Listen - New Yorker Fiction Podcasts

E@L subscribes to this podcast. One of two, the other being polymath, or at least poly-listener, poly-interviewer, poly-pre-reader, Melvyn Bragg's amazing In Our Time from the BBC. But back to the New Yorker.

E@L was working out on the gym (IKYN) in Bangkok last week and was listening to what he thinks now is a very good short story, Thomas Beller’s "A Different Kind of Imperfection,” and was also intent on following the discussions between the reader, Said(umlaut over 'i') Sayrafiezadeh, and fiction editor Deborah Treisman at the beginning and end of the reading. This is a great way to learn about how short stories work E@L has found. He hasn't done anything with any of this knowledge, but he has found it.

You can still listen to or download the podcast on the New Yorker website. A Different Kind of Imperfection. It's 42 minutes, 30 being the story itself... Please do so.

If you don't listen to you it or reread it, if you have the collection (E@L doesn't, he has to keep jumping around the podcast to confirm things), the following small essay won't make one iota of sense. Move along, nothing to read here.

~~~~~~~~

E@L was not so impressed with the story initially, it was vague and inconclusive (traits E@L generally admires in entertainment ) because the relationship of Alex with his mother seemed to be unexplored (intentionally, E@L now realizes), however the discussion was moderately excellent. And Said(umlaut over 'i')'s narration is a bit anNOYing.

Turns out Said(umlaut over 'i') is a friend of Beller, and the story reminded him of his own childhood, etc... Yada yada. He spoke about how Beller's writing fascinates him and they both note how he reminds them of Salinger (and did they mention Kafka? No I am thinking of another podcast) and that the solipsistic protagonist, Alexander home from college for the Xmas holidays, may be Holden Caulfield a few years older.

They don't miss much. Good point: The Oedipal undertones are now as bright as the morning sun in Singapore and just as easy to spot, in retrospect - E@L didn't pick them up at first.

Alexander is always commenting on his mother's outstanding beauty. He describes her eyes as liquid, as a hazel which sometimes turns to green, her delicate high cheekbones, all with a barely suppressed sensuality. She looks like a goddess. Yep, Oedipus, front and center. (One of the Seven Basic Plots - well, not actually, Booker only gives it half of Chapter 30. Coleridge however calls OdRex one of the three perfect plots . Not sure about the other two.)

But E@L was now making other observations to augment those of Said(umlaut over 'i') and Deborah.

Masterly, Beller distracts you from the implications of this Oedipal lust, and instead makes you think the story is about; firstly the break-up of Alexander and his girlfriend, Sloane. This is what is making him depressed (imperfectly his friend tells him), lethargic, what keeps him at home with his mother, what prevents him from going skiing with his friend and chasing girls up and down those slopes.

Secondly the search for the secret, in a sense, identity of his dead father (a drawn out case of cancer, died when Alex was 10 [drawn out over 8 yrs, give me a break!*]). A fading photo shows his handsome but monkey-faced (huh?), absent father. Mother is beautiful, father is merely good looking. Alexander becomes obsessed with the objects in the house that might have been his father's. The Wolfschmidt whiskey, the cigarettes; he drinks them, smokes them - patently, Herr Dr Freud, he wants to replace, to become his father. Note that the father was a psychiatrist and has the, ahem, complete works of Freud on his shelves - Alex opens a page of one of the book, reads the word "incest" and shuts the book quickly. (Can't you hear Bernard Herrmann's score reach a screeching crescendo here?)

And, hey, what's that over there? There are hundreds and hundreds of other books scattered all round the apartment, piles of books on the floor, "spilling over everywhere." Alexander sees them again with fresh eyes, it is like he has not noticed them before. (He mentioned them earlier, casually.) He blithely assumes that these are his father's books and becomes fascinated and obsessed. He is looking through the books and he finds that some passages are underlined and with annotations that Alexander assumes to be his father's as, hmm, the handwriting resembles his own . Then he finds some words underlined (but not annotated) that strike him powerfully. He wonders why his father would be reading To The Lighthouse (Wolff, Wolfschmidt!) and marking passages like this:.

"She had known happiness, exquisite happiness, intense happiness."

This phrase keeps reappearing. He is baffled, "disturbed and moved", by his father underlining these words. It is not the words themselves he finds powerful, he can't even see them, but the surprising fact that his father underlined them. What was going on in his father's life that this phrase would mean something important. He feels that his father (the psychiatrist, remember) had discovered something, a secret that Alex isn't a party to. There is some mystery, there is a truth between the lines, a key. The answer is behind a wall he can't get past, beneath an impenetrable surface.

Yep, the story seems to be about Alex and his failure to comprehend his father.

And yet...

Crucially, the ambivalent Alex always pushes away from his mother's affection in what he calls "the unwilling retreat." It was like she loved him too much, he says. When he was young he felt that his parent's attention demanded more from him than he could supply. He can't talk to his beautiful mother, can't answer her questions. He isn't worthy.

At the very end of the story, Alexander, out for a walk, sees his mother walking back from shopping with her head down lost in thought (or crazy). When she sees him and fails to recognize him at first (her "look used to warm him"), she is for some reason shocked (OMG it's my husband reborn! we presume), but then she smiles when she does, and he rushes to her with a great, cathartic hug. He hugs her tightly, holds her tightly to him, because that expression on her face, that smile, makes him think she has an answer to something, as if "a secret, which only she knew, would slip away."

~~~~~~~~

E@L gets it. Mum gets it. Alexander doesn't get it. Said(umlaut over 'i') Sayrafiezadeh and Deborah Treisman don't get it. And in failing to grasp the meaning of this secret, the final, unspoken, irony of the story, the only satisfying conclusion in my opinion, they failed in their responsibility to explain to us how this is not merely a good story but, how E@L sees it now, a VERY good story.

The main unsaid thing in E@L's opinion... the crucial thing... the unmentioned point of the fucken' story...

Their discussion didn't mention it. It was unnoticed. I was stunned. These smart people had missed the point. They got so far but failed to take the next step and so failed to find the brilliance of the story.

~~~~~~~~

The secret? The key? Here's what I think.

Those were Alexander's mother's books.

Those were her notes and her underlining.

She was the one who thought that Virginia Wolff had nailed it. The books, the wisdom they contain had brought her solace, they were the therapy she needed to keep going. Fortunately for Alexander, she didn't drink the Wolfschmidt, but went running with the Wolff...

It was her who had known happiness, exquisite happiness, intense happiness. When her husband was alive, when she was in love. She never remarried.

Yep, mother had been depressed since her beloved husband died. Look at the state of the house. She had not had the apartment walls painted since her husband's death; chairs have broken wicker seats; the books are strewn untidily. She hardly ever had guests. She, like Sloane, is a professional at depression. Is this parallel what attracted Alex to Sloane in the first place?

That smile. She knows that Alex loves her, even thought he never says it explicitly, even though he has, shy, embarrassed, feeling inadequate, avoided answering her motherly questions all these years. She knows that he is disgusted with himself for his incestuous feelings.

His mother holds the secret, not his father. It is not his father he should have been looking for after all, it is his mother. And she was right there in front him. Part of him has been blocking this knowledge. Id, ego, superego. He has been afraid to find her, to reveal his love for her, because he doesn't deserve it. Pure Freud. If he looks like his father, then he too has a monkey face.

And so, at the end, when she is old and fading, no longer the beauty she once was, it is safe for him to give her love now and safe to accept her love for him, for she does love him and he does deserve her love. It is safe to give her that immensely affecting bear hug. A hug that should have been given years ago... Tears from E@L.



~~~~~~~~

Please listen to the podcast, and tell me if you think this Oedipal stuff with the Chekhovian, O.Henry'ish twist is really there, or if E@L is imagining it, psychoanalysing himself Alexander into it. After which we can discuss the story and disagree (i.e. you can be wrong) or agree: let me know.

As most readers will realize, E@L is expecting only Savmarshmama to help him on this. Everyone else: Surprise me.

~~~~~~~~

Of course I could send an email to Beller himself to see if confirm that he agrees with me.

~~~~~~~

Why am I feeling obsessed by this? Because I am meeting Mercermachine tomorrow for a coffee and to look at the draft his latest story and to bring something of my own to show to him. And I am therefore running away from this responsibility and am distracting myself with this frivolous post.

Class dismissed.

E@L

* this sort of scientifically impossible stuff turns me off story and films. MMmm, wonder if that 8 years cancer is a metaphor of 8 years with Alex? If so, it's OK.

[Not saying this is a great review and/or discussion, but E@L enjoyed writing it and wishes he had been able to get so impassioned and have such briliant insights (!) when he was at university.]

[The fact that E@L's father died when he was young and that his mother never remarried is not to be considered relevant here.]

Poverty Porn III

One of the few snaps we took on the infamous Poverty Porn cruise in Si Phan Don, southern Laos, last month.

Odette grabbed his phone and snapped this one of E@L after he had voiced his disapproval once he realised that they were entering, not just a tourist trap, but the murky treacherous realm of 1st-World perversity. It was sold to us as a sunset boat-ride, however the solar action was behind us all the time. Sunset? Wah? Ah no, there was another agenda. Perhaps we were supposed to get it?

