Black of winter has set in, with those heavy, long dreams. Weak narrative, shadow characters... little girl under pier; boy with darkened head rising up to catch a ball: Little kids awaiting baseball practice and across the way a gently grinning soldier, an enemy, deciding to hold fire at point blank range. Then in the hour of the wolf, it's as though everything could collapse just like that, every bit of confidence that you exist could fall in.
Such is death here, here and in these winter coffin sleeps. It's so close, just the slightest touch away. I keep thinking it's the volcano, or the hollow boulders outside the front door, something in the land itself. But then you get up and there's the smoke-mist floating above the town, darker stuff coming from the barracks, and there's the moor at your feet, everything appearing as always. And somewhere out in the moor, sitting with his coan, a middle aged man reciting the sound effects of war, long remembered from childhood.
Dec 3, 2005
Nov 29, 2005
Great Exaggerations
Dear Marina MacNamara,
I am Mr James Okoli , the Auditor General, All Standard Securities Limited. In the course of my auditing, I discovered a floating fund in an account which was opened in 1990 belonging to a dead foreigner Late Mr. Mark MacNamara, a national of your country. I decided to track his last name over the internet to locate any member of his family hence I got in contact with you.
I want to transfer the sum of $18.5M from All Standard Securities Limited in his account overseas. I am therefore writing to ask you that you quietly partner with me and providing an account or set up a new one that will serve the purpose of receiving this fund. Even an empty account can also serve as long as you prove to be honest to me till the end of the deal. I hope you will never let me down.
After going through Late Mark’s records and files, I discovered that:
(1) No one has operated this account since 1993;
(2)He died without a heir; hence the money has been floating.
(3) No other person knows about this account and there was no known beneficiary. And if I do not remit this money urgently, it would be forfeited for nothing.
This money can only be approved to you legally as you have the same LAST NAME as Late Mark. Hence I am contacting you. I will require your urgent reply so that I give you the next step. Kindly forward your telephone and fax numbers. I am ready to give you the sum of $7,500,000 ($7.5M) for your assistance and partnership with me.
I look forward to your prompt reply.
Best Regards,
Mr. James Okoli.
email: jokoli22@netscape.net
I am Mr James Okoli , the Auditor General, All Standard Securities Limited. In the course of my auditing, I discovered a floating fund in an account which was opened in 1990 belonging to a dead foreigner Late Mr. Mark MacNamara, a national of your country. I decided to track his last name over the internet to locate any member of his family hence I got in contact with you.
I want to transfer the sum of $18.5M from All Standard Securities Limited in his account overseas. I am therefore writing to ask you that you quietly partner with me and providing an account or set up a new one that will serve the purpose of receiving this fund. Even an empty account can also serve as long as you prove to be honest to me till the end of the deal. I hope you will never let me down.
After going through Late Mark’s records and files, I discovered that:
(1) No one has operated this account since 1993;
(2)He died without a heir; hence the money has been floating.
(3) No other person knows about this account and there was no known beneficiary. And if I do not remit this money urgently, it would be forfeited for nothing.
This money can only be approved to you legally as you have the same LAST NAME as Late Mark. Hence I am contacting you. I will require your urgent reply so that I give you the next step. Kindly forward your telephone and fax numbers. I am ready to give you the sum of $7,500,000 ($7.5M) for your assistance and partnership with me.
I look forward to your prompt reply.
Best Regards,
Mr. James Okoli.
email: jokoli22@netscape.net
Nov 22, 2005
Woman in charcoal
My friend Allal and I leave the cyber cafe and walk toward the Farrah. I'm thinking I should pay the guardien I yelled at earlier in the morning. Endlessly, it's about money in this city. He wanted something for watching the car. I said, 'look, I don't have anything. I would give it if I had it, but I don't.' Finally, he stands aside and flicks me off. Fuck you, I say.
You're too much like me, I'm thinking. Always, about the money and now I'm in the hell realms of my own obsessions.
We turn on the street where I had parked. Half way down the block we come upon a woman lying on the sidewalk, the top of her right shoulder against a parked car, her head thrown back in the gutter, just behind the front tire. Her left arm is stretched out, resting in a pool of blood. There's a wicked looking cut on her arm. The blood is turning dark in the sun. She looks to be in middle age, dressed in pants and mustard colored Moroccan shoes. There's something European about her. Later, I find out she's Czech.
She's lying outside a bar. A dozen people stand around. This is a poor street, across from the indoor marche on Boulevarde Mohammed V. I ask if somebody has called an ambulance. Heads shake. What about the police? Heads shake.
The woman is alive but breathing with difficulty. A waiter comes out and says she always comes around for a drink but she has no money. He also says she got angry when she couldn't get served, broke a glass and cut herself. She wants to die, he says. Let he be. These are the hell realms of my obsessions and lower self, my anger above all. I grab this man by his shirt, but I'm thinking what I'm doing. I may look out of control, but everything is measured, calculated. Thinking of it now, there was something theatrical underneath. I hold on to his shirt and tell him to call an ambulance. He shruggs his shoulder. I get out my phone and give it to Allal. He calls. I get the woman's head out of the gutter. I stroke her forehead. I'm looking at her upside down. Her eyes flutter. She makes a gasp as though she's going to throw up. I can smell the liquor now.
The blood is beginning to cake. I ask somebody for something to put her head on, a towel, a tablecloth. Shruggs all around. I'm thinking I should take off my coat. I'm thinking of my times with Terence, both of us competing to see who can be the most loving to the loveless. What was that about? I'm remembering the evening outside his election headquarters when I was opening his door, ever the footman, and he tells me instead to go help a man in a wheelchair to get inside his apartment building. I'd seen the man and I was just about to do that, but Terence catches me. This is our game. We're always at this same moment. Were we ever sincere? What are all the games two Irishmen can play with each other?
I take off my coat, fold it, and put it under the woman's head. I bought the coat a few weeks earlier at an outlet in Portland, Maine. It's a Polo, but not expensive. On the other hand, it's the only jacket I have. Everything is considered. But in the end, the coat is there, the woman is resting. She kisses my hand. I stroke her head. She's middle age. Her hair is black but looks dyed. The skin on the left side of her face looks as though it had once been burned. She goes through the dry heaves. She wants water. I ask for water. And then I begin to rant at the people standing around. Move on, I yell at them. Is this prophet's teaching, I yell. She's a drunk someone says, she always does this. So what, I say. We're always doing what we shouldn't do, I'm thinking. Get over it. The woman seems stable. She keeps pointing toward the bar, and in Arabic, insists she was pushed out the door.
Who pushed her, I ask. Heads shake. A few people disappear. I go in the bar. It's black dark. The bartender is the owner. He's the down and out bartender. Cigarette smoking itself in his mouth, sleeves rolled up, a week without a shave. You do this? I ask. He's got a half smile. Over his shoulder there's a patron, with a glass of wine, well to do. You do this? He shakes his head. Who did this? No answer. Are you a practicing muslim?
I ask because after all this is an Islamic country, 99 percent of the people are muslim, according to the interior minister we interviewed last week. Everything is hinged on that in this country. The laws, the monarchy, the whole assumption the country rests on.
I go after him looking for hypocracy. I'm high on self-righteousness. I'm think of Marc Klaas and the male longing in America, not for paradise, but for the moment when you can be angry with authorization. That's all any man wants. Just the stamped authorization to detonate. Could I never have a pure thought, could I never do anything without these filters? Could I never not double think the moment? I cannot. And here I am ranting away, asking them about the prophet. But would the prophet rant and rave?
Actually, he might. So maybe this is my home, after all.
