A Likely Story

Thought for the day

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 04:33:00 +0000

If you want to hug a porcupine, then you can't really complain when you get stabbed by the quills.

A view from over the bridge

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:07:00 +0000

He's Evil, He's Evil, He's Evil

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:44:00 +0000

We're not exactly talking "subtle" here . . .

Oh Richard, you bloated spider, you humpbacked scene-stealer you. When will you ever be part of a play, and not a star turn?

Sigh. Judging by the production currently running at BAM? Never.

As with every other Dicky Three-Eyes I have ever seen, with the exception of Olivier's movie, if you take away the lead actor from this Bridge Project production, everything falls apart. If a good play is a mountain range, then this is a single mountain towering over a collection of little hills. A great mountain, but still a mountain, with nothing to contrast itself against. A one-man show, in other words.

The beauty of that? You get to see Kevin Spacey go to town. And it's a great town, complete with incredible physical contortions a la Mark Rylance in Jerusalem. Who’da thunk that the two most memorable male performances on stage in the last year would be a couple of autumn chickens pretzeling their bodies for our enjoyment? In Spacey’s case, he really makes himself into a human spider, twisting his leg and using a cane to scuttle-walk back and forth across the stage--and then, delightfully, scuttle-march to the beat of kettle drums.

The major flaw? Because Spacey’s Richard is so blatantly over-the-top evil, everybody else on stage look blind or brain-damaged--so instead of saying to yourself, “Look what he’s getting away with,” you say, “Why are they letting him get away with this?” Which, when you’re doing a three-hour play, is like riding a roller coaster backwards, slowly but surely bringing you further and further away from the fun and excitement, until you’re so distant from the ride that all you can see is the architecture. Plus your back hurts a lot. (Thank you, Harvey Theatre seats.)

There are a couple of brilliant first-half multimedia moments, but sadly these are undercut by the interpretation of Richard as an obvious villain. Even the dumbest politico in America knows that you do NOT show rage or frustration on camera. It may get a “look what he’s doing now” laugh, but it’s a laugh that takes you out of the play. But then there isn’t really a play here. Especially in the second half, where even the comic shadings of the first two hours disappear and Spacey does nothing but give a lesson on how to vary your yells over three octaves and 65 minutes.

For the Shakespearean purists at this blog (cough), director Sam Mendes didn't cut a whole hell of a lot, so for the first time ever I actually got to see a couple of the women scenes that usually never get done when this play gets produced. And now I know why. And have to ask myself, "Did that EVER WORK? Even in 1594? Really? You had four boy actors who were THAT GOOD in 1594 that you wrote a lo-o-o-o-ong scene for them? Wow, Bill. Cocky in your thirties, weren't you?”

This is also the final Bridge Project presentation, which is odd for two reasons: because the last two projects have had two plays in repertory, and because those plays have had more than one star. Or more than one mountain (See above). But it’s not up to the level of the last two, and not least because it feels like the bus and truck Richard (or as we used to say, referring to Transylvania, the angry peasant and pitchfork tour).

Bottom line: it makes me want to live long enough to see someone play Richard like a male femme fatale.

Wait--

Songs for a Tuesday Morning: The smell of burning leather as we hold each other tight

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 11:53:00 +0000

Since I've been feeling more walled up than a Poe protagonist lately, here are three Wall Of Sound-related tunes, two produced by Phil Spector and one a loving homage to all things Spectorish.

"River Deep--Mountain High" from 1966 barely climbed to 88 on the Billboard 100 and was one of the most expensive singles ever produced at the time, costing over $20,000 in 1966 dollars (that's $138,000 in Today Cash)--which didn't include Phil Spector's private arrangement with Ike Turner (Spector paid him $20K just to stay away from the recording studio while Spector cut the single and the album with Tina Turner). The failure of the single to chart depressed Spector so much that he didn't do another musical thing for the next two years except sing the phrase "Music critics suck" over and over again.

River Deep, Mountain High

This next one is not as Wall-of-Soundy as RDMH, but it's definitely memorable for its subject matter alone. Written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King and recorded by The Crystals in 1962, the song was supposedly created after Goffin and King discovered that Little Eva (the singer on their "Do The Locomotion") was being beaten by her boyfriend, and when they asked why she put up with it, she replied that it was because he loved her. (Shades of Carousel.)

He Hit Me And It Felt Like A Kiss

And finally, on a (thankfully) much sillier note, we have this hot and sweaty duet between Fee Waybill and Re Styles from The Tubes' second album, which was arranged in Wall Of Sound style by Jack Nitzsche. It's one of my favorite songs, and it totally deserves to be in a John Waters movie somewhere. Or have John Waters direct a video of it.

