on tour. In the days I wrote. In the afternoons I worked. In the evenings I shivered. I didn’t go running.
The play happened. I hadn’t been running for ages. Been to Rio and Buenos Aires and wanted to go running there but there wasn’t the time. It was November. The weather was getting warmer. The shoes beckoned. I started running again.
From out of the front door of C’s flat, a flat which basically turns its back on the street, you can see the Palacio Legislativo. A big, Italianate building, which holds the Parliament. Sitting on top of a hill. In all the years I’d visited I hardly ever went near it.
The Palacio was a couple of kilometres away. It made for a target. First I jogged down the street in front of the flat, Piedra Alta. Most streets in Montevideo run for twenty or thirty blocks. This one runs for two. There’s a ruined old car on one side and a pension further down. A sign saying ‘Ingles’ at the top. At the bottom you’re near the Palacio Penarol, a giant yellow building which houses the Penarol basketball team. Then it’s uphill, towards the Palacio Legislativo. The streets are nondescript but empty. Full of low level one or two block houses. A mix of residential and business. Offering a scrappy, slightly out-of-centre feel. The Palacio itself is surrounded by a giant roundabout, with slow moving traffic trundling round. No sign of any Westminster crash barriers. I got to the steps and paused, taking in the view.
Over the next two months, the running became more regular. I started straying further and further. I ran on Christmas Day and New Years Day. People has set up their barbeques in the streets, whole families eating outside. A man wearing a hat guarded an empty garage, fighting off the sun. People meandered. There were no other runners on these streets. These streets weren’t made for runners. They’re littered with jagged paving stones, dogshit, rubbish. The sun beats down and you head for shade.
Montevideo is named after the fact that a sailor shouted from the sea his excitement at seeing a distant hill. So the story goes. The hill in question, Cerro, is on the other side of the bay, far from the centre. In theory, the city is supposed to be more or less flat. Only it’s not. It has peaks and dips and troughs. Nothing too dramatic, but a peak is always a peak and a trough is always a trough. There is a Spanish word, which got used a lot in the Himalayas. It’s a word I can never remember straight away. The Montevidean hills gave me time to focus. Climbing a gradual but consistent slope, the word would infiltrate its way into the brain. Repecho. You don’t know exactly what it means. And you also know exactly what it means.
Round every corner there’s something new to see. Dilapidated buildings, crumbling art deco houses with a stone lion stuck on the top. A bar adorned with vines. On my last evening we finally went there. And drank beer. The waitress came from Mozambique. We talked about how impossible it all looked. C did. And I felt trapped because she was talking about how powerless she is and she was right. She is. We are. It is.
But that’s later and earlier I’m running, exploring, beyond the Palacio, past the antique shops, East to the disused building with the plaque for the birthplace of Florencio Sanchez, the greatest of the Uruguayan playwrights, they say, a hundred years since his death. To the West where the new Plaza has been opened, with the skateboard ramps and the landscaped steps and the small trees that people use for shade. To the East, past the railway station, disused, a statue of George Stephenson in front slowly fading away, the place boarded up, more Victoriana. Behind it the containers stacked up in Montevideo’s ever expanding port, containers from Europe and Asia and the Americas, full of god knows what, waiting to go god knows where.
I run and I run and the city runs with me, bright in the sun, desperately seeking shade, laughing at the gringo running alongside it, where’s he going – why is he doing this?
It was Summer now. The sun shone as I ran. I returned draped in sweat. Running was no longer a chore. To go running in Montevideo is to step out of self-consciousness. To step out of self-consciousness is to feel free. Really free. No-one’s looking or judging. No policemen in the head. No criteria. Just a simple goal of heading off somewhere and then returning.
Just like one of those runs, I didn’t really know where I was going when I set out to write this piece. But I knew I’d discover something, something which would help to lead me home.
+++
A while later I was living where I live now. I felt self-conscious about the idea of running in public. I didn’t want people to see me suffering. Across the road from me was a gym. It cost more than a £100/ month. I couldn’t afford it. A year or so later, I decided my health was more important. Whatever that means. I joined. Basically to run on the treadmills. They had a device to measure how far you’d run and how fast. I started on 3K and built up to 5K. Soon I was back in the trap of trying to go faster higher further than I’d ever been before. After a Summer of running whilst watching cricket on the monitor, the enthusiasm waned. The gym remained across the road. Costing me as much as it taunted me. It was relief that I finally got round to cancelling my membership, knowing I was going away.