The drama goes on. Act III. I find the security man, the bouncer. He looks like the bartender, only shorter, meaner. The woman on the sidewalk points at him. He's the man that did it. He shakes his head and drags on his cigarette. I tell him he's the insecurity man and if this woman were his mother, sister, wife, whomever... What would he do then? You let her lie in the street, wouldn't you? I say. You would. I know you would. Because you're heartless. Because the truth is, you don't give a damn about anybody.
The lot of you, I'm thinking.
But you're hollow, so calm down, I'm thinking to myself. You're no different. Get off your horse, get down here.
The woman, the drunken European, is dry heaving again. Somebody finds her sweater under the car. We put that under head. I get my coat on. She kisses my hands again and again. As much I suppose because I am touching her. Women aren't touched much in this society. That's why the hammam is so popular. Allal throws water in her face. Allal, I'm thinking, you don't have to do that. I get the water out of her eyes, massage her face for a moment.
When is the ambulance coming, I want to know. It's been 20 minutes. It's coming, somebody says. I see a woman 10 yards away. She's veiled, she smiles at me. We're in league. I have one on my side. Then a man come by holding on to a young girl, maybe 6. The man is toothless on one side. He spent 11 years in America. He's telling me these people are hopeless, this is Morocco. "We all hate each other," he tells me. "It's true, we do. There's nothing to do. We're lost."
I keep looking at my watch. I have to get out of the city. I have to be back in Ifrane in 4 hours. I don't have another moment. I make Allal promise he will stay with this woman until the ambulance arrives. I run off, literally, sprinting away all the way to the Farrah.
You're too much like me, I'm thinking. Always, about the money and now I'm in the hell realms of my own obsessions.
We turn on the street where I had parked. Half way down the block we come upon a woman lying on the sidewalk, the top of her right shoulder against a parked car, her head thrown back in the gutter, just behind the front tire. Her left arm is stretched out, resting in a pool of blood. There's a wicked looking cut on her arm. The blood is turning dark in the sun. She looks to be in middle age, dressed in pants and mustard colored Moroccan shoes. There's something European about her. Later, I find out she's Czech.
She's lying outside a bar. A dozen people stand around. This is a poor street, across from the indoor marche on Boulevarde Mohammed V. I ask if somebody has called an ambulance. Heads shake. What about the police? Heads shake.
The woman is alive but breathing with difficulty. A waiter comes out and says she always comes around for a drink but she has no money. He also says she got angry when she couldn't get served, broke a glass and cut herself. She wants to die, he says. Let he be. These are the hell realms of my obsessions and lower self, my anger above all. I grab this man by his shirt, but I'm thinking what I'm doing. I may look out of control, but everything is measured, calculated. Thinking of it now, there was something theatrical underneath. I hold on to his shirt and tell him to call an ambulance. He shruggs his shoulder. I get out my phone and give it to Allal. He calls. I get the woman's head out of the gutter. I stroke her forehead. I'm looking at her upside down. Her eyes flutter. She makes a gasp as though she's going to throw up. I can smell the liquor now.
The blood is beginning to cake. I ask somebody for something to put her head on, a towel, a tablecloth. Shruggs all around. I'm thinking I should take off my coat. I'm thinking of my times with Terence, both of us competing to see who can be the most loving to the loveless. What was that about? I'm remembering the evening outside his election headquarters when I was opening his door, ever the footman, and he tells me instead to go help a man in a wheelchair to get inside his apartment building. I'd seen the man and I was just about to do that, but Terence catches me. This is our game. We're always at this same moment. Were we ever sincere? What are all the games two Irishmen can play with each other?
I take off my coat, fold it, and put it under the woman's head. I bought the coat a few weeks earlier at an outlet in Portland, Maine. It's a Polo, but not expensive. On the other hand, it's the only jacket I have. Everything is considered. But in the end, the coat is there, the woman is resting. She kisses my hand. I stroke her head. She's middle age. Her hair is black but looks dyed. The skin on the left side of her face looks as though it had once been burned. She goes through the dry heaves. She wants water. I ask for water. And then I begin to rant at the people standing around. Move on, I yell at them. Is this prophet's teaching, I yell. She's a drunk someone says, she always does this. So what, I say. We're always doing what we shouldn't do, I'm thinking. Get over it. The woman seems stable. She keeps pointing toward the bar, and in Arabic, insists she was pushed out the door.
Who pushed her, I ask. Heads shake. A few people disappear. I go in the bar. It's black dark. The bartender is the owner. He's the down and out bartender. Cigarette smoking itself in his mouth, sleeves rolled up, a week without a shave. You do this? I ask. He's got a half smile. Over his shoulder there's a patron, with a glass of wine, well to do. You do this? He shakes his head. Who did this? No answer. Are you a practicing muslim?
I ask because after all this is an Islamic country, 99 percent of the people are muslim, according to the interior minister we interviewed last week. Everything is hinged on that in this country. The laws, the monarchy, the whole assumption the country rests on.
I go after him looking for hypocracy. I'm high on self-righteousness. I'm think of Marc Klaas and the male longing in America, not for paradise, but for the moment when you can be angry with authorization. That's all any man wants. Just the stamped authorization to detonate. Could I never have a pure thought, could I never do anything without these filters? Could I never not double think the moment? I cannot. And here I am ranting away, asking them about the prophet. But would the prophet rant and rave?
Actually, he might. So maybe this is my home, after all.
The drama goes on. Act III. I find the security man, the bouncer. He looks like the bartender, only shorter, meaner. The woman on the sidewalk points at him. He's the man that did it. He shakes his head and drags on his cigarette. I tell him he's the insecurity man and if this woman were his mother, sister, wife, whomever... What would he do then? You let her lie in the street, wouldn't you? I say. You would. I know you would. Because you're heartless. Because the truth is, you don't give a damn about anybody.
The lot of you, I'm thinking.
But you're hollow, so calm down, I'm thinking to myself. You're no different. Get off your horse, get down here.
The woman, the drunken European, is dry heaving again. Somebody finds her sweater under the car. We put that under head. I get my coat on. She kisses my hands again and again. As much I suppose because I am touching her. Women aren't touched much in this society. That's why the hammam is so popular. Allal throws water in her face. Allal, I'm thinking, you don't have to do that. I get the water out of her eyes, massage her face for a moment.
When is the ambulance coming, I want to know. It's been 20 minutes. It's coming, somebody says. I see a woman 10 yards away. She's veiled, she smiles at me. We're in league. I have one on my side. Then a man come by holding on to a young girl, maybe 6. The man is toothless on one side. He spent 11 years in America. He's telling me these people are hopeless, this is Morocco. "We all hate each other," he tells me. "It's true, we do. There's nothing to do. We're lost."
I keep looking at my watch. I have to get out of the city. I have to be back in Ifrane in 4 hours. I don't have another moment. I make Allal promise he will stay with this woman until the ambulance arrives. I run off, literally, sprinting away all the way to the Farrah.
Nov 17, 2005
If I were making a film of this city, you would see the decay in time-lapse photography. You would see the buildings shedding paint and plaster. You would see the people's bodies losing hair and skin. The whole city would be dim with debris; everyone moving through it like jinns. And then, at the end, after the man has been executed, and the young girl left to her own devices, sitting blindfolded in a chair in the middle of the forest, her breath visible in the moonlight, sitting there, tied up to her worst fear, the thought of woodsmen and wolves prowling through the night, nameless horrors that she's always known, but also the beautiful memories of this particular part of the forest, when she was with her lover afternoon after afternoon, and now there is nothing. No hope, but clearly she is her own exorcist, and that courage leaves us hope. And then back to the city, and the Hassan II mosque, which would slowly disappear in fast moving clouds of memory and materiel.