Yep instead we were expected instead to watch and take photos of people who were nearly naked, the children certainly were [you couldn't help but think 'pedophile alert'], as they engaged in their daily wash.

It was in the river, yada yada, ooh wow, but it was their daily fucken' ablutions. After a minute of not being sure what the fuck, E@L refused to look let alone take any Kodak moment memories.

But they looked at us as the boat slowed down, cruised past. Their looks flung back were a mixture of reluctant toleration and seething disdain, as we had been receiving for our whole time in Si Phan Don - not just "Get the fuck out of my bathroom," but, "Get the fuck off my fucken' island!"

And E@L fucken' well agrees with them.

As would you, should strangers people came into your shower and started taking pictures of you soaping up your nethers. Even friends!

~~~~~~~~

E@L is not feigning that decidedly unimpressed mien. He was feeling bad, angry, disgusted with everyone, not excluding himself. You can almost see him writing that post in his head.

~~~~~~~~

Yada yada, tourist money, gradual improvement, fine but not this cultural pornography. Laos would not be in such a state if we had not dropped millions of tonnes of bombs and incendiaries, intentionally and specifically to set children on fire.

Children like this. "Yay," they said. "Burn the gooks!"


E@L

[I thought I had a Flickr thingummy at the side, seems to have disappeared. Here is the link to Flickr if you are interested in seeing what a crap photographer I am.]

Say It Right In Thai

E@L has a book of this title in the desk in front of him. Nothing to do with the previous post.

Without wishing to bore you with the maudlin regrets of a superficial, middle-aged, single man, he wishes to bore you with the maudlin regrets of a superficial, middle-aged, single man. Don't say you weren't warned.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Say it right? Say it RIGHT?

E@L can never say anything right to women in whatever language of love you suggest. Thai, English, Mandarin, Korean, Vietnamese, Tagalog or Hindi. He is completely hopeless at preventing his hopes of love from being dashed on the rocky shores of lust whenever he opens his stupid mouth. Which is why he never gets to fuck can seduce the women (should there be any) he might wish to.

Even with all silver-tongued the advice from that super-experienced chat-up man, our Bruce, he does not succeed. Because, as when packing his bags for a trip, he gets all anxious and leaves something out, or brings the wrong item. "I find you very attractive, enjoy your company and would like to get know you (or 'your body' - optional) better," as advised by Bruce, somehow comes out of his mouth as, "Let's fuck like they do on the Discovery Channel," with gestures and body language to support the unintended effect - of a blank look of terror, followed quickly by drink over the head and either a kick to the scrotum or a standard dose of pepper-spray to the conjunctiva to finish E@L off.

When E@L approaches a lady and is feeling romantic, it's stand back and avoid the shrapnel as his improvised seductive devices explode. Lines like that might be OK when you are in midst of each of each other and unmaking the bed (or couch, or kitchen table), but in a bar at 7pm with someone you've just met? In all likelihood, nope.

Say it right? E@L? Blurt it right out, more like.

So the conversations people like E@L might prefer to implement, after having made fools of themselves time and time again in legitimate circumstances, becomes more appropriate to the expectations of their intended female companions when augmented by the alluring soft plonk of a ping-pong ball falling into a glass, to the crisp slap of a mock-truncheon on various glutei maximi, to the just-audible hiss of a body slithering up-side down on a chrome pole, to the alluring perfume of cigarette smoke and alcohol fumes.

When these things turn his thoughts to thoughts of love, out pops the perfect Thai phrase, finally. Here are words that exactly express his feelings and carry no offence, quite the opposite. As the purloined letters of Cyrano De Bergerac did for Christian and Roxanne, these words will have the lady swooning her loins into his loins...

"เท่าไหร่ดีบาร์คืออะไร? Charisma Card(tm) ok, krup?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Getting married at 19? Don't do it if you are contemplating getting divorced 20 years later. They'll remake Swingers all about you. You've never done the dating thing as a kid, and now you'll never scale-up enough chat-up skills before it gets too late for you, you'll never shrink to the right kind of small talk, you'll never polish away the rough edges of your wannabe smooth lines.

You'll be paying someone else to do the polishing instead when and if you make it to E@L's age.

E@L.




* How much is the bar fine?

* OK they weren't "stolen" as such, but purloined is a great word and needs to be used more often, though with proper syntax whenever possible.

Utilize?

I think I know what they're trying to say.

Sign in one of the washrooms at the Paolo Nawamin Hospital here in Bangkok.

The Bludger says they mean "exploit".

I'm hoping not.

E@L

Twist In The Naked Arse

OK, OK, so I wasn't the only person to note that the short story by Japanese writer and Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata, The House Of The Sleeping Beauties, was the basis for Sleeping Bewdy. That's the alleged fillum and story association/rip-off-thing I was going apeshit over in an earlier post.

So, I finished reading the story today. Very touching, very making of the person introspective particularly if you are an ageing gent of diminishing sexual prowess staying in a hotel not much more than 100m from Nana Plaza.

And so, moving on from the blinding self-pity of your circumlocuter, there is at least one reason why the short story is better than the movie...

Kawabata tell it from the viewpoint of an 67 year old man, Old Eguchi, (Kawabata was around 50 when he wrote it). Eguchi sleeps next to several young knocked-out beauties at night in something of a brothel (maybe they have other rooms upstairs) over a period of several months. When in the room with them, Eguchi seems always on the verge of either strangling these girls, who toss and turn and talk in their sleep (might as well be snoring - get a CPAP!) or taking an overdose himself of whatever it is they are having.

The fillum however, is told from the perspective of one girl, Lucy/Sara (Emily Browning). She is narcotised overnight for the anonymous pleasure of several impotent old farts (are YOU talking to ME?). She is completely immobile when asleep, except for a corny scene where, already drugged, she hobbles (poorly acted, patently false) across the room to place a secret camera on a shelf before her oldfartfriend arrives.

The short story's final twist - won't spoil it - is good. Let me tell you now, you don't receive the same sense of surprise when you see the movie's corresponding ending scene, primarily because of this inversion of POV, man to woman, old to young, sleeper to watcher. In fact there is no surprise at all in the movie: that person was doomed from dinner time.

Perhaps that predictability, counter to the essential strength given by the short story's final irony, is what makes it ultimately an unsatisfying movie. The unexpected doesn't happen. Well, you can say that what is unexpected in the short story is fairly expected in the movie.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

House of Sleeping Beauties is a moderately (85 pages) long short story, a touching meditation on old age and death, sex and youth and with the traditional twist in the tail. (And we won't go into the blazing misogyny of both the story and the film at this time.)

"He was much taken with the thought of sleeping a deathlike sleep next to a girl put into a sleep like death.

"...It was a house frequented by old men who could no longer use women as women: but Eguchi, on his third visit, knew that to sleep with such a girl was a fleeting consolation, the pursuit of a vanished happiness in being alive. And where there among them old men who secretly asked to sleep forever beside a girl who had been put to sleep? There seemed to be a sadness in a young girl's body that called up in an old man a longing for death.

"She had been stripped of all defences, for the sake of her aged guest, of the sad old man. She was naked and she would not awaken. Eguchi felt a wave of pity for her. A thought came to him: the aged have death, the young have love, and death comes once, and love comes over and over again. It was a thought for which he was unprepared, but it calmed him - not that he had been especially overwrought.

"... 'The death of an old man is an ugly thing. I suppose you might think of it as a rebirth in heaven - but I am sure he went the other way.'"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The movie, in contrast, shows a lot of Emily Browning's naked arse.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Put it this was, the short story ends with a punch, the movie is more of a sucker.

I'll shut up now and get back to working on the novel. Sorry, E@L will.

