Fuck me, life and everything we do as a part of it is just so … absurd. Watching poorly attired people wearing determined facial expressions march through airports scoping out their seats competitively, desperately, pulling these rectangular boxes containing the essentials of their lives for a few days… what are we all doing?
I have moments like this when I take in everything around me and wonder if this can actually be real. It’s utterly ridiculous and yet… here it is.
Back in the early part of the year I was contemplating an April return to Japan. Mostly because I thought I would like to see The Stone Roses again but also because April is the best time of year to go to Japan. I didn’t go for a handful of reasons but now I wish I had: I just found out there is a penis festival in April, which … seriously, who wouldn’t go to Japan just for that? (Well, and a side of ほうとう.)
I had been doing a lot of research into different things in Japan that might not have registered with me before – side trips and tours one could make to focus in on more niche things like Japan’s amazing pens, paper and denim obsession rather than just tourist traps, noodles and whatever.
In the end, I talked to my brother about going together, but it ended up being bad timing. I went on shorter trips – stuff like the PoPos and Czechia – will anyone ever get used to calling it that? And (little licks of – a term used just for London-based friend Karly!) London, which is never a delight, but sometimes necessary.
Mind clouded by Japan and penises now, I always forget that they have these strange fixations. Forgot checking out the VHS of In the Realm of the Senses from the public library as a teenager – probably not something they should have let a teenager have, but I don’t think the library staff was particularly familiar with the foreign language films. If I am not mistaken, the maniacal main character of the film cuts off the other main character’s penis; this is considerably more artful than, say, the made-for-tabloid-TV saga of John and Lorena Bobbitt.
We were walking through Wrocław, a place he knew better than I did. It was only my first visit, but he had been living there part time, on and off, for months. During our walk, he grabbed my hand, with some urgency and purpose, less as a tender gesture and more as the take-charge guide, leading me to the next spot on the tour he had apparently planned and perfected.
“Poland,” he said authoritatively, “is a hidden gem.” I smiled but said nothing. Poland is a kind of hidden gem. I had no argument and nothing to add. It’s an especially bright gem once you start being able to pronounce the words. Say it with me: Wrocław. Could you do it? No? Give it time.
I didn’t tell him how much I had once dreamt of visiting Poland, at the apogee of my “Slavic/eastern-central-southern European studies” life. In fact I shared so little about myself because that was not the nature of things. This was not going to be one of those ‘confessional’ entanglements. Revelations about ourselves were doled out not as linear narratives but as footnotes to what we observed around us. Strolling past a courthouse, for example, he might comment, “It was total drudgery practicing law”, which would lead to a lecture on corruption in the legal system where he came from and the complete sense of helplessness and anger that arises from being unable to do anything but quit (which he did… and moved to Europe). But this was not deep or personal reflection on his vocation or life events that led him to or from it.
In this way, we knew each other incrementally, just as we came to know the city. Nothing of the roller-coaster arc on which most stories jaggedly rise and fall. Even more liberating, there was nothing of the “who-I-was” and “who-will-I-be”. No, there was only right now. Fortuitous, given that the “right now” of those moments filled quickly with the challenges of mastering the idiosyncrasies of basic Polish: dziękuję. Or most useful of all for two itinerant non-Poles wandering around together: nie mówię po polsku.
Photo (c) 2014 Nico Trinkhaus used under Creative Commons license.
How foolish you can feel after everything is said and done. First that you let yourself walk down the path, however gingerly, with however much trepidation felt and caution you thought you exhibited, in the first place. Winding up steep hills, when suddenly, the path ends, and you’re lost and deep into the woods. It’s getting dark, and what shadows and figures you can faintly make out are unfamiliar. How can you not want to cry, get angry and overreact in frustration? It’s temporary, as all things are. Light will return. You will find your way back, the biggest, self-effacing wave crashes over you, leaving you feeling more foolish than ever for the overly emotional, panicked reaction. But how could it have been otherwise? It is as though, suddenly, you wandered off the safe, clear paths to which you were accustomed. The sense of adventure, openness to feeling new things, awakened. You were confident you could keep your footing, but a whirlwind of different circumstances conspired to… knock you on your ass. In hindsight the whole thing is embarrassing and laughable. Oh, the misguided, animated imagination, once aroused.
