Saturday, February 20, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Moroccan Merry-Go-Round
It is sunny today, and the streets smell like feces.
I was up late last night, feeling obligated to be up late, and not liking it.
All of my clothes are damp, and I smell like mildew.
My foot hurts where I punctured it on a stick.
Yesterday, I was supposed to go to Marrakech. Instead, I stayed in Essaouira. Assan assured me it would be a miserable day. He was right.
It rained so much.
The wind was out so much.
Signs were blown off buildings.
Sewers overflowed.
Plaster flaked off.
All of this wreckage congregated mosaic-like, amidst the pools of the flooded city.
In the ocean, waves mixed with sand and dirt and became brown.
In the streets, the cart-pushers waited with their carts to ferry people across massive puddles (10 dirhams. Best price. You’ll be back).
Business owners huddled beneath their awnings, ineffectually covering their wooden boxes, baskets and bracelets with sheets of plastic. They preferred to loiter at their shops then go home.
The sky was a sickly greenish-yellow. I have never seen a tornado, but I fully expected one.
An end of earth day.
Me,
I was supposed to be out of town. The house was empty. My clothes were still wet from waiting at yesterday’s bus stop. Since I was supposed to be gone anyhow, I decided to spend the day holed up.
I've felt too embarrassed to visit my usual haven for writing, the guesthouse Dar Adul. Two days ago, the owner, Rashid, angrily accused me of making a mess of his bathroom. So not true, I said.
I found a refuge from the rain in a dank, multi-level hotel, the Beau Rivage. The lobby was cramped and felt the way a mobile home must feel. The hotel workers left me alone though, and the internet was relatively fast.
A seedy looking Spanish family entered the room. Their presence was immediately offensive. Their fat blonde kid wrestled with their skinny dark-haired one on the couch. The wrestling was loud and unorthodox- lots of pinching and fondling. The father was a toad-like thing, looking ready to sell me nutritional supplements. The mother was something you’d see teaching intimacy seminars for obese couples.
The Spanish family moved to another couch, conjured up a laptop, and set to watching a movie.
Like a merry-go-round, the Spanish family swiveled over, revealing a British father with his two little boys.
The Brits produced the card game Uno, with the intention of making it the most obnoxious fucking thing ever.
A Moroccan waiter appeared. Inexplicably, he held a one dirham coin out to the British boy. The boy asked for another. The man gave the boy both dirhams and disappeared.
Other little boy laughed at the 'p.' Dad begged for sensibility.
Thomas begged for more dirhams for soda, and was given an 'absolutely not.'
Enter Lucy, who accosted Thomas for begging.
Re-enter Dad, who was accosted by Lucy for Thomas begging.
Thomas claimed that the new game should be called, ' pick your own cards.' The other boy calls it a rubbish game.
Disturbingly, the boys began talking about something called an anal flap, and it was too much then, with the Spaniards blaring their laptop speakers, and the trailer-home hotel, and what the fuck is an anal-flap, is it like an eye lid, or a type of lip, and I was forced out into the storm.
At the house, an awful little Kiwi couple were stationed in the lobby. The guy was a little crew cut guy, his wife a dull bovine thing. You know he married her so he could boss her around and feel big. No matter what I said, the guy stared unsmiling. I like that Moroccan guy from the streets that says, 'fuck you, fuck your country,' better than this little douche.
He is an engineer, and she is a nutritionist. They are on the stupidest trip I have ever heard of. They bought an around the world ticket, and flew from New Zealand to Vancouver, Canada, left before the Olympics, flew to Marrakech, and are heading next to Mexico and then home.
They both reek of corpses.
Apparently, they come from Central New Zealand, a massive dumping ground for the decomposing bodies of the world.
His wife must have taken her nutrition courses from the label of a Coke bottle. Personally, I would never seek any sort of advice from a woman whose body is ready to burst into thick cutlets of mutton.
I understand why he would need to take an around the world trip with her. Back in New Zealand, the guy is forced to constantly plead with local farmers to allow him to reclaim his wife who is always being rounded up and attached to the ubiquitous sheep population.
I'll take some more notes on these Kiwi bastards tonight.
I was up late last night, feeling obligated to be up late, and not liking it.
All of my clothes are damp, and I smell like mildew.
My foot hurts where I punctured it on a stick.
Yesterday, I was supposed to go to Marrakech. Instead, I stayed in Essaouira. Assan assured me it would be a miserable day. He was right.
It rained so much.
The wind was out so much.
Signs were blown off buildings.
Sewers overflowed.
Plaster flaked off.
All of this wreckage congregated mosaic-like, amidst the pools of the flooded city.
In the ocean, waves mixed with sand and dirt and became brown.
In the streets, the cart-pushers waited with their carts to ferry people across massive puddles (10 dirhams. Best price. You’ll be back).
Business owners huddled beneath their awnings, ineffectually covering their wooden boxes, baskets and bracelets with sheets of plastic. They preferred to loiter at their shops then go home.
The sky was a sickly greenish-yellow. I have never seen a tornado, but I fully expected one.
An end of earth day.
