Greetings people of Earth,
Your attention please:
This is Gettoblastfrizzlebumpoo speaking,
I will be away from July the 27th and will not be returning till next year. Yes, that's 2009. I will have intermittent access to my blog and will be updating it with interesting and funny stuff where and whenever I can surf. The lands of the hairy bushes are not reknowned for their surfing. But this shouldn't be a problem as the internet seems to have conquered some of the most scurviest fleapits that dot this lovely planet of ours. I will be updating my blog with articles and foto-gafs of varying guises: from horrendously funny to mournful elegies, from downright offensive to those of questionable moral character. But most of them will simply be me ranting about what an absolute horrid and miserable time I am having. And that I am (still) very much alive.
So, I will not be back till next year as I will be away conquering the hairy bushes (have I mentioned that already, the hairy bushes?). I have? Apologies. Yes, so apart from the hairy bushes they'll be plenty of other wild things. Like er...yaks.
If you do need to contact me in an emergency, assuming there is an event that deserves to be called an emergency in my rather simple life, then you will have to use your imagination. Think: How did they contact people in the old days without todays mobiles? How did they send messages before technology came in and ruined it for everyone? And in-case your thinking; No, I won't be carrying a mobile with me so don't even think of trying to call me. Not only will there be no reception but I am hoping to 'light out' as they say and go underground and disappear...for a while. And sleep rough and hang out with homeless people and stuff... But I will be back, sometime next year, hopefully in one piece. Or several pieces, and smelling very bad. Very stinky indeed.
Take care and be good.
encrustedwithfilth.com
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
****Falling in Love****
I fall * I fall
That is what
That is what
I do
Hopelessly fall * From dizzy
Hopelessly fall * From dizzy
Highs
To salt-flat
To salt-flat
Lows
Released * From the tips
Of the spidery firmament
How I wish
I could fall
Forever
And never stop
f
a
l
l
i
n
g
****
Forever falling * I embrace
All that is * My Truth
That there is
Emancipation
In falling
Released * From the tips
Of the spidery firmament
How I wish
I could fall
Forever
And never stop
f
a
l
l
i
n
g
****
Forever falling * I embrace
All that is * My Truth
That there is
Emancipation
In falling
And
A hopeless beauty
Too
****
I fall
Drunkenly * Madly * Deeply
With grace
A hopeless beauty
Too
****
I fall
Drunkenly * Madly * Deeply
With grace
Arms splayed
Like Airplane wings
Gulping happy Lungful's
Peering * At the slipstream
Of past
Fallings
With a heart * Sprouting
Wings
****
Effortlessly
I fall
Into * The depths * Of a zone
I know
Too well
With the rainbow * As friend
And the Moon * As guide
****
Like a drunken captain
Of a drunken boat
I fall
And keep falling
And maybe
Just maybe
If I am * Blessed
Like Airplane wings
Gulping happy Lungful's
Peering * At the slipstream
Of past
Fallings
With a heart * Sprouting
Wings
****
Effortlessly
I fall
Into * The depths * Of a zone
I know
Too well
With the rainbow * As friend
And the Moon * As guide
****
Like a drunken captain
Of a drunken boat
I fall
And keep falling
And maybe
Just maybe
If I am * Blessed
In falling
I may also
Soar
I may also
Soar
****
Saturday, June 28, 2008
One Planet/Reign of love
Reign of love
I can’t let go
To the sea I offer
This heavy load
Locusts will
Lift me up
I’m just a prisoner
In a Reign of Love
Locusts will
Let us stop
I wish I’d spoken
To the Reign of Love
Reign of Love 
By the church, we’rewaiting
Reign of love
My knees go praying
How I wish
I’d spoken up
Or we’d be carried
In the Reign of Love
(Coldplay)
Friday, June 27, 2008
My belly-button fluff and me
There is a hole
above my belt
where, like a mole
it has dwelt
for many years
and a coupla months
a little tease
my belly-button fluff
thru soapy showers
a-scrub-a-scrub scrub
survived many scours
has my belly-button fluff
I tried to squeeze
and drag it out
man the f***er screamed!
tired the bugger out
it turns pink
and sometimes blue
than like a rainbow
smiles at you
with anger hard
and sadness soft
jus' leave it out
it's all i've got
like toxic lovers
we'll never be free
my belly button fluff;
so glorious
and me!
above my belt
where, like a mole
it has dwelt
for many years
and a coupla months
a little tease
my belly-button fluff
thru soapy showers
a-scrub-a-scrub scrub
survived many scours
has my belly-button fluff
I tried to squeeze
and drag it out
man the f***er screamed!
tired the bugger out
it turns pink
and sometimes blue
than like a rainbow
smiles at you
with anger hard
and sadness soft
jus' leave it out
it's all i've got
like toxic lovers
we'll never be free
my belly button fluff;
so glorious
and me!
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
I feel whimsical
filthy mouth
filthy tongue
and flowing poetry
like the runs
dirty mind
dirty heart
and filthy verse
like a fart
super twat
super git
and smelly breath
like a fish
scanky soul
stingy pockets
fancy a drink?
ahh f**k it!
who am i?
what is this?
a little poem
a loada sh**t
if you look
if you hear
there is poetry
air - very - wer!
filthy tongue
and flowing poetry
like the runs
dirty mind
dirty heart
and filthy verse
like a fart
super twat
super git
and smelly breath
like a fish
scanky soul
stingy pockets
fancy a drink?
ahh f**k it!
who am i?
what is this?
a little poem
a loada sh**t
if you look
if you hear
there is poetry
air - very - wer!
Sunday, June 22, 2008
The art of travel (part VI) -Arthur Rimbaud: a design for life
‘Perhaps he has secrets for changing life?’
(‘Delires I’, Une saison en Enfer’)
‘Man hopes to spend three quarters of his life suffering in order to spend the last quarter taking his ease. Usually, he dies of poverty without knowing how far along he is with his plan!’
Since aloneness is the human condition, a fascinating example of this is the lone celebrated poet, a white man living amongst blacks, in obscurity, within a walled city, in a far flung outpost, in deepest Africa. A poet living amongst black illiterates, philistines, who don’t trust him, whose respect he has to earn to be a man. He is a solitary entrepreneur in a society of organised slavers. In a previous life he had been a genius poet; his head teeming with surreal imagery. A decadent prodigy who had kick started a new poetic movement, who had amassed a growing fan club in the dissolute dens of Paris where his teenage poems were now being seen as revolutionary. Cast away from home on foreign shores little did he know that his early poems had endowed him with cult figure status, but no one knew where he was. Was he dead?