Nov 16, 2005
Salafistes
These two women are members of the families whose sons were the suicide bombers that struck Casablanca on May 16, 2003. Fourteen bombers emerged from Siddi Moumen, a poor district in the north part of the city, and killed 35 people as well as themselves. This photo was taken as family members went to court later that year. The photo was taken by Mourad Borja, a journalist and photographer, and director of Agence Internationale de Communication et de Presse.
Garys bad day at Volubilis
At 5:30 a.m. we get up and run down to Meknes. Every bad driver is in Meknes today. It's faith based driving at its worst. The Australians are riled. "What the fuck is this?" they want to know.
"Hey, Neville," M. shouts out the window at some hapless fellow in the next car, "stop steering with your dick. Dickhead."
Most conversations with the outside world start with Nevile, Gary or Kevin and end with dickhead. "Gary, get me 'nother Heiniken," they'll say to the hotel waitor, waving empty bottles. "And try to bring it before midnight. Dickhead."
"Hey Kevin, what's your problem?" one of them says to the police officer who stops us at a roadblock. "What's up? Tell 'im we've kissed the king's royal ass and let us outta here. Dickhead."
And then always the side dialogue.
"But you didn't just kiss it."
"Don't tell 'im that. He might get excited."
"Like you were with me last night."
"Hey topper, I 'ouldn't tell whether that was a pimple or your dick? ... Dickhead."
On and on.
Of all the things they hate in Morocco the three Aussieketeers hate how slow T. drives. T. is 23. He the sweetest, nicest kid you ever saw and if he knew what these people were saying, in general and about him in particular, he would just smile and he would have no response. And of course there is no response. No non aussie has a response.
Part of the reason T. drives slowly is because this is his father's truck. It's an old white Mercedes with a roof rack and blue curtains on all the windows. It's used primarily for transporting vegetables from the small farms around Ifrane to the marche.
T drives also slowly because the tires are as bald as frog heads. In fact, one exploded the other day. Also, the van speed limit is lower than for cars, particularly in city limits. And, of course, the cops are everywhere.
But slow anything drives the As nuts, especially when we get on the new autoroute that runs between Casa and Fez.
"Hey, we just passed a dead person."
"How'd you know that Gary?"
"Sure looked dead. No head right? That usually means dead."
"There was a head."
"I didn't see it."
"It didn't see you either."
"Well, that's because you're a dickhead."
"I don't care, that makes two things we've passed in the last 2 hours."
"Tell Neville to try second gear."
"Hey look, aren't those ducks? Look over there."
"Hey, mate, tell 'im to get in the jet stream of that duck."
Most nights T. sleeps in the truck, because he'd rather have the room money than the hotel room. But sometimes I. makes him sleep in a real room anyway.
Then last night they got caught filming kids in a bad part of town. Kids were sniffing glue and started climbing all over the truck. T. panicked and it was all they could do to get him in the van, start it up, and get out there.
By the way all the kids sniff glue here. All ages. They run around holding it to their noses. It's good actually, someone explained to us. They forget everything, hunger, cold, the facts of life, no home, no families, let them feel free. There are 15,000 homeless kids in Casa. About 10,000 actually have homes and families. The other 5,000 have nothing. Many live in the port, in old containers. And everyone of them has the glue to his face.
"Hey, Neville," M. shouts out the window at some hapless fellow in the next car, "stop steering with your dick. Dickhead."
Most conversations with the outside world start with Nevile, Gary or Kevin and end with dickhead. "Gary, get me 'nother Heiniken," they'll say to the hotel waitor, waving empty bottles. "And try to bring it before midnight. Dickhead."
"Hey Kevin, what's your problem?" one of them says to the police officer who stops us at a roadblock. "What's up? Tell 'im we've kissed the king's royal ass and let us outta here. Dickhead."
And then always the side dialogue.
"But you didn't just kiss it."
"Don't tell 'im that. He might get excited."
"Like you were with me last night."
"Hey topper, I 'ouldn't tell whether that was a pimple or your dick? ... Dickhead."
On and on.
Of all the things they hate in Morocco the three Aussieketeers hate how slow T. drives. T. is 23. He the sweetest, nicest kid you ever saw and if he knew what these people were saying, in general and about him in particular, he would just smile and he would have no response. And of course there is no response. No non aussie has a response.
Part of the reason T. drives slowly is because this is his father's truck. It's an old white Mercedes with a roof rack and blue curtains on all the windows. It's used primarily for transporting vegetables from the small farms around Ifrane to the marche.
T drives also slowly because the tires are as bald as frog heads. In fact, one exploded the other day. Also, the van speed limit is lower than for cars, particularly in city limits. And, of course, the cops are everywhere.
But slow anything drives the As nuts, especially when we get on the new autoroute that runs between Casa and Fez.
"Hey, we just passed a dead person."
"How'd you know that Gary?"
"Sure looked dead. No head right? That usually means dead."
"There was a head."
"I didn't see it."
"It didn't see you either."
"Well, that's because you're a dickhead."
"I don't care, that makes two things we've passed in the last 2 hours."
"Tell Neville to try second gear."
"Hey look, aren't those ducks? Look over there."
"Hey, mate, tell 'im to get in the jet stream of that duck."
Most nights T. sleeps in the truck, because he'd rather have the room money than the hotel room. But sometimes I. makes him sleep in a real room anyway.
Then last night they got caught filming kids in a bad part of town. Kids were sniffing glue and started climbing all over the truck. T. panicked and it was all they could do to get him in the van, start it up, and get out there.
By the way all the kids sniff glue here. All ages. They run around holding it to their noses. It's good actually, someone explained to us. They forget everything, hunger, cold, the facts of life, no home, no families, let them feel free. There are 15,000 homeless kids in Casa. About 10,000 actually have homes and families. The other 5,000 have nothing. Many live in the port, in old containers. And everyone of them has the glue to his face.
Nov 12, 2005
A prison cemetary for victims of Les Annees Noires
Photo courtesy of Mourad Borja, director of Agence Internationale de Communication et de Presse.
Nov 11, 2005
In the Pax cemetary
In Rabat, the cemetary for foreigners is hidden behind a long tall, white wall. The cemetary is called Pax. The word is hardly visible in the arches above the entrance. Today — in the 11th hour of the 11th day in the 11th month — a rememberance service was held to mark the end of World War I. Representatives from a dozen countries stood in a semi-circle around a modest obalesk inside the north gate. Ambassadors or their wives, or in one case, a beautiful young blonde woman from Bulgaria, with the bemused and confident expression of a famous mistress; they all stood in front of the monument and looked respectful or uncertain or uncomfortable, or lost in some interior dialogue. Wreathes were laid. A military band played. Colonels and generals saluted. A horn player lost his breath. Pigeons took off. Someone sneezed.
I drifted away, leaving the Australians to film.
The cemetary must be nearly 100 acres. Here and there, patches of 3 foot tall, white-washed crosses, these are mostly soldiers, in among the more elaborate offerings, in gray and black marble. Most names were French. Many of the inscriptions were from the early 20th Century.
Here and there the tombs are breaking up, split by a palm tree or a bush. In the poorer districts of the cemetary names and dates are broken or covered over.
Finally, I decided to leave and found myself on the main avenue that runs right to the north gate. I noticed five black women, elaborately dressed. They were happy, half dancing. One had a broom. The women stood outside a particularly elegant masoleum, with carefully polished marble, and inside, photos and sayings from none other than Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga. Otherwise known as "The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake". He was the great Congolese leader who renamed his nation Zaire and took on the appearance of a nationalist. He followed the dictator's arc from promise to betrayal. He amassed a $4 billion fortune, the equal of his country's national debt in the 1980s, and pretended to be a nationalist. Which is why no doubt around his tomb there are trees and elaborate flowers and while the Europeans were memorializing the war to end all wars, here were five ladies, half dancing, one with a broom.