E@L, me, E@L, whomever

Iced Green Tea Latte

"I've got no voice. I don't know how to write like me."
"Paul Kemp" (Johnny Deep doing a much better job of Hunter S. Thompson than he did in Fear and Loathing)- Rum Diary (2011)

~~~~~~~~

Funnily enough this morning, before watching this movie tonight in which, serendipitously, I heard the above line and pressed pause on the laptop and opened Evernote to jot it down, I headed to Starbucks and ordered an iced green tea latte because I thought such a drink would be disgusting enough, and it was, to grant me extra time in a relatively comfy chair while I bashed away here. Because I wanted to check something out.

I had something in my head, in my bowels, somewhere, where-ever gut feelings and brilliant ideas reside. It was about my voice, my literary voice. E@L's voice, the voice I want to have when I write being me trying to write like I'm writing like E@L - yes, me too, fuck it, I get so confused trying to emulate myself that it all comes out like the shit you have after a night on the piss and curry.

And you know, advice from a whole lot of good people over the years has been perfect: Get onto it, if you want to write something, write something that E@L would write, write like you do in your blog. Obviously that is your voice, they'd say.

As they should. And I tried. I wasn't ignoring their advice, I was trying but I couldn't do it, horn blast, failed. No matter how hard I tried I didn't sound like E@L. It didn't even sound like me.

Despite nodding and saying "Yes, yes, I understand" when these well-meaning people abused me and threw rocks at my head trying to get some sense in there, I still had trouble putting E@L's tone and voice into these pieces. Perhaps I was thinking that this writing would be associated with *me* rather than E@L, that first-draft wunderkind whom we all love and know so well. Or is that meant to be other way around? Ah, I'll fix in the next draft.

Last few weeks I've glancing over some of E@L's old posts from this and the previous blog and thought, hey fuck, this guy is good, do I know him? Wish I could write the way he does.

So today, for some reason, I just said fuck all that self-conscious literary shit, I'll get E@L himself to do the writing for me. I'll let him write a blog using my imagination, let him tell the story of the story behind the story that I have been trying to write for years. Which is not, as some have been whispered to, the Bruce stuff at all (well not completely).

Trying hard hasn't worked, I'm going to try easier from now on. That is the plan.

So E@L sippped his drink, yuck, and banged out five pseudo-posts for me, a whisper over 2000 words, before the green tea latte ran out. I hope it sounds more E@L'ish than last year's NaNoWriMo stuff.

Here's one from today...

++++++++++++

ICED GREEN TEA LATTE


Disgusting.

But E@L is sitting down in Satrefucks, he needs time to think about this news, needs to write it down to see what it looks like, so he can think about it better and he has an iced green tea latte on the table, next to his laptop.

A nicely horrible drink like this will allow him to sip slowly, to shudder, then write something while he waits ten minutes, and sip, shudder again. You get the idea. How long can he stretch this poison out? There is nowhere in the hotel to sit like this - he needs white noise of people doing those various things other people do in order to concentrate. He needs something, though a critical mass of someones is better, to ignore. Satrefucks, perfect for venting anger. Ice green tea latte. How horrible does tha sound? How horrible does it taste. He's got about an hour here he calculates.

Life for the gullible is always teetering on the edge of disaster thanks to the indifferent hearts of psychopathic grifters, con-men and investment brokers. Bastards left and right are out to insert a hand into the wallet pockets of the vague and upstaring, to rip out their financial guts. E@L, gullibility made flesh, is pretty fucked up at the moment in this division, as the more perspicacious reader of this blog may have assimilated by now.

Some fresh news has filtered through about The Prick's disappearance and the evaporation of E@L's investment, sigh, from one of the other poor suckers investors. It seems, according to that source who's name cannot be remembered and perhaps should not, that The Prick not only took E@L and his fellow gullible's money, he also drained his wife's bank account. Swear to god. And not under the most pleasant of circumstances. Aptly did Birdman create his cognomen.

E@L has only met the short-suffering woman (the wife) two or three times, not enough to maintain her name either in his leaky sieve underneath the dripping glue form his rotting memory banks. Fuck what is it with E@L and names? Heard she was sick, but The Prick never told E@L of what. Him? Tell E@L anything? Turns out if was freakin' breast cancer. Oh my freakin' christ. The death-worthy prick. The lump was scanned in their TST office by a friend of E@L's, he hears now, someone in his old company another source of gossip, as a favour to The Prick who apparently had charmed her at one of my parties . "Get to a freakin' real Doctor immediately!" That was fair to middling unprofessional btw, but we are in Asia.

Listen to this, those who have computer screens to hear. Story is she had gone back to Germany, she's half kraut, old Blighty's NHS not quite the ticket, for some treatment or other involving loss of hair and a small snip. Didn't lose her whole breast, it was early/small (not necessarily significant, but that's not helpful in the medium term E@L's recent casual studies have concluded - a kick in the butt for our screening machine, but sshhhh, don't tell the customers).

Wifey, victim in so many ways, had refused the well-meaning ministrations of those who peddle their varietals of soups and teas composed of a menagerie of endangered species and bits of garden clippings that is TCM. Thankfully, [You've all remember Steve Jobs? Sorry bit of editorial intervention here. E@L will be blogging about this in the far far future. OK I'm gone.] she went the Western Way.

So, scarfed and don't-touch-my-boobies sore, she gets back home to their mansion of a flat on The Peak, but The Prick is not home, the fridge empty, except for some vegetables turning to soup in the bottom drawer (good for TCM?) so she wonders where the slave hired help might be hiding, not there either, pops down to grab a bucket of Beluga and, WTF, her card is rejected. OK, the bit about the caviare E@L is offering some mere conjecture there, but the card rejection was real. She had no money in her account. Nada, zip, not a Standard and Chartered buck. You don't need E@L to explain what The Prick had done with their joint account.

This was at exactly the time we all lost contact with that massive prick, The Prick.

Sound familiar? E@L's investment account. As previously described. All the money from the sale of his post-divorce 50% of the Olde Sweete Homee. The Prick is a total cunt. I think was can all rest our joint agreement there.

Sip.

Shudder.

Groan.

Finished for today.

E@L

++++++++++++

That will all be for this transmission. His work is tough you know and it starts again tomorrow. Around lunch time.

Finished for today.

E@L

Sleeping Bewdy

[Do'h! See comments.]

Seduced, mesmerised, captivated, as were we all indubitably, by the gentle pace and the soft visual caresses of that recent Orstrayen fillum, Sleeping Beauty (NOT the Disney pic), E@L allows himself to drift away and lose himself in the obscure world of sex, beauty and death that lies way above our tedious day-to-day existence, into that floating world of timeless daydreaming and soft-core porn.


Sleeping Beauty from Pollen Digital on Vimeo.

Anyone seen it? No? Figured as much. Philistines.

Art? Well it would have made to the select cellar of a hundred million or so unwatched arty-farty fillums, down there with Melancholia and Tree Of Life, but it was not shot in black and white.

So not quite art, perhaps. Not at all in B&W.

But then again, it is a... pale film. There is a lot of paleness to it. Not quite a whiter shade, but it is, you know, pale. Which is not to say it is an insipid or wishy-washy movie. F'kn weird, yes.

You see (no pun intended), Emily Browning - from Sucker Punch and Lemony Snicket - is in a state of near or complete undressedness for large sections for some parts of it, and she has the palest, purest, almost translucent skin. She must have come to HK or Thailand to get some of those skin bleaching treatments which are advertised ubiquitously there/here. Many of the rooms in the flick are white, light grey, cream... such as the cold, clinical white (cliché alert!) of the research-lab where she goes to swallow a gastric tube, yuck, to have her stomach acidity read (by guy looking at a syringe it seems - where the fuck is the proper analyser?). And, um, there are other bits that are white-ish as well. Need to re-watch. Again, wasn't looking specifically for the colour scheme, was looking for breast and butts and lithe female forms.

Yep, a lot of paleness and a lot of flesh. Surely if that don't approach a goddam work of art, I don't know what does. Really, I do not know.

Recently I tried to convince Bruce that it was soft-porn (aka Art), so I re-watched it with him, and no, there's not nearly so much nudity as I thought. He told me there was bugger all nakedness in fact, and that it was a fucking weird flick and he was going to hit me several times quite hard for making him watch it when he could have gone out for a rub and tug...

Grant you that.

Plot: girl gets put into a deep sleep so that impotent old men can look at her naked in bed.

Not much to go on, you say.

Grant you that, too.

However you have to admit Browning does a terrific job of staying "asleep" (spoiler: she is just acting really, at least I hope she is) in this, like, gross-out scene where veteran Oz actor Chris Haywood does some fancy eye- and nostril-licking. Shudder. And then the big guy has a heart-attack (I think) and drops her off the bed and onto the floor... Ouch! Hope the carpet was soft. If only there was an Academy Award for not reacting!

But, getting serious again, it is the gentle pacing of the editing and/or direction (not as slow as the slow bits in Drive - Antonioni remakes Fast and Furious, guffaw) that is reminiscent of something that I can't quite place. Of course there is movement amongst all this stillness, call it action, but it is so quiet and understated that it can become a dream, a sleep-walking state... Not just Emily asleep, but the way all the people in the White House move so languorously: they are never in a hurry; and how they talk softly, in what you might call measured tones if you were fond of clichés. That stirring of the tea, with a whisk, Japanese style.1

It reminds me I think, of the way the more typical modern Japanese literature works. I have read something, somewhere, maybe from Soseki, Tanazaki or H. Murakami that has these qualities. Seriously, I *did* think this movie might have some Japanese origin... The old silence speaks volumes thing, the relaxation that creates tension (maybe it doesn't that 100% successfully here, it is not a completely satisfying film), the speed at which you stay still, the perfect emotional control in a crisis.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, sigh, I don't have the movie on my hard-disk because that would constitute piracy (I didn't back it up onto this HDD here with me in BKK) to check the credits so I can only look up IMDB or the website.

But I wanted to know what they say is the true source of this storyline, other than Grimm's Fairy Tales? There seems to be nothing there on the internet - the script is attributed to Julia Leigh, the director. There's no mention of it being adapted from any other source...

~~~~~~~~~~~

SSSOOOooooooo... I was in Kinokinuya in Paragon shopping centre in BKK today (oh fuck, yesterday) in search of a remaindered copy (because I was not aware of a full price copy in Singapore, and he had mentioned it the other day on his blog, and here I am in Bangkok...) of Tim from Cultural Snow's book on the so-called Noughties - so-called because they ARE so called - and of course, having found one eventually: they hid that lost copy pretty damn well, right there under my nose, I continued on browsing.