And how far away from these minor misadventures you can so quickly feel. One moment fretting and regretting, hot tears welling up as you ask yourself what you were thinking going up there, climbing deeper into the woods. The ground underfoot covered in damp moss, becoming increasingly swamplike. The very next moment, feet on the ground in cities new and old, concrete and cobblestone, breathing in the world of literature read long ago, reminiscing about people you once knew, tasting everything like it’s the first time – and sometimes it is. There are always the phantoms of the past haunting, keeping certain addictions flickering, but mostly faded into some archive of past transgressions. They return sometimes, and it is almost a relief in some way to feel the pounding familiarity push-push-pushing its way in. As if the past can breathe new life into the future, and push you on your way to the new.
But what of the limbo of the present moment? Or, as Vonnegut’s Tralfamadorians propose regarding time: it’s all happening at once in different dimensions: past, present, future, life, death.
It is within these present moments, when the mind still wanders back to what might have been (Kierkegaard’s ‘future you will never have’), when your guard should be up most of all, but isn’t. In one moment or another, roaming in the Baixa or Belém or Katowice or Kraków, dredging up images of the dreary recent past, only to live moments of Invisible Cities as though they were almost your own:
“But the special quality of this city for the man who arrives there on a September evening, is that he feels envy toward those who now believe they have once before lived an evening identical to this and who think they were happy, that time” … or more fitting, a “city where the foreigner hesitating between two (wo)men always encounters a third”.
The present opens and widens the world and its possibilities again, anew. You regain footing, and it is then that the possibilities present themselves.
Back home – back to reading. Finished reading Slogans by Mark Burgess, am going to finish Une si longue lettre by Mariama Ba (Senegal) – finally – and then finally, finally finish the book on Congo. I have just finished putting together/writing the track listing for yet another of my increasingly frequent random-gum music mixes/life’s soundtrack (and addressed all the envelopes. Tedium). It’s been a rich and intense time for music listening. I can’t seem to help myself and just want to keep sharing.
I’ve got the latest season of Chef’s Table going in the background. Not being a foodie of any kind, I did not expect to care for this show, but a lovely former colleague recommended it to me, and I have been consistently entertained and surprised. In the first episode of the third season, the ‘chef’ is actually a Korean Zen Buddhist monk who does not at all consider herself a chef. In the second episode, they’re covering the relatively well-known White Rabbit restaurant in Moscow (even I had heard of it and I am not that interested in the world’s popular or best-regarded culinary marvels). The best part is listening to all the spoken Russian; the worst, seeing lovely live moose who were killed and eventually turned into the moose-lip dumplings the chef had long been dreaming of. Most of the series is all quite beautiful and exquisite in any case. And the back stories almost all fascinating. (The third episode on Nancy Silverton: “I think you need to be obsessed with bread… to be a baker.” Starting off on the right foot.)
Not many words to say about it, but my decision to ‘fake it til I make it’ in terms of forcing myself to pretend to be in a better mood worked – when I decided on the 14th that it would be my last day of moping and sulking, it was. I was not at my greatest or at the pinnacle of personal enlightenment on the morning of the 15th, but I gave it some thought, realized what I had been doing and from that moment on, everything has actually (I’ve not just been ‘acting’) been great – relief, release, mini adventure, deep thinking without thinking about anything in particular. Very freeing.
