Hit Essaouira--bust. Some beautiful sights, but it smelled and was too windy. Windiness begot coldness. Touristicness begot overpricedness and unloveliness. Bad sewage treatment begot smelliness and smelliness begot queasiness and queasiness begot discomfortness and discomfortness begot dementianess and dementianess begot departureness. Genealogies of knots and dissolution. It wasn't all bad, however; I met a few people, rode over a meter-wide stream on a camel's back, realized how much I actually do love long walks on the beach, climbed among the ruins of a palace once inhabited by royalty, then Jimi Hendrix, now goats, sand dunes, and brush. I began outlining the novel and was met by disastrous disaster, which was mitigated by a small influx of ideas the following morning--what wonders the sleeping mind. Not to mention another book idea, which I had already started before having the idea of it. I was struck severally by whole stanzas of poetry. It was good, but felt too easy, as though I'd reached a plateau and now need to find the next sheer face of rockish headspace.
The bus to Agadir was driven by a madman who made the baby behind me cry and the kid in front throw up. I nearly lost my lunch, too, and I hadn't eaten yet. One more bus and I'd arrived in Mirleft.
Simply gorgeous. Even the ugliest thing couldn't help but feel beautiful, or part of something beautiful, here. I've already met about half the population of the town; on the whole, they are the most welcoming and sincere people I've come across in the Maroc. The only drawback being that once you step onto the street, you are immediately hailed to 3 different cafés and have to be a person, or at least person-like (personesque?). It is unfortunate my photos aren't registering when I try to upload them to this blog; imagine the pastoral shots in "Brokeback Mountain", only with the Atlantic to one side of the rolling hills and Italian clouds. Getting along swimmingly with one dude in particular, Rachid; it's nice to click.
Right off the bat I rented out an apartment, which I have now left for the social scene of a plush hotel on the cow-and-pumpkin main strip. And when the cow eats the pumpkin, eveybody goes home. The mother who owned the apartment I'd rented for some few days tried to guilt me, frenchlessly, into staying and then proceeded to foist a gold ring upon me. I fought off this gift for ten minutes and did win out (out of which I did win?). Firstly, I didn't want to be indebted to her, as she was almost surely going after, or after which she was most surely going (but where? and before which?). And then there is the little piece of information I'd read in Lonely Planet and retained for some reason or another about the Berber people thinking of gold as evil, in which case, I was trying not to accept a cursed gift. Curses and tricks aside, the family was hospitable to a fault.
With some luck, I chanced into a few good people I'd met around Morocco--Aliya and Josh from Chefchaouen from Canada and Dave from Essaouira from the UK (uk?). Funny little town it is. Rachid told me of what he called the Tradition of marrying a French girl and moving to France. Then somebody else said Crazy Ibrahim went crazy after theiving in the mountains for some time and the villagers across the board all prayed he would stop. Then he was crazy and everybody witnessed the quick turnover period of Allah's incoming messages. That being said, the empiricist in me would counsel you that if your prayers aren't answered quickly, don't hold your breath.
3.26.2007
3.18.2007
He Was Drunk And Everything Seemed Hilarious
Last week in Marrakesh was my last week in Marrakesh; this week was Rabat staying with Noel, a Cameroonian soon-to-be kinesiotherapist who reminds me of Henry Miller. Noel's taken me on as a little brother of sorts, and is one of the few people I've met in Morocco with whom I feel I can interact as a whole self. And tomorrow I leave for the windy beaches of Essaouira and Mirleft.
Went to a bar with two Germans I'd met in Marrakesh and who were passing through Rabat. A Moroccan who apparently lived in the States for some 25 years began talking with us. It was hilarious--I understood where the Germans were coming from, where the Moroccan was coming from, and where I was coming from, while each of them appeared to be in the dark concerning anyone else's take on the interaction. The Moroccan, Mahjoub, told us his cousin owned the bar and that it's for, surprise, prostitutes (not surprise prostitutes (I think)). He bought three or four rounds for us. I went to the bathroom and some drunk walked hunched out of a stall, telling me, "oui, vous pouvez entrer, et soyez le bienvenue au Maroc":yes, you can go in, and welcome to Morocco. I filled three hands worth of notes that night. Wondering, though, if this note-taking is vampiric, like photography; an admission of impotent neglect of the moment, where the place is absent from the self and the self from the self and the place. Still chewing on that one--if you don't like the answer, ask again.
