Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Illusion





I'd been at sea for the past thirty-six hours, aboard a ship whose logo was a pair of seahorses that looked like they might be butting heads.  There wasn't much to do on sea days of course, so the friendly crew had created an itinerary that was almost too full.  The motto seemed to be:  "Relax.  All you need to do is enjoy."  And enjoy I did, sitting in a deck chair for hours, alternating between reading a book, or staring out at all that water passing beneath.  There were the odd distractions, like the dolphins playing in the ship's wake, or the dark evening when a channel pilot had stepped out of a doorway many stories below onto a smaller vessel running parallel,  which then turned and sped toward the lights of Key West shimmering beyond the grey.   But most of the time the sea looked just as it does on film, capable perhaps of showing only three expressions:  grinning brightly under perfect blue skies;  cool and garlanded with puffy clouds; or the gritted teeth of whitecaps on a stormy night.

After a long time at sea, there is some relief to be found in a return to dry land.  One of first things I saw when boarding the bus was the squat church of San Francisco de Asissi, looking weathered and tired against the flash and noise of Cozumel.  The bus door vacuumed shut, but not before I'd gotten a whiff of that tell-tale smell familiar to those countries once known as 'third world,' of food both rotting and cooked, with just a hint of diesel fuel underneath.

The bus took us past sleepy Mexican scenes of men in straw hats sitting in the entrances of small shops (one of which was named Lolita Lolita), dogs sleeping in the shade of police cars, and laundry hanging in front of concrete homes, all shaded by palm and bougainvillea.  There were also the odd political posters, most often showing a dapper mustachioed man named Zapata.

On the bus, our guide was talking things Mayan in an exuberant voice, punctuated often with abrupt "How's?" and "Why's?" as if in Spanish.  He mentioned that the Mayans use a 52-year calendar, at the end of which the people tend to destroy a great many of their possessions.  This may account for the shards of broken concrete strewn simply everywhere.

The bus stopped briefly at a small souvenir shop, and I got off to stretch my legs.  There's something about Mexico that makes you walk slowly.  Maybe it's the heat, or the earthen look of the tiles, or the squat people built closer to the ground.   

Back on board.  The jungle on both sides of the road were alive in a way that deciduous forests aren't, the mangroves, cashew, mango and sugarcane all literally pulsing with movement.  It was far different than the mellow stillness of wood.   Pressing in, ever pressing in, as if ready to caress the bus whose tinted windows frustratingly muted the brilliance of the blues and greens outside.

But we got these, and the heat, full force at the ruins proper.  A fleet of bicycle taxis whisked us along dusty trails that were punctuated with the mammoth edifices of grey stone.  I climbed to the top of one pyramid, looking out over the green that stretched away endlessly in all directions, much like my recent companion the sea.  I imagined other ruins out there, just waiting to be found.  I had read that these temples and ball courts had been built for the priests and higher classes.  The poorer peasants lived in smaller huts out in the jungle.  Things had changed very little in the subsequent 1200 years.  Earlier on, all along the highway leading inland from the beaches, were the large gated courtyards surrounded by similar dull pillars of stone, which framed the palaces which as holiday homes for the moneyed north.  Their darker, flat-faced servants still lived in the same simple squalor of their ancestors, a squalor though which my tall bus rode proudly past.


On the turntable:  "The Rough Guide to Morocco"
 

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Down there


He is buried in grave down there somewhere, in a grave with my name on it.

My plane had left La Guardia just under an hour before.  From the window, my eyes traced the broad Navesink River to the town in which I had grown up, and in which my father had died.  I wondered: do thoughts and emotions remain in the place in which they sprang to life?  If so, there is a patch of lawn fertilized by the sadness and fears of a young boy trying to make sense of the confusing dissolution of his parents' marriage.

Forty years and 30,000 feet removed, the boy was now in the midst of his own divorce. Not as messy, but he was trying just the same to protect a similarly uncomprehending child from becoming collateral damage.  The boy is now a man of an age slightly younger than his father had been when his heart had finally lost the rebellion against the anger and hatred that had ever defined him.  


On the turntable:  "Texas-Czech Bohemian - Moravian Bands"

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Sleeping in the City that Never Sleeps


   
 "Sorry buddy we're closed."

In my near three years away, I'd forgotten about the unique, "we're all pals here" chummery of the American vernacular.  The only customers within were a pair of stern-faced businessmen taking shelter in this darkened bar that smelled of ridiculously strong drinks. Based on their expressions, it seemed to be as necessary as medicine.

My former yoga teacher used to call our American society adrenally charged.  This applies too to our choice of depressants.  And here I was seeking out my own, a body clock set to Tokyo having wound up my mind.  But the bed I had been lying in for the past two hours was in midtown Manhattan.   I had been riding that push me-pull you feeling of insomnia, that tension between do I get up vs. I'm think I'm starting to drift.  The former won out, and as I made my way out I glanced at the clock.  11:03 pm.

There was a lounge on the 4th floor that had comfy sofas and internet.  But upon arrival I found that they'd stopped serving beer at the top of the hour.  The bar on the first floor was similarly closed.   As was the cafe across the street.  So too were the bars in the four hotels on this or the adjoining blocks.  In the last, I had found a sympathetic staff who told me that they'd like to serve me but had already dropped the register till down the safe.  I asked them, "What the hell has happened to this city."

I went over to visit Duane Reade.  They had a good selection of bottled craft beers, but were only sold as six packs.  The only singles available were the usual bilgewater of the American mainstream brands.

I returned thus to my bed, my frustration a stimulant, which did little to help with the drift.   


On the turntable:  "Friends of Old Time Music"

Friday, November 14, 2014

(Untitled)




The mountain stands
Unblinking,
As seasons come and go.


On the turntable:  Keith John Adams, "Daytrotter Session"

 


Wednesday, November 12, 2014

(Untitled)




French impressions come home.
Van Gogh's 'Starry Night,'
In ginkgo roots.


On the turntable: "Acoustic"




Monday, November 10, 2014

(Untitled)




Autumn rains
Shed their tears for
The year's last green.

On the turntable: Bryan Scary, "Daytrotter Session" 



Saturday, November 08, 2014

(Untitled)




Water on stone.
Wind on wood.
Eternity.


On the turntable:  Tokyo Police Club, "Daytrotter Sessions"

Thursday, November 06, 2014

(Untitled)




Wizened old gent
Enjoys from his front row seat,
The race of time.


On the turntable:   Paleo, "Daytrotter Session"


Tuesday, November 04, 2014

(Untitled)




The source of life of the source of life.
Beneath the eternal shimmer,
Things begin to stir.


On the turntable:  Rock Plaza Central, "Daytrotter Session"

 

Sunday, November 02, 2014

Sunday Papers: Frederic Gros


"To arrive on foot at a place whose name one has dreamed all day, whose picture has lain for so long in the mind, casts a backward light over the road.  And what was accomplished in fatigue, sometimes boredom, in the face of that absolutely solid presence that justifies it all, is transformed into a series of necessary and joyous moments.  Walking makes time reversible."


On the turntable: "International Pop Underground"
On the nighttable:  Frederic Gros, "A Philosophy of Walking"