Don't Touch Me There

And I'll fall for her like an anvil through greased air

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:22:00 +0000

Noir sonnets: The Dame

She’s beautiful the way a knife is sharp.
   She makes me drunker than a fifth of scotch.
One smile and she can play me like a harp.
   Her heart’s a gun, and I’m the latest notch.
There’s nothing that’s beneath her or above her.
   She’s silk and silver, with a soul of sludge.
When she says “I” she means her and her lover;
   When she says “We” she means her and her grudge.
She’ll screw me till my life’s totally effed--
   She’ll say "I'll always love you" to my face--
Then hit the road and make me think I left
   (But keep the door cracked open just in case).
      She’ll find a way to make me hers for life,
      Then stab me so I never feel the knife.

La Sol y La Luna*

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:45:00 +0000

The sun always wears
a pair of black four-inch heels
The moon goes barefoot

Copyright 2012 Matthew J Wells

*I know, I know--"sol" is masculine, but for the poem to work, they both have to be feminine; and I'm also riffing on this great restaurant in Austin, so it's not only bad grammar but a bad pun.

Songs for a Tuesday Morning: you an' me babe, how bout i-it

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:29:00 +0000

Here's something that doesn't happen much any longer: you hear a song for the first time on your local radio station and you fall in love with it so hard and so fast that you immediately throw on a coat and run off to your local record store to buy a copy of the album it's on.

(Care to calculate how many archaeological references there are in that sentence? I count at least three--"local radio station," "local record store," and "album." And given the recent 65 degree Fahrenheit weather in January, "throw on a coat" makes four.)

But if I can go Schliemann on y'all, the above is exactly what I did during the first week of October 1982 when I was listening to WNEW and they played "Telegraph Road" from the Dire Straits album Love Over Gold. Looked at my roommate and said "Holy shit, is that great or what?" and he said "I want to hear that again," and I said, "Be back in ten minutes," threw on my coat, walked to the Sam Goody's in Times Square, bought the album, came home, and played the song at least three times straight before listening to the rest of the album.

It's the guitar at the end that makes the song. It doesn't end so much as fade off in the distance, like a highway that always beckons past some hoped-for destination.

And speaking of the guitar, I've been trying to source this for days and drawing a blank (so you're just going to have to trust my memory on this), but there's a quote from Eric Clapton somewhere to the effect that the first time he heard Mark Knopfler play was the first time he ever felt threatened as a guitarist.

Romeo and Juliet

Telegraph Road

The Undead of Winter

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 13:39:00 +0000

It pretends to be warm but it’s not really warm, like an ice goddess in a fur coat.

It feels like the world is coming alive, but it’s not, it’s still dead, it’s just putting the lie in alive, and I walk hand in hand with it because I want to believe it, because I feel the promise in the air, and frankly? Because there’s nothing that makes me feel more alive than walking arm in arm with 60 degree Fahrenheit weather . . .

And life is what this femme fatale is after, my life, my warmth. She leans in for a kiss, and I close my eyes, and like a door slamming in my face just as I walk up to it, a hard sub-freezing wind will blow it all away, will hit me like a thousand little nails, will slice through shirt and flesh to pierce my heart, the teeth of something that hungers for the warmth of my blood.

All I want to do is curl up into a ball, a ball of down, pun intended, with all my branches bare and my roots dried up and gasping. And then the ground grows moist and I start to bud, and just as a shoot of green appears, it’s sliced away by an Arctic blast, to the sound of bitter laughter in the wind.

It’s not really warm. I keep telling myself that, but the sun on my skin laughs at me and says I'm insane, of course it's really warm, would I feel this way if it wasn't?

All right, I think, it's warm, yes, warm, but it's heartless warmth, it's bloodless heat. I keep telling myself that, but I have so much energy that my body is laughing at me, and saying that I'm delusional, how can warmth be heartless, how can all this energy be bloodless?

And I give in. It’s a forgery of spring, but it’s such a perfect forgery that I don't notice it--I don't want to notice it--because it gives me what I want. Until it doesn't.

It’s a warm kiss that turns into a cold bite, and when it does, I think, “Thank God I’m so withdrawn that I can’t feel it.”

But I can feel it.

I do feel it.

I always feel it

Feel it in my bones

Feel it reach into my bones

The cold seductive touch

Of winter in my head

That says hearts do not beat

They are not allowed to beat

Or else they beat too much

For something cold and dead

Somebody knows me far too well . . .