I drifted away, leaving the Australians to film.
The cemetary must be nearly 100 acres. Here and there, patches of 3 foot tall, white-washed crosses, these are mostly soldiers, in among the more elaborate offerings, in gray and black marble. Most names were French. Many of the inscriptions were from the early 20th Century.
Here and there the tombs are breaking up, split by a palm tree or a bush. In the poorer districts of the cemetary names and dates are broken or covered over.
Finally, I decided to leave and found myself on the main avenue that runs right to the north gate. I noticed five black women, elaborately dressed. They were happy, half dancing. One had a broom. The women stood outside a particularly elegant masoleum, with carefully polished marble, and inside, photos and sayings from none other than Mobutu Sese Seko Nkuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga. Otherwise known as "The all-powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win, will go from conquest to conquest, leaving fire in his wake". He was the great Congolese leader who renamed his nation Zaire and took on the appearance of a nationalist. He followed the dictator's arc from promise to betrayal. He amassed a $4 billion fortune, the equal of his country's national debt in the 1980s, and pretended to be a nationalist. Which is why no doubt around his tomb there are trees and elaborate flowers and while the Europeans were memorializing the war to end all wars, here were five ladies, half dancing, one with a broom.
Nov 4, 2005
The Nevilles arrive
The three Australians from ABC TV arrived. ABC is equivalent to PBS. Producer, cameraman, and the talent, also known as 'the meat stick.' The program is called Foreign Correspondent. I sold them on a piece about evangelism in Morocco. The first thing they explained to me was that people who are idiots are Nevilles.
Nov 3, 2005
Outside the Ibis
Outside, in front of the hotel, a young man in dirty trousers, veers this way and that through the fog. An older night lady, in black dress and pearls, leans toward the rear view mirror in an old fiat, doing her make-up. Later, she will enter the hotel and sit discreetly, but proactively in the worn red couch in the lobby. No one will come to her. Meanwhile, the guardian makes change under the light of a street lamp. Ramadan has just ended.
Inside, the middle aged woman who is always in the lobby sits on a stool at the bar. She is the 'regular' and wears narrow rectangular glasses. She looks unmistakably French and sits with a man her age. He speaks German and is spread out, from extended leg to bent elbow, like an old Fokker propeller blade. The woman talks and looks at her empty glass. There is no bar tender. And truth be told, there are no spirits. The Absolut bottle and the Gordons bottle stand behind the bar filled with water. All that's left is a half shot of Schmirnoff.
The overhead lights in the dining room flicker. A man by the window holds his shining bald head in his hands. Through the static overhead you can make out “smooth operator.”
On 2M, the pretty newscaster, with long straight hair and uneven teeth, is telling the story of the Moroccan diplomat and his Moroccan chauffeur captured 10 days ago by Zarqawi’s soldiers. The Moroccans have been threatened with death. How can they not meet the same fate as the Egyptian diplomats? The newscaster leads us to a meeting of diplomats discussing the problem and then to the home of the chauffeur’s family. The brother is sitting on a narrow winding staircase, next to what looks like a dead plant. Another brother, blinded by the klieg lights, is talking about how much he misses the hostage.
The public night is winding down. Donna Summer is singing What’s Love Got to Do with It. The gare around the corner is empty. The waiter is taking up the table cloths. The woman at the bar and her partner have finished dinner. She is talking about gliding as her hand turns and banks. The woman at the desk is counting money in an envelope. The night lady reads the paper. The guardian sits on the low wall that runs along the front of the hotel. The veering man has disappeared. A night train will arrive shortly. A few people will get off. A man will get on. I’m sitting in the last of the dining room, making some notes, watching double sticks in stride.
Inside, the middle aged woman who is always in the lobby sits on a stool at the bar. She is the 'regular' and wears narrow rectangular glasses. She looks unmistakably French and sits with a man her age. He speaks German and is spread out, from extended leg to bent elbow, like an old Fokker propeller blade. The woman talks and looks at her empty glass. There is no bar tender. And truth be told, there are no spirits. The Absolut bottle and the Gordons bottle stand behind the bar filled with water. All that's left is a half shot of Schmirnoff.
The overhead lights in the dining room flicker. A man by the window holds his shining bald head in his hands. Through the static overhead you can make out “smooth operator.”
On 2M, the pretty newscaster, with long straight hair and uneven teeth, is telling the story of the Moroccan diplomat and his Moroccan chauffeur captured 10 days ago by Zarqawi’s soldiers. The Moroccans have been threatened with death. How can they not meet the same fate as the Egyptian diplomats? The newscaster leads us to a meeting of diplomats discussing the problem and then to the home of the chauffeur’s family. The brother is sitting on a narrow winding staircase, next to what looks like a dead plant. Another brother, blinded by the klieg lights, is talking about how much he misses the hostage.
The public night is winding down. Donna Summer is singing What’s Love Got to Do with It. The gare around the corner is empty. The waiter is taking up the table cloths. The woman at the bar and her partner have finished dinner. She is talking about gliding as her hand turns and banks. The woman at the desk is counting money in an envelope. The night lady reads the paper. The guardian sits on the low wall that runs along the front of the hotel. The veering man has disappeared. A night train will arrive shortly. A few people will get off. A man will get on. I’m sitting in the last of the dining room, making some notes, watching double sticks in stride.
Oct 29, 2005
Mistaken Impressions
Since I saw you, I have a limp — on the way to gout,
And one toe's gone black, but I wear it to perfection.
Comes in useful now and then, why just the other day,
in the Souissi district of Rabat, across from
Shell and the supermarche, I went to a comemoration,
Of the day Ben Barka was kidnapped and killed.
In Paris, betrayed by his trust in a journalist...
So a snapper shows up. Me, second from the right,
they thought I was one of them, I told them I wasn't, but
they needed another old fella with a limp, to look socialist.
grizzled and worn, from whiskey and dead end nights
dreaming of history's promise and the end of monarchy.
I looked into the camera, into the future, into the curious
eyes of strangers years from now who will think I was there,
that I was part of the action, a relic of more noble times.
And one toe's gone black, but I wear it to perfection.
Comes in useful now and then, why just the other day,
in the Souissi district of Rabat, across from
Shell and the supermarche, I went to a comemoration,
Of the day Ben Barka was kidnapped and killed.
In Paris, betrayed by his trust in a journalist...
So a snapper shows up. Me, second from the right,
they thought I was one of them, I told them I wasn't, but
they needed another old fella with a limp, to look socialist.
grizzled and worn, from whiskey and dead end nights
dreaming of history's promise and the end of monarchy.
I looked into the camera, into the future, into the curious
eyes of strangers years from now who will think I was there,
that I was part of the action, a relic of more noble times.
Oct 19, 2005
Found
Last night Mohammed came to the door in Ifrane, said he had something to show. He'd been down at the marche, saw a creature that looked like Lucy. He got out of his car, opened the door, call out. She got right in.
He drives her home, she slithers in, fleabitten, with her rat-faced grin, and happy somebody finally showed up. "Fuck these legless owners that say they love you. They don't. They just want you to lick 'em." Thanks God dogs always forgive human imbecility. She got a bath, a lot of atta-girl's, and then off to sleep. She's expecting, she's got that round belly. By the way, you see the dad, you tell his ass I got a shot gun and I mean to use it, and he know'd I will, unless he shows up with air freshner in the Silverado and that bed clean so's I can eat off it, and that ain't all: when the weddin's done I wanna hear those Coors cans rattlin' across the innerstate — for his fuckin' sake he better have ridin' off into the sunset with my little girl the only thing in his limp dick of a brain and yea, you tell his fuckin' ass I hope to God he got plans for how he's gonna get a job at Pep Boys and maybe he'll have to do midnight shift at Tiny diner. Jesus won't save 'im if he don't. I don't give a shit. But I do know'd they could probably get one of those li'l rooms with industrial carpet and cable TV over the Allstate office.