Revolutionary Letter #1
–Diane di Prima
I have just realized that the stakes are myself
I have no other
ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life
my spirit measured out, in bits, spread over
the roulette table, I recoup what I can
nothing else to shove under the nose of the maitre de jeu
nothing to thrust out the window, no white flag
this flesh all I have to offer, to make the play with
this immediate head, what it comes up with, my move
as we slither over this go board, stepping always
(we hope) between the lines
How is it that I have never written about Prague before? Actually, this is not totally true. It got a brief mention in a recent post on 1999. Prague has not been a huge part of my life, but at the same time it has always been on the periphery. My Russian, eastern and central European studies years – all the literature, history and folk music. My brother and his friend making fun of my folk music purchases. The dear friends with Czech roots. Friendships and strange connections to this place. The memory of traveling to Prague for work in a change-infused period soon after I had left Iceland for Norway. The trip with colleagues to Prague for a photo shoot (and ending up, haphazardly, at a random restaurant we still refer to as “the old place” because we went in there first, left, wandered around aimlessly looking for somewhere else to eat, but ended up back in “the old place” – which was technically the first place. It was called U vejvodů, which I remember because I am that kind of person – the one who remembers the name of every place and street, even years later). The constant travel back to the Iceland for which I felt desperately homesick. The even more constant pull of Paris affairs. It’s no wonder that in those first dark months, Oslo felt more like hell than home. I was never even there.
How could all of that have been nine years ago already? How is it that it has taken nine years to find my way back to the old place?
The major purpose for my Gothenburg visit – Steve Mason concert – was canceled, along with his entire European tour. Hmm. Oh well. I really want to go to more live shows but looking at the upcoming music schedule (particularly for the nearer Oslo), it’s pretty pathetic. Bryan Adams, anyone? Ugh.
I found some notes I wrote ages ago, a few years after I had moved to Iceland. I look at it now and ask myself, “But at what point did I cease to be a tourist?” And that has different answers – there was probably a time that I no longer felt like a tourist, a point when I was legally no longer a tourist and a point when Icelanders begrudgingly no longer considered me a tourist (even if, despite having Icelandic citizenship slapped onto my forehead, I would never be a native, a local or anything more than a “paper Icelander”).
I can only imagine what Iceland is like now, overrun by hordes of tourists as it has been the last two or three years. Summers were always rich with them, but recent years have become seemingly unbearable if I am to believe media accounts. If I had issues dealing with the few I encountered in 2001 or 2002 (see my judgmental nature on display below), what would I think now?
“At last writing I mentioned that most people don’t come to Iceland, so they don’t understand why I like it nor indeed why anyone would choose to live here. However, having been a tourist here myself once, I am well aware, as any resident of Iceland is, that there is in fact a large contingent of tourists who do find their way here each year. Naturally I cannot characterize ALL tourists who come to Iceland because some of them blend in with the scenery, both innocuous and semi-chameleonic. The majority, though, observe a sort of tourist credo: let’s make ourselves as obvious as we possibly can. Of course this is not just the case in Iceland. Tourists are like this everywhere you go, but there are some unique aspects to the tourists who come to Iceland. Where else do you see couples adorned in bright, matching winter gear in the middle of summer, perhaps even carrying something like a walking stick, or worse yet, an ice ax, on their initial stroll down Laugavegur, the main shopping street in the city? One afternoon I saw a couple wearing matching, elaborately embroidered jackets with “New Zealand” stitched on them. Who could forget the lovely groups of tourists wearing lederhosen and thick, woolen socks pulled up to the knees?
Although these tourists stand out like a sore thumb to the naked eye, there are always the tourists who manage to be even more obnoxious. (They usually tend to be American, I should add).
At one of Iceland’s two Indian restaurants*, Shalimar, two older American tourists came in and the woman announced loudly, “We’re back!” The husband, quiet and subservient, cowered as his wife asked the proprietor what was being served that day. She ordered for both of them, getting wine for herself and insisting on water for her husband. “Yes, dear,” he humbly mumbled, as if he had an alternative. Talking to no one in particular, as she wandered away from the counter to choose a table, she exclaimed, “This is beautiful!” Through her Coke-bottle glasses and mop of mousy grey hair, she trudged toward her chosen table in squeaky bright turquoise rain boots. As she and her husband sat down (far too close to me for comfort), she practically yelled, “This is such a sweet place!” What followed was hideous, “Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. This is delicious. Mmm. Mmm.” With every bite there came an emphatic “mmm” accompanied by some unabashed lip smacking. “Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. Good. Mmm. Mmm. Mmm. Ah.” When one of the servers brought her some naan bread, she used her one word of Icelandic, not once but twice, “Taaaaaaaak. Taaaaaak.” Soon she was slurping, excitedly, as she resumed, “Mmm. Mmm.” And with that I finally had to leave.