‘From all sides we receive letters craving information on the poet; we are bombarded with questions. Indeed, several of our honourable correspondents are indignant to note that Rimbaud does not yet have a statue in Paris’
‘I is somebody else’
was now almost thirty, going prematurely gray, and noting accounting debits and credits in a thick company ledger; noting with thick stabs of the pen the weight and cost of elephant tusks and coffee sacks to be taken down to the coast by caravan. But his peculiarities set him apart; he’d learnt the local language, he’d become skilled in Arabic and held audiences in which he’d interpret the Koran. He hated the people. He found them stupid and indolent and full of treachery. Yet despite all this he stayed. No one knew what was in his heart, his ironies, his mutterings, and the fact that he was an expert in concealment. He denied his wealth; claiming to be poor and destitute; yet he stacked dollars and chinks of chunky coins. He always claimed that he was being cheated. He claimed he hated the weather, the stifling heat, the thieving locals who couldn’t be trusted. In one of his jeering letters home he paints a portrait of his life in Harar:
‘I still get very bored. In fact, I’ve never known anyone who gets as bored as I do. It’s a wretched life anyway, don’t you think? – no family, no intellectual activity, lost amongst negroes who try to exploit you and make it impossible to settle business quickly. Forced to speak their gibberish, to eat their filthy food and suffer a thousand aggravations…and there’s something even sadder than that – it’s the fear of gradually turning into an idiot oneself, stranded as one is, far from intelligent company’
But these self -portraits are tainted with the unmistakeable hue of someone happy with their life. The life of a contented misanthrope. He made a meal of his suffering (like all of us) – he complained even though he was rather enjoying it!
In Harar it seems he could be himself and not have to bow to the vagaries of life. Speak if he wanted to, ignore when he wanted to, be loud if he wanted, or a hermit if he wanted. In life we are trapped by responsibilities that stifle our creativity and potential. What Rimbaud had discovered was nothing other than a new Design for Life.
‘Man hopes to spend three quarters of his life suffering in order to spend the last quarter taking his ease. Usually, he dies of poverty without knowing how far along he is with his plan!’
(Arthur Rimbaud, to his mother and sister, 6 Jan 1886)
Since aloneness is the human condition, a fascinating example of this is the lone celebrated poet, a white man living amongst blacks, in obscurity, within a walled city, in a far flung outpost, in deepest Africa. A poet living amongst black illiterates, philistines, who don’t trust him, whose respect he has to earn to be a man. He is a solitary entrepreneur in a society of organised slavers. In a previous life he had been a genius poet; his head teeming with surreal imagery. A decadent prodigy who had kick started a new poetic movement, who had amassed a growing fan club in the dissolute dens of Paris where his teenage poems were now being seen as revolutionary. Cast away from home on foreign shores little did he know that his early poems had endowed him with cult figure status, but no one knew where he was. Was he dead?
‘From all sides we receive letters craving information on the poet; we are bombarded with questions. Indeed, several of our honourable correspondents are indignant to note that Rimbaud does not yet have a statue in Paris’
(Le Decadent 1-15, March 1889)
No he wasn’t dead. Though to his acolytes he might as well have been. The same poems they were hailing as masterpieces; with their dizzying visions and heady drunken verses were now the backdrops of his life. He was living and drinking from the the landscapes of his poetry:
No he wasn’t dead. Though to his acolytes he might as well have been. The same poems they were hailing as masterpieces; with their dizzying visions and heady drunken verses were now the backdrops of his life. He was living and drinking from the the landscapes of his poetry:
'I drifted on a river I could not control' he had written in his poem 'The Drunken Boat'
and: 'I have seen what men have only dreamed they saw'
But to the Africans this original was just another feranji in a shabby white suit, who barely spoke his own language except under his breath clouded in twitchy whispers. Who spent his time wandering the reeking market, watching the lepers importuning for alms besides the mosque, enquiring about the fly blown camel haunches hanging in the butchery. He even had a mistress in Harar, a local black women who was later to note his maps, his silences, his stash of coins, the letters he wrote home, his passion for photography, his secrets, his books, how he hated interruption and any talk of his past. She had no idea where he was from. She said he loved the desert. The poet who had once written:
‘I is somebody else’
was now almost thirty, going prematurely gray, and noting accounting debits and credits in a thick company ledger; noting with thick stabs of the pen the weight and cost of elephant tusks and coffee sacks to be taken down to the coast by caravan. But his peculiarities set him apart; he’d learnt the local language, he’d become skilled in Arabic and held audiences in which he’d interpret the Koran. He hated the people. He found them stupid and indolent and full of treachery. Yet despite all this he stayed. No one knew what was in his heart, his ironies, his mutterings, and the fact that he was an expert in concealment. He denied his wealth; claiming to be poor and destitute; yet he stacked dollars and chinks of chunky coins. He always claimed that he was being cheated. He claimed he hated the weather, the stifling heat, the thieving locals who couldn’t be trusted. In one of his jeering letters home he paints a portrait of his life in Harar:
‘I still get very bored. In fact, I’ve never known anyone who gets as bored as I do. It’s a wretched life anyway, don’t you think? – no family, no intellectual activity, lost amongst negroes who try to exploit you and make it impossible to settle business quickly. Forced to speak their gibberish, to eat their filthy food and suffer a thousand aggravations…and there’s something even sadder than that – it’s the fear of gradually turning into an idiot oneself, stranded as one is, far from intelligent company’
But these self -portraits are tainted with the unmistakeable hue of someone happy with their life. The life of a contented misanthrope. He made a meal of his suffering (like all of us) – he complained even though he was rather enjoying it!
In Harar it seems he could be himself and not have to bow to the vagaries of life. Speak if he wanted to, ignore when he wanted to, be loud if he wanted, or a hermit if he wanted. In life we are trapped by responsibilities that stifle our creativity and potential. What Rimbaud had discovered was nothing other than a new Design for Life.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
The art of travel (part V) - I want to break free
The soundtrack you choose is important. It will set the pace and the mood and the emotional landscape of your wanderings.
This is a particularly beautiful rendition of this classic by Queen. Enjoy
This is a particularly beautiful rendition of this classic by Queen. Enjoy
The art of travel (part IV) - Arthur Rimbaud in Harar
'And I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth’
(Genesis 4:14)A traveller in a hostile desert allows the monotony of the landscape, the pallor and shimmerings of phantasmal mirages and the glare of the orb of the sun, to evacuate his mind of all but the essentials. So that what remains of a travellers description of a caravan into Africa is a bone picked clean by vultures:
‘Twenty days on horse-back across the Somali desert’
And so we have Arthur Rimbaud in Africa - Abyssinia. The mountains opened up to a grassy plateau grazed by herds of Zebu wild beast. A semi-arid cornucopia compared to the dispiriting sulphurous desert from which they’d barely emerged. The ochre soil permitted the growth of vegetables, bananas, coffee, tobacco, saffron and the mildly intoxicating leaves of the Qat plant, which when chewed, left one in the arms of a pleasant torpor. The staple food was ‘durra’ a variety of sorghum that resembled and had the consistency of a modern day bath mat.
When the caravan passed through villages the local women, after spying the white man at the head of the phalanx would shuffle forth to inspect him. They'd tug at his clothes and touch his face to see whether he was white all over. You can imagine the affect this must have had. The appearance of a white man was as if a ghost from the netherworld had crossed the divide. Many believed white men to be dead ancestors.