He drives her home, she slithers in, fleabitten, with her rat-faced grin, and happy somebody finally showed up. "Fuck these legless owners that say they love you. They don't. They just want you to lick 'em." Thanks God dogs always forgive human imbecility. She got a bath, a lot of atta-girl's, and then off to sleep. She's expecting, she's got that round belly. By the way, you see the dad, you tell his ass I got a shot gun and I mean to use it, and he know'd I will, unless he shows up with air freshner in the Silverado and that bed clean so's I can eat off it, and that ain't all: when the weddin's done I wanna hear those Coors cans rattlin' across the innerstate — for his fuckin' sake he better have ridin' off into the sunset with my little girl the only thing in his limp dick of a brain and yea, you tell his fuckin' ass I hope to God he got plans for how he's gonna get a job at Pep Boys and maybe he'll have to do midnight shift at Tiny diner. Jesus won't save 'im if he don't. I don't give a shit. But I do know'd they could probably get one of those li'l rooms with industrial carpet and cable TV over the Allstate office.
Oct 18, 2005
Split Screens
On campus, in the bobcat den, the TV is always tuned to Fox News. I had forgotten this part about America. The anchor is a lady with a cinderblock-shaped head; eyes not on a line; with that definitive shade of blonde hair which doesn't suggest a prototype so much as a new ethnic group.
She's serious, but a little wall-eyed. I keep thinking of Y. and how his classmates would tease him. "Don't look at me," one would say. "No, he's not looking at you, he's looking at me," another would answer.
The TV screen is split. On one side, a bridge built in 1823 in Taunton, Mass is about to burst. We're watching from a helicopter. The governor is on the phone. All the people living below the dam have been evacuated. But all is not safe because there is a second dam above the first and if the second goes, the first might be undermined and then it wouldn't be 6 feet of water rolling though a small Mass town, but 10 feet and maybe with that there would be at least one person drowned. Worst case, no one is drowned.
As time passes, it's as though we're being denied this small calamity. We need the visual caffein to go on. The jarheaded woman asks the governor endless questions, over and over. But the bridge will not go down on cue. The governor has to go back to work.
On the other side of the screen a reporter in Islamabad speculates on whether Osama Bin Laden might have been killed in the recent earthquake. He might have been, we don't know, but many people were killed in an area he was known to frequent years ago. Anything is possible in the war on terror.
So we have news of Osama Bin Laden and a failing bridge. Odds are one of them will give. Then, underneath, on the ribbon, an attorney's wife murdered in California; a new storm in the Carribbean is now a hurricane;and the Plamegate scandal is reaching beyond Rove, to Cheney.
The longer you look at her the more you realize the anchor has been trained or cloned, or her face drooped to reflect the stress of ongoing calamity, and as we watch her we know the only way we'll ever see her smile is if that bridge is swept away.
I go away for a few hours and return after lunch. The bridge hasn't collapsed. But now there's footage of people dragging a large man out of a small burning car. The murder in California is still unsolved. The Baltimore tunnel was closed because of a terror threat. A Seahawk corner has a fractured skull. The death toll in Pakistan is up to 50,000 people. The anchor is skaking her head. She repeats the governor's view that he does not expect looting if the bridge goes in Taunton. We see hear his say again that the mayor of Taunton has been on top of this from the beginning. But if both dams go, it could be serious. He admits that. And there are 750 other private dam in Mass, all built in the 19th Century and any of those could go. Trucks could be overturned; backyards decimated; tree limbs cut off; parking lots obliterated; basements filled.
That's not all. An endless loop plays of NYPD men, in full military regalia, M-16s drawn, moving through New York subways. There's a new threat, which piggybacked on top of the terror threat in Baltimore. And then here's Ms. Meier and it turns out she voted to stop all abortions except if the life of the mother is endangered.
Think of that! What that could mean. The beauty of Fox news is that it does what Dave Burgin always says it should. There should be something on every page that appeals to somebody. If you don't get turned on by the thought of a bursting dam what about if Roe v Wade is overturned. How about that? Then you'd have something to wail about. You get your fear wherever you can, but you get it.
And still the dam won't burst. You want to kick that dam, you want to see something disasaterous. Just in time we see, for second time in 60 seconds the big men being pulled violently out of the small burning car.
She's serious, but a little wall-eyed. I keep thinking of Y. and how his classmates would tease him. "Don't look at me," one would say. "No, he's not looking at you, he's looking at me," another would answer.
The TV screen is split. On one side, a bridge built in 1823 in Taunton, Mass is about to burst. We're watching from a helicopter. The governor is on the phone. All the people living below the dam have been evacuated. But all is not safe because there is a second dam above the first and if the second goes, the first might be undermined and then it wouldn't be 6 feet of water rolling though a small Mass town, but 10 feet and maybe with that there would be at least one person drowned. Worst case, no one is drowned.
As time passes, it's as though we're being denied this small calamity. We need the visual caffein to go on. The jarheaded woman asks the governor endless questions, over and over. But the bridge will not go down on cue. The governor has to go back to work.
On the other side of the screen a reporter in Islamabad speculates on whether Osama Bin Laden might have been killed in the recent earthquake. He might have been, we don't know, but many people were killed in an area he was known to frequent years ago. Anything is possible in the war on terror.
So we have news of Osama Bin Laden and a failing bridge. Odds are one of them will give. Then, underneath, on the ribbon, an attorney's wife murdered in California; a new storm in the Carribbean is now a hurricane;and the Plamegate scandal is reaching beyond Rove, to Cheney.
The longer you look at her the more you realize the anchor has been trained or cloned, or her face drooped to reflect the stress of ongoing calamity, and as we watch her we know the only way we'll ever see her smile is if that bridge is swept away.
I go away for a few hours and return after lunch. The bridge hasn't collapsed. But now there's footage of people dragging a large man out of a small burning car. The murder in California is still unsolved. The Baltimore tunnel was closed because of a terror threat. A Seahawk corner has a fractured skull. The death toll in Pakistan is up to 50,000 people. The anchor is skaking her head. She repeats the governor's view that he does not expect looting if the bridge goes in Taunton. We see hear his say again that the mayor of Taunton has been on top of this from the beginning. But if both dams go, it could be serious. He admits that. And there are 750 other private dam in Mass, all built in the 19th Century and any of those could go. Trucks could be overturned; backyards decimated; tree limbs cut off; parking lots obliterated; basements filled.
That's not all. An endless loop plays of NYPD men, in full military regalia, M-16s drawn, moving through New York subways. There's a new threat, which piggybacked on top of the terror threat in Baltimore. And then here's Ms. Meier and it turns out she voted to stop all abortions except if the life of the mother is endangered.
Think of that! What that could mean. The beauty of Fox news is that it does what Dave Burgin always says it should. There should be something on every page that appeals to somebody. If you don't get turned on by the thought of a bursting dam what about if Roe v Wade is overturned. How about that? Then you'd have something to wail about. You get your fear wherever you can, but you get it.
And still the dam won't burst. You want to kick that dam, you want to see something disasaterous. Just in time we see, for second time in 60 seconds the big men being pulled violently out of the small burning car.
Oct 17, 2005
Oct 16, 2005
In the Maine
Lewiston-Auburn, LA, on Sunday: cold, gray, and leaves, the color of good mustard. I pass red lollypop daycare, the fourth degree wives club at the Knights of Columbus and a man outside the St. Marguerite d'Youville paviliion and emergency room, waiting, holding on to his cigarette for dear life. "Hello," is all he can muster. Then a paroxym of coughing.
