I've begun self-catering, which provides a much needed break from tagines and fills my pockets with some extra dough. I got a pair of babouches the other day--traditional leather shoes. They're yellow and a little too small for my feet, but they're supposed to be worn with the back of the shoe bent under your heel, so they fit fine. I also went to a nearby hammam, public bath, with some other travellers a few days back. It is cold up here in the mountains, and after coming out of the hammam my core temperature must have risen a few degrees, and I was warm for nearly the remainder of the night. I think it was that same night I attempted to play the card game Mao (from Reed and Hyde Park, where you don't tell anybody the rules, they just have to figure them out as you keep making up new ones) and met with just less than mild success. Haven't played since.

I took a rare excursion from working on the writing and the translating to hike up to the destroyed Spanish mosque about 20 or 30 mintutes out of the medina with a Quebecoise girl named Laurence. She's been travelling for I think half a year and welcomed by fortunate circumstances at nearly every turn; the world is conspiring with her as it is wont to do with people up to the bobbing and thrashing and occasional inhaling of water of going with the flow. From the mosque tower expansive view of the rolling hills and mountains dotted with villages and dappled with sunlight breaking through cloudbeds as if pointing to hidden treasures, wind watering the eyes, and a connection with a human. Then back to my hovel to pound out Whitman and move words from notebooks to other notebooks, books to notebooks, mp3 players to notebooks. Notebook notebook sore back bending over notebook notebook eyes failing notebook.

Next day Farid's wife offered me heroin. I said no thanks and told Farid and he got upset at her and told me how giving someone heroin is like shooting them, only they die little by little instead of all at once. I noticed how thin his face was, how much skin he had, points of sincerity coming out of his contracted pupils. I went and got some Amlou, which is almond butter with argan oil--the closest thing to peanut butter I could get. A few days later I mixed it with nutella and now I'm a golden being of transdimensional properties.

Laurence got to meet Farid before she left, which was good to have someone who I thought would get the situation and his idiosyncracies just be able to witness it, him. I am still waiting for Farid to reimburse me. Bea told me he has a slip of paper laying around the house that says he has to pay 600 dirham or go to jail which he may or may not be planning to show me when he sees I'm not lending him anymore money. What a weird tangle they are and we are. I'm disappointed in Farid's supposed plot, but I shouldn't expect much else. It doesn't mean we can't be buddies (I hate that word, but friends wouldn't do) if he doesn't get pissy when I don't give him anything. It's been on my mind.

Other things I've done this week:

Hanging out with the Ahmed, Mohammed, and Abdulmalik at the restaurant and waiting on Farid. Ahmed is the owner, Mohammed the waiter, and Abdulmalik the large joyously retarded uncle of Ahmed. They told me they took me for 25-28, which came as a pleasant surprise following years of my face looking younger than its years.

Reading Ulysses and my thesis adviser's The Logic of Culture while pilfering unscrupulously from each and more. I've been more concerned with moving ideas than incorporating them, working in preparation for that work and wondering whether preparing is the thing to do.

Playing with the Tao and putting it down--picking up, out, and apart. Trying to loosen my grip on the rudder and life vest while clutching ever more firmly to soaking and dissolving pages of books I can barely read anymore, my eyes blurring strained splashed blinking.

I'm in Morocco working on writing, translating poetry, meeting people. Surviving ain't that hard.

Yeehaw.


Also, Happy Birthday Baloo! I love you times a million.

What My Parents Probably Shouldn't Read About What I've Learned About Pain, Ideation, And Paying Attention This Week

As violent a gesture the call to prayer may be, I'm beginning to enjoy it as a reminder of the wonder of being, as a catalyst to reflect on this more frequently (5 times a day the call to prayer is sounded out from PA systems mounted onto the mosque towers where the call was once called from human vocal cords).

I was eating one night and a guy named Abdelmajid came and sat next to me. He said something about us being brothers, as opposed to the people outside of this little dining room in which we were seated, and so he could talk frankly with me. And did he talk. He gestured wildly in his speech; his voice, its pitch, volume, and origin within his body, modulated just as forcefully. The light on him and the shadow projected onto the wall, a wall covered in a pattern in which I cannot help but see a row of mexican wrestlers or ninjas, by the single candle threw me into a mild revery; it was as if these monologues for which I have been playing audience with some bizarre frequency have been saturated with godliness or something of the sort. Like when I was in Rome, the world is playing itself out and I am watching as it plays me out. I am understanding more what Daniel was talking about in Paris, how unreal everything seems when you understand everything is being and coming into its right place.