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:33:00 +0000

I just received this as a holiday gift:

Thank you, J.

Let the SuperDickery commence.

Holiday Movies, or, What A Weird Species Humanity Is

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:12:00 +0000

War Horse. There’s nothing that brings out a sense of humanity more than an endangered animal. Audiences all over the world will say “Ho hum” while human soldiers are getting slaughtered left and right, but when a lame horse is going to get put out of its misery, the handkerchiefs come out and they start crying “Not the horse! Don’t shoot the horse!” In the entire rest of the film, there is only one comparable moment where you actually feel for a human being. It’s a close-up of Tom Hiddleston’s face, and in that one close-up is everything you need to know about the stupidity and waste of war. But in true Spielberg fashion, this film is about survivors, not the fallen--it’s the horse version of Schindler’s List. And it’s built like a checklist of emotional buttons: heartless landlord (check), precocious but sickly girl (check), horse-driven echo of the Christmas Truce (check), equine version of Ben-Hur as a galley slave (check), a boy and his horse love affair (check), horses charging machine guns (check and double check). And every button works; it’s like seeing an ex, the one who broke your heart, and watching her get under every piece of armor you’ve built up to protect yourself--and she makes you hate yourself for loving every second of it. In other words, it’s very Disney. How Disney? This movie is so Disney that (my hand to God) the goose does comic relief.

A Dangerous Method. This movie feels like somebody said, “I bet you a million dollars that you can’t make a dull movie about carnal desire and sexual neuroses,” and David Cronenberg went, “You’re on!” I don’t know whether it’s the too-literal translation of the Christopher Hampton play to film, or the fact that the Brit and the Dane are playing the Jews (and the Jew is playing the Swiss guy), or the fact that Cronenberg really needed that million bucks, but this is by far the dullest movie in which you will ever see a half-naked Keira Knightley get spanked, and spanked hard, by a bored Michael Fassbender. I mean hell--Fassbender has more energy and verve in the trailer to X-Men: First Class than he does in this entire movie. And Mortensen underplays Freud so much that he’s within waving distance of Matt Damon in The Good Shepherd. All Vincent Cassel has to do is show up and he steals the entire movie. In other words, don’t go see this when you’re sleepy. But if you do doze off, try to remember what you dreamed, because it’ll be five times more exciting. And ten times more revealing.

Barry Lyndon. The most beautiful badly-acted movie ever made. Hands down. It was at the Museum of the Moving Image as part of their See It Big series, and I swear to God, if this was a silent movie? It would be right up there with Citizen Kane.

Hamlet in Elsinore. A 1964 version of Hamlet which just got released on DVD this fall. I watched it on New Year’s Eve with my friend Meir, and we both agreed that (a) Christopher Plummer’s performance in the lead partakes a little too much of the first syllable of his character’s name, and (2) Robert Shaw as Claudius is the shit. Holy crap, is he good. Also: Michael Caine, in his only filmed Shakespearean performance (I know; right?), makes a perfect Horatio. There are some weird cuts in the script (especially in Act Four: second Ophelia mad scene? Gonzo.) and Plummer, alas, spends most of his time on-screen auditioning to be a member of the Barrymore family. See it for Shaw.

Pina in 3-D. If you’ve seen Pina Bausch live, you need to go see this. If you’ve never seen Pina Bausch live, then you REALLY need to go see this. It deserves (and will get) its own full-length review in the next couple of days, so I’ll just say two things here. Every choreographed move in this film, as in Bausch’s work, springs from an emotional impulse. Which makes almost every movement in this movie so human that it becomes a symphony of carnal music. Go see it, and we'll talk.

4 lessons from 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 15:37:00 +0000

If I speak your name

I’ll become untouchable

and not an option

Nothing like shared grief

to make a detached soul feel

like embracing life

Imaginary meals

can only ever feed

imaginary appetites

I want no part of it

but I will always feel hurt

if I’m not invited

2011 Report Card

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 05:01:00 +0000

Virtues

Movies Watched in Theatres: 55

DVD’s Watched: 90

Plays: 21

Operas: 2

Dance Performances: 6

Readings: 17

Music Performances: 27

Museum Visits: 13

Books Read: 35

Plays Read: 45
Poetry Magazines Read: 21

Comic Books Read: 441

Staged Readings Given: 0

Produced Plays: 1

Poetry Readings Given: 2

Stories Written: 3

One-Acts Written: 2

Full-Length Plays Begun: 3

Full-Length Plays Finished: 0

Full-Length Plays Rewritten: 3

Novels Begun: 2

Novels Finished: 0

Screenplays Begun: 1

Screenplays Finished: (pending)