Speaking of the use of “takk”, since tourists are quite proud of having mastered this useful word, I have sometimes found myself sitting in Café Paris, which is almost always filled with tourists. One can invariably observe the diligent tourist with a Lonely Planet Guide to Iceland and Greenland as well as several maps littering his/her table. On occasion, two such tourists will be drinking or dining and suddenly their eyes will meet, they will smile at each other, and often conversation (loud, of course) ensues. One day I heard an American woman and an Australian man discussing their own experiences in Iceland at length. Until finally, the woman decided it was time to be on her way and paid her bill, exclaiming, “TAAAAAAAAAAAAAK” (always far too much emphasis on the “a”) before leaving and wishing the Australian “un bon voyage”.
Another time when I had the misfortune of agreeing to meet with someone at the Dubliner (not my sort of venue), I waited there while an American woman sat at the bar spouting her expertise on “all things tourist”. She informed everyone at the bar (and indeed anyone within hearing range) that, “Americans have ruined Mexico. Damn tourists completely ruined it.” I very much wanted to approach her and say, “Yes, tourists like you…” However, that would have been both rude and would have drawn attention to myself. And unlike tourists as a whole, I don’t care to draw attention to myself. This is, I guess, the point and the best part of observing tourism in action. You can learn so much about people and their personal lives, not only because they are so loud but also because, quite often, tourists bond with other tourists and share personal details across crowded cafés. Indeed you also learn why people wanted to come to Iceland in the first place, and their reasons are as diverse as the tourists are loud.”
*I believe there are more now, but back then there was only the veteran Austur India Fjelagid and the upstart Shalimar, technically Pakistani, not Indian.
Photo (c) 2013 Terry Feuerborn.
Time for Japan
Yes, as usual, the Japanese have their priorities straight. Standardizing toilet controls and weaving and dyeing denim properly while the country more or less dies out … sounds like a plan.
Is this the same philosophy that drives Mexicans to make beautiful, time-consuming piñatas only to destroy them by beating the shit out of them? Because this is life: beautiful and so full of promise – but it too beats the shit out of you?
You enjoy beauty or love or quality only because they are so ephemeral? (Quality may imply that something is built to last, but the worn quality of something, its imperfection, may be part of its beauty. Is this the Japanese thinking, as was recently proposed to me?)
As an aside, I have lived and acquired weight in my soul and body, I have scars all over me from the things I have lived through. These imperfections too should tell a story that no one tells.
‘Love, like fire, can only reveal its brightness
on the failure and the beauty of burnt wood.’« Comme le feu, l’amour n’établit sa clarté
que sur la faute et la beauté des bois en cendres… »
It’s time to plan a trip to Japan, as I have not been for almost 20 years.
Everything is imperfect and constantly in flux, changing: Japan, love, me.
Photo (c) Stephen Donaghy
I confirmed and reconfirmed no fewer than three times that the film I went to Berlin to see would be in English (its original language) with German subtitles. But you just can’t trust the Germans when it comes to dubbing versus subtitling. Turns out it was dubbed into German – except for the songs, which were subtitled. Yes, it’s a musical, and therefore primarily music.