There is one hash peddler who has taken a strong dislike to me and comes off threateningly. Gives me the creeps, this guy. I've made friends with some locals, though, plus my tourist status is a deterrent, so I'm just staying out of his way, and he should be staying out of mine. One of the "friends" started out by conning me out of an embarrassing but not unliveable amount of money. He said his kid was sick, I gave him a little money. He came back for more, I said I want to see the kid. He was sweating from what I took to be worry for the kid. He came out of his house with the child wrapped in a blanket, actually looking like he could be sick, so I gave him some more money which he promised to pay back the next day. Next day came and he asked for more money for his wife to buy a phone card to call her parents in Spain to wire them money. No money. At this point, I considered the loss a loss. I talked with his wife who knew nothing about this con, she brought me to their house, he was caught. Only thing is he didn't have the money anymore, so I played hardass, saying I don't want problems, but I'll deal with them if I've got problems. He's paying me back over time now, which means I spend a lot of time with him waiting for him to give me more of my money back and running around with him to collect from people who owe or will lend him money. Again, weirdly enough, I've begun to enjoy running around with him, he is a good guy in some respects, and he is more of a person with me than I would have expected. Also, when he's around, he'll shoo away any hash dealers or scroungers easily where I would have a difficult time--not because I don't say no and mean it, but because they are more persistent here than in the other towns I've visited. Farid is his name. I've talked to his twice with boogers hanging a quarter out of my nose and he tells me with what seems to me a compulsion for cleanliness or seriousness or the appearance of such. It could also be read as a friendly or protective gesture, but I wouldn't assume him to be conscious of it. Still, I'm on my toes.

I'm realizing I need to revise my stubborn projection that everyone is trying to be good for every- or anyone; sure, this doesn't mean I need to appear otherwise, just to take things in with more attention to what they may be rather than what I want or care for them to be, which goes for all interactions, not just those in which I'm worried about deception.

PAIN. All of the sudden I'm doubled over on my bed for no reason I can call up. Pain unlike anything I've felt, it hurts to breathe even shallow breaths. Pain to even lay down flat. Wow, pain. I was thinking testicular torsion, I was thinking kidney stone, I was thinking caught nerve, wildcat running through my organs, appendicitis, wildcat, my mind must be malfunctioning, wildcat. I tried to stay with the pain, not push it out, bend it into a sense of the overwhelming intensity of life, no meditation. Was this childbirth? At ten or fifteen minutes in, I took an ibuprofen and got myself together enough to lie back and rub the pain, expand my slight breaths little by little. Just the other night I was thinking about writing about pain and my relative inexperience with it, that I should know what it is better before throwing it around. I got that wish. Considering how little confidence I have in doctors in the States, I was not keen on seeing the inside of a Moroccan hospital. The pain subsided after around three quarters of an hour and I was coming into the intensity of comfort to which I am so accustomed, riding on this for about as long as I was writhing in pain. Apparently the herbal tea I drank in the morning has this effect sometimes if you aren't used to it, and my digestive system has been working slowly lately, so I couldn't recognize it immediately for what it was. I'm okay now. It's like the only relationship advise my dad has given me "stay away from the crazy ones," which I also had to realize for myself with darling Edie Darling. Wow.

And Happy Birthday Ruth. 20. How did this happen? Happy Birthday, I love you.

Vomit!

The town used to be called Chaouen, meaning The Hills, but now it is known as Chefchaouen: Look At The Hills. I sat up on the terrace at the Hotel Andaluz looking at the mountains the other day and noticed a harmony between the silhouette of the mountains and the curving crest of rooftops. I began writing and quickly became overwhelmed by more and more ideas, flooding me, not letting me actually do anything. It was both marvelous and terrifying in how potent and impotent it made me feel.

Over the same mountain, I saw a white bird and a black bird flying together and at first mistook the black one for the white one's shadow. I saw a black cat and a white cat walk up to me the other night. I cut my finger on a fresh notebook I'm using for this larger piece I'm about to start on. It drew blood, and I'm taking this as either a very good or a very bad sign. Once again, I am surrounded by omens, only I haven't been feeling their strength as gutturally as when I was in Italy.

've met several travellers, spoken several languages, and have found one or two people compelling enough to talk to for more than half an hour. Worked on a poem for a good 4 or 5 days, finished it and promptly got food poisoning. I threw up for the first time in over 11 years. Just like riding a rollercoaster--not as bad as the anticipation of it. My fever cut immediately and I woke up in the middle of the night thinking to myself, "I fell like Jesus' son." Don't ask me.

Trying to get my feet under me today. Just thought to say hello.

Fés and The Adventures of Jacques Braun

So I hopped on a bus to Fés, feeling more capable with each passing hour. The bus ride itself was a horror--11 hours in a box into which has been leaking a certain not negligable amount of headache-inducing exhaust. I got into Fés two hours after sundown and walked past a graveyard to the medina gate through which I was to find my hostel. In Marrakesh I had experienced the awkwardness of being caught in a lie, telling some faux guide I was Italian and I couldn't understand him and then him speaking better Italian than I, what with French sinking in as my functional language. Here, I was Canadian to anyone concerned. Thoughtlessly, this is what I told the hotel until I showed my passport and pardoned myself embarrassedly, following with a few derisive comments about the US government. Funny enough, I pulled the same thing when I got to the next hotel, in Chefchaouen, but maintained that I live in Canada, just born in the US and was studying and living there when I got my passport. I know, what's the point? Part of me wants very much to be as honest as I can wrap my head around in all speech and action, but another part desires to train the ability to make shit up and be okay with deception. Jacques Braun in a deceiver. With a constantly shifting backstory, Jacques consistently calls himself a Canadian Christian who is not religious, but believes God is everywhere. His lineage is French, but the family has been of Canada for three or four generations by now. If pressed, his parents now live in the US, unfortunately. Not that he thinks Canada is so great, because he just loves Morocco--yes, you have a beautiful country and yes, Morocco has a place in my heart, thanks for asking.