Poems Written: 77

Blog Posts: 176

Poems Memorized: 3

Submissions: 27

Acceptance Letters: 0

Rejection Letters: 19

Awaiting Reply: 8

Vices

Guinness: 185

Other Beers: 82

Wine (glasses): 79

Wine (bottles) 15

Mimosas: 6

Bloody Marys: 8

Scotch: 14

Margaritas (frozen): 9

Shots of Whiskey: 25

Shots of Tequila: 16

Shots of Vodka: 3
Girly Shots: 7

Hookah Pipes: 2

Illegal Drugs: 0

Contact Highs: 2

Miscellaneous

Foreign Trips: 1

Foreign Trips Where I Was Treated Like A King: 1 (same trip)

Hang-Outs That Closed This Year: 3

New Hang-Outs Found: 0

Dreams remembered and recorded: 45

Dreams about smoking: 6

Dreams where I woke up saying “Where the fuck did THAT come from?”: 11

Dreams where I woke up saying “Guess I don’t need to go to therapy THIS week!”: 14

Dreams where Marilyn Monroe told me I was a better lover than Arthur Miller: 1

But not a better writer: 1

New Friends: 10

Ex-Friends: 6

All-Nighters: 5

Working Days of Drinking (8 hours or longer): 6

Nights On The Town With A Fetish Model: 1

Wild Animals Held: 1

Wild Animals Dated: 2

Resolutions made on 1/1/11: 5

Resolutions kept as of 12/31/11: 1

Lessons learned: 4

What 2011 Also Felt Like

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:17:00 +0000

What 2011 Felt Like

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 17:03:00 +0000

Christmas Eve

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 01:01:00 +0000

I stand by the shell of a dive

That was one of my favorite places

And wait for the snow to arrive

While around me the lonely pieces

Of the city's splintered soul,

With a hermit's scarf on their faces

And their eyes on the ground or the goal,

Like bees from a shaken hive

Swarm through the electric cold.

Past windows that advertise

The price of the latest craze --

The toy that will always please,

The game that will always be played --

Pedestrians on the run

From the job that eats their days

Attack the streets and weave

In search of immediate fun

Like soldiers on short leave.

Armed to the teeth with intent,

Movement is what they are --

I can see them from where I stand

As they arrow past the bar --

The lords of a scurrying race

Who fill the seasonal streets

Day in and day out again --

Not motionless even in sleep;

A race of sharks, not men.

Now snowflakes feather the sky,

And swirl on the whips of the wind

Through canyons that preach the lie

Of civilization's thrust

And the worth of the marked-down buy --

The lie that goods which are sold

Or bought by the shopping cart

Will answer the needs of the soul

Or buy an unquestioning heart.

The truth is a quieter voice,

A whisper which softly sings

That winter was made to rejoice,

And babies are born to bring peace,

And people are worth more than things,

And none of us are alone --

Which we all must learn firsthand

Before our immigrant souls

Return to their native land.

By the light of a pagan tree,

In the heat of a candle's glow,

We are part of a common name

That atomized long ago --

The sparks of a broken flame

That burns for the oystered pearl,

That seeks by uncommon stars

For the leap of persistent joy

And the answer behind the world.

But no stars shine above --

Just the obstinate distant glow

Of a gray and thoughtless heaven

Which I cannot confront or know --

And there are no easy answers,

Just people with hopes and fears

Who pass by each other blind

On the way to a warm lit room

In the lonely way of their kind.

In this age where we make ends meet

Between the push and the shove

And huddle like lambs in the night

And yearn for a gift from above

To fall, like the snow, at my feet,

We must each do what we can

In the teeth of the old year's death

To affirm the worth of man

And the fellowship of breath.

All we are is a storm --

Like snowflakes we meet the earth

With an individual kiss,

And together we pile and drift

Till the blizzard of our birth,

Like a long-discarded gift,

Is forgotten, and we grow gray

By the side of a shining road

Till we finally melt away.

All we have is a day

In the calendar of Time

To light an affirming flame

Beneath the seasonal dome

Of distant tinselled stars,

To make from this desert a home,

And do our daily part

To keep the soldiers of Rome

From conquering our hearts.

All I can do is my best

To candle against the night --

To swear by each morning sun

That all of us come from light,

So it's all of us or none --

And to stand each day I live

For the rules that I yearly believe

When I bravely play at love

On the day after Christmas Eve.