Beleive it or not, Kinokinuya have a damn fine selection Japanese literature in English, 40% or so of which are written not by Haruki Murakami (this guy has Nobel Prize written all over him, surely, at least if sales are anything to go by. ). One author who is not H. Murakumi is Yasunari Kawabata. A damn great writer whom my friend who did Japanese literature in Tokyo has never heard of, even though, speaking of which, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature, in 1968.

Many great little books by Kawabata, some terrific longer ones too (allegedly, I've only finished the short ones), and I disappointed not to be able to locate (in Geelong, well d'uh) a copy of Kawabata's semi-fictional novel, The Master Of Go. This I intended to present to No1 son during the Saturnalia period of gift-giving, to match with the Go set I did manage to find. (Hint: this is significant.2)

Anyways, here in BKK, I did find a book of Kawabata's short stories, House Of The Sleeping Beauties. It is a Kawabata I haven't read, wasn't even aware of. The Izu Dancer (the book that made him famous and loved), The Master of Go, Beauty and Sadness, and Snow Country I have read, some a few times, and this is a small book too, so I purchased it of course. (That, Tim's 0s, and a history of Bosnia [don't ask], but where the fuck am I going to find space to put them?)

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~~~~~~~~~~~

The book was wrapped in plastic still, so E@L had no idea if there was any correspondence between these stories and the movie with a similar title. He had only a vague feeling of suspicion, of quiet anticipation, until he unwrapped it. It was one of those editions you only see from Japan: a paperback, with a dust-jacket! He turned it over to admire it. Mainly shiny black, with a gold Klimt image on the left side of the front - The Hydra. Admirable. He looked at the colour of the inner, true, cover. It was bright red, surprising, a hidden dangerous colour, concealed like the harsh sudden contrast of a woman's innermost secret parts, revealed. Kodansha Intl. The title story was originally published, in Japanese, in 1961. This English edition dated from 2004.

He was sitting on a broad chair of Chinese design in a the private room of a gentleman's parlour in the distinguished suburb of Nana, when he read the first sentence. His paramour de jour, a fragrant blossom of a thing whose name, Khun Ying, rang like a tiny bell to his ears, was bent over, filling the large bath and splashing soapy water onto the rubber mattress on the floor, rendering its friction minimal, surfactants releasing the mineral-hidden slipperiness of water. Her left hand was plashing in the bath, stirring up pillows of luxurious foam.

He almost laughed, almost out loud!

He was not to do anything in bad taste, the woman of the inn warned old Eguchi. He was not to put his finger into the mouth of the sleeping girl, or try anything of that sort.

"Oh ho! Oh Ho!, It is the same story, it is!" he laughed, out loud.

She turned her heart-shaped face towards him. She was naked of course, facing away from him at first. He paused his reading to admire her more attentively as she eased the shining parts of her soft female machine into a semi-profile. He could see the smooth hillock's outline where her thigh merged with her hip; he could follow the reptilian arc of her spine from its lower dimples to a small inverted triangle of fine hair at the nape of her slender neck where she had tied up the black tresses to keep them from getting too wet and pinned them secure with a white butterfly clip; he could, and did, admire the outline at the soft fall of her small, perfect breast.

"Wah?"

"It is the movie," he said. "It is exactly the same!" 3

"Why you say, moowee, wha moowee?"

The light was glistening on her wet skin where water beaded and fell in haphazard rivulets down the dark contours of her body, like condensation on a chilled beer glass. She stood up, placed her hand on her hip and looked at him, challengingly. Still, she stayed still. He felt quite heady under the power of her undaunted gaze. Against this female energy, this independence and will, he tried to assimilate the timeless beauty of her perfect form with the prejudices against her ancient profession. She was beautiful, perfect, classic, and she defied him to say otherwise. She defied him to judge, to say it made a difference, as if anything he could say or think would ever make a difference.

But still he was entranced by the gentleness of her body as she stood there, immobile. The delicate curve of her elbow, her arm smooth and dark as polished ebony (she was from down south), her hip jutting out to hold it, her knee slightly bent in just such a way; these features gave her entire stance the coquettish form of a famous statue, one he once knew but could not quite place...

He had seen her before, in her pure form: somewhere, she was a work of art.

~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~

So I read a bit more of this story. I doesn't take long to see what is happening here, another couple of paragraphs.

Plot: a girl gets put into a deep sleep so that impotent old men can look at her naked in bed!

This is it - absolutely 100% it. The plot for Sleeping Beauty comes from this Japanese story by Yasanuri Kawabata...

BING!

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1. I seem to recall (ther's a lot vagueness in this post) that there is a fairly detailed description of the tea-ceremony in The Master Of Go  (this will make sense eventually, continue reading the post.), or maybe it is in another of Kawabata's books. Green tea powder is whisked to a froth in the Japanese tea-ceremony, as Rachael Blake does with the sleeping draught she mixes for Emily Browning.

BING!

2. Browning's character is a poor university student who is doing this sleep thing as an easy way for her to make good money. One of the lectures she walks out on in order to get to another of her on-call sleeping jobs is a lecture on a particular game of Go! "Why would the Master, after spending all this time thinking, make such a bad move?" or words to that effect. I seem to recollect this sort of conundrum being close to a section of that other Kawabata book, The Master of Go where an old master loses to a dashing young challenger (we've all been there).

BING!

Ancient Japanese Go-Go girls...

3. Almost. In the movie, Emily Browning as the candidate for the Sleeping Beauty job, is told that she will not, under any circumstances, be "penetrated".

BING!

There are other points of correspondence too. The first old man holding, lifting and letting drop Browning's arm - the description of a similar incident in the story is quite mesmerizing and it almost perfectly realized, word for word as it were, in the movie. And then there is... not sure, but there must be more. I'd better read more of the story before I can say.

BING!

Anyway, it's a given.

Again, BING!

~~~~~~~~~

Obviously all this was no mystery to Julia Leigh: she put that Go lecture in there for a reason. I am just wondering if she duly and correctly attributed the story to Kawabata in the credits. I'll have to wait 4hrs until this new torrent downloads, I mean until I get back to Singapore to view my legit DVD.

So there you have it: E@L the literary detective solves the mystery yet again. (There was a mystery?) The movie Sleeping Beauty is, cunningly and in an attempt to divert suspicion, based on a Japanese story called House of The Sleeping Beauties. Who woulda thunk?

E@L

(I know none of you give a fuck about any of this, but it's made my pathetic, wasted-life of a day, such as it was.)

(Also, this post was originally meant to constitute "a full critical analysis" of The Noughties, to be placed "http://culturalsnow.blogspot.com/2012/02/and-your-point-is.html">here (i.e.: Tim's blog) first thing in the morning. With footnotes." Oops. Got distracted, again.)

Virginia Passes Law that Makes Rape Mandatory

An article in Slate today, "Virginia’s Proposed Ultrasound Law Is an Abomination", has touched a sensitive nerve. As many of you may realize (I know personally most of my readers) I was once a doyen of ultrasound scanning, world famous in Australia you might say (apologies to Mel Brooks for stealing his line). I did lots (hundreds) of scans in early pregnancy way back when and know more than a little about the technicalities of the points raised by the author of the article, Dahlia Lithwick. Be notified that I am in no way disputing her overall opinion and am a staunch supporter of women's right to choose.

She says that the requirement to perform a transvaginal ultrasound scan means that there is now a legal requirement to perform rape - state-sanctioned rape.

...that means most women will be forced to have a transvaginal procedure ... With a proposed amendment to the bill—a provision that would have had the patient consent to this bodily intrusion or allowed the physician to opt not to do the vaginal ultrasound—failed on 64-34 vote. A special ultrasound transducer is placed into the vagina in order to get a clear view of the uterus. The law provides that women seeking an abortion in Virginia will be forcibly penetrated for no medical reason. I am not the first person to note that under any other set of facts, that would constitute rape under state law.

She rightly argues that if it becomes a legal requirement to to a transvaginal scan it would be a straight forward case of rape.

(from above link)

However, I am of the professional (woah!) opinion that an abdominal ultrasound scan (probe - pushing hard - on the lower abdomen) would be perfectly adequate in many cases. And a scan might be done anyway, even without this law, to confirm the gestational age (important).

A transvaginal scan might only be required if the woman is greatly obese. (Hang on 99% of American women are, so...) Perhaps the argument that the woman is going to be penetrated unnecessarily and undoubtedly against her will, raped indeed, might not be as strong as stated in this, and the linked article. Meh.

There are all sorts of reasons for a woman to prefer not to continue a pregnancy which I don't need to go into here, but forcing her doctor to rape her, and then, by making her listen to the heartbeat and look at the screen (the "egg-as-a-person" trick), to make her feel that she is a bad person when she may not be, goes against her legal and moral rights. How could the state sanction rape?

To me, this law is the equivalent of the stoning of adulteresses and the harsh punishment of victims of rape in those regions where Sharia law is full implemented.

It also reminds me of the arguments used to justify US's forced sterilization programmes in the 1920's and 30's, as described in Edwin's Black's book (yes, I've read it - fascinating and terrifying) and discussed in the award-winning documentary War Against The Weak.





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Here's a quote from Bob McDonnell, governor of Virginia and possible vice-presidential candidate: it seems a blatant attempt to grab the conservative, bible-belt vote:

“I think it gives full information,” he said this week on WTOP radio’s “Ask the Governor” program. “To be able to have that information before making what most people would say is a very important, serious, life-changing decision, I think is appropriate.”

My emphasis. I would argue that a termination is not life changing for the woman who makes this choice, but rather enables her life to continue as it was. It's a non-changing choice, thank you very much. I consider this a reasonable and essentially correct state of affairs.

Now continuing with the pregnancy, that is a life-changing situation, and I can vouch for that!

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This is a separate issue to the ongoing one about insurance coverage for contraception , etc...

E@L

On The Prowl

Walking all the way back home from the pub quiz in Robertson Quay tonight, 4-5kms - a good hour of solid perambulation for E@L, if he can make it*. Much better shoes and sandals, lots of drugs for his bad feet and the determination to get more exercise after the shame and dishonour of wasting his recent Japan ski-trip (only one day of five on the slopes) because of his damnéd cardio-pulmonary impotence...

E@L has been pumping the asphalt (or doing c-p stuff in the gym; HR at 125bpm or so) every day, mostly, for the last two weeks. And is off the grog. It's merely a matter of willpower, of becoming the person who you have chosen for yourself to be in the power of visualizing... yada yada. He's on a diet and a get fit kick. Maybe it's the massive negative incentive of having committed to give $5k to a cause he detest (maybe some TCM university studying how best to exterminate endangered species for fun and profit when aspirin or Viagra would work just as well - sorry, I mean would work; maybe the Scientology nutters...) if he can't knock 10% off his body-weight in three (3, count 'em) months. Bruce is holding the signed cheque and will make the decision about where the money goes. Seriously, no muckin' abart...

OK, fine. But why walk so far so late at night? It's near enough to 11pm, for crying out loud. Who in their right mind would stay out this late? Get home and get to blog.

Ah. Taxi.

Or *no* taxis, more like. Never any taxis when you need them; you can wait in the queue as long as you like, hang on the phone as long as you like, send as many SMS bookings as you like. Nuh. None. Zip. Nada. Fuck it, may as well head off on shanks' pony, in civilian clothes, man-bag over shoulder, see if he can make it all the way again, as he managed last week.

But the first serious bit of effort comes quick: the small hill that comes up from Mohammed Sultan to River Valley Rd. Know it? Maybe 200m of mild incline, perhaps 5deg. Not much, but it's nearly enough to have him clutching as his chest, screaming for a Code Blue! E@L's calves are burning just a bit more now as he treads firmly, refusing to slow down (he's walking at snail's pace orredy lah!), keeping that old ticker, um, ticking over, when...