Harar appeared suddenly at the summit of a slope; a reddish clump on a hillock. Two stumpy minarets surrounded by scraggy cultivated fields outlined the silhouette of the Forbidden City. The city was surrounded by pasty red-ochre walls; unrepaired since the Middle Ages. Rimbaud showed his papers to the city guards and was led in. Harar was a pandemonium of market traders, craftsmen, beggars, lepers and young slaves – many of who were still recovering from castration. He passed through the curious importuning crowd, catching whiffs of unknown languages, buffeted by the smells of an African market – the sickly stench of sugar cane, shit and putrefying flesh. Harar's 30,000 residents lived under squat, terraced houses of mud and stone. The streets were simply the spaces between the houses, rutted by torrents from the surrounding hills. Street cleaning was left to the hyenas. A traveller would have to constantly dodge and walk around the mounds of turds left on the streets by squatting humanity and wild dogs.
Rimbaud settled down in the ‘House of Raouf Pasha’ – a rudimentary building in the centre of town. The shutters in his room were constructed from the bits and pieces of wooden packing crates and his room looked over the main square. Rimbaud was the only employee of the ‘Company from Aden’ – and as their representative in Harar he was to oversee the trading in coffee, hides, ivory, gold, scents, incense, musk etc. His constant caravans to the coast 240 miles away laden with goods were giving him a comfortable income but he took pains to write in his letters home to France:
‘If you think that I’m living like a prince, I am quite certain that I’m living in a very stupid and irritating fashion. Anyway let’ hope we can enjoy a few years of true repose in this life; and it’s a good thing that this life is the only one and that it’s obvious it is, since it’s impossible to imagine another life more tedious than this!’
These self-deprecating and desolate letters to home are our only source of information on his state of mind. He was pessimistic as always but business was brisk and new horizons were dawning. There were new languages to be learnt, new markets to develop, and some feisty traders to be driven out of business by efficient competition. As well as his trading Rimbaud also made excursions into surrounding unexplored territory. These were timid affairs at first but gradually became more confident and daring. His motives for these ‘trafficking in the unknown’ were not purely mercantile:
‘I am intending to leave Harar soon to go trafficking or exploring on my own account in the unknown. There is great lake a few days from here, and it’s in ivory country…just in case things turn out badly and I don’t come back, please note that I have a sum of 715 rupees deposited at the Aden branch. You can ask for it if you think it’s worth the bother’
There is this account of Rimbaud about to head off:
‘Just as he was about to set off at the head of his little procession, Rimbaud wrapped a towel around his head as a turban and draped a red blanket over his usual garbs. He was intending to pass himself off as a Muslim…Sharing our amusement at his fancy dress; Rimbaud agreed that the red blanket, which orientalised his European costume, might attract robbers. But he wanted to be seen as a rich Mohammedan merchant for the sake of company prestige’
Rimbaud’s smile breaks through at this moment. He was taking a holiday from himself. A well deserved holiday. He rode out through the pulverised south gate of Harar, past the grovelling lepers, the wandering Ostrich’s and the stench of humanity, into the unmapped landscape before him. After a few days the terrain turned into open woodland. This is the furthest point south any European had ever ventured. The creature in the red cape and the white skin caused quite a stir amongst the natives. He won the protection of the ‘boko’ the local chief and set up two stalls on either side of the market in Babussa. For a week Rimbaud traded in the open market doing brisk business with traders many of whom came from distant regions. At night he slept on a pile of sweaty stinking hides. Then, having revolutionized the local economy he returned to Harar, surprised to be still alive, and spent the next two weeks recovering in bed from a severe fever. Rimbaud had glimpsed the edges of the mysterious ‘Ogaden’ – a region as yet unexplored and the size of both France and Belgium put together. Still recovering he wrote another letter home describing his ordeal:
‘What could I say about the things I’ve attempted with such extraordinary exertions and which have brought me nothing but fever. But it can’t be helped. I’m used to everything now. I fear nothing...’
(To be continued...)
On the pleasures of being made to feel small
The poet Wordsworth had urged us to travel through landscapes to feel emotions that would benefit our souls. It is usually unpleasant to be made to feel small. But imagine you are a solitary traveller who walking though the desert, suddenly emerges from a craggy overhang, and before you lies the unimaginable emptiness that is the Ogaden. Reams and reams of undulating landscape reeling before you. The horizon dissolving into the sky. What do you feel? What do you feel when you are confronted with the sheer majesty of the Nanga Parbat massif or mighty K2, as they loom over you – just there, in front of you, impenetrable, scaling the firmament, caressing the clouds with their tips?
You feel a sense of the sublime.
But why the pleasure? Why seek out this feeling of smallness – to positively delight and waddle in it even? Why stand naked before this mountain and feel exhilaration rather then despair at your titchyness?
Not everything that is more powerful then us is hateful to us. Such things also arouse awe and respect. It also depends on whether the thing that defies us appears noble in its defiance or squalid and insolent. Compare the cocky assurance of a hotel doorman with the defiance of a bearded mountain. Sublime places teach us that the universe is mightier than we are, that we are frail and tepid and temporary and that we have no alternative but to accept our limitations. Some people experience this awe as God, others surmise that the planet was built by forces powerful, forces greater than what out hands could achieve. Forces that have continued from the the veil of the pass and will continue, long after we are gone, into the veil of the distant future.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Coming soon...The art of travel - Part IV - Arthur Rimbaud in Harar
The true story of the very first Swashbuckling Vagabond.
"It has been found again! What? Eternity.
It is the sea mingled with the sun"
('Une Saison en Enfer' : A season in Hell, Arthur Rimbaud)
"It has been found again! What? Eternity.
It is the sea mingled with the sun"
('Une Saison en Enfer' : A season in Hell, Arthur Rimbaud)
The art of travel (Part III)
In Part I we discussed the gulf that exists between our expectations and the realities of travel. We know for example that there exists a vacuum between the airport and the hotel, and that this vacuum is gradually filled up after we touch down by an assortment of images: a looming cigarette advertisement in the arrivals hall, the boorish lady in immigration, the louche looking taxi drivers, the saccharine smiled hotel employee, the bus-stand resembling an IKEA flat-pack, and so forth. These are all images the guidebook never mentioned and they surprise us in their ordinariness and everydayness. How dare they encroach upon our holiday! We spot troops of children heading for school, factory workers queueing with us at the bus stand, we witness a workers demonstration, we spot the café employee relaxing on her day off – but the guidebook never mentioned that these people have lives! That they have other things to do besides making us comfortable!
And this brings me nicely to the next topic that’s been bothering me: Why is it that when one visits one of these countries one is made to feel like an Imperialist?
‘Come Sir! Please take a seat Sir! First class for you Sir!’
‘This is bestest quality especially for you Sir! Raja quality. Best quality!’
