Almost forgot... hock to fortune

During the suite...

"Then I thought again and remembering the women and children involved and the necessity for solidarity in this passing world I repeated his gesture. Then, to justify this perhaps excessive preoccupation with our own safety which seemed premature if we were to spend three months, days and nights, on the roads of Spain, and selfish if we were to spend that time with bullfighters, I prayed for all those I had hock to Fortune, for all friends with cancer, for all girls, living and dead, and that Antonio would have good bulls that afternoon...."

borodin

Hem would have liked the cleavage and tommy's uncles and jack flashes of this eve, on the eve of zoom. I now hear that heavenly lullaby of the steppes full on cassette, and you canna' stop me.

How to write music in words... Up, and a little softly down now, softly down, and PROUD NOW. And the flurry-esq bit to stay in vovlved, but again, I find the Clarinet key. As opposed to the swaying, optomistic strings. They lead you but it is the other sound that makes you smile.

Clarinet, cello, gorgeous. The steppes. See you soon, Paris. 24h.

The Dangerous Summer

"Pamplona is no place to bring your wife. The odds are all in favor of her getting ill, hurt or wounded or at least jostled and wine squirted over her, or of losing her; maybe all three. If anybody could do Pamplona successfully it would be Carmen and Antonio but Antonio would not bring her. It's a man's fiesta and women at it make trouble, never intentionally of course, but they nearly always make or have trouble. I wrote a book on this once. Of course if she can talk Spanish so she knows she is being joked with and not insulted, if she can drink wine all day and all night and dance with any groups of strangers who invite her, if she does not mind things being spilled on her, if she adores continual noise and music and loves fireworks, especially those that fall close to her or burn her clothes, if she thinks it is sound and logical to see how close you can come to being killed by bulls for fun and for free, if she doesn't catch cold when she is rained on and appreciates dust, likes disorder and irregular meals and never needs to sleep and still keeps clean and neat without running water; then bring her. You'll probably lose her to a better man than you."

Atypical Friday

You can say that again. Scribbling true sentences in the heat of the bus, breaking in the new shoes, and Sunshine.

I never like to miss the weekly thoughts on the Bard, and this week more than apparent than most that I am Fortune's Fool. Well predicted, sir.

Place St.-Michel

Bought new walking shoes, "The Big Oyster" (history of New York told through the oyster), and EH's Moveable Feast, which is good from the start:

I looked at her and she disturbed me and made me very excited. I wished I could put her in the story, or anywhere, but she had placed herself so she could watch the street and the entry and I knew she was waiting for someone. So I went on writing.

The story was writing itself and I was having a hard time keeping up with it. I ordered another rum St. James and I watched the girl whenever I looked up, or when I sharpened the pencil with a pencil sharpener with the shavings curling into the saucer under my drink.

I've seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil...

Kilimanjaro

How terrifically odd, that I cannot recall reading this classic Hemingway story before last night. Arresting. And sparking a desire to redevour as much of Papa's canon prior to the departure for Paris next Tuesday:

She shot very well this good, this rich bitch, this kindly caretaker and destroyer of his talent. Nonsense. He had destroyed his talent himself. Why should he blame this woman because she kept him well? He had destroyed his talent by not using it, by betrayals of himself and what he believed in, by drinking so much that he blunted the edge of his perceptions, by laziness, by sloth, and by snobbery, by pride and prejudice, by hook and by crook. What was this? A catalogue of old books? What was his talent anyway? It was a talent all right but instead of using it, he had traded on it. It was never what he had done, but always what he could do. And he had chosne to make his living with something else instead of a pen or a pencil...

He remembered the good times with them all, and the quarrels. They always picked the finest places to have the quarrels. And why had they always quarreled when he was feeling best? He had never written any of that because, at first, he never wanted to hurt any one and then it seemed as though there was enough to write without it. But he had always thought that he would write it finally. There was so much to write. He had seen the world change; not just the events; although he had seen many of them and had watched the people, but he had seen the subtler change and he could remember how the people were at different times. He had been in it and he had watched it and it was his duty to write of it; but now he never would...

There wasn’t time, of course, although it seemed as though it telescoped so that you might put it all into one paragraph if you could get it right.