~~~~~~~~~

In front of one the older condos, by the driveway at the gate, are several - five, six - women. They are dressed pretty damn fancy; LBDs, CMF boots, draped in lights scarves, extremities be-ringed and be-bangled, ungulates adorned with painted-on scenery and pasted-on jewels. These ladies are not coming home from somewhere, they are heading out. Faces are made-up to show off high cheekbones, even if there aren't any high cheekbones, eyelashes and eyebrows trimmed to augment the double eye-lid, the almond eyes, the exotic mien.

E@L feels he should be impressed with the effort that they have gone to.

All are smoking. Two are talking to each other with the precise clipped tones of Beijing Mandarin (it's hard to tell if the words are friendly or not); the others are standing alone, looking away, looking for the taxis that E@L couldn't find either. They appear hard, arms folded across their chests; harsh; they look older in the streetlight than they will; dim lights and alcohol will make them appear gorgeous in the early hours in the Japanese karaoke bars (they speak fluent Japanese, can drink sake and Chivas and sperm till the sun comes up) or in the dim black-light glow downstairs in Brix (at The Hyatt). Mainly they stand apart, they see enough of each other thanks, sleeping six to a room.

E@L plods past determinedly, almost breathless. Here's another condo, here's another pride of lionesses. None of them appear to notice him. These are not girls on the prowl for expats on the street; E@L is not part of tonight's Target Demographic.

Maybe it was the way he pulled at the crotch of his sweaty underpants, new rash on the burn, phew, still going uphill, that said to them: "Not me, honey. At least not tonight."

~~~~~~~~~

Happy Valentines Day. Feeling romantic, obviously.

E@L


* got about halfway, road-rash settling in nicely thanks for asking, took the train at Somerset.

(Been glancing through You Bright And Risen Angels; William T "Voluble" Vollman; hence all the semi-colons.)

Need Help

... in getting a decent translation of the following. One of my many lovely friends/colleagues (see above) in BKK is unwell. At least I think she is unwell. She posted this on Facebook:


จะบอกว่า ร้านดอกไม้ร้านใหญ่ที่อยู่ใกล้ๆกัน มีความคิดสร้างสรรมาก ขนดอกหญ้ามาจัดร้าน theme valentine ประหนึ่งว่าอยู่สวนป่า อีเดนท่ามกลางธรรมชาติ โรแมนติกค่อดๆ วันดีคืนดี ลมพัดมาหอบละอองเกสรปลิวว่อนเลย เซ็ง~ ไม่รู้เลยว่าอิคนอยู่ใกล้ๆ จะตายเอา 5555 [at least I know that these numbers are a Thai emoticon for LOL. Why? Because the number five in Thai is pronounced Ha. Hahahahaha.]


... and Bing (the FB default for some reason) translated it thus:

The art of flower shop is telling me to usurp tuttu shops near the capital. There are many creative ideas to optimize your store organized grass heart valentine theme is comparable to that in the midst of a natural park Eden. Robert semantic khot propitious day. The wind blows coming en masse swiftly carry pollen. Bored ~ I don't know that the ikhon near to death removing LOL.

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Also need to learn the Thai characters for WTF.

~~~~~~~~~

... and Google translated it thus:

It is a flower shop near the well. There are many creative ideas. Feather grass is a free theme valentine, as though the forest. Eden nature. Haddock and romantic fine wind to carry pollen carded ~ I do not know I was close to death I 5555.

~~~~~~~~~

... and Yahoo BabelFish doesn't do Thai.

~~~~~~~~~

Response from the victim herself after I assumed she was having acupuncture or something silly like that:

It's a procedure of Skin test, not a treatment. They drop 13 allergen solutions on my both arms and then prick my arms with special needles. finally, leave them for 15 minutes. if there are skin rash and itch at any position, means I got allergy them. The result is cockroach and pollen.

~~~~~~~~~

Cockroach?

~~~~~~~~~

In BKK for 10 days, will be that is, coming up from this Thursday. Could try aversion therapy, but E@L hasn't got much of a roach.

E@L

Well I'll Be Hanged

No, not for upsetting the Singapore authorities.

However, in 1881 a judge passed the following sentence on an apparently unpleasant criminal in New Mexico:

José Manuel Miguel Xavier Gonzales, in a few short weeks it will be spring. The snows of winter will flee away, the ice will vanish, and the air will become soft and balmy. In short, José Manuel Miguel Xavier Gonzales, the annual miracle of the years will awaken and come to pass, but you won’t be here.

The rivulet will run its purring course to the sea, the timid desert flowers will put forth their tender shoots, the glorious valleys of this imperial domain will blossom as the rose. Still, you won’t be here to see.

From every tree top some wild woods songster will carol his mating song, butterflies will sport in the sunshine, the busy bee will hum happy as it pursues its accustomed vocation, the gentle breeze will tease the tassels of the wild grasses, and all nature, José Manuel Miguel Xavier Gonzales, will be glad but you. You won’t be here to enjoy it because I command the sheriff or some other officer of the country to lead you out to some remote spot, swing you by the neck from a nodding bough of some sturdy oak, and let you hang until you are dead.

And then, José Manuel Miguel Xavier Gonzales, I further command that such officer or officers retire quickly from your dangling corpse, that vultures may descend from the heavens upon your filthy body until nothing shall remain but bare, bleached bones of a cold-blooded, copper-colored, blood-thirsty, throat-cutting, chili-eating, sheep-herding, murdering son of a bitch.

via

E@L

Bloggers, Blogging, Blogged, Buggered

I tend to forget that I am in Singapore sometimes. Yes, ambiguity intended. Sometimes I am in Singapore, and sometimes I forget this.

And so I don't keep up with many Singaporean blogs. Read zero. At least since Mr Brown moved on to pod-casting, still funny and controversial but not really blogging IMHO. Xenoboy and MollyMeek have essentially disappeared. Then, of course, SPG moved into my apartment (temporarily, for a few years) and I could see what was going on in her life without having to read about it or admire the pictures of it (always a five minute warning sent when I was coming back from the airport.) Mainey quit from Kinokinuya so there was no chance of getting discount books (met her sister last week). VirginPornstar moved to Sydney after losing her virgin status and shut her blog down. Valkyrie's spider's all passed on, so I only see her when she comes to our place for D&D games (a while ago now, when Izzy was still here. Lovely lady, nice tattoos.)