Me,
I was supposed to be out of town. The house was empty. My clothes were still wet from waiting at yesterday’s bus stop. Since I was supposed to be gone anyhow, I decided to spend the day holed up.
I've felt too embarrassed to visit my usual haven for writing, the guesthouse Dar Adul. Two days ago, the owner, Rashid, angrily accused me of making a mess of his bathroom. So not true, I said.
I found a refuge from the rain in a dank, multi-level hotel, the Beau Rivage. The lobby was cramped and felt the way a mobile home must feel. The hotel workers left me alone though, and the internet was relatively fast.
A seedy looking Spanish family entered the room. Their presence was immediately offensive. Their fat blonde kid wrestled with their skinny dark-haired one on the couch. The wrestling was loud and unorthodox- lots of pinching and fondling. The father was a toad-like thing, looking ready to sell me nutritional supplements. The mother was something you’d see teaching intimacy seminars for obese couples.
The Spanish family moved to another couch, conjured up a laptop, and set to watching a movie.
Like a merry-go-round, the Spanish family swiveled over, revealing a British father with his two little boys.
The Brits produced the card game Uno, with the intention of making it the most obnoxious fucking thing ever.
A Moroccan waiter appeared. Inexplicably, he held a one dirham coin out to the British boy. The boy asked for another. The man gave the boy both dirhams and disappeared.
Dad:
You don’t beg, Thomas. Its rude. Go give it back.
Thomas
10 pence 20 pence, 10 p 20 p
Other little boy laughed at the 'p.' Dad begged for sensibility.
Thomas begged for more dirhams for soda, and was given an 'absolutely not.'
Enter Lucy, who accosted Thomas for begging.
Re-enter Dad, who was accosted by Lucy for Thomas begging.
Thomas claimed that the new game should be called, ' pick your own cards.' The other boy calls it a rubbish game.
Disturbingly, the boys began talking about something called an anal flap, and it was too much then, with the Spaniards blaring their laptop speakers, and the trailer-home hotel, and what the fuck is an anal-flap, is it like an eye lid, or a type of lip, and I was forced out into the storm.
At the house, an awful little Kiwi couple were stationed in the lobby. The guy was a little crew cut guy, his wife a dull bovine thing. You know he married her so he could boss her around and feel big. No matter what I said, the guy stared unsmiling. I like that Moroccan guy from the streets that says, 'fuck you, fuck your country,' better than this little douche.
He is an engineer, and she is a nutritionist. They are on the stupidest trip I have ever heard of. They bought an around the world ticket, and flew from New Zealand to Vancouver, Canada, left before the Olympics, flew to Marrakech, and are heading next to Mexico and then home.
They both reek of corpses.
Apparently, they come from Central New Zealand, a massive dumping ground for the decomposing bodies of the world.
His wife must have taken her nutrition courses from the label of a Coke bottle. Personally, I would never seek any sort of advice from a woman whose body is ready to burst into thick cutlets of mutton.
I understand why he would need to take an around the world trip with her. Back in New Zealand, the guy is forced to constantly plead with local farmers to allow him to reclaim his wife who is always being rounded up and attached to the ubiquitous sheep population.
I'll take some more notes on these Kiwi bastards tonight.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
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Ohrwurm
I never like to see a creature suffocating to death in the street- it portends grim and ugly times.
At the entry road to the fish market, two fishmongers hunch on the curb. They have slapped a wet pile of still-gasping eels on the pavement in front of them. Some eels are covered in geometrical yellow markings. Other eels are a slick, brown-grey, the color of seaweed. I know that some of them are moray eels.
When the fisherman catches an eel, the eel wraps its’ body on his arm, clutching him, while he tries to remove the hook.
I haven’t seen any female fishermen yet. I did see a woman wearing a cardboard box as a hat, sitting on the curb across from the eel vendors, peddling pale, desiccated sardines.
So many questions about how you would find yourself wearing a cardboard box on your head.
Is this her choice?
Can she not afford a hat?
Does she realize how far she is from being, “on trend?”
From my new favorite people in Cologne-
A German word I learned and like:
Ohrwurm
Pronounced: (oh- ah- vurm)
It literally means:
“eel in the brain”
This is what you say when a song is stuck in your head.
One of our recently departed Londoners told me a story about a diving bird in the Thames. The bird caught an eel, and had the eel’s head in its’ beak.
The eel whipped at the bird in desperation. It wrapped its’ tail around the bird’s head.
The bird continued eating the eel slowly, swallowing it bit by bit, as it flapped and swung its’ tail. In one moment, the bird paused, relishing being draped in an eel as a proper London scarf.
Finally the eel was gulped down. The bird paddled in slow circles, jerked and jolted by the live eel fighting against the stomach.
The girl finishes her story:
“All this while trying to carry on a bit of a chicky wink with me mum.”
I take a group to the fish market. The eel vendor intuitively picks out the girl who suffered the disturbing eel scene on the Thames.
He lifts an eel just below the head. The mouth and gills strain in the air and sun.
He holds it so close to her face.
"Still breathing, see?
Monday, February 15, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
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