Burnt Cheeks, Delicious Foolishness et al.

1. "Carpe Diem! Look Thee into Thine Heart and Write" was what I was thinking of last night amidst the torrent and bizarre rejigging of otherwise obviously chronological points. Lest you think this is tripe, consider that it is the epitaph on the stone of Joan Ganong, 1919-1989, in a rural cemetary in St. Stephen, NB.

2. "Most impressive, however, was the Registan. A colossal trio of 15th and 17th Century domed structures set on three sides of an enormous public square, the Registan has towering minarets, color-splashed spandrels, and depressed entrance arches, all covered by geometric designs in majolica and blue tile. Both ancient and eerily contemporary in feeling, the Registan is gigantic yet exceptionally well proportioned. To stand in Registan Square for an hour, imagining the personages and history that have crossed its intricately laid stones, was worth the trip to Samarkand in itself." More and more, that Kilkenny pub random quote has the feel of destiny. A symbol for everything good and empowering and choice of doing what you want over what is expected, such is glorious Samarkanda. I wish for many things without hope, but sitting amidst the Registan is all too inevitable.

3. Vonnegut's last words in the Epilogue to Timequake are: "A woman who knew Bernie for only the last ten days of his life, in the hospice at St. Peter's in Albany, described his manners while dying as "courtly" and "elegant". What a brother! What a language." I share his enthusiasm for the colour of our letters.

4. When was the last time you took part in a standing ovation? Think about it. I was at DRUM! where these black guys took over my heart for moments at a time with their song. Yet Guinness advertises that its pint is: "Like Drinking a Standing Ovation". To that I thnk critically and answer only, Yes.

5. "Throughout his career, Shakespeare kept thinking about drunkenness. He registered the disgust eloquently voiced by Hamlet. But he was also fascinated by the delicious foolishness, the exuberant cracking of jests, the amiable nonsense, the indifference to decorum, the flashes of insight, the magical erasure of the cares of the world." OK, just to stop right there and say, tonight I raise my glass to you Stephen Greenblat, for such a perfect capture of my most profound vice in but a sentence. But to continue: "Even when he depicts the potentially disastrous consequences of alcohol, Shakespeare never adopts the tone of a temperance tract, and in Twelfth Night the drunk and disorderly Sir Toby Belch delivers the decisive put-down of the puritanical Malvolio: "Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?" In a luminous scene in one of the greatest tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra, the rulers of the world become soused, join hands, and dance "the Egyptian bacchanals". Even grave, calculating Caesar is caught up, against his will, in the muddle-headed revelry:

It's monstrous labour when I wash my brain,
An it grow fouler.

"Gentle lords, let's part," he says, looking at the faces of those about him and feeling his own flushed face. "You see we have burnt our cheeks."



And so we approach the world. More difficult when the impishness of our nature is flung into the center, but someone must pay my bills. Though you cannot help but wonder what it would be like to be ... elsewhere, responsible to ... no one. Presumably because I want it all. It started out with a kiss how did it end up like this it was only a kiss it was only a kiss...