Met back up with Sabir from Chefchaouen, he studies here in Rabat. Was treated by him and his friends as a philosophy faucet to spew out conjectures on various prompts. Didn't do much for the ego, as I didn't greatly value those objectifying me as teacher thing.
In Marrakesh I accidentally ate a semi-rancid eclair after having left it out for two days. That afternoon some guy starts up a conversation with me and I talk to him, as he doesn't seem bad, per se. He invites me and the Germans (Andreas and Laura) to drink a coffee with him, okay. He wants us to buy hashish, less than one gram for 150 dirhams--ridiculous ridiculous ridiculous. The going rate is 20dh/g is what I tell him. I make it known he is not on my good side, moreover that I do not like him and tell him he can leave us. Just then, Laura comes over and suggests we all go to the alcohol market together. Laura and Andreas are new and have not caught on to the fact that this guy is no good. We go. It occurs to me that Laura looks like what I'd imagine Emma Gerstein, Ruth's childhood best friend, to look like at her age, 21. We have the same birthday, I think only the second person I've ever met with the same birthday as me. We go to the alcohol market down the stairs of an unmarked door with a man standing watch. It is mayhem down in this cramped speakeasy-like place, people coming and going as fast as they can, trying to escape the eyes of God or the king's police. I tell this dude who has tagged along with his cousin that he needs to pay for his beers if he wants any. Of course, he has no money on him and promises reimbursement, he just needs to go by the post office on our way back to Djemaa el-Fna. It is nearly 8pm, the post is closed and we know this. Things are confused, we all leave. He starts telling me to translate to Laura how he wants to spend the night with her and how she is beautiful and stupid shit. I do translate in hopes that she would understand this guy is an ass. No definitive luck. The guy tells me I don't trust him and I sat yeah, that's how I am. He responds by saying he hopes we become very good friends. I say inshallah--if God wants. We go for dinner and beforehand I ask him if he has money to eat, since he didn't have money for beer. Beat him to the punch so there's no oops, I have no money or oh, I thought you'd invited me. He says he's not hungry. We eat. We go back to the hotel and he is still pushing hash at Andreas and dick at Laura. He drinks 3 of their beers without asking, spills by my bed without saying anything about it, and I find the puddle upon coming back to my room at the end of the night. Didn't see him again and all the happier for it.
Rabat has been good. Looking forward to creating a new space for myself. Over and out.
Went to a bar with two Germans I'd met in Marrakesh and who were passing through Rabat. A Moroccan who apparently lived in the States for some 25 years began talking with us. It was hilarious--I understood where the Germans were coming from, where the Moroccan was coming from, and where I was coming from, while each of them appeared to be in the dark concerning anyone else's take on the interaction. The Moroccan, Mahjoub, told us his cousin owned the bar and that it's for, surprise, prostitutes (not surprise prostitutes (I think)). He bought three or four rounds for us. I went to the bathroom and some drunk walked hunched out of a stall, telling me, "oui, vous pouvez entrer, et soyez le bienvenue au Maroc":yes, you can go in, and welcome to Morocco. I filled three hands worth of notes that night. Wondering, though, if this note-taking is vampiric, like photography; an admission of impotent neglect of the moment, where the place is absent from the self and the self from the self and the place. Still chewing on that one--if you don't like the answer, ask again.
Met back up with Sabir from Chefchaouen, he studies here in Rabat. Was treated by him and his friends as a philosophy faucet to spew out conjectures on various prompts. Didn't do much for the ego, as I didn't greatly value those objectifying me as teacher thing.