Dylan and I go to The Slamma, restaurant and catering. Brochure says they deliver: "Driver tipping is appreciated (No tipping over the driver)." The building is painted in Zebra colors and patterns. Customers are dreary-eyed women, nuzzling coffee; men bent over, in the shadows of baseball caps, key chains on their belt loops.
At night, when down every street, in every window, in every darkened room TV screens are lit... at night, and not just on weekend nights, old ladies come in the Slamma, ladies beyond 65. Old ladies without their teeth and they don't care. They're often drunk. You gotta be living here. One of them, a Molly from out on East Street, wanders among the tables talking to the boys from college. "Anya you boys need a blow job?" she wants to know, her eyes going round and round, back and forth like coocoo birds on a clock. "No thanks," the boys say. But then one of them has a second thought. 'Hey, wait a minute. Check that." He's on his mobile to buds. They gotta come down and see this for real. "Any chance of a special on today?" he adds. "I might know somebody..... "
This Molly won't take American Express but she will take humiliation. Any word her way is credit.
The most fun you can ever have in Lewiston is to dream about fucking and drinking. But if you ever actually get to fuck or drink, the fun is already over.
We sit down in the Slamma. Chair upholstery's ripped. I get the Heart Attack Special ("if the food don't kill ya, the price will"). The price is $7.95. Dylan orders the Loaded Bull. Big fat-baby waitress rumbles by. "Hey, customer musta gone to restaurant and tipping school," she says to no one in particular, counting up pennies and dimes in her palm.
"Yea," says another waitress. "But did you tell 'em they gotta do it over and over and over?"
We look at the local paper, in the Sports section. Dylan scored two touchdowns, made a big time clutch catch, caught punts, had more yards than anyone on his team and played both ways. But he doesn't get a mention.
I'm thinking I'd forgotten America, the Sunday paper, fat waitresses, and the rigid, poor world of New England.
We go to the mall. I get a hair cut at Regis'. Blond fake marble, book shelves full of purple and gold shampoo bottles. Girl in long blonde hair tells me I'm hers. She doesn't look happy about it. You wanna take off that pullover, she says. I do, but when it's over my head, while in the blind, I hit one of the other hairdressers standing nearby.
"You like to hit women," the blonde says. "It's okay, I understand."
I laugh, she doesn't. It's not really a joke3. She gives me a shampoo. Her long blonde hair coming down like a tent, and I look up at her face but I can't see her in the dark of her tent. I tell her I would like her to go on for hours. She tells me that in beauty school she learned that she can look at someone's face and see people's masculine and feminine sides. Their shemaleness. She points out that my left eyebrow arches. And there is more gray on that side than the other.
She finishes, towels my head and gets me in the swivel chair. She goes back to her conversation with another dresser. "You gotta leave 'em sometimes otherwise smack 'em upside the head?" says the one I hit. She's got dark red hair, greased up and around, punked out, but her forehead is under big Betty Boop curls.
"Yea, I leave my man whenever I can," says the one I'm with.
Curls bends over to tell me, "I left mine four months ago."
"I bet that got his attention," I say.
"Now he wants to marry me. You think I should?"
"Why not."
"Yea, but I like the attention he gives me now. If I do it, he'll go back to what he is now."
"And that ain't good," says mine.
"No, it ain't good, but I got a kid."
"So," says mine. "You gotta kid. Everybody's got a kid." And then mine leans down and says, real slow, "actually... actually, he's a hell of a good man, a hell of a good father, and there' aren't a lot of those around these days."
"He's a good man. I guess I'll marry him. What else am I doing this weekend."
"You could," mine says. "Hey, we'll have a big party and then you can get divorced next weekend and we'll have another big party, and that's two weekends we won't have to worry about. Hey, I have an old dirty bottle of wine out in the garage...."
Dylan and I go to The Slamma, restaurant and catering. Brochure says they deliver: "Driver tipping is appreciated (No tipping over the driver)." The building is painted in Zebra colors and patterns. Customers are dreary-eyed women, nuzzling coffee; men bent over, in the shadows of baseball caps, key chains on their belt loops.
At night, when down every street, in every window, in every darkened room TV screens are lit... at night, and not just on weekend nights, old ladies come in the Slamma, ladies beyond 65. Old ladies without their teeth and they don't care. They're often drunk. You gotta be living here. One of them, a Molly from out on East Street, wanders among the tables talking to the boys from college. "Anya you boys need a blow job?" she wants to know, her eyes going round and round, back and forth like coocoo birds on a clock. "No thanks," the boys say. But then one of them has a second thought. 'Hey, wait a minute. Check that." He's on his mobile to buds. They gotta come down and see this for real. "Any chance of a special on today?" he adds. "I might know somebody..... "
This Molly won't take American Express but she will take humiliation. Any word her way is credit.
The most fun you can ever have in Lewiston is to dream about fucking and drinking. But if you ever actually get to fuck or drink, the fun is already over.
We sit down in the Slamma. Chair upholstery's ripped. I get the Heart Attack Special ("if the food don't kill ya, the price will"). The price is $7.95. Dylan orders the Loaded Bull. Big fat-baby waitress rumbles by. "Hey, customer musta gone to restaurant and tipping school," she says to no one in particular, counting up pennies and dimes in her palm.
"Yea," says another waitress. "But did you tell 'em they gotta do it over and over and over?"
We look at the local paper, in the Sports section. Dylan scored two touchdowns, made a big time clutch catch, caught punts, had more yards than anyone on his team and played both ways. But he doesn't get a mention.
I'm thinking I'd forgotten America, the Sunday paper, fat waitresses, and the rigid, poor world of New England.
We go to the mall. I get a hair cut at Regis'. Blond fake marble, book shelves full of purple and gold shampoo bottles. Girl in long blonde hair tells me I'm hers. She doesn't look happy about it. You wanna take off that pullover, she says. I do, but when it's over my head, while in the blind, I hit one of the other hairdressers standing nearby.
"You like to hit women," the blonde says. "It's okay, I understand."
I laugh, she doesn't. It's not really a joke3. She gives me a shampoo. Her long blonde hair coming down like a tent, and I look up at her face but I can't see her in the dark of her tent. I tell her I would like her to go on for hours. She tells me that in beauty school she learned that she can look at someone's face and see people's masculine and feminine sides. Their shemaleness. She points out that my left eyebrow arches. And there is more gray on that side than the other.
She finishes, towels my head and gets me in the swivel chair. She goes back to her conversation with another dresser. "You gotta leave 'em sometimes otherwise smack 'em upside the head?" says the one I hit. She's got dark red hair, greased up and around, punked out, but her forehead is under big Betty Boop curls.
"Yea, I leave my man whenever I can," says the one I'm with.
Curls bends over to tell me, "I left mine four months ago."
"I bet that got his attention," I say.
"Now he wants to marry me. You think I should?"
"Why not."
"Yea, but I like the attention he gives me now. If I do it, he'll go back to what he is now."
"And that ain't good," says mine.
"No, it ain't good, but I got a kid."
"So," says mine. "You gotta kid. Everybody's got a kid." And then mine leans down and says, real slow, "actually... actually, he's a hell of a good man, a hell of a good father, and there' aren't a lot of those around these days."
"He's a good man. I guess I'll marry him. What else am I doing this weekend."
"You could," mine says. "Hey, we'll have a big party and then you can get divorced next weekend and we'll have another big party, and that's two weekends we won't have to worry about. Hey, I have an old dirty bottle of wine out in the garage...."