Mortality

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 01:16:00 +0000

Lulled by the mundane
we sleepwalk through gleaming knives
and think we're special

Copyright 2011 Matthew J Wells

Cheer Up--It's Christmas - The 2011 Christmas Compilation

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:29:00 +0000

And I thought LAST year was tough.

Outside of the michegas you might already know about, which needs no repeating, I’ve been fighting the sneezes and either an early attack of the Februaries (when the cold makes me curl up into a ball next to a picture of Diana Rigg) or a late attack of the Augusts (when the humidity makes me curl up into a ball next to an open refrigerator).

Plus there was the usual anxiety about actually having anything worth putting into a compilation. It’s the same thing every year. I turn around twice after Thanksgiving and it’s the middle of December, and I have a deadline with nothing but last year’s cast-off tunes to meet it, like the musical version of The Island Of Misfit Toys. And yet every year, with maybe one or two hours a night of online tune-trolling (it’s a Christmas miracle!), my holiday cup overfloweth with musical cheer.

For this year’s mix, I decided to say screw it to the prescribed 80-minute CD length and just throw in everything that tickled my holiday fancy. The only other requirement was finding an Australian carol, for obvious reasons. And one which wasn't their annoying version of "Jingle Bells." I thought the search would be extremely time-consuming, but, like waiting for a liberal politician to compromise his principles, it didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would (cf. Track 22).

The set list is below. In addition to the antipodean, this year’s mix includes the sad and the wistful, the upbeat and the lonely, the silly and the sweet, the sexy and the French (but I repeat myself), and two instant classics (tracks 12 and 13). Plus a chorus verse that makes the writer in me jealous (track 30). Plus plus a Bonus Track because (like Russian novels) there must always be a Bonus Track. The download links to the two zip files with all the songs are below the list. If you want me to burn you the double-CD version, get back to me offline and it's a done deal.

Haddy Grimble, Randoobs. And (in the words of Ms Spektor) a Happy New Year to all that is living--to all that is gentle, kind, and forgiving . . .

01 Cheer Up (It's Christmas) - People On Vacation

02 It's Christmas Day - Family Force 5

03 A Little More Time With You - Greg Sczebe

04 Holiday (What Do You Want) - Mike Doughty (with Rosanne Cash)

05 Baby It's Christmas - Bananarama

06 Party Hard - Zach Gill

07 Lollie Holiday - Craig Wedren

08 Candy Cane - Caspar Babypants

09 I Want A Casting Couch For Christmas - Kay Martin and her Bodyguards

10 I'll Be Home for Christmas - Tift Merritt

11 Dear Mrs Claus - The Barr Brothers

12 (Don't Call Me) Mrs. Christmas - Emmy The Great and Tim Wheeler

13 Who Needs Mistletoe - Julie Roberts

14 Christmas When You Were Mine - Taylor Swift

15 Christmas in London - Krista Detor

16 Christmas On Ward 7 - Chris Flew

17 Cinnamon & Chocolate - Butterfly Boucher

18 Little Drummer Boy - Nicole Atkins

19 Lonely This Christmas - KT Tunstall

20 I Lose a Little Bit of You - Jessie Torrisi

21 Maybe This Christmas - Leigh Nash

22 The Three Drovers - Chris Sporton

23 Christmas at the Trailer Park - Antsy Mcclain

24 The Cowboys' Christmas Ball - The Killers

25 X-mas Song - Fireflies

26 It's Almost Christmas - Chris Garneau

27 Kill a Tree For Christ - Celtic Elvis

28 Douce Nuit - Calogero and Zazie

29 Boom Boom - Maryse Letart

30 Hallelujah (Christmas Is Here) - Sunturns

31 Reset Holiday - Set Your Goals

32 Danse des Mirlitons - Xavier Cugat

33 Happy Holidays (Beef Wellington Remix) - Bing Crosby

34 What Are You Doing New Year's Eve (Mangini Vs. Pallin Mix) - Ella Fitzgerald

35 My Dear Acquaintance (A Happy New Year) - Regina Spektor

Cheer Up - It’s Christmas: The 2011 Xmas Compilation - Part 1

Cheer Up - It’s Christmas: The 2011 Xmas Compilation - Part 2

Haiku

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 17:34:00 +0000

Winter nights are full
of human hearts like crickets
all chirping for love

Sonnet for Gary

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 22:08:00 +0000

Based on a line written by Carlos Fuentes.