In Marrakesh I accidentally ate a semi-rancid eclair after having left it out for two days. That afternoon some guy starts up a conversation with me and I talk to him, as he doesn't seem bad, per se. He invites me and the Germans (Andreas and Laura) to drink a coffee with him, okay. He wants us to buy hashish, less than one gram for 150 dirhams--ridiculous ridiculous ridiculous. The going rate is 20dh/g is what I tell him. I make it known he is not on my good side, moreover that I do not like him and tell him he can leave us. Just then, Laura comes over and suggests we all go to the alcohol market together. Laura and Andreas are new and have not caught on to the fact that this guy is no good. We go. It occurs to me that Laura looks like what I'd imagine Emma Gerstein, Ruth's childhood best friend, to look like at her age, 21. We have the same birthday, I think only the second person I've ever met with the same birthday as me. We go to the alcohol market down the stairs of an unmarked door with a man standing watch. It is mayhem down in this cramped speakeasy-like place, people coming and going as fast as they can, trying to escape the eyes of God or the king's police. I tell this dude who has tagged along with his cousin that he needs to pay for his beers if he wants any. Of course, he has no money on him and promises reimbursement, he just needs to go by the post office on our way back to Djemaa el-Fna. It is nearly 8pm, the post is closed and we know this. Things are confused, we all leave. He starts telling me to translate to Laura how he wants to spend the night with her and how she is beautiful and stupid shit. I do translate in hopes that she would understand this guy is an ass. No definitive luck. The guy tells me I don't trust him and I sat yeah, that's how I am. He responds by saying he hopes we become very good friends. I say inshallah--if God wants. We go for dinner and beforehand I ask him if he has money to eat, since he didn't have money for beer. Beat him to the punch so there's no oops, I have no money or oh, I thought you'd invited me. He says he's not hungry. We eat. We go back to the hotel and he is still pushing hash at Andreas and dick at Laura. He drinks 3 of their beers without asking, spills by my bed without saying anything about it, and I find the puddle upon coming back to my room at the end of the night. Didn't see him again and all the happier for it.
Rabat has been good. Looking forward to creating a new space for myself. Over and out.
3.04.2007
What Comes Of The Idiosyncracies Of An Unwitting Solipsist?
I picked up a poem I'd started one night in Fés, it's now on The Euphemist. Just a little thing. Now revising a story about which I don't know how I feel. It's been happening a lot with narrative lately, my own and others--I just don't seem to have that discriminative faculty to the same extent as I used to. Easier with poetry, but not hugely. It's as though, paradoxically, the more I look, the less I see--the more perceptive, fewer borders drawn--enchanted by language rather than any particular usage, everything being good as what it is. We'll see, I guess. It is both disconcerting and exciting to be mystified by even myself, to fall into formlessness or habit and not know into what degree of either one falls. The joys of particularity are envisioning imperfections as perfect, or at least as radically uncertain (joyously arbitrary). Either I have lost some assumptions or they have become invisible.
I feel sane, and in a good way. There are a few gnats in my room with whom I've been trying to figure out how to make friends, but I keep forgetting this and blowing them away when they get close. Not that they are substitutes for humans, or even for pets, but curious presences. Curious presences which I can personify while zoomorphing myself. Still, there is sanity in this.
My words are leading my thoughts, unsteady ground of intuition does not belong to the order of trust and accountability. Words coming before meanings, the watery movement, easy and
I met Jalal 2 at a café and he said I was only two minutes late; I pulled out my watch and it said I was on time. I showed him and said perhaps my watch is off, I can change it later. It was very Moroccan of him to tell me I was 2 minutes late and not give a thought that he may have the wrong time. Perhaps there is something implicit in making a rendez-vous that one must arrive early to avoid being late. I do not care. A man passed by in a three-wheeled wheelchair-like contraption appearing to have some degenerative muscle disease. Watching him and imagining how much he must rely on others, how decimated his independence, I reflected on how ridiculous was the man strutting by in his leather jacket that he walked with what appeared to be so much self-importance or so little fragile humility or such misplaced values. This I read into/projected onto twenty seconds of some stranger's day. I feel very human.
We went to see some tombs, there was a room for children. All those little unknowing bodies. Then we saw two palaces and waited to meet up with Jalal's girlfriend. I accidentally drank tap water, but it was fine (which reminds me for some reason of someone's story about arriving in Delhi I think during a flood and seeing dog carcasses being swept off on the tide). The girlfriend arrived and was cold cold, clearly upset with Jalal for something and not willing to humor anybody. Jalal was dopely trying to pull her hand onto his thigh and she pulled it back again and again as he lovingly told me several times how she was his "puss" and asking isn't she pretty. I should have gotten up and left, but instead I left my body at the table and refused to take on any awkwardness.