But that doesn’t mean you have actually subtitled the movie when all the dialogue is forcing Ryan Gosling to speak unnatural German. In that sense, it was a hilarious footnote to this adventure – I would not, as I told someone afterwards, watch a dubbed movie at home if someone paid me to do it, but today I spent considerable time, effort and money just to get to and watch a dubbed movie. However, it is a testament to the power of the film that I could still leave feeling moved and crying. I didn’t expect to – with all the hype, it being a musical (two strikes, automatically), not being particularly fond of Emma Stone either way and not that keen on what appeared to be a love story. Not to mention that it didn’t grab me the first minute or even in the first 20 minutes (especially, of course, because it was in German haha). But even in English it really wasn’t doing it for me. I don’t know when or how it changed, but there were small moments that started to win me over.
But again I can’t even be irritated about the dubbing. The experience of just running off and doing something different and virtually unplanned was enough. Uneventful flight, gorgeous but bitterly cold Berlin weather, visiting some favorite sites, everything running smoothly and on time, nice lunch at Jewish restaurant, Masel Topf, in Prenzlauer Berg, watching the police assigned to guard the synagogue pace back and forth.
And good film, if a bit strange – like the time I saw a Norwegian film in Mexico before I ever lived in Norway or gave Norway or Norwegian a second thought. As soon as I sat down in the cinema, I thought, “Hmmmm.” Norwegian voice, Spanish subtitles. Brilliant.
I did figure out finally what made me feel I had fallen out of love with Berlin when I was considering moving there last year. It was that for me it is not a city to do by myself/by oneself. It has always been something I explored or wanted to explore with someone, so wandering around alone actually felt empty. I had forgotten that I felt that way sometimes when I was working there. Other cities have not been like that – Swedish cities don’t feel that way to me, for example. But I feel a bit lost – not literally – but emotionally untethered without a Berlin companion, strange as that sounds.
And now it is definitely and desperately time for sleep – only about six hours to go until I can achieve that.
A trove of notes from the summer of 1999 – the past, while so well-illuminated feels like a part of a long and long ago night.
Summer begins, and I’m traveling around in Hawaii (Maui) and then all over Europe, accompanied by what appears to have been everything Nadine Gordimer had published at that time. The sounds of the Red Hot Chili Peppers followed/haunted me everywhere in the world I went. A Spanish guy who spoke no English tried to seduce me in Prague; an Australian tour guide named ‘Mat’ kept referring to every few-hours-stop in one city (without an overnight stay) as a “city lick”, which struck me as obscene; Budapest was enveloped in a massive thunder and lightning storm; Munich was unimpressive; I remember very little of Vienna other than the oppressive heat and a seemingly bipolar Australian girl; my hatred for Italy was born, as I lost my wallet and subsisted on the bits of various currency I had on hand for the various destinations (pre-euro days) I hit after Italy, although my time in Rome was made softer by meeting an American airline crew stuck there overnight; Luzern, my only stop in Switzerland, was civilized and orderly, as you would expect; I told a man in Nice that he had a piece of paper stuck in his hair; on a sweltering Friday night in Barcelona, John F Kennedy Jr’s private plane went missing; hellish times with hellish people in Madrid; a man came up to me in Tours and started saying something, which startled me, which caused him to ask if I understood French, to which I replied “un peu” – in English, he continued, “You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.” I said, “Thank you.” He replied, “No, thank you” as he placed his hand to heart dramatically and kept walking. Hahahaha. So French of him.
There are other bits that I noted nothing about, which I found less than impressive – London, Amsterdam, Monaco. But I fell in love with Berlin then but still have nothing to say about it.
After all of this I ended in Iceland, where I spent several weeks and knew I wanted to stay there. At the time, I thought forever. But it only ended up being about 8-9 years. Only. En route to and from Reykjavik I had to stop at Oslo Gardermoen, which was then new, and seemed so strange. Now it’s my “airport of choice”, like it or not, but back then I could never have imagined. By the time I got to Iceland, I had exhausted my Gordimer supply and bought new books (my new credit card had been sent to my friend’s house, so I once again had money) – Jose Saramago, Bohumil Hrabal, Haruki Murakami.
I never wanted to leave. Unfortunately, I did not listen to my instinct and did leave, and found that leaving had been a huge mistake. I should have stayed. At least I returned as soon as I could.
Photo (c) Paul Costanich.