‘Where are you from Sir? London?! London is best Sir! Queen Victoria, Buckingham Palace, Lord of the Manor, Mr Holmes, Righty-ho old chap…’
What strikes you about this quaint patter is the fact that it seems to be stuck in a time warp. Little do they realise that times have changed. Gone are the days of the Victorian English sensibility. England has moved on. The patter requires an update to bring it to contemporary standards. A boost of modernity. Can you imagine this:
'Woh, London Sir! I think London is wicked man Sir! Chicken Tikka Masala rocks my chuddies dude sir, Ali G is booyakasha and Posh Spice is so minging Sir! Fancy some fish and chips Sir? I love David Beckham, Mr Bean, and Freddy Sir! Bismillah will you let me go…’
‘Er, yeah sure I will let you go. F**k off and leave me alone!’ - Hahaha
Why do the locals stoop so low to please us? It’s the economy stupid and the mighty pound. Yes I know, but when was the last time you spotted a hoard of Pan-chewing phlegm spitting Bengali tourists in London? Exactly. But even so isn’t there something unfair about the whole travel enterprise? Let’s look at it stripped down shall we: We Westerners with our superior airs and noses in the clouds, visit these exotic lands where we are treated as royalty. Where everyone does there mawkish best to please us. I always smell the stink of desperation in the way they feign friendships in the hope of making a quick buck (a ‘Western’ friend is no mean thing). They lie, deceive, develop skills of extraordinary guile, they sweet-talk and they suck on our sweet milky money of the West.
We in turn remain immured in luxurious hotels with Sky News and English breakfasts for company. We barely interact except with the token Thai tour-guide in those hideously kitschy tours with the fat Americans (all bumptious and smiley smiley), and then we return home after putatively ‘visiting Thailand’ and proudly boast:
‘Thailand was cool. Bloody cheap and the fake stuff is top notch. And the Thai Curry’s are good. But I still prefer me local Thai restaurant in Basildon’
You call that travel?
But what affect does this have on the locals? Yes, the travel industry brings in huge revenues, but it is a business that is subject to the whims of the global economic climate and the competition of other locations. But ultimately it does nothing (and this is the point I’m driving at) it does nothing to develop the skills of the local people. It is an economy that manufactures nothing except the crap kitsch that goes on sale in the tourist stores but apart from that?
Nothing.
In Costa Rica I remember seeing legions of wan urchins patrolling the streets whining the same patter to tourists. The desperation in their eyes evident. All looking for a way out. Any way out of this miserable existence – like a dog with mange kept in a zoo. It’s a pathetic life. Wouldn’t it be better if that Costa Rican didn’t have to suffer the ritualised ignominy of begging for his lively-hood? If only he could earn a decent living by dint of his own hands? Perhaps by working in a solid job making something that will be sold abroad and that will shore up the economy and that will not remind him; every waking hour of his life, that he is a second-class human being. For that's how these people must feel, surely? Especially when they see the fat rotund Westerners with their pallid complexions and fancy 12 megapixel cameras and burgeoning wallets. ‘Why can’t we do that?’ They must wonder. ‘Why can’t we visit 'their' countries?’
And if they did visit London would they get the same happy-go-lucky welcome? Would they be treated with the same amount of deference and Royal Highness?
You know the answer to that!
On the pleasures of watching shitting donkeys
Gustave Flaubert (author of Madame Bovary) was French. And he was a little strange too. But strange is good because at that time the French were a bunch of prudent, snobbish, pompous and racist xenophobes whose bourgeoisie elite liked nothing better than to wallow in their own superiority complex. He found French life stifling and not a logical fit to his creative and impulsive temperament. Luckily for him he did find a place that did fit with his ideas and values: Egypt (or the East to be more general)
When Flaubert disembarked in Alexandria he instantly fell in love. Not with a women mind you but with something more potent then the love of a women (really? Is there such a thing?). Yes, he fell in love with the swirling chaos around him. Visual, auditory and nasal: Nubian hawkers, bargaining merchants, chickens being slaughtered, donkeys being flayed, groaning foaming camels, guttural Arabs, thick negro lips, white robes and flashes of ivory that tainted the eyes. He felt as if he had finally arrived home.
Why did the chaos and the richness of Egyptian colours so touch Flaubert? Because he believed that life is fundamentally chaotic. That in the West we may live in a consciously imposed world of order (with rules and laws and courtesies and how to say thank you's and goodbyes and how to eat with a knife and fork) but underneath all this, underneath this self imposed order, there is always lurking a teeming layer of chaos. And in Egypt he found this teeming organic chaos. This lack of prudery where people were forthright and unpretentious. He believed that to live otherwise was a denial of our human condition.
‘Yesterday we were at a café which is one of the best in Cairo’, wrote Flaubert a few months after his arrival, ‘and inside this café were at the same time as ourselves, a donkey shitting and a gentlemen pissing in the corner. No one finds that odd here! No one says anything’.
And in Flaubert’s eyes they were right not to.
A key feature of Flaubert’s philosophy was the belief that man is not simply a spiritual creature, but also a pissing and shitting one, and that we should integrate this into our world-view. He wrote:
‘I can’t believe that our body, composed as it is of mud and shit and equipped with instincts lower than those of a pig or a louse, contains anything pure and immaterial’.
This doesn’t mean that we don’t have any higher dimensions. It was just that the prudery and self-righteousness of the age aroused in Flaubert a desire to remind people of mankind’s impurities. In Egypt Flaubert welcomed the duality of life that was on display: shit-mind, death-life, sexuality-purity, and madness-sanity. People belched during and after meals to their hearts’ content and a boy of six passing Flaubert in a street in Cairo, cried out in greeting:
‘Sir I wish you all kinds of prosperity, especially a long prick’
To be continued…
And this brings me nicely to the next topic that’s been bothering me: Why is it that when one visits one of these countries one is made to feel like an Imperialist?
‘Come Sir! Please take a seat Sir! First class for you Sir!’
‘This is bestest quality especially for you Sir! Raja quality. Best quality!’
‘Where are you from Sir? London?! London is best Sir! Queen Victoria, Buckingham Palace, Lord of the Manor, Mr Holmes, Righty-ho old chap…’
What strikes you about this quaint patter is the fact that it seems to be stuck in a time warp. Little do they realise that times have changed. Gone are the days of the Victorian English sensibility. England has moved on. The patter requires an update to bring it to contemporary standards. A boost of modernity. Can you imagine this:
'Woh, London Sir! I think London is wicked man Sir! Chicken Tikka Masala rocks my chuddies dude sir, Ali G is booyakasha and Posh Spice is so minging Sir! Fancy some fish and chips Sir? I love David Beckham, Mr Bean, and Freddy Sir! Bismillah will you let me go…’
‘Er, yeah sure I will let you go. F**k off and leave me alone!’ - Hahaha
Why do the locals stoop so low to please us? It’s the economy stupid and the mighty pound. Yes I know, but when was the last time you spotted a hoard of Pan-chewing phlegm spitting Bengali tourists in London? Exactly. But even so isn’t there something unfair about the whole travel enterprise? Let’s look at it stripped down shall we: We Westerners with our superior airs and noses in the clouds, visit these exotic lands where we are treated as royalty. Where everyone does there mawkish best to please us. I always smell the stink of desperation in the way they feign friendships in the hope of making a quick buck (a ‘Western’ friend is no mean thing). They lie, deceive, develop skills of extraordinary guile, they sweet-talk and they suck on our sweet milky money of the West.
We in turn remain immured in luxurious hotels with Sky News and English breakfasts for company. We barely interact except with the token Thai tour-guide in those hideously kitschy tours with the fat Americans (all bumptious and smiley smiley), and then we return home after putatively ‘visiting Thailand’ and proudly boast:
‘Thailand was cool. Bloody cheap and the fake stuff is top notch. And the Thai Curry’s are good. But I still prefer me local Thai restaurant in Basildon’
You call that travel?