Oct 15, 2005
The American Way
1 p.m. Game time in Hartford. The game is supposed to be played at Weslyan College but the fields there are flooded, so the game is played at the closest NESCAC school, Trinity College. They have a big time field, artificial grass, cathedral overhead, and room for 11,000 fans. But Trinity is away this weekend and nobody cares about two 0-3 teams. A few hundred appear, parents, friends, and a man with a bible.
In fact, it's a great game. Bates gets an early chance, squanders it. Weslyan gets an early chance and scores and then scores again. In a flash they're up 13 points. People on the Bates sideline are saying, "here we go again." They look like winless people, like Bill Murrays in Groundhog Day. Some of them have driven a long way, from Maine, from western Mass. They're bundled up although it's not cold. Bundled up because each week they come hoping to go home feeling good about themselves, but they never do. They shake their heads, they shrug shoulders, they smile ironically. Of course, football doesn't matter. But you like to see your boy win once in a while, you like to feel some pride in Bates College and yourself. And these aren't people who would like the idea that the college AD is a lesbo, reputedly, in the jock shop, she is. They weren't happy to hear the college president say she doesn't think sports matter much at all. At $42,000 a year they want their piece of respect. After all, they're Bruschis, and if he can come back after a heart attack, by God Bates can too.
Double stix is having a slow day. A couple balls come his way. He gets 11 yards on a punt return. Bla,bla,bla... But then on second down, pass play, Dylan streaks, ball's in the air, defense screaming 'ball, ball, ball". But you think, no way that kid's gonna catch up with that ball, no fuckin' way, but the ball has arc and this kid can close on a ball. The corner is beaten, even though Dylan stumbled out of the gate, and now, as though he were catching a cake, Dylan puts up his palms and takes the offering as though from God... But the kicker misses the extra point.
Half time. Girl's lacrosse on the other side of the bleechers. Girls in blue miniskirts with white trim against girls in red teashirts. EA lot short white legs, everybody whacking balls, running every which way, bent over in an awkward way, like if you had a hockey stick that was too short and had hardly a tail.
Overhead, the clouds are threatening. Teams return. Bates gets a score; Weslyan gets a score. Bates is behind late in the game, but they're moving. Third and long. Dylan runs an out and pops up like a tree growing in fast motion and catches the first down. Incredible catch, the catch of the day. A minute and a half remaining. Bates is within striking distance. Ball goes up again, like a mortar shell. Aiming for the near right corner of the end zone. Dylan streaking, and on this surface you can't hear anything, no pounding, as though it's a silent reel. He closes easily, goes up, corner goes up, both reaching and Dylan takes it down. Bates up by 7. The game seems won. But D 3 gods are a merciless lot. With no time, Weslyan scores, ties. OT.
Another travail. On the last play, Dylan, who has been playing both ways, misses a scrambling Q, but Q throws a bad ball. Game done. People in the stands can breathe again, feel good for about 25 minutes, maybe the whole drive home. D gets offensive MVP.
Oct 14, 2005
Rank
Bates College. The alternative school in NESCAC. Recently rated 21st liberal arts college in the country. Out of 217 colleges. In the state with the most fat people in the nation, after Arkansas. In a city as poor as it is gray. According to Playboy, Bates has the second ugliest coeds in the nation after Bowdoin. But academically, among the "hidden ivies", 11th in overall academic excellence; 8th in customer satisfaction; 9th in "food". 1700 students. One of the 60 "coolest" colleges in America. Tops in the study of economics. Twenty-second among colleges whose graduates enroll in the Peace Corps.
It is both relief and ridiculous.
And very serious. "Let's talk about probability theory in Star Wars," says one nerd to the other late one night in the library. "Sure, yea, good idea. I've been thinking about that all day," says the other. And for the next 45 minutes, until the lights go out to mark closing, they go on, roll playing, using calculators to examine statistical probabilities if this army beat that army....
"I'm really fascinated by household income trends between 1945 and 1949," says one girl to another. "It's so neat."
The library is full every night. Under the desk lamps students peer into their books. Nobody is looking up to see what others are doing.
Still, Ladd library is paradise. I look at how full and rich it is. And you wonder, how can they have such a library for only 1700 students? And if this is the 21st best college, what is it like at the cream of the cream these days? Too, Bates is poor, the poorest among the NESCAC colleges, compared to Williams College, for example. Compared to Andover Academy, with a $750 million endowment. A prep school with that endowment. Bates has perhaps $200 million. Harvard has $40 billion. And that library, those Harvard libaries, are true palaces.
Al Ak holds 60,000 volumes in its library. Bates has that many in its offsite location. And ten times that many in its main library. The Ladd library, which opened in 1972, is full — 600,000 volumes. It cannot hold any more. And there are no Danielle Steele volumes in the stacks. No paperback writers or dime mysteries.
You see this library and you think now if Al Ak is the finest school in Morocco, which it may or may not be, with the finest university library in Africa, so the president once said, and if it has all these financial resources, from the government, from big Moroccan corporations, then how can it be so poorly staffed, how can it have such a petite biblioteque? Does the king know? How can this be the pride of Morocco?
But what else is Bates college? Birkenstocks. The children of rich liberals who want their children to have good food and feel good about themselves. Students are called Batsies. Girls are not like at Al Ak. Not sexy, nor provacative, not snobbish. Not social. Not cutsies. No talking is the motto to mind at Bates. "We are studying" is the message and Do not disturb.
I don't disparage it. It's what makes America great.
Bujt the king should be told: you need to shoot higher, demand more, reject such modest ambitions.
It is both relief and ridiculous.
And very serious. "Let's talk about probability theory in Star Wars," says one nerd to the other late one night in the library. "Sure, yea, good idea. I've been thinking about that all day," says the other. And for the next 45 minutes, until the lights go out to mark closing, they go on, roll playing, using calculators to examine statistical probabilities if this army beat that army....
"I'm really fascinated by household income trends between 1945 and 1949," says one girl to another. "It's so neat."
The library is full every night. Under the desk lamps students peer into their books. Nobody is looking up to see what others are doing.
Still, Ladd library is paradise. I look at how full and rich it is. And you wonder, how can they have such a library for only 1700 students? And if this is the 21st best college, what is it like at the cream of the cream these days? Too, Bates is poor, the poorest among the NESCAC colleges, compared to Williams College, for example. Compared to Andover Academy, with a $750 million endowment. A prep school with that endowment. Bates has perhaps $200 million. Harvard has $40 billion. And that library, those Harvard libaries, are true palaces.
Al Ak holds 60,000 volumes in its library. Bates has that many in its offsite location. And ten times that many in its main library. The Ladd library, which opened in 1972, is full — 600,000 volumes. It cannot hold any more. And there are no Danielle Steele volumes in the stacks. No paperback writers or dime mysteries.
You see this library and you think now if Al Ak is the finest school in Morocco, which it may or may not be, with the finest university library in Africa, so the president once said, and if it has all these financial resources, from the government, from big Moroccan corporations, then how can it be so poorly staffed, how can it have such a petite biblioteque? Does the king know? How can this be the pride of Morocco?
But what else is Bates college? Birkenstocks. The children of rich liberals who want their children to have good food and feel good about themselves. Students are called Batsies. Girls are not like at Al Ak. Not sexy, nor provacative, not snobbish. Not social. Not cutsies. No talking is the motto to mind at Bates. "We are studying" is the message and Do not disturb.
I don't disparage it. It's what makes America great.
Bujt the king should be told: you need to shoot higher, demand more, reject such modest ambitions.
Oct 13, 2005
But where is she now?