I brought my running shoes with me. It’s always a risk. Maybe you’re going to end up leaving them in a corner, goading you. The second day I was there we had a row. These things happen. It was one of those getting-back-together-after-being-apart-for-a long-long-time rows. It was stupid. There was no logic to it. We sort of got over it. I said I was going to go for a run. Which I did. It killed me. All over again. The row was soon forgotten. The next day I went again. I got as far as the disused railway station. Curious, I swerved to go under an arch and check it out. As I did so I pulled a muscle in my side. I had to walk back.
It’s cold in Montevideo in September. The houses aren’t made for Winter. The cold seeps into the walls, there’s no central heating, and it stays there. You wear layer upon layer. Everyone gets ill. I got ill. I got horribly raking-cough ill. I had to work but the only thing I wanted to do was go to bed. I couldn’t. C was on tour. In the days I wrote. In the afternoons I worked. In the evenings I shivered. I didn’t go running.
The play happened. I hadn’t been running for ages. Been to Rio and Buenos Aires and wanted to go running there but there wasn’t the time. It was November. The weather was getting warmer. The shoes beckoned. I started running again.
From out of the front door of C’s flat, a flat which basically turns its back on the street, you can see the Palacio Legislativo. A big, Italianate building, which holds the Parliament. Sitting on top of a hill. In all the years I’d visited I hardly ever went near it.
The Palacio was a couple of kilometres away. It made for a target. First I jogged down the street in front of the flat, Piedra Alta. Most streets in Montevideo run for twenty or thirty blocks. This one runs for two. There’s a ruined old car on one side and a pension further down. A sign saying ‘Ingles’ at the top. At the bottom you’re near the Palacio Penarol, a giant yellow building which houses the Penarol basketball team. Then it’s uphill, towards the Palacio Legislativo. The streets are nondescript but empty. Full of low level one or two block houses. A mix of residential and business. Offering a scrappy, slightly out-of-centre feel. The Palacio itself is surrounded by a giant roundabout, with slow moving traffic trundling round. No sign of any Westminster crash barriers. I got to the steps and paused, taking in the view.
Over the next two months, the running became more regular. I started straying further and further. I ran on Christmas Day and New Years Day. People has set up their barbeques in the streets, whole families eating outside. A man wearing a hat guarded an empty garage, fighting off the sun. People meandered. There were no other runners on these streets. These streets weren’t made for runners. They’re littered with jagged paving stones, dogshit, rubbish. The sun beats down and you head for shade.
Montevideo is named after the fact that a sailor shouted from the sea his excitement at seeing a distant hill. So the story goes. The hill in question, Cerro, is on the other side of the bay, far from the centre. In theory, the city is supposed to be more or less flat. Only it’s not. It has peaks and dips and troughs. Nothing too dramatic, but a peak is always a peak and a trough is always a trough. There is a Spanish word, which got used a lot in the Himalayas. It’s a word I can never remember straight away. The Montevidean hills gave me time to focus. Climbing a gradual but consistent slope, the word would infiltrate its way into the brain. Repecho. You don’t know exactly what it means. And you also know exactly what it means.
Round every corner there’s something new to see. Dilapidated buildings, crumbling art deco houses with a stone lion stuck on the top. A bar adorned with vines. On my last evening we finally went there. And drank beer. The waitress came from Mozambique. We talked about how impossible it all looked. C did. And I felt trapped because she was talking about how powerless she is and she was right. She is. We are. It is.
But that’s later and earlier I’m running, exploring, beyond the Palacio, past the antique shops, East to the disused building with the plaque for the birthplace of Florencio Sanchez, the greatest of the Uruguayan playwrights, they say, a hundred years since his death. To the West where the new Plaza has been opened, with the skateboard ramps and the landscaped steps and the small trees that people use for shade. To the East, past the railway station, disused, a statue of George Stephenson in front slowly fading away, the place boarded up, more Victoriana. Behind it the containers stacked up in Montevideo’s ever expanding port, containers from Europe and Asia and the Americas, full of god knows what, waiting to go god knows where.
I run and I run and the city runs with me, bright in the sun, desperately seeking shade, laughing at the gringo running alongside it, where’s he going – why is he doing this?
It was Summer now. The sun shone as I ran. I returned draped in sweat. Running was no longer a chore. To go running in Montevideo is to step out of self-consciousness. To step out of self-consciousness is to feel free. Really free. No-one’s looking or judging. No policemen in the head. No criteria. Just a simple goal of heading off somewhere and then returning.