But what affect does this have on the locals? Yes, the travel industry brings in huge revenues, but it is a business that is subject to the whims of the global economic climate and the competition of other locations. But ultimately it does nothing (and this is the point I’m driving at) it does nothing to develop the skills of the local people. It is an economy that manufactures nothing except the crap kitsch that goes on sale in the tourist stores but apart from that?
Nothing.
In Costa Rica I remember seeing legions of wan urchins patrolling the streets whining the same patter to tourists. The desperation in their eyes evident. All looking for a way out. Any way out of this miserable existence – like a dog with mange kept in a zoo. It’s a pathetic life. Wouldn’t it be better if that Costa Rican didn’t have to suffer the ritualised ignominy of begging for his lively-hood? If only he could earn a decent living by dint of his own hands? Perhaps by working in a solid job making something that will be sold abroad and that will shore up the economy and that will not remind him; every waking hour of his life, that he is a second-class human being. For that's how these people must feel, surely? Especially when they see the fat rotund Westerners with their pallid complexions and fancy 12 megapixel cameras and burgeoning wallets. ‘Why can’t we do that?’ They must wonder. ‘Why can’t we visit 'their' countries?’
And if they did visit London would they get the same happy-go-lucky welcome? Would they be treated with the same amount of deference and Royal Highness?
You know the answer to that!
On the pleasures of watching shitting donkeys
Gustave Flaubert (author of Madame Bovary) was French. And he was a little strange too. But strange is good because at that time the French were a bunch of prudent, snobbish, pompous and racist xenophobes whose bourgeoisie elite liked nothing better than to wallow in their own superiority complex. He found French life stifling and not a logical fit to his creative and impulsive temperament. Luckily for him he did find a place that did fit with his ideas and values: Egypt (or the East to be more general)
When Flaubert disembarked in Alexandria he instantly fell in love. Not with a women mind you but with something more potent then the love of a women (really? Is there such a thing?). Yes, he fell in love with the swirling chaos around him. Visual, auditory and nasal: Nubian hawkers, bargaining merchants, chickens being slaughtered, donkeys being flayed, groaning foaming camels, guttural Arabs, thick negro lips, white robes and flashes of ivory that tainted the eyes. He felt as if he had finally arrived home.
Why did the chaos and the richness of Egyptian colours so touch Flaubert? Because he believed that life is fundamentally chaotic. That in the West we may live in a consciously imposed world of order (with rules and laws and courtesies and how to say thank you's and goodbyes and how to eat with a knife and fork) but underneath all this, underneath this self imposed order, there is always lurking a teeming layer of chaos. And in Egypt he found this teeming organic chaos. This lack of prudery where people were forthright and unpretentious. He believed that to live otherwise was a denial of our human condition.
‘Yesterday we were at a café which is one of the best in Cairo’, wrote Flaubert a few months after his arrival, ‘and inside this café were at the same time as ourselves, a donkey shitting and a gentlemen pissing in the corner. No one finds that odd here! No one says anything’.
And in Flaubert’s eyes they were right not to.
A key feature of Flaubert’s philosophy was the belief that man is not simply a spiritual creature, but also a pissing and shitting one, and that we should integrate this into our world-view. He wrote:
‘I can’t believe that our body, composed as it is of mud and shit and equipped with instincts lower than those of a pig or a louse, contains anything pure and immaterial’.
This doesn’t mean that we don’t have any higher dimensions. It was just that the prudery and self-righteousness of the age aroused in Flaubert a desire to remind people of mankind’s impurities. In Egypt Flaubert welcomed the duality of life that was on display: shit-mind, death-life, sexuality-purity, and madness-sanity. People belched during and after meals to their hearts’ content and a boy of six passing Flaubert in a street in Cairo, cried out in greeting:
‘Sir I wish you all kinds of prosperity, especially a long prick’
To be continued…
Saturday, June 14, 2008
The art of travel - (Part II)
One of the major decisions facing any intrepid traveller with adventure and a healthy dose of vagabondage in mind is not whether one has subscribed to the necessary insurance policies (insurance is for wimps), nor is it the small matter of ensuring one is immunized against all foreign infectious agents (including the customary 'bull-shit detector jabs') but it is the question of how many and more importantly which books to pack into one's backpack. Yes, which books.
The decision is further complicated by practical matters such as how many books one can physically fit into one's backpack, and how much weight one can carry on one's back without breaking it. That is breaking one's back not the backpack. It is not advisable to carry a portable library around with you on some of the most gruelling mountain terrain in the world - even if you do have literary aspirations. But let's face the problem head on: The fact of the matter is that there is a distinct lack of night-time entertainment in those wee parts where one may roam (unless one considers the popular past-time of 'spit in the spittoon' which involves the transfer of huge gobs of spit from one's mouth to a spittoon some feet away - very popular with the older country folk I might add).
The only entertainment I can think of to help while away those lazy, languorous hours (except a new sport I have just invented called 'dodge the spit in the spittoon') is the written page. So deciding which books to pack is a most important decision. A decision that has dogged me incessantly like a dose of tropical Dengue fever. I have suffered nightmares of being stuck in some dinghy hell hole without anything to read except 'Chinese Communist Party pamphlets' and extracts from 'Mrs Maawings recipe for fried dumplings' - in Mandarin. The decision is not helped by the foreknowledge of my lecherous reading habits. So what to do? what to do?
Kathmandu? Kathmandu? (no that doesn't help)
...But thanks to modern technology it is a decision I no longer have to make. Ladies and Gentlemen please allow me the pleasure of introducing to you the 'Iliad Reader' - the worlds first anti-strain, anti-glare, 'real pages', electronic book. This baby can store over 10,000 book titles, all in a small cute device the size of a book that fits neatly into your rucksack. It has 18 hours battery life and you can store all your books on it - problem solved.
God I'm a genius.
Oh yeah and it comes with a handy socket-adaptor travellers pack to ensure one can use it even in medieval Mongolia - where they do have electricity I have been reliably informed (in the cities at least)
i'mdefinitelygettimgmeoneofthose.com
youknowyouwantone.com
myprrrrecious.com
The decision is further complicated by practical matters such as how many books one can physically fit into one's backpack, and how much weight one can carry on one's back without breaking it. That is breaking one's back not the backpack. It is not advisable to carry a portable library around with you on some of the most gruelling mountain terrain in the world - even if you do have literary aspirations. But let's face the problem head on: The fact of the matter is that there is a distinct lack of night-time entertainment in those wee parts where one may roam (unless one considers the popular past-time of 'spit in the spittoon' which involves the transfer of huge gobs of spit from one's mouth to a spittoon some feet away - very popular with the older country folk I might add).
The only entertainment I can think of to help while away those lazy, languorous hours (except a new sport I have just invented called 'dodge the spit in the spittoon') is the written page. So deciding which books to pack is a most important decision. A decision that has dogged me incessantly like a dose of tropical Dengue fever. I have suffered nightmares of being stuck in some dinghy hell hole without anything to read except 'Chinese Communist Party pamphlets' and extracts from 'Mrs Maawings recipe for fried dumplings' - in Mandarin. The decision is not helped by the foreknowledge of my lecherous reading habits. So what to do? what to do?