The train wriggled out of Gare Voyageur, just after 5 a.m., at worm speed, passing, on bicycle, a figure, underneath a faint bulb light above the street. The being stopped, dismounted. A mukaddim perhaps, suspicious, perhaps noticing a nuance amiss... Forty minutes later, the enigma of arriving at Mohammed V, terminus and sound stage, the cleaning crew warming up, buckets brimming with water, security adjusting their caps, straightening belts, memorializing old vanities of the previous etat. And then the plane stumbled off, wings slow, like an old egret.
Wriggled and stumbled out of there. But was I ever there? A recent reincarnation according to roma mediums, I’m thinking while we get out over the sea, out of sight, out of mind, cleaning my hands of that place and reading with delight a purely Moroccan contemplation: was Hassan II, his son, and Driss Basri, among others, were they all Masons as well? All “fils de la lumiere?”
You don’t know nothin’, I’m always told. You don’t know nothin’ about this country.
True enough. But what would it mean if Hassan II was a mason, if he was part of an organization begun in England that includes Bill Clinton, Winston Churchill, and the Duc d’Edimbourg? If the king was part of the ultimate good ole’ boy network, the real trilateral commission and Morocco is far more of a colony than anyone will ever realize....
Morocco is an Islamic country, I'm always told, but really it is not, it is just conservative....
Bird lands in what seems like an open air factory. Like female plumbing. All white and tubes. Doors open, vehicles go in. Carriages ride and fall. Floor jiggles.... Everywhere equipment. Meanwhile, on the concourse, liqueurs and the uplifted breast on every cover, on the magazine wrack, the sheer amount of milk and skin. Europe, the mammary.
Which reminds me that Lucy is now somewhere in motherhood. But where is she exactly?
I stroll down the concourse. A girl's hand on a man’s ass, casually, not secretly. “I don’t care," the hand says to me. "I’m not even conscious of who I am or what I do and I don't care what your hang-up is”.
Unconsciousness, I’m not use to that. A sinister man with a half open eye passes me....
Yesterday, I'm sitting with four women on the train. They are students at the university, we are at the end of the day, pfitur on the train, while they watch a Moroccan comic on a laptop. They are so polite and perfect and friendly... and reserved, and formal, and innocent, yet so worldly. Now I carry the memory of their grace wherever I go.
Conscious v unconscious.
On the plane from Paris I sit next a woman my age, Jewish, she tells me, but her voice and manner have long since made the point. When I first see her, she’s talking to herself. She’s saying, looking at someone hovering near her seat: Don’t even think about taking that seat.... She’s in jeans. She sits young, like a guy, legs spread, but wide she might give birth. Her business card says she imports coffee beans from Panama. She’s says she's returning from Lisbon, a trip to settle an estate with her long dead husband — to whom she was married, for 7 unhappy years, years ago. She’s a foodie, she tells me about the miracle of Argon oil, which you can only find in Morocco. And all the while she reads Paris Match like an art designer, drawing the magazine up to her face, turning it 90 degrees one way, then the other way, upside down. Mumbling something all the while. An art designer of some kind? I ask. No, she’s a dental hygenist. She tells me about toothpaste and water pics, sonic toothbrushes and how to care for your teeth in a fang’s world.
We’re almost to Boston. The plane drops through miles of deep white. We’re going to crash, I assume. Finally, Harvard below. But nothing seems strange or exiting. I feel nothing.
Wriggled and stumbled out of there. But was I ever there? A recent reincarnation according to roma mediums, I’m thinking while we get out over the sea, out of sight, out of mind, cleaning my hands of that place and reading with delight a purely Moroccan contemplation: was Hassan II, his son, and Driss Basri, among others, were they all Masons as well? All “fils de la lumiere?”
You don’t know nothin’, I’m always told. You don’t know nothin’ about this country.
True enough. But what would it mean if Hassan II was a mason, if he was part of an organization begun in England that includes Bill Clinton, Winston Churchill, and the Duc d’Edimbourg? If the king was part of the ultimate good ole’ boy network, the real trilateral commission and Morocco is far more of a colony than anyone will ever realize....
Morocco is an Islamic country, I'm always told, but really it is not, it is just conservative....
Bird lands in what seems like an open air factory. Like female plumbing. All white and tubes. Doors open, vehicles go in. Carriages ride and fall. Floor jiggles.... Everywhere equipment. Meanwhile, on the concourse, liqueurs and the uplifted breast on every cover, on the magazine wrack, the sheer amount of milk and skin. Europe, the mammary.
Which reminds me that Lucy is now somewhere in motherhood. But where is she exactly?
I stroll down the concourse. A girl's hand on a man’s ass, casually, not secretly. “I don’t care," the hand says to me. "I’m not even conscious of who I am or what I do and I don't care what your hang-up is”.
Unconsciousness, I’m not use to that. A sinister man with a half open eye passes me....
Yesterday, I'm sitting with four women on the train. They are students at the university, we are at the end of the day, pfitur on the train, while they watch a Moroccan comic on a laptop. They are so polite and perfect and friendly... and reserved, and formal, and innocent, yet so worldly. Now I carry the memory of their grace wherever I go.
Conscious v unconscious.
On the plane from Paris I sit next a woman my age, Jewish, she tells me, but her voice and manner have long since made the point. When I first see her, she’s talking to herself. She’s saying, looking at someone hovering near her seat: Don’t even think about taking that seat.... She’s in jeans. She sits young, like a guy, legs spread, but wide she might give birth. Her business card says she imports coffee beans from Panama. She’s says she's returning from Lisbon, a trip to settle an estate with her long dead husband — to whom she was married, for 7 unhappy years, years ago. She’s a foodie, she tells me about the miracle of Argon oil, which you can only find in Morocco. And all the while she reads Paris Match like an art designer, drawing the magazine up to her face, turning it 90 degrees one way, then the other way, upside down. Mumbling something all the while. An art designer of some kind? I ask. No, she’s a dental hygenist. She tells me about toothpaste and water pics, sonic toothbrushes and how to care for your teeth in a fang’s world.
We’re almost to Boston. The plane drops through miles of deep white. We’re going to crash, I assume. Finally, Harvard below. But nothing seems strange or exiting. I feel nothing.
Oct 10, 2005
First White
Storm came out of nowhere, thunder and light, mothball sized hail, now the whole place is white and cold. In a few minutes summer was put away like linen thrown in the hamper.
Meanwhile, notes from underground... An economics professor, a foreigner, suggested to her peers that micro loans might be feasible for the peasants making carpets at Tarmalat. One reply, "Why do you foreigners want to come in and help those prostitutes?"
Look under any hood and it always looks filthy.
The royal family owns ONA. The king, leader of the believers, owns dope land in the Rif, hotels in Europe that contain casinos and reputedly prostitutes, and all the most profitable companies in the land. The airline, the phosphate, banks and agriculture...
We don't treat each other well.
AM told me the other day that the tourist-truth is that this country has a very low return rate for tourists. They come here once and don't return.
Amidst the gloom there is this great beauty and nobility. Like sharp eyes and a long neck. The look of true strength and vigilence.
Meanwhile, notes from underground... An economics professor, a foreigner, suggested to her peers that micro loans might be feasible for the peasants making carpets at Tarmalat. One reply, "Why do you foreigners want to come in and help those prostitutes?"
Look under any hood and it always looks filthy.
The royal family owns ONA. The king, leader of the believers, owns dope land in the Rif, hotels in Europe that contain casinos and reputedly prostitutes, and all the most profitable companies in the land. The airline, the phosphate, banks and agriculture...
We don't treat each other well.
AM told me the other day that the tourist-truth is that this country has a very low return rate for tourists. They come here once and don't return.
Amidst the gloom there is this great beauty and nobility. Like sharp eyes and a long neck. The look of true strength and vigilence.
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