However the complete absence of the bloggers I know is not the only reason I haven't kept up with all local blogs that I know, There is one blogger I refuse to communicate with because of her criminally heartless treatment of one of my close friends. No names, no pack drill, as they say, and she is a lawyer so I'd probably get ripped a new arsehole if I linked to her after that comment.

~~~~~~~~~~

I'm not sure that there are any Singapore expat blogs I SHOULD be following, but there is nothing I need to know about bringing up babies, about local food or pet dogs or fashion or living advice for those on their first tour of duty.

I made an observation at the first/only Singapore Bloggers.sg.2005 bloggers meeting back in whenever, 2005 or so, about this, and the status hasn't changed, at least for the people I know or should know. The taxi driver guy hasn't published since April last year. Mike is now only talking about his burgeoning writing career (and you really should investigate his work - brilliant). Indy is back blogging under his Platypus moniker, but only about gaming and blowed if I can remember the link.

As a result, my blog is linked to by very few Singaporean expat bloggers. Read none. And it features on few of the lists that come up when you Google 'Expat Bloggers Singapore'. Read none.

OK, I know I have a dedicated bunch of readers, a humble hi-5 guys and gals, but the list of followers is not expanding and my hits are practically non-existent compared to one or fifteen of the local blogs here.

Mind you my blog is pretty specialised. Specialised in a negative space way, excluded, preterite, I am the dark matter and background radiation hum of Singapore blogging that no-one sees unless they use sophisticated equipment to find it.

In fact my blog is damn useless: A list of complaints about toast and coffee with the occasional sex adventure of Bruce in Orchard Towers or Bangkok. Boring, right? Specialised topics, right?

Sigh.

~~~~~~~~~~~

These thoughts were stimulated by a Chinese colleague - female - who says, yes, she glances at my blog every now and then but reads XiaXue every day. Every day. XiaXue gets the same hits per day as I have accumulated over the past 4 years, thanks to people like my colleague. I wish I could call her a dumb bitch, but she's not. She does the same job as I do, so she's obviously a genius.

But why the fuck do 380,000 people a week got to XiaXue's blog? I'm not going to link to it because no matter what I say, if she finds out, she is bound to rip me a new arsehole. (I have met her once, briefly, seemed nice, completely ignored me.)

OK, new arsehole coming. It is completely beyond me what the pull is to her vacuous, narcissistic, rude and abusive tripe.

Completely. Beyond. Me.

As is popularity.

E@L

(Bit fretful of further damage to my arsehole it seems.)

Snow Days

Up for a piss at 4am, the demands of the fascist prostate are fearfully compelling, E@L negotiates the dim outline of the low table in his room (banged thrice already in four nights) and sneaks a glance out from behind the double blinds, through the double-glazed windows at the snow still falling, falling on the living and the dead tired, lit orange by the streetlights. Condensation has beaded the window with inside rain. (Dumb Q: 'Is it raining outside?' Smart-arse A:- 'Wll it sure ain't raining INside!')

Piss done, "Shit," he says, as he ponders on the politics of how to hide his pleasure at this closed-in weather from his buddies.

Back to bed and up again at 8am. It is snowing even more heavily. A grader is growling through the drifts on his road. It has been snowing continually for three days now. Around the trees, the snow has banked up perhaps four metres. The powder up top must be waist high, two of three feet since Tuesday.

E@L wonders if he should return to bed? The others will be at the lift soon, ready for the first uncut powder runs when the gondola starts at 8:30. It is -8deg at the nearby town of Kutchan, according to weather.com.

Same temperature as last night when they went wandering from restaurant to restaurant, bit of food here, bit of alcohol there.

Bruce is stuffed up with a head-cold, sinuses completely blocked and he wants some Sudafed for legitimate purposes this time. They find a drug-store. The sales assistant produces a laminated A4 sheet with drawings of common symptoms and their names in a variety of languages. Bruce points at 'cough' and 'runny nose'. An old man, wizened (aren't all sources of wisdom?), bad-teeth grin - the pharmacist presumably - takes us to a shelf and indicates one box of pills. Fortunately it has the drugs it contains written in English. None of the others do. E@L manages to read ????-ephedrine HCL in tiny font-size, and tells Bruce to take the pharmacist's advice.

E@L's nose is also clogged but not so severely, maybe tyhe CPAP in the dry air. He pops a Sudafed just in case.

'No alcohollo,' says the pharmacist to E@L, obviously considering him the father figure to these 40 year old kids. He swipes at his chest-length pure-white goatee, shakes his head and says again, 'no alcohollo.'

Two hours later. Bruce: 'Suntory, make it a double!' He is almost asleep, pissed, in a bed-lounge bar, (BangBang?) lying closest the wall. Only the observation from a cigarette smoker who is returning from his nicotine hit on a upstairs balcony that a group of older guys are toking on some whacky-baccie on the balcony upstairs stirs him. In fact Bruce is up to his knees instantly, rolls over two people, crushes E@L's bad feet without noticing and therefore not apologising, pulls on his new Wellington boots and rushes to the stairs.

He comes back, sheepishly avoiding E@L's sore feet again. They had finished their joint already.

E@L

Your Favorite Immigrant Song Video Is...

Try playing them all at once if that will help you decide...

E@L

Just To Say "Hi"

Hi.

Out the window at my Niseko hotel, Mount Yōtei with a morning cloud on its head. Hokkaido Japan, last Saturday in fact, not today. Hotel? Pop-out, modernistic, serviced-apartment type. You could not find a less authentic rustic Japanese ambiance, except perhaps in an Ikea showroom. Bloody Australians running the place (properties all seem to be owned LJ Hooker, the slopes by Packer's group I am guessing.) Often, as one travels the world, one's pleasant Aussie accent is greeted with a smile and the risorial imitation of a kangaroo (or a T-rex?, Small paws, curled up in front?). But not here. The locals hate Australians. It's like being in New Zealand.

Snow was brilliant but E@L wimped out for a variety of excuses reasons, primarily those of being unfit and old and unwell and having a prolonged anxiety attack (fear of falling over) that only subsided when he was submerged in a steaming onsen.

~~~~~~~~

E@L is at home now, but unwell - chest infection from a generally hale and hearty ski-fellow who came down with it on Wednesday last and passed it on, the generous bastard, and today yet another burst of something unmentionable -- sorry must rush to the toilet for another squitter...

He can't get over the fact that he made it through a poverty porn tour of the Indochine and survived, yet has been knocked to his haunches by gastro twice in the last ten days, firstly in Japan (bad can of coffee from a vending machine?) and now in Singapore (Korean restaurant in United Square - a friend who dined with me is also suffering ["The world fell out of my arse this morning!"]).

~~~~~~~~

Maybe will finish writing something tomorrow, have many things in draft (you don't need to know this), gods of blog spontaneity be damned, but I was re-re-reading some of the very early posts on my old blog and now am feeling depressed. Not only were they funnier, they were less pretentious (and yet - eyebrow raised - strangely, MORE pretentious) while still exuding the wanky, boyish and arrogant charms of the truly insecure dilettante...

E@L

No Accident - Tea With WSB

Speaking of William S Burroughs (we were?), E@L has been chuckling and ruminating by turns through the publishable snippets of Philip Willey's WIP (novel, autobiography? who the fuck can tell). Other snippets have be seen occasionally at Dick Headley's blog.

Dick sent E@L a copy of his alter-ego's small text, printed on real paper, kindly signed by someone called Winston and dedicated to someone called Josef, all in exchange for a line of finely printed text on E@L's Mastercard statement. You too can join the select community - a copy may be purchased from the link on the link above. [Full disclosure: E@L has had beers with the man in various globetrotting locations, he seemed harmful enough.]

Naked Tea - The Burroughs Bits. Philip Willey. Ahndai Books 2011. ISBN: 97809734021 1 7

The typewriter font, love it. The illustrations, superb - videlicet, above.

And text, as E@L expected. Self-indulgent and dense stream-of-consciousness gonzo. Just way I like it.

~~~~~~~

Is this autobiographical? The introduction says it partly is. Then you think no, he's made this all up, including the introduction, he's pulling our legs. Then, once again you think this is real stuff, this is close to what happened, close to the core; PW was there, being as gonzo as he possibly could.

There are four sections, three written by PW, some (all?) of these are on the DH blog somewhere. No don't go looking for them! Buy the book. Like, PW needs the money.

First there is titular cup of Naked Tea with WSB at Fortnum and Masons, where Simon (who in the third section becomes Phil) conducts an interview that turns into an excellent, sardonic lecture on modern literature and life and the compulsion to write that non-linear "pastiche of drug-induced prose poems, essays, routines, dramatic fragments and therapeutic ramblings." WSB's observations, and Simon's reflection on them, clearly concern the greater novel we are reading a part of now (or perhaps the squandered talent in Chuck Woww's efforts) as much as WSB's own novels.

Then comes William at the the 1970's Phun City rock festival. Burroughs was there, as was JG Ballard (thanks Google), but was PW? It is from Burroughs' point of view (stoned - being raped by a giant cockroach) and is funny. Does he work his tapes into something later? I am not familiar enough with the compete works to know. Or is it PW doing the work here?

Thirdly, PW sits in a cafe in Morocco and writes a letter to the late Burroughs. He is talking with the ghost of WSB - who is observing and commenting on the writing of the letter, ("I find the times changes a little confusing") - and to describe Tangier as it is now, how low PW has sunk, how the world is now and then lets him have the last word: "Facebook sounds terrifying."

In the fourth section, the epitaph, there is a reprint of an online essay by one George Laughead about WSB obliquely confessing that the shooting of Joan was no accident. Interesting...

