Monday, June 30, 2008

Hey, Bartender

Well Spain won it and I'm now back in Mumbai. Monsoon is in full form -- rain and wind and monsoon flowers blooming on the terrace. The five cats and Mary, our maid, and her baby Preston (not making that up) for company. Mira and Jai are on their ways to intensive German courses in Rot-an-der-Rot (not making that up either, but you won't find it on a map) and Leipzig respectively. Indi's taking them, then heading to Pietrasanta in Italy to visit friends and draw.
Bartender, I'll have another.

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Wish I Was There

Hey Johny, hope your event is a great success in every way today. Look forward to the photos and video. I'm in Zurich with Jai enjoying the sporting mob frenzy of Eurocup 2008. The Swiss are out. The Spanish look good. The Romanians are surprising. And the world cheered at the mighty Germans defeat at the feet of the feisty Croats. Of course it rains every day and the trams are floating on beer.

Saturday, June 07, 2008

Today while I was walking the dog, at the railroad crossing on Third Street I actually saw two trains going down the track.  There was one a-going forward, and the other going back.  Hey look at that!

Friday, June 06, 2008

Seven Rooms You Never Imagined In Your House

These are Jim's "programme notes" that we'd like to get printed on cocktail napkins for the performance next week. Sorry I couldn't figure out how to include the accompanying illustrations.

1. The Instrument Room is dominated by an ominous moaning, growling sound coming from a large metallic cone, shaped like a flower bell. Discarded instruments litter the floor and shelves. Some are rusty and bent, some new and brazen. It’s dark, dusky in here. The whole room kind of vibrates dully. Your palms get sweaty, but you’re smiling like an idiot as you seat yourself at the drum kit and start swinging. The windows are covered by a uniform coat of grime through which you can barely make out a red cardinal in a yew tree.

2. The Mourning Room alternates black and white tiles. The walls are bare. The cupboards closed. There’s a phone but no one calls. There’s a slat for memories in the floor. You put them in there and they leave you alone. The window opens on the sea, dark and still. You see a very long way to the horizon.

3. The Show Room has always a little more air being sucked out of it than comes in. They do it carefully so you don’t suffocate right away. You expect to meet your friends here and sometimes you do. This is where you try not to talk about what you really want. And fail. You want to be here until you get here.

4. The Fast Fun Room – talk about a good time! There’s food and smoke and beer and music and everyone’s talking loud and laughing hard. Your pulse is racing and there are some wild ideas in back of your eyes. Everything’s accelerating until you pass out. When you wake up it’s empty, you smell bad and hurt. You struggle to remember what you told whom. You vaguely remember something you promised or threatened. One by one your friends awake and drag themselves out from under the furniture. They look much better than you feel but still pretty bad. Can’t stand seeing each other.

5. The Temple Room is where you worship temptation. Here you gravely measure and confine the full extent of your desires. It’s a small room without a ceiling. There’s no door but you find it difficult to enter, which you do with breath held and an obsequious tilt to your body. Start here by thinking about everything you can’t have, can’t do, don’t want until your spirit rises above and beyond the limits of the room to encompass the vast reaches of the unknowable.

6. The Room of Dregs is where you’ll find everything you've thrown away and discarded. They collect it at the recycling center and make installation art of it. When they've got enough they bring it home to you and put it right here.

7. The Cameroum is like a foreign country. Everybody’s talking but what are they saying? Everything’s familiar but slightly different. Everybody seems friendly, but what are they laughing at? You’d like something to eat but are afraid you’ll get sick. It’s frustrating but nice – nobody knows you here.