Some people die so we can love them more
   Than we would love them if they were alive--
Death coffins up the flaws life can’t ignore,
   Loss weeds the bad to help the good survive;
Grief bleaches every stain, every disgrace;
   Time blizzards biting edges into curves
Until in death we happily embrace
   Somebody who in life got on our nerves,
Like you, my brother.  Every time we met,
   God, how I bit my tongue and rolled my eyes.
But now your death embraced by my regret
   Blinds me to what in life I did despise--
      And though your faults I never once forgave,
      I’ll keep your best alive beyond the grave.

Australia 12: Two For The Road

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 20:08:00 +0000

11/1. Tuesday is a low-key day. In the morning, I write down what I remember of the night before. I pack, I re-pack. I go to La Buvette for breakfast. I go to a nearby internet cafe and print out tomorrow's boarding pass. I browse a couple of bookstores and take down titles of things which I will later order from Amazon at about one-quarter the price. I stay pretty close to the apartment for half of the morning, pretending that it’s my day off from work and I’m just puttering around the neighborhood like a local. But that suitcase in the middle of the floor is like a big DO NOT PRETEND sign, and I really hate signs like that because they always remind me of what I'm doing without even thinking about it, so around 11, I decide to go get some lunch and take a final walking tour of the city. Without my camera. I've been hiding behind that camera far too long. I need to work my memory muscles at least once on this trip. So I leave the camera behind as I walk out the door.

20-20 HINDSIGHT. Big. Fucking. Mistake.
ME: Why?
20-20 HINDSIGHT: Because today is Melbourne Cup Day!
ME: . . .bollocks.

The Melbourne Cup is a horse race that takes place on the first Monday in November, a race that's held at the Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne, and the entire continent shuts down to watch it. (Take THAT, Superbowl!) And drink. And party for the rest of the day. At approximately 1PM, while I am trying to find a pub that isn't mobbed by people who act like they've been drinking since September, Eva and everyone else in her office is being handed a glass of champagne. It's the same everywhere else in the entire country. And on the streets and in the pubs, it's just as much a costume show as Halloween.  It's also character revelation time for the local genders: the ladies are all dolled up like they've been invited to a royal wedding, while the lads are clad like extras in Benny Hill. It reminds me of nothing more than a sartorial version of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Lost City of Opar, where the women all look like Ursula Andress and the men all look like Victor McLaglen after a five-day binge. (You think I'm joking, don't you? Oh, if I had only taken my camera with me!)

When Eva gets home from work, we catch up with each other, and then we just sit. Sit on the couch. Sit next to each other for a few minutes, like two cars pausing at the same rest stop. Thinking it's been really lovely having you here; thinking it's been really lovely being here. Then we freshen up, get changed, and go to the Opera House Bar, where the local Melbourne Cup crowd is still celebrating, dancing to techno and drinking like camels facing a month-long desert march. Eva points out how every male over 20 is wearing an ill-fitting suit, and looks either uncomfortable or awkward. "That's because they'd rather be in board shorts and flip-flops," she explains, "and their bodies know this on a molecular level."

After a brief but satisfying meal surrounded by celebrating natives, which makes us both feel like Margaret Mead, we head to the Opera House itself, where we see The Love of the Nightingale, an opera based a 1988 play by Timberlake Wertenbaker, which is based on the myth of Terus, Philomele and Procne. It stars Emma Matthews, E's favorite Sydney opera singer, and it is alternately full of beautiful singing, Wagnerian stylistic touches, and needless exposition.

Afterwards, we walk back to Kings Cross down a couple of streets I haven’t been down yet, and Eva describes the buildings and their history. So much still to see, I think. The mark of a good city. We end up at Tilly Devine’s, where we have a couple of glasses of truly excellent red wine. We bus back to E's place because her feet are killing her, and she packs overnight stuff and leaves for Yve’s. I go to sleep thinking that of all the days I’ve been here, this is the one in which I’ve done the least, and it’s the one which has gone by the quickest.

11/2. That night I have a dream in which I am the lead climber on a long ladder to the top of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. There are ten people behind me, each clinging to the other like cars on a train, so it's a heavy load I'm pulling as I make my slow way up, rung by rung, with the wind in my face and nothing but the sky around me. About halfway up, I freeze. I can't go up, I can't go down. I find myself staring at the metal of the ladder. I am fascinated by the details of its construction. It's painted silver, it's put together like Lego's, the paint is flecking here and there, and if I'm not mistaken, it's starting to sway back away from the bridge, and I'm tipping over. Which means that the ten people behind me are starting to hang at a forty-five degree angle off my shoulders. This is not good. I take a deep breath, force my right hand to reach for the next rung, force my left hand to reach for the rung above that one, and slowly, slowly, with my eyes closed now, I feel my way up the ladder until there are no more rungs, and I open my eyes to see the arc of the bridge curving up into the sky ahead of me, and at its highest point, I see Kim Novak in a black dress waving to me. I hear a cat mewing and I think, "Pyewacket," and then I'm wide awake in bed with the sound of Pyewacket mewing just outside the door.