~~~~~~~~~

This is humour from the inside. As in our favorite parts of his blog, where Dick is sailing the BVI with a pair of Thai babes, or mixing it with the hoi-rock-polloi of the 60's (maybe some pre-reading is required?), there is a sense of complete but utterly casual immersion in the events and zeitgeist (of the times, man!).

This is the technique, the theme, perhaps the point. Being there.

Cleverly self-aware anachronisms, true-ish facts, throw-away name-dropping (where to start with a list of names!), invented voices on authentic vices, and the result is that you cannot help but find yourself in the midst of it. In the thick of the chaos, on the edge of notoriety and perhaps a hastily-unweighted decision away from fame and fortune yourself, as was Phil/Simon/Dick/Chuck himself, the rumour has it. Yes, that's it in the end, to have them (the soon to rich, the already infamous) as part of your story, but you are not of theirs. Imagine Rozencrantz and Guildenstern with AAA passes to the 60's and 70's. Sigh.

You couldn't imagine that all the serious fun of these times - the frighteningly new music and all this self-parodying art and literature happening around you - would become legend. While you took notice because it was your life, you didn't take notes for the same reason, and instead sat down to think over things in your life and called for a nice cup of tea.

With none other than Bill Burroughs. Well you might as well take notes now, because you are here to interview the man, make a name for yourself, perhaps succeeding, perhaps failing at both/either task(s). Unreliable narrator interviewing an unreliable character. What can go wrong? Nothing! Just as long as you hold that glass still on your head Joan, darling.

~~~~~~~

"Shoot the bitch and write a book! That's what I did! … There are no accidents." WSB (allegedly).

~~~~~~~

E@L

Poverty Porn II

E@L stands amid a mass of well-on-the-way-to-drunken banker-wankers and schmarmy lawyers at Stormies, near the top of Lan Kwai Fong lane. The crowd from Big Al's Diner merges, the revelers form a bridge of beer-swilling expat humanity across the lane.  E@L is not ashamed to be amongst them. Sure, why not? Look at him. He is the fat, bald, leering drunken lecher at the street-corner; why not live up to the stereotype that everyone takes him for anyway.  It is his shout. He calls the harassed Filipina waitress over from where she is taking an order from someone else, passing change onto another pin-stripe suited. 

"Six Coronas, cheers." He taps her on the bum to cheer her up.  

It is Friday night and this is what you do in Hong Kong. Work hard (well not E@L so much, great job even then), play like an alcoholic. 

"Look at that," says Justin.

"Fucking hell."

"Fucking Chinese."

"Take my photograph, will you?  Asshat.  What the fuck, get out of my face."  He flips a posse of mainlanders the finger. (Whatever happened to the two-fingers?  Justin is British.  But everyone is American these days when it comes to hand gestures, to swearing. Cultural imperialism. Thank you television, thank you movies.)

"Mother-fucking mainland tourists, there's the one with the yellow flag.  Fucking sheep, lemmings. Why don't they get on with their own life?"

E@L mimics a coolie accent:"Follow my little flag, we come from Beijing, you follow me, we go to darkest den of the natives.  Watch the strange epxats in native habitat. See how they live. This is the foreigner in a zoo. Watch them eat and drink and abuse each other.."

"Ha ha. Take another photo, you plick and I jam you flucking camela up you flucking arse."

"Where the fuck do they get those clothes? All the fucking same." 

After a while we ignore them.  They look at us, we don't look at them.  They are mildly annoying, and when you come to think of it, superfluous. We don't need to think about them. We don't even see them after a while as troupe after troupe go past.  We have our own lives to destroy. 

Another busload of Chinese climb the steps (temporary, steel, still a lot of work to go to make LKF the way it is today) to Wellington St. 

We continue where we left off.

"Buy me a beer, and I'll let you keep standing next to me," says Justin.

"Fuck off," says E@L. "Are we going to Wanchai, or not?"

The pulse of our expat tradition beats on and on and on...

E@L

[Just in case someone doesn't get it - this post is meant to be read in conjunction with the the previous post, Poverty Porn.]

Poverty Porn

"Can we get WiFi there?" asks E@L, worried that his Words With Friends games might expire. He has already put up a holiday block on both his work email and his Gameknot chess matches. Priorities.

"They don't even have electricity," replies D4 in his mild Slavov Zizec accent. He even clutches at his nostrils quite a lot.  E@L is not sure if he is joking. "I'm joking!" guffaws D4. How can you tell D4 is joking?  Moving mouth. 

~~~~~~~~~

The rooms in the "restored" French colonial guesthouse are large, there is enough space for the two king size beds for the platonic share with Odette. There are electricity outlets, one for E@L's CPAP, several for charging all his devices (modern life is a series of battery depletion crises). There IS WiFi, for 10hrs a day. There is aircon, there are bedside lamps, there are mosquito nets - E@L doesn't need his though, as mentioned previously Asian mosquitoes find him tasteless (not Robinson Crusoe there) - there is hot water.

There is, should be, will be, hot water.  A dribble, a gurgle, a cough then a spurt and then all of a sudden the water is scalding.  Cold on a bit, it's freezing.  Cold down a bit, it's freezing for a few seconds, then scalding.  What is going on here?  To get the temperature right for the shower is like playng a pinball machine, you need Tommy the wizard.  It's a shifting playing ground, it's a struggle. E@L gives up and showers lukewarmly.  

Your turn Odette, good luck.

~~~~~~~~~

Breakfast is nothing much and you know how E@L appreciates his Aussie version of a continental petit dejeuner. Vegemite on toast, muesli wth fruit and yoghurt, a LARGE cup of coffee.  Nah, not likely.

A few skimpy pieces of fruit, the best of the bananas gone to the gibbon under E@L's window, black liquid in a thermos dispenser mislabelled as coffee, stale baguettes sliced and toasted on a small grill. Only one type of jam.  No ao khun, E@L does not want eggs.

~~~~~~~~~

This part of Laos, Si Phan Don, is very dry, not monsoon time. VERY dry: dust: puff powder mist floats up fine fine particles with each step, like underfoot explosions, ha ha. We walk almost the circumference of the island over the two days, from the waterfall on this side (sunset, awesome, 20,000kip for the pathway) to the waterfall, more a cascade, on the other side midday on day two.  We could have hired bicycles (he'd say pushbikes but no-one would have a clue what E@L was talking about) and it's not that they were too expensive at 10,000 kip per day- $1.50 - but D4's lanky knees would bash against the handlebars.

So we walked along the paths slowly, heat and dust, chatting and joking, watching the Laos islanders go about their daily business.  This seemed to be mostly lounging and talking. And looking at us as we ambled along.  They had stopped talking.  A nod and E@L's poorly pronounced sabai dee was met most often with a blank stare.  Even as we headed straight at people walking towards us, there was the blank look or there was averted eyes, as if we weren't really there.  E@L had a hint that even though we weren't interfering but just watching them, they might have resented out presence.  That blank expression was not one of indifference but slight annoyance, as one might dismiss without looking at a chicken that walked on your path. You and the chicken have differnet agends, you live in different, occasionally intersecting worlds.  We are superfluous.

A middle-aged man squatted in the shade of a copse of straggly trees and banged something made of wood with a something made of rusted steel into a chunk of bleached wood for some purpose, next to a circle of smoking ashes and a parked motorcycle. He looked up at us for a second at E@L's greeting, then turned his deeply creased face back to his mysterious task. 

A pregnant woman perched on stool, one leg under her bum the other swinging, in a structure something like a shop. Goddam it, it was a shop.  Small toys, minor doing-things instruments and cheap tools hung by the entrance. Food, biscuits, cigarettes. There was a refrigerator with drinks.  We asked her for two bottles of chilled water. She did not move, perhaps did not understand. Izzy shrugged, opened the door anyway and took them out, held them up and asked how much.  The pregnant woman slowly stood and brought over a LCD solar-powered calculator with a large screen. 10,000 kip, same as a day of bicycling.  Izzy had no kip and the lady would not accept her $5 note.  E@L had amongst the six currencies in his wallet, enough smokey-tintedkip to cover the drinks.

Everywhere bustling around us, up and down the path kids of two/three, five/seven ran amok (not the delicious local fish dish), played all sorts of games incomprehensible to adults and generally had fun independant of the control of whomever were their parents.  The kids would generally respond to our waves, sometimes enthusiastically sometimes less so, and our "sabai dee" greeting would often elicit a muted reply.  But they kept running past us intent on their own lives.

"Well at least the next generation will be more friendly," says E@L

However, there was one girl, perhaps five or six.  She stopped as we walked past, put her clenched fingers to her mouth and pulled them away in familiar gesture, to the side and down.  "Kung pao," she said. "Kung pao."  Chinese red packets. Money. 