That same night I went with Jalal 1, Premier Jalal, to the hookah bar, Audisia. He and another worker, Mustapha, and I walked in the same direction as their boss, who was on his way home. When our path diverged from his, we waited about 20 seconds and turned back around to hail a cab. As we turned onto the club's street, the cabbie asked if we were going to mosque. We entered an unmarked door to the side of the main entrance where the Italians and I had entered the week before. Apparently the downstairs is for the older crowd, described to me as a livingroom. We ascended a staircase and came into a room of benches, music, and smoke. Neon lights outlined the moulding and strobed slowly all night. It seems as though the drinks are half as expensive if you come with your own Moroccans. Everybody was having a good time together, not trying to prove or judge anything; I was relatively at ease. A girl named Selma sitting with us began smoking a cigarette with her navel. Another girl picked me out to dance in the crowded space narrowly afforded by the benches. Reticent at first, I danced and began to enjoy myself, getting compliments on my dancing and then another wave of constriction. She looked at her watch while dancing and I was loose enough to freely be myself in the midst of whomever, so I took her wrist and pretended to study the watch, mockingly approving of the time. I sat down and the girl continued dancing at me. Jalal remarked approvingly, "look at the waves" of her butt. Her eyebrows were very precise or painted and not very expressive, her face was some mix of uncertainty, thoughtlessness, and boredom. She bent over to tell me something. Give me money. I laughed and said what? She repeated for me and I laughed again and she talked to Premier Jalal. He told her to knock it off, we hung out a bit longer and then called it a night. I have resolved that the next time I am propositioned by a hooker, I will tell her she can pay for me.
One does not learn to dance, but unlearns what keeps one from dancing.
I feel sane, and in a good way. There are a few gnats in my room with whom I've been trying to figure out how to make friends, but I keep forgetting this and blowing them away when they get close. Not that they are substitutes for humans, or even for pets, but curious presences. Curious presences which I can personify while zoomorphing myself. Still, there is sanity in this.
My words are leading my thoughts, unsteady ground of intuition does not belong to the order of trust and accountability. Words coming before meanings, the watery movement, easy and
I met Jalal 2 at a café and he said I was only two minutes late; I pulled out my watch and it said I was on time. I showed him and said perhaps my watch is off, I can change it later. It was very Moroccan of him to tell me I was 2 minutes late and not give a thought that he may have the wrong time. Perhaps there is something implicit in making a rendez-vous that one must arrive early to avoid being late. I do not care. A man passed by in a three-wheeled wheelchair-like contraption appearing to have some degenerative muscle disease. Watching him and imagining how much he must rely on others, how decimated his independence, I reflected on how ridiculous was the man strutting by in his leather jacket that he walked with what appeared to be so much self-importance or so little fragile humility or such misplaced values. This I read into/projected onto twenty seconds of some stranger's day. I feel very human.
We went to see some tombs, there was a room for children. All those little unknowing bodies. Then we saw two palaces and waited to meet up with Jalal's girlfriend. I accidentally drank tap water, but it was fine (which reminds me for some reason of someone's story about arriving in Delhi I think during a flood and seeing dog carcasses being swept off on the tide). The girlfriend arrived and was cold cold, clearly upset with Jalal for something and not willing to humor anybody. Jalal was dopely trying to pull her hand onto his thigh and she pulled it back again and again as he lovingly told me several times how she was his "puss" and asking isn't she pretty. I should have gotten up and left, but instead I left my body at the table and refused to take on any awkwardness.
That same night I went with Jalal 1, Premier Jalal, to the hookah bar, Audisia. He and another worker, Mustapha, and I walked in the same direction as their boss, who was on his way home. When our path diverged from his, we waited about 20 seconds and turned back around to hail a cab. As we turned onto the club's street, the cabbie asked if we were going to mosque. We entered an unmarked door to the side of the main entrance where the Italians and I had entered the week before. Apparently the downstairs is for the older crowd, described to me as a livingroom. We ascended a staircase and came into a room of benches, music, and smoke. Neon lights outlined the moulding and strobed slowly all night. It seems as though the drinks are half as expensive if you come with your own Moroccans. Everybody was having a good time together, not trying to prove or judge anything; I was relatively at ease. A girl named Selma sitting with us began smoking a cigarette with her navel. Another girl picked me out to dance in the crowded space narrowly afforded by the benches. Reticent at first, I danced and began to enjoy myself, getting compliments on my dancing and then another wave of constriction. She looked at her watch while dancing and I was loose enough to freely be myself in the midst of whomever, so I took her wrist and pretended to study the watch, mockingly approving of the time. I sat down and the girl continued dancing at me. Jalal remarked approvingly, "look at the waves" of her butt. Her eyebrows were very precise or painted and not very expressive, her face was some mix of uncertainty, thoughtlessness, and boredom. She bent over to tell me something. Give me money. I laughed and said what? She repeated for me and I laughed again and she talked to Premier Jalal. He told her to knock it off, we hung out a bit longer and then called it a night. I have resolved that the next time I am propositioned by a hooker, I will tell her she can pay for me.
One does not learn to dance, but unlearns what keeps one from dancing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)