I let the cat in. It's about 6:30. I pour myself some juice and say "Watch this." Pyewacket ignores me as I hide two books and nine postcards in Eva’s apartment. I figure she'll find six of the postcards right away, but if I'm lucky, it'll be months before she reaches for this or that and finds the other three.

REALITY CHECK: Unless she just throws stuff into the laundry without checking it.

ME: This is a woman who shakes out a Kleenex to make sure there are no spiders in it.

REALITY CHECK: True enough

ME: And anyway, the books blend in so well she'll never see 'em.

REALITY CHECK: Okay, you got me there.

I repack one final time, then kick Pyewacket out and go to the internet cafe to print out my US boarding pass, the one I'll need in LA in 16 hours. Then I go back to the apartment, repack a second final time, and meet Eva at La Buvette for breakfast. As we eat, I take a mental picture of her sitting across the table from me, a picture that will be obsolete less than a month from now when she dyes her hair blonde. Which adds even more irony to the mental image I have as we talk: two cars slowly accelerating away from each other as they leave that shared rest stop.

Eva rides with me on the subway to the airport, and (because I always have one foot in the past, like the past is a bear-trap) I think about my old friend Carole Stamm, who was responsible for the biggest long-distance phone call bill I ever paid in my life, when I called her during the OJ Simpson car chase and the two of us talked for the next six hours straight about that, and everything else under the sun. It was the conversational equivalent of great jazz. Which is how I feel about this vacation. I love both Eva and Ava not just for the instruments they play, but for the way the song becomes something greater than its tune every time we play together. And I don't know how it is for them, but when I play alone, it's like a mournful tenor sax coming out of a half-lit sixth-story window overlooking a dark alley. At midnight. In the fucking rain.

And now I can hear that sax tuning up. At the airport, I check my luggage, which weighs eight pounds more than it did on the way in because of all the books I’ve bought. Damn good thing I left those two books in E's apartment, I think. And don't forget that other book, the one you left in Brisbane for Ava to find.

EVA: What are you giggling about?
ME: [You'll see] Oh, nothing.

Eva shakes her head as if to say, "Well, at least he didn't answer me with a pun," and walks me to the international gate. Where we hug. We separate. We say goodbye. And start to walk away. I take three steps and then I turn around to watch her leave, because I am always the one who turns around to watch someone else leave, and she turns around at the exact same moment, and we grin at each other, and turn back.

And then I turn around a second time. And she does too.

For a moment Time hesitates, its foot poised over the gas pedal, its hands lightly holding the wheel. For a moment I consider running to her and giving her a fierce, I’ll-miss-you-so-much embrace. And because I am in Australia, Time politely waits for that moment to come and go. And when it has gone, and I have done nothing, Time grips the wheel a little more tightly and eases forward on the gas, and I walk into the security area while I watch Eva disappear, and the door to Chapel Perilous slowly closes behind me.

Five minutes later I'm out of security, I'm pissed off that I did nothing, and I'm all teary-eyed.

TIME: Hey--I gave you the moment.
ME: Oh shut up.

I send Eva a maudlin text whose sentimentality she politely ignores. And then, because I'm down a couple of ounces of tears, I replenish my inner fluids with a pre-flight beer at a bar.

Three seats away, there's a woman with a gin and tonic, a blonde ponytail and an Audrey Hepburn neck who is chewing a swizzle stick like a dog gnawing a bone. Her eyes follow the pint as the bartender hands it to me. She looks up. I look over. She looks away, then glances back. I take a sip of beer, reach into my shoulderbag, take out a Russian novel--because it must always be a Russian novel--and I read exactly three sentences. Then I glance up to see her shaking her head at me.

"You're not actually reading that for pleasure, are you?" she asks.

"No," I want to say to her, "just indicating the turn-off that'll bring you to the bridge."

But I don't. Instead I say, "It's twice as fun as it looks," a truth that applies to everything except being Spencer Tracy in somebody else's Gable/Loy movie, which happens to be ten times more fun than it looks.

"That's a lot of fun," she says. And for a moment Time hesitates, its foot poised over the gas pedal, its hands lightly holding the wheel. And then the blonde shifts in her seat, and Time grips the wheel a little more tightly and eases forward on the gas, and I politely wait for this total stranger to swivel into the bar stool next to me and tell me the story of her life.