Expect much more of the same here in the week to come.

It is all happening

Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair White Point where we lay our scene...

More soon. Never change.

Weekend's End

Oh - but wasn't it a good one. Merriment galore, port and shakespeare and amy winehouse. I am bemoiled. Bets about the mayorality and summer dresses. The sky being the correct height for shakes. Having not as pleasant a sensation as wanting. The return of 50p pints to the Union. Istanbul. And other ultimate journeys that are yet in store. The cake is dough on both sides. The dictionary.com has a bit today that states in full, "What is Hezbollah? What are stem cells? When did swimsuits get so skimpy?". Hilarious.

Yes, it is a wondrous world. And with you I'd like to share it. Because if I share it with you, you'll have some too.

Last night I shared once again for the first time (rhyme) the dream of the two year stint in Manhattan. It seems closer every day. There is much to ponder.

What do you want me to do, to make it happen now. In 5 days now, Meg and Jonnie get married. And ages hence, we will talk of it as the greatest.

Paucas Pallabris

HORTENSIO
Petruchio, patience; I am Grumio's pledge:
Why, this's a heavy chance 'twixt him and you,
Your ancient, trusty, pleasant servant Grumio.
And tell me now, sweet friend, what happy gale
Blows you to Padua here from old Verona?

PETRUCHIO
Such wind as scatters
young men through the world,
To seek their fortunes farther than at home
Where small experience grows. But in a few,
Signior Hortensio, thus it stands with me:
Antonio, my father, is deceased;
And I have thrust myself into this maze,
Haply to wive and thrive as best I may:
Crowns in my purse I have and goods at home,
And so am come abroad to see the world.

In other news, you just have to love stories like this: "The world's tallest man married a woman two-thirds his height and half his age in a traditional Mongolian ceremony held with great fanfare Thursday at the tomb of Kublai Khan. Bao Xishun, a seven-foot-nine herdsman from Inner Mongolia, met his bride earlier this year after searching high and low, sending advertisements around the world." The photos are even better:

Karl Taro Greenfeld

"Occasionally, we ran into each other at the American College in Paris cafeteria or in the hallways around 31 Avenue Bosquet, and we said hello and smiled, and there was that mutual recognition of our collective memory.

And we would be like, oh yeah, you, that was something. "


Yeah. Good story.

the Siren Smiled

wildcat 13
by
tom gill

p.54

remember
that

who knows
when
a fiver
could
come
in handy

That every like is not the same...

Fielded the first headhunter call earlier this week, but alas, my heart was not in for a trip to Muscat, Oman, at this juncture. But always good to know such opportunites are out there and can be seized when the time is right. Elsewhere, Operation Omega saw some Irish musings delivered to the Parisian Shakespeare and Company shelves and the book "Trombone". Yes, you do get points for randomness, madam.

Off to rent a car and drive the low road to Moncton once again, and perhaps a few more random laughs with Ms. Zek. Then the annual bike tour - break out the 15-foot inflatable rabbit, I say. The time until the Cuming-Ross wedding and the next flight Zoom draw nigh indeed.

CAESAR
Bid them prepare within:
I am to blame to be thus waited for.
Now, Cinna: now, Metellus: what, Trebonius!
I have an hour's talk in store for you;
Remember that you call on me to-day:
Be near me, that I may remember you.

TREBONIUS
Caesar, I will:

Aside

and so near will I be,
That your best friends shall wish I had been
further.

CAESAR
Good friends, go in, and
taste some wine with me;
And we, like friends, will straightway go together.

BRUTUS
[Aside] That every like is not the same, O Caesar,
The heart of Brutus yearns to think upon!

A possible Silk Route?

From London (somehow) to Moscow, then the 3-day train to Tashkent Central. Several April days to bask in the ancient glory of Samarkand and Bokhara before returning to Tashkent and onward to Bishkek to Kashgar to Turpan to Dunhuang to Jiayuguan to Lanzhou to Xian to Beijing. Then down to Shanghai and Hong Kong and Hanoi and Bangkok and Angkor and Singapore. And to a flight back across the Pacific.

It may yet be done. But within two years- by July 2009? That is now the looming question.