Just like one of those runs, I didn’t really know where I was going when I set out to write this piece. But I knew I’d discover something, something which would help to lead me home.
+++
3.2.11
entre las cosas que extrano
america latina
las partes de america latina que no conozco
rio de janeiro
buenos aires
los andes
incluyo los partes que no conozco
montevideo
montevideo
corriendo por montevideo
santa catalina
cabrera, que solo vi una vez...
el cielo
taxis
teatro
que no hay fronteras
mirando peliculas
la feria
la otra feria
todos las ferias
y los ferias de mas. que no conozco
carne
gente
la futura
la pasada
los techos
tres de la manana
cuatro de la manana
y lo de mas
mas gente
puesta del sol
mar
cocinando
adivinando
viviendo
dia por dia.
+++
las partes de america latina que no conozco
rio de janeiro
buenos aires
los andes
incluyo los partes que no conozco
montevideo
montevideo
corriendo por montevideo
santa catalina
cabrera, que solo vi una vez...
el cielo
taxis
teatro
que no hay fronteras
mirando peliculas
la feria
la otra feria
todos las ferias
y los ferias de mas. que no conozco
carne
gente
la futura
la pasada
los techos
tres de la manana
cuatro de la manana
y lo de mas
mas gente
puesta del sol
mar
cocinando
adivinando
viviendo
dia por dia.
+++
30.1.11
words of vila matas
Me voy. Terminó todo. Recuerden que uno nunca ha de escribir una frase si no siente que la esencia de esa frase no la ha sentido nunca nadie. Cada frase es una innovación. O así debería de ser, muchachos (y muchachas)
+++
+++
on a train heading east
If you were to ask how I felt, I would reply:
Permanently drunk. Drunk on dislocation.
Drunk as a split person who knows his
Sober self resides within but cannot be
Accessed because the opiates have shut
Him out of his own sober mind. Who stands
In two hemispheres, doesn’t even try to
Walk the line, befuddled by twin climates,
Languages, states of self. Lost in a blizzard
Of scripts, stories, fears and hopes. His head
Covered to protect him from the sun’s glare,
An Arctic sun which rains all the time and
Also burns. I am drunk on 24 hour English;
Unlimited Skype; tragic tales; the mundanity
Of city life. When do I sober up? And where?
In a ditch? At ‘home’? Speaking in tongues?
28.01.11
+++
Permanently drunk. Drunk on dislocation.
Drunk as a split person who knows his
Sober self resides within but cannot be
Accessed because the opiates have shut
Him out of his own sober mind. Who stands
In two hemispheres, doesn’t even try to
Walk the line, befuddled by twin climates,
Languages, states of self. Lost in a blizzard
Of scripts, stories, fears and hopes. His head
Covered to protect him from the sun’s glare,
An Arctic sun which rains all the time and
Also burns. I am drunk on 24 hour English;
Unlimited Skype; tragic tales; the mundanity
Of city life. When do I sober up? And where?
In a ditch? At ‘home’? Speaking in tongues?
28.01.11
+++
19.1.11
Mosquito Wars 5.30 am, Montevideo
Seven, eight, nine perfect welts. White
Havens of blood-sucking frenzy. I scratch
The contemplation of a skin stripped bare
Of: nut-brown ale (natch); must (natch).
The whisper of cowslip in an unsung
Heat-haze. The threat of dandelion.
Round tables with forked iron breath.
Last orders. Breath like fire-flies in
The night made of ice-cream. Coal
Black ice-cream. Swans gliding down
A black river like a living movie from
The days before film existed. Swans
Like a mobile in a child’s bedroom.
Nut brown ale (natch): must (natch).
The snap that brings a day of bright
Terrier cold when you walk past spider
Webs frozen in an image of optimism.
+++
Havens of blood-sucking frenzy. I scratch
The contemplation of a skin stripped bare
Of: nut-brown ale (natch); must (natch).
The whisper of cowslip in an unsung
Heat-haze. The threat of dandelion.
Round tables with forked iron breath.
Last orders. Breath like fire-flies in
The night made of ice-cream. Coal
Black ice-cream. Swans gliding down
A black river like a living movie from
The days before film existed. Swans
Like a mobile in a child’s bedroom.
Nut brown ale (natch): must (natch).
The snap that brings a day of bright
Terrier cold when you walk past spider
Webs frozen in an image of optimism.
+++
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