Kathmandu? Kathmandu? (no that doesn't help)
...But thanks to modern technology it is a decision I no longer have to make. Ladies and Gentlemen please allow me the pleasure of introducing to you the 'Iliad Reader' - the worlds first anti-strain, anti-glare, 'real pages', electronic book. This baby can store over 10,000 book titles, all in a small cute device the size of a book that fits neatly into your rucksack. It has 18 hours battery life and you can store all your books on it - problem solved.
God I'm a genius.
Oh yeah and it comes with a handy socket-adaptor travellers pack to ensure one can use it even in medieval Mongolia - where they do have electricity I have been reliably informed (in the cities at least)
i'mdefinitelygettimgmeoneofthose.com
youknowyouwantone.com
myprrrrecious.com
The art of travel (Part 1)
Part of a series of articles, reveries, vignettes on all things travel related.
If we accept that our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then nothing better exemplifies this search than our travels. By looking at the way we travel; the dynamics and pitfalls we fall into, the fallacies we imbibe, we can reveal much about that eternal quest for bliss and happiness. Hence, the art of travel is as much about travelling as it is about the human condition and the search for Elysium on earth. We are given much advice on where to travel to but none whatsoever on why and more importantly how we should go about it.
We are familiar with the notion that the reality of travel is not what we anticipate. As I sit here writing this, in a cafe in Islington, I have a copy of the Lonely Planet Guide to Pakistan open on my left. On the first few pages there are a series of glossy colour photographs of the verdant Hunza Valley with emerald streams studded with diamonds and a backdrop of the majestic Karakoram; their blanched-platinum peaks touching the gates of the firmament. The scenery is perfect. The guidebook goes onto to describe this in purple lilting prose interspersed with sound practical advice on how to get there, where to stay and how much you should expect to pay. So you imagine. You imagine getting on a fulminating rickety bus at Rawalpindi bus stand, and after a few hours pleasant journey northwards, checking into a hotel that has been described by the guidebook as ‘pleasant’ and ‘with hot running water’– but none of this tells you of the reality of your journey.
If we accept that our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then nothing better exemplifies this search than our travels. By looking at the way we travel; the dynamics and pitfalls we fall into, the fallacies we imbibe, we can reveal much about that eternal quest for bliss and happiness. Hence, the art of travel is as much about travelling as it is about the human condition and the search for Elysium on earth. We are given much advice on where to travel to but none whatsoever on why and more importantly how we should go about it.
We are familiar with the notion that the reality of travel is not what we anticipate. As I sit here writing this, in a cafe in Islington, I have a copy of the Lonely Planet Guide to Pakistan open on my left. On the first few pages there are a series of glossy colour photographs of the verdant Hunza Valley with emerald streams studded with diamonds and a backdrop of the majestic Karakoram; their blanched-platinum peaks touching the gates of the firmament. The scenery is perfect. The guidebook goes onto to describe this in purple lilting prose interspersed with sound practical advice on how to get there, where to stay and how much you should expect to pay. So you imagine. You imagine getting on a fulminating rickety bus at Rawalpindi bus stand, and after a few hours pleasant journey northwards, checking into a hotel that has been described by the guidebook as ‘pleasant’ and ‘with hot running water’– but none of this tells you of the reality of your journey.
The guidebook it seems fails to mention that you’ll have to jostle with fellow passengers to secure your seat, that you’ll be sitting on the left-hand side where the scorching sun blazes through the windows, that the bus will stop regularly to pick up itinerant passengers, that they’ll be a musky smelling old woman sitting next to you; her jaundiced teeth splitting pine nuts (and depositing their shells all over you), and that once you alight you’ll have difficulty finding the hotel, and that on the way there you’ll spy a series of newish looking one’s not mentioned in the guide at all. And finally when you check in to your room your vision of ‘pleasant rooms’ it seems is different to the vision of the guide writers. You imagined a room with a view and what did you get? A view of someone’s stewing rubbish heap (with a lingering smell of rotting cabbages). But never mind - at least the window can be closed.
The Guide recommends certain attractions in the surrounding area and so you imagine feverishly booking yourself on a tour of these. And as you sit in the front next to the driver you imagine (as the guidebook promises) that you’ll be treated to jaw dropping vertical cliff overhangs thousands of metres deep and you imagine being thrilled by the danger and the steely chutzpah of the engineers who carved this rutted path through the mountainside - inch by inch. blast by blast. life by life. And you imagine yourself marvelling at the genius of the human species. And your heart is filled with a heady and stout proudness; an imperious human-centred chauvinism.
This is what you imagine from what the guidebook tells you. But what of the reality? You may indeed be wowed and throttled into submission by the eye boggling vistas and views but that is not the most prominent thing on your mind. What is more prominent is a nagging thought (that won’t go away) that you have been over-charged for your room, that perhaps you should have asked for a better view. You also worry about how much to tip the tour guide and whether your passport and valuables are safe with the hotel manager; he did have a shifty look about him didn’t he? And then you worry about using the toilet – well there is none and you don’t particularly fancy jumping behind a boulder, dropping your pants and squatting. And to make things worse you’re beginning to suffer the onset of traveller’s diarrhoea. It seems all these things conspire to ruin the postcard perfect picture the guidebook so earnestly promised you. So what is the problem? Well 'you' are the problem! It seems that reality and more to the point 'you' (you being your physical and emotional self) have decided to turn up to the trip as well! And this was something you had not anticipated. You thought that you would not be taking 'yourself' with you on this trip - that you would be experiencing this trip behind a set of eyes attached to nothing! What sillyness!
It seems that for all it’s useful information, for all it’s jam packed tidbits, the guidebook neglected to mention one important fact: that on this trip you’ll be taking 'yourself' along with you. As you sit writing this, in the comfortable environs of a café in Islington, you never for once thought that the eyes that would see all the wonderful sights mentioned in the guidebook are in fact attached to a body. Yes a body. A body with a stomach (that is prone to upsets), a mind (that scorns at being overcharged and wanders fitfully), a covering of skin (whose pores snap open in hot climes), legs (that are not trained for carrying a backpack) and haunches not yet accustomed to squatting for the bathroom.
And so here lies the central paradox:
It seems that the guidebook and your imagination offer you a distilled view, a concentrated broth or impression that consists of nothing but individual disconnected visual images; a valley here, a mountain pass there, a shepherd with mountain goats here, and dusty faced blue-eyed blond children over there. And this disjointed impression, this series of visual stanzas is what we take with us, only for the pieces in-between to be filled up once we get there. And despite our rational brains and smart intellects, despite the fact that in our professional every day lives (as accountants, teachers, doctors) we would never be led like this (by such displays of make believe), we somehow allow ourselves to be seduced by these childish offerings, we hardly resist them! We allow the tendrils of these fanciful imaginings to take us and wrap themselves around us and feed us on a contrived diet of wishful thinking and wishful places.