I've begun writing down my dreams in the morning. I wondered why I am always quasi-within myself in these dreams when an "I" isn't necessary to action, mood, environment. The next night, a dream without myself. What can I say.

I met an actual Canadian (well, a Quebécer) and told him I was Canadian, too. I did not do this because I had some unconscious wish to be found out (or, at least, not just because of this), but we were in a place with people who I had told two or three days previous how I was from Vancourver, BC. Turns out this guy, Lillian, has family in Surrey, is it? What is that big suburb right by Vancouver called again? Um, I don't know, I don't get out of the house that much. Hm, that's strange, because I think this suburb is, like, bigger than Vancouver itself--Surry or Currey. Well, actually I was just born in Canada and lived there until I was three or four, then my family moved down to the States. Haven't really been back since. I feel strange, removed, worried for the rest of the conversation, but Lillian seems to have ignored or not understood or accepted my whole schtick and for the next two days he does, infact, refer to me as a Canadian--to others and to me. I am left bewildered as to what actually happened here.

All the week, I've been taking Arabic "lessons" from Mohalled, the dude who owns a restaurant just next to my hotel. I got the alphabet and sounds after three days, and could more or less sound out words written wherever. When we got to sentence construction I learned why there are accredited institutions of learning. I spent a quarter of our time waiting of Mohammed to work with me, a quarter telling him I understood something as he was flogging the horse post-mortem (i.e., ten minutes on "min" means "from"), and half of the time trying to direct his scattered "teachings". Regardless, I ate nearly every meal at Mohammed's place, though he never gave me the slightest break on prices and the food wasn't that great. I sort of made myself a presence there, to get a feel of the workers and build a familiarity of which I was either feeling in need or just curious to try out. Here is a picture of Djellal, a worker there, and the restaurant. My "course" took place on the upper shelf.

Also, one night Djellal brought by a hooker. I was confused if she was supposed to be for me or for him, saying, "Non, non. Mais, allez-vous si vous voulez". The hooker seemed to be confused, too; maybe because her pimp's client was saying no after the pimp was assuming a yes. I later learned how Djellal is a pimp who pimps girls even as young as thirteen. The boy from whom I heard this is too old for his age.

I gave up on the Arabic with two days left in Fés after Mohammed had spent the first half-hour of what was supposed to be lesson-time talking at me about Islam being the last and best and only true religion as I stonewalled him, giving the occaisional affectless "je comprends" or "oui".

Here is a beautiful sunset. The tourists all hit the roofs to take photos, not simply digging on it and in it, but making pathetic attempts to bottle it.

Here it is:

The five calls to prayer per diem are broadcast over PAs from the mosques. It sounds like I imagine bomb drills in 50s America sounded, it sounds like some sort of hell. There is a definite oppressive and aggressive aspect to the call to prayer, just as there is to the ringing of the hours by chuch bells.

I'm still reading Infinite Jest, which got me going on the idea of irony as a means to absolve onself of the sin of feeling or being/having been attached to something; valued something. Irony is a mechanism by which the knowing separate themselves from the ignorant, but there is a small frightened empathy in the brief identification with ignorance needed to assert ignorance and knowledge. I think I am beginning to smell a little like franks and beans, and my feet definitely smell like cheese popcorn. Anyway, in this fashion, irony can be understood as an extended branch of Enlightenment thinking in its will to knowledge and progress, though it modestly undermines the productivity so much aligned with this progress.

Leaving Fés, I say goodbye to the guys at the restaurant. One of the kids is playing soccer in the alley. I'm told he is an orphan and homeless. I say goodbye to him and he gives me one of the strongest smiles I've seen since my sister was a kid. Happy, honest, good-willed, vulnerable. Sheer honest smile. This smile wraps itself around me and says, "yes, this is the feeling you love and miss when you remember you don't have it. This is being home, but not too home. This is having friends without having the recognition of the third-party called the relationship, which makes for the awareness of power fluctuations. This is a realized love." A homeless orphan, and what could I give him that would make him any happier or more beautiful than he was just then.

On the bus to Chefchaouen I talked with a very nice man who invited me to stay in his home if I came to his town in my travels and who bought me a yogurt drink when he went to get one for himself. I felt a little bad about lying to him about myself and I gave him a fake e-mail address that jived with my story. When I arrived in Chefchaouen, I made this fake address into a real one out of some guilt and maybe good-will? The mountains remind me of Elba, as do the snaky Escher-like passageways and building-gestalt. The medina is painted all in blue/violet and white, which makes the place feel unreal or surreal or wonderfully real depending on your mood.

When you meet someone on a bus/train/plane or in a bar/party/other social setting and talk and then there is sileznce, is the silence shared or is it a retreat into individual silences?

I bought a rug already. I know, you don't need to say anything. It is made out of cactus fiber, though. It is light and pretty. Yeah, I know. What's done is done. It is pretty, though.