~~~~~~~~~

Waterfalls.  Done, tick.  Local inhabitants, however. Not yet completely done, unticked.

~~~~~~~~~ 

The round-the-island-tour boat was set to go at four. We tramped back along the road to our gibbon friendly guesthouse with only 15mins to have a rinse down, a partial de-dusting.  D4 decided to crash; bad knee even without the bicycle handlebars, and a sore hip.  E@L medicated him with some cox-II inhibitor NSAIDs.  Deadly, sure, but fuck they work well. 

Our boat was slightly more river-worthy than the floating village long-tail, it even had cushions on the planks and removable back-boards for support.  Luxury. The roof a bit dodgy, and a splash too much water in the gunwales, bilge, cargo-hold, whatever - under the boards - but it didn't break down. The tour was timed to coincide with sunset over the river. We pulled up-stream towards the beach where we had boarded the day before.  We passed it by though, and came down on the other side of another island, again with the stream.  Negotiated some whirlpools, watched the bubbling scum of waste outleyts and thanked whatever gods may be that we didn't have to swim in it.  Half submerged trees and semi-erect spears of dead branches reared out to impale our boat. 

The captain, took us towards the embankments on the far side of this branch of the river.  Here the wooden shacks did not stand with half their stilts in the river.  That was what we had seen earlier, in the part of the Mekong we were staying.  Instead many of the houses here were built with their foundations in solid ground, still on stilts, many leaning askew, not so solidly implanted. Other houses had their river-side walls halfway down the embankment, where their not-necessarily sea-worthy canoes were dry docked.

Dry boards for walls, curved and peeling off, nailed back, that or thatched rattan, and thatched or corrugated tin roofs.  The embankments were quite steep, and many families had planted vegetables gardens - E@L saw rows of staked tomato vines.  The more river-worthy boats were beached at small landings.

~~~~~~~~

But now, here at the edge of the water, was the point of our visit. Here the timing of the cruise was perfectly coordinated. Now we were to get what was most crucial for our holiday, what we had come for, what we had paid for.

The families were bathing.  They were washing themselves, doing their ablutions in the muddy Mekong. Water niether cold nor hot, always the same. Slightly chilly, no fiddling with taps required.

Splashing all over their bodies the polluted flow.  The froth of scum we had chugged through, from all the waste outlets upstream, their waste outlets going downstream. Bacteria (e-Coli in particular du'h), viruses, parsites. Little children are naked, mother in a sarong, rinsing them over, wiping the dust away with one hand while the other held her child still enough. A women rinsing her hair, twisting it at her shoulder sees us and stops.  Old men with their lower bodies covered by their short sarongs are throwing water up into their groins, then rubbing through the wet cloth.  Young men, old women, children, teenagers, the girls shyly covering up when they hear us approach, the women turning away, the men staring hard.  No-one returns our first timid waves.  No-one sabai dee's back to our timorous calls.

The show kept going, more people up ahead at the bottom of their embankements, more traditionally shy people publicly exposed for fun and profit. On show like circus freaks.  Like a zoo.

E@L turned away.  He didn't look again.  That was enough. He didn't want to see any more, didn't want to invade any more, didn't want to oppress any more, didn't want to exploit anymore.

~~~~~~~~~~

It wasn't so long since these people had to run from the French colonialists who needed free labour.  To hide from the bombings, the napalm, the agent orange of the Americans who needed to send a message to China.  Except for when they couldn't run at all, when they had to stand still or die, when their uncontrollable children, their farming families and loved partners were fenced in by thousands of live, plastic (purposely unfindable), permantly present, plane-scattered land-mines. When they were blown apart, dismemebered, legs lost. When their cattle, often their only resource,  were blown apart.  

So what that these people are bathing in the river? It wasn't so long either, a mere few centuries, that Europeans were living essentially the same way, even worse.  Leave them alone for pity's sake. It cultural pornography. We are rich, they are what we would call poor.  Stop these poverty porn cruises. Make some money here and there with some other tourist scam, but not this way, not boating past your families in their shower, in their bathroom.

E@L shudders.

~~~~~~~~~~

D4 was in the restaurant when we returned. His iPad was on the table, fully charged, and he was chatting with a Dutch fellow tousist.

The tourist had a martini glass in front of him. He smiled and pointed at it.  Consciously ironic, he said: "I asked for a dry martini, look at it. It's almost opaque, almost entirely vermouth.  Sweet as anything I have ever tasted."

D4 countered with: "What's the point of paying $40 a night if the place can't even make a decent dry martini?"

E@L was not in the mood to be amused.  He has no hard-on for this poverty porn.

E@L

Cambodia - Laos

(Sorry, this post disappeared into draft for some reason.)

Templed-out in Cambodia.

We climbed the temples that were available to climb, but the vertiginous staircases at Angkor Wat were closed, maybe too many fractured skulls from the giddy adventurous and over-confident adrenalin junkies. We did the jump-meme every now and then. Pulled faces at the Apocalypse Now faces in the Bayon temple, got lost, got found, took photos at the pile of modern bricks, the future's ruins. Were as anti-tourist as possible, made concerted efforts to be in as many of other people's photos as we could, stand in the way of the perfectshoot as long as possible - as they all did to us. Perhaps unintenionally.



We were up at 5am one morning, tuk-tukked to the site, saw Angkor Wat at sunrise, silhouettes mainly, nice but, and we watched the ambitious Japanese use flash cameras to capture the rosy-fingered dawn. By the third day however, when our promised sunset shoot was scheduled (much more dramatic, with the golden-hued temple looking magnificent - E@L can confirm that from last time he was here, in 2000) we were too buggered to fufil our goals, promised ourselves instead to look at the sunset from our balcony, and so we crashed, gin&tonic exhausted, by the pool or back in the room. When E@L awoke poolside, three Melvyn Bragg podcats past, the sunset was in its final radiance, so he went upstairs and knocked on Izzy's room. She came to the door, all groggy and disoriented.

"What?"

"Sunset!"

Pause. "O, fuck off!" door slams.

E@L laughs, good joke.

~~~~~~~~~~~

In the floating village at Tone Loc, I mean at Tonle Sap, we head downstream (towards the lake) in a long-tail boat which keeps breaking down, to the floating house/restaurant that is the canoe trip base, with a, E@L thanks christ, toilet.

But the bilge-pipe spouts smoke instead of water. Not good. Our 12 year old captin hands the wheel over to the 7 year old first mate and leans over the back for the rest of the trip, holding smoething onto something or away from something near the waterline so that the engine can run. Looks of blank-faced concern.

The canoe trip is not as we had imagined it - instead of us paddling yellow plastic things, a strong young lady is doing all the paddling in our creaking wooden canoe. But we weave through the mangroves, dappled in shadow and sunlight, lotus-seated in a spiritual silence, only the plash of the paddle, the soft chirruping call of some waterbirds and the ripping roar of the long-tail boats... E@L sits up front and holds a contemplative buddha pose, thumb to middle fingers on his knees, eyes closed, as his canoe returns across the river to the restaurant/canoe berth.

"You're not fooling anyone," says D.

Heading back upstream, more trouble and we circle back to the floating house at the canoe berth, and our long-tail breaks down completely just as we edge up to it. Our captain is shouting something angrily to the four of five people who stand, unimpressed, watching our approach. He yells again and one of the women reluctantly goes into the back-room, presumably the kitchen, and returns with a meat cleaver. We raise out eyebrows and look at each other again. However, all he decapitates is a water bottle. The upper part is useful it appears, and after some repairs, obviously involving the introduction of some fluid or other, we are off. No more issues. With bumps, grinds and pushes and a great rearrangement of boats already berthed, we negogiate with the other returning long-tails and larger boats into a rare berth on the crowded sand.

~~~~~~~~~

Planes, vans and a rickety "ferry" (another, even less sturdy, but mechanically sound long-tail) and we arrived at Si Phan Don. The road from the airport to the "ferry terminal" was paved but poorly macadamised, rolling with unintenional and ignored speed-bumps. The bridge aproaches were typical for the rural areas here - so sudden and steep and obviously made without the road's height in consideration - and the iPodded, sleeping E@L's head hit the ceiling each time. Melvyn Bragg, in midsentence. The driver had no concerns at this and did not slow except for cattle, broods of chickens (why DO they cross the road?) and dogs. Thirsty, E@L asks up front for water. D passes back a bottle upside down. E@L looks at it, tries to drink from the base, gestures to D for a meat cleaver. Hilarity ensues.

We turn around a small island, first we head upstream, then downstream back into fast moving river which brings up quickly to a "berth" -another beaching, but this time by steps that lead up the bank to our hotel reception.

We are shown our rooms. "Over there," they point. Next to the gibbon's cage.

It is a French colonial villa, although that word is exaggerates the impression we first obtain. The yellow walls are indeed of the traditional French style. The place was built in 1896. Auberge Sala Done Khone. Cool. There are some floating rooms we could have taken, done below the restuarant. They are available on the next night, but hey, we are set already.

The most interesting thing about our fellow adventurers - the average age is about 75. Very few backbacker types. In fact none. We do not expect to see many Happy Pizza places or opium dens.

E@L

Teacher

In the small village of Au Laok in the Roulus group of temples, volunteer teacher Mr Suang finishes his work as an assistant worker on the temple restoration projects and comes back to his empty home. His wife has "gone away" and they are divorced.

When the sun is on the way down and the day cooling off at 5;30, a bunch of 20 dusty kids arrive at an open air school. Rows of traditional classroom seats face the whiteboards. Mr. Suang walks across the road.

E@L

Up river a few clicks...

In Cambodia at the moment. Angkor and what else?

With Izzy and the Croatia crew. No time to write or think... There are gins & tonic to be consumed!

Will get back to you all later.

E@L