The Guide recommends certain attractions in the surrounding area and so you imagine feverishly booking yourself on a tour of these. And as you sit in the front next to the driver you imagine (as the guidebook promises) that you’ll be treated to jaw dropping vertical cliff overhangs thousands of metres deep and you imagine being thrilled by the danger and the steely chutzpah of the engineers who carved this rutted path through the mountainside - inch by inch. blast by blast. life by life. And you imagine yourself marvelling at the genius of the human species. And your heart is filled with a heady and stout proudness; an imperious human-centred chauvinism.
This is what you imagine from what the guidebook tells you. But what of the reality? You may indeed be wowed and throttled into submission by the eye boggling vistas and views but that is not the most prominent thing on your mind. What is more prominent is a nagging thought (that won’t go away) that you have been over-charged for your room, that perhaps you should have asked for a better view. You also worry about how much to tip the tour guide and whether your passport and valuables are safe with the hotel manager; he did have a shifty look about him didn’t he? And then you worry about using the toilet – well there is none and you don’t particularly fancy jumping behind a boulder, dropping your pants and squatting. And to make things worse you’re beginning to suffer the onset of traveller’s diarrhoea. It seems all these things conspire to ruin the postcard perfect picture the guidebook so earnestly promised you. So what is the problem? Well 'you' are the problem! It seems that reality and more to the point 'you' (you being your physical and emotional self) have decided to turn up to the trip as well! And this was something you had not anticipated. You thought that you would not be taking 'yourself' with you on this trip - that you would be experiencing this trip behind a set of eyes attached to nothing! What sillyness!
It seems that for all it’s useful information, for all it’s jam packed tidbits, the guidebook neglected to mention one important fact: that on this trip you’ll be taking 'yourself' along with you. As you sit writing this, in the comfortable environs of a café in Islington, you never for once thought that the eyes that would see all the wonderful sights mentioned in the guidebook are in fact attached to a body. Yes a body. A body with a stomach (that is prone to upsets), a mind (that scorns at being overcharged and wanders fitfully), a covering of skin (whose pores snap open in hot climes), legs (that are not trained for carrying a backpack) and haunches not yet accustomed to squatting for the bathroom.
And so here lies the central paradox:
It seems that the guidebook and your imagination offer you a distilled view, a concentrated broth or impression that consists of nothing but individual disconnected visual images; a valley here, a mountain pass there, a shepherd with mountain goats here, and dusty faced blue-eyed blond children over there. And this disjointed impression, this series of visual stanzas is what we take with us, only for the pieces in-between to be filled up once we get there. And despite our rational brains and smart intellects, despite the fact that in our professional every day lives (as accountants, teachers, doctors) we would never be led like this (by such displays of make believe), we somehow allow ourselves to be seduced by these childish offerings, we hardly resist them! We allow the tendrils of these fanciful imaginings to take us and wrap themselves around us and feed us on a contrived diet of wishful thinking and wishful places.
To be continued…
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Morning's Rhapsody
When you sat down in the café outside Durbar Square in Kathmandu, in the early morning, you were the only one there. It was still dark when you had sat, the city was still tucked up in bed in dreams and blankets, but outside the wind was lashing away, the night still weighed heavily and the few lights were groggy and squinting. The sky was a darkblue-purple patch that filled the gap between the buildings, and the stars winked at you though this gap; yes, they were positively winking at you: on-off, on-off; throbbing to some celestial rhythm - like airplane lights. As you sit there, so far from what you can call home, so far from what you recognise as your own, your hands clasped around your coffee cup – it’s warmth peeling away the layers of your morning torpor and the stars winking away as they have been for millions and millions since the days of the Dinosaurs; your heart can not help but jump in joy. Oh yes in joy! A joy that whispers to you: ‘Hey Wasim, you understand so much! you know so much! but in the frenzy of life you forget what it means to know these things’ - What things?
Let's take one thing. Like the Dinosaurs for example; the fact that you 'know' that they once roared 120 million years ago underneath these same winking stars and now it is your turn. Your turn to roar. So you roar: ‘Rrrrrrrrrwwwwww!’ and what a roar it is! The cook in the kitchen sticks his head up, his eyes frantically searching for the lion that has no doubt escaped from Kathmandu zoo, or for the madman that roars in sleepy café’s, on early mornings. You are a blip in the orchestra of the stars, the game of life, the trials of love, the medley of life.
The early morning air and chemicals in this coffee are making you feel lightheaded; but it is all-good. So you roar some more: Rrrrrrrrwwww! And you laugh. And the cook sticks his head up again like a Giraffe looking out for the lion that will eat it.
Your roar roars with the stars in a synchrony. Each trying to out-do the other. Outshine the other. You feel you are one with all; the night has wrapped itself around you in a velvety cloak, the coffee molecules are dancing on the tip of your tongue, the stars are buzzing away above you like electric lights, and the memory of the dinosaurs lingers on in the collective memory of all of life. Inside your cells - it is all there. In the DNA. You ask yourself whether any of this is real. You feel the table. It seems solid enough. You pinch your skin: Ouch! But you still feel (have always felt?), as if you were an actor on a stage with all of humanity as extras. And the physical world; mountains, jungles, desert, cities are all props. Props in a blockbuster. Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide? There’s no escape from reality. Open your eyes. Look up to the eyes and see…
And the immortal refrain of Bohemian Rhapsody parts the darkness; its choir like orchestras are everywhere. You can hear them. If you listen it’s everywhere…Come on Freddy Mercury let's show em':
'Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide
No escape from reality
Open your eyes
Look up to the sky and see…'
And you look up to the sky. And you see. As slabs of sunbeams, that have plied millions of miles through inky Space, plough into the shadows and fill them up till they are shadows no more; but scabs of lightworld! The saturation levels rise and the colours come alive like flowers blooming in spring, you can hear life all around you unfurl itself. Awake from its nocturnal reverie. The colours of the sky move steadily down the electromagnetic spectrum: Purple-Blue-Green-Yellow-Red. It’s a new day. You put on your shades and head off. It’s going to be a good day today. It's going to be a sunny day today.
Let's take one thing. Like the Dinosaurs for example; the fact that you 'know' that they once roared 120 million years ago underneath these same winking stars and now it is your turn. Your turn to roar. So you roar: ‘Rrrrrrrrrwwwwww!’ and what a roar it is! The cook in the kitchen sticks his head up, his eyes frantically searching for the lion that has no doubt escaped from Kathmandu zoo, or for the madman that roars in sleepy café’s, on early mornings. You are a blip in the orchestra of the stars, the game of life, the trials of love, the medley of life.
The early morning air and chemicals in this coffee are making you feel lightheaded; but it is all-good. So you roar some more: Rrrrrrrrwwww! And you laugh. And the cook sticks his head up again like a Giraffe looking out for the lion that will eat it.
Your roar roars with the stars in a synchrony. Each trying to out-do the other. Outshine the other. You feel you are one with all; the night has wrapped itself around you in a velvety cloak, the coffee molecules are dancing on the tip of your tongue, the stars are buzzing away above you like electric lights, and the memory of the dinosaurs lingers on in the collective memory of all of life. Inside your cells - it is all there. In the DNA. You ask yourself whether any of this is real. You feel the table. It seems solid enough. You pinch your skin: Ouch! But you still feel (have always felt?), as if you were an actor on a stage with all of humanity as extras. And the physical world; mountains, jungles, desert, cities are all props. Props in a blockbuster. Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide? There’s no escape from reality. Open your eyes. Look up to the eyes and see…
And the immortal refrain of Bohemian Rhapsody parts the darkness; its choir like orchestras are everywhere. You can hear them. If you listen it’s everywhere…Come on Freddy Mercury let's show em':
'Is this the real life?
Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide
No escape from reality
Open your eyes
Look up to the sky and see…'
And you look up to the sky. And you see. As slabs of sunbeams, that have plied millions of miles through inky Space, plough into the shadows and fill them up till they are shadows no more; but scabs of lightworld! The saturation levels rise and the colours come alive like flowers blooming in spring, you can hear life all around you unfurl itself. Awake from its nocturnal reverie. The colours of the sky move steadily down the electromagnetic spectrum: Purple-Blue-Green-Yellow-Red. It’s a new day. You put on your shades and head off. It’s going to be a good day today. It's going to be a sunny day today.
Saturday, June 07, 2008
Currently reading...The Book of Disquiet (Fernando Pessoa)
"I created myself, echo and abyss, by thinking. I multiplied myself by going deeply into myself...""Limpid, aphoristic, gorgeous, sometimes maddening and utterly original. This compendium of dull days and transfiguring epiphanies is so distilled it should be dipped into in small doses over a lifetime"
"A fractured assemblage of quasi-symbolist reveries, cynical epigrams, musings on quotidian torpor, and gorgeously wrought depressive fits, the book is probably as close as Pessoa could ever come to writing an autobiography."
Short, aphoristic paragraphs, ranging in size from a few sentences to a few pages, comprise the "autobiography" of Bernardo Soares, one of Fernando Pessoa's many devastatingly captivating literary alter egos. THE BOOK OF DISQUIET was found after Pessoa's death, on disordered scraps of paper in a trunk, and was finally published nearly 50 years later. If genius consists of complicated and heartfelt musings, delightful and incisive use of language (not to mention magnificent translation), and brilliance of mind and expression, then certainly this book is an act (or perpetration?) of genius.
The Karakoram Highway - Coming Late July..
(Wikipedia): The Karakoram Highway (KKH) is the highest paved international road in the world. It connects China and Pakistan across the Karakoram mountain range, through the Khunjerab Pass, at an altitude of 4,877 metres (16,002 feet). It connects China's Xinjiang region with Pakistan's Northern Areas and also serves as a popular tourist attraction. Due to it's high elevation and the difficult conditions in which it was constructed, it is also referred to as the "Ninth Wonder of the World"
The Karakoram Highway will form the first stage of a 9-12 month wandering arc across Central and South Asia. After getting off the train from Rawalpindi to Havelian (the official start of the KKH), I plan to head conspicously and assidiously northwards into Mansehra and the Hunza Valley, with digressions to the Nanga Parbat massif (9th highest mountain in the world), across the Gilgit area, chill out in Karimabad and thence across the Khunjerab Pass into China and so to Kashgar. This will complete stage 1 - which may last anywhere between 1-2 months
Stage 2 begins in Kashgar and will either end in Ulanbator in Mongolia or Lhasa in Tibet (depending on my mood at the time)
Stage 3 involves crossing Nepal, by Stage 4 we should be in Utter Pradesh in India (where the sordid street life of Calcutta await my lens and my ears and the refreshing teas of quaint Darjeeling), Stage 5 is a ramble down the eastern flank of India down through the southern Tamil states toooooo... the very tip of India, where Stage 6 starts upon a chugging short ferry hop across the Palk Straits into Sri-Lanka.
Yes, this trip is pretty much powered by the whimsies of mood and caprice and a desire to see some of the most disgusting and filthy hotels in existence (only kidding). With no itinerary, no deadlines, no timetable, minimal belongings and a faint and distant desire to be in Sri Lanka by the end, this trip promises to morph into quite an adventure and most likely a hugely unpleasant experience for my stomach. And my ears. And my nose. And my eyes. And my mind. For which I will now apologise to my body for the ravages that will no doubt beset it. There will be no aeroplanes, no luxury hotels, no taxis, no expensive restaurants, only public transport and cheap and cheerful lodgings with equally cheap and cheerful hotel owners and the complimentary bed bugs (with cold scolding showers and squat toilets for added comfort)...
...alright, alright, occasionally I may splurge on a little luxury (but only cos I deserve it!)
But plans may change though. Who knows? Life has a tendency to do that. Bite you up the ass. I may like Northern Pakistan and Gilgit soooooooooo much that I may stay there, in a room, with a view, for a whole year...with nothing but my pad, pen and those bearded mountains to keep me company...
Ilovebeardedmountains.com
pleasejoinme.com
Ipromisetopostfunnytraveloguesonmyblogg.com
iloveyou.com
eronlyjoking.com
noidoseriouslyloveyou.com
(KKH Pictures: Alfred Molon)
The Karakoram Highway will form the first stage of a 9-12 month wandering arc across Central and South Asia. After getting off the train from Rawalpindi to Havelian (the official start of the KKH), I plan to head conspicously and assidiously northwards into Mansehra and the Hunza Valley, with digressions to the Nanga Parbat massif (9th highest mountain in the world), across the Gilgit area, chill out in Karimabad and thence across the Khunjerab Pass into China and so to Kashgar. This will complete stage 1 - which may last anywhere between 1-2 months
Stage 2 begins in Kashgar and will either end in Ulanbator in Mongolia or Lhasa in Tibet (depending on my mood at the time)
Stage 3 involves crossing Nepal, by Stage 4 we should be in Utter Pradesh in India (where the sordid street life of Calcutta await my lens and my ears and the refreshing teas of quaint Darjeeling), Stage 5 is a ramble down the eastern flank of India down through the southern Tamil states toooooo... the very tip of India, where Stage 6 starts upon a chugging short ferry hop across the Palk Straits into Sri-Lanka.
Yes, this trip is pretty much powered by the whimsies of mood and caprice and a desire to see some of the most disgusting and filthy hotels in existence (only kidding). With no itinerary, no deadlines, no timetable, minimal belongings and a faint and distant desire to be in Sri Lanka by the end, this trip promises to morph into quite an adventure and most likely a hugely unpleasant experience for my stomach. And my ears. And my nose. And my eyes. And my mind. For which I will now apologise to my body for the ravages that will no doubt beset it. There will be no aeroplanes, no luxury hotels, no taxis, no expensive restaurants, only public transport and cheap and cheerful lodgings with equally cheap and cheerful hotel owners and the complimentary bed bugs (with cold scolding showers and squat toilets for added comfort)...
...alright, alright, occasionally I may splurge on a little luxury (but only cos I deserve it!)
But plans may change though. Who knows? Life has a tendency to do that. Bite you up the ass. I may like Northern Pakistan and Gilgit soooooooooo much that I may stay there, in a room, with a view, for a whole year...with nothing but my pad, pen and those bearded mountains to keep me company...
Ilovebeardedmountains.com
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iloveyou.com
eronlyjoking.com
noidoseriouslyloveyou.com
(KKH Pictures: Alfred Molon)
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