And I did. Thanks, E.

Australia 11: Test Pilot

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 20:07:00 +0000

Eva flies into Brisbane on Thursday night, we all drive to Byron on Friday, and the next three days are an indescribable cross between a wood outside Athens a la Midsummer Night's Dream, where I'm surrounded by visions like this --

-- Tom Bombadil's house, with things like this--

--and, my lords and ladies of the royal court, an actual conversation about this guy --

and this bit:

Jonah and the Whale - Lord Buckley

It's a weekend to remember (one that includes me reading the first 25 Manhattan Sonnets to the late-night accompaniment of Chet Baker) and it ends Monday morning when Ava drives Eva and me through half a dozen time zones to the airport, where we bid a quick goodbye to her and fly back to Sydney. And when I say quick, I mean just that: a kiss, a hug, a look that says "Don't you dare make this more than a see-you-soon moment," and a car driving off into traffic.

Eva and I have coffee at the airport, we get on the plane, and all through the flight Eva is talking about having yum cha at Marigold's when we land. Which we do.

After eating, Eva heads off to work and I lug both our bags back to the apartment. After doing a quick laundry, I buy a pound of grapes, and go eat them in Rushcutters Bay Park. I make a note to go to an internet cafe on Tuesday and print out my Sydney boarding pass, and then calculate the time difference so I can figure out when on Wednesday morning I can do the same for my LA pass. Before I known it, E is home from work, and we are heading out to Ms G's, an Asian restaurant on Victoria Street where Yves joins us for our last meal as a trio.

During dinner, the conversation ranges over a ton of different subjects, at one point glancing on the concept of a romantic comedy I’ve been thinking about for ages (and ages) titled Seven Ten Split.

ME: Basically it’s about an actress who has to choose between two guys who are equally good for her, but in different ways--a writer who actually makes enough money to support a family, and a businessman who writes on the side.

YVES: So which one does she choose?

ME: She gets them both.

YVES: I don’t follow.

ME: The writer knows that, if she dumps the businessman, he will never be friends with her. But if she chooses the businessman, the writer will still be her friend. So being the writer, he comes up with a situation that allows her to discover this, and make the choice for herself.

YVES: I don’t buy it. Why would a guy do that?

EVA: [cocking a thumb at me] Because he’s Matthew.

Which is all too true--which is why I want to quibble with it. Or at least cite a precedent for it by saying that it's like Spencer Tracy in Test Pilot, where he’s friends with both Myrna Loy and Clark Gable, but I don’t get the chance because Eva brings up something else and we’re immediately off and running on another horse in our conversational Derby.

As final evidence of the innate good manners of the people with whom I have been staying for the last two weeks, Eva and Yves barely acknowledge each other's presence while we're at dinner. They only glance at each other now and then, and do not touch each other once, which is remarkable to me, because they have been quite the hand-holders these last sixteen days. And they haven't seen each other all weekend.  But it turns out to be politeness--making our last dinner together about me, and not about them--because when we do finish dinner, and say goodnight outside the restaurant, and we walk away in opposite directions, and I turn around to watch them leave--because I am always the one who turns around to watch someone else leave--I see them stop walking and come together in a fierce, I've-missed-you-so-much kiss, and stand there holding each other tightly in the middle of the sidewalk as pedestrians politely make their way around them. Which brings back a very particular memory.

LIORA: Remember when we did that?
ME: Do I ever. We almost got killed.
LIORA: That's because we did it in the middle of 9th Avenue.
ME: That cab driver was so pissed!
LIORA: Especially when you yelled: "Fuck you! We're in love!"

And were we ever. As I watch my friends separate and walk away together, in an infant pocket universe of hopeful shared affection, I think of the last sentence of Little Dorrit:

“They went quietly down into the roaring streets, inseparable and blessed; and as they passed along in sunshine and shade, the noisy and the eager, and the arrogant and the froward and the vain, fretted and chafed, and made their usual uproar.”

With that Dickensian benediction, I turn away and head for Barrio Chino. The night is young, and so is love, but playing Spencer Tracy in somebody else's Gable/Loy movie is getting so old it's senile.

LIORA: Oh who are you trying to kid? You love it.
ME: Trying to kid myself, dear; who else buys my line of bull?
LIORA: Not me. Speaking of kidding yourself, who the hell memorizes the last line of Little Dorrit?
ME: Somebody who wants to live it one day.
LIORA: Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!  You've got a better chance of living Kim Basinger's last line in LA Confidential.
ME: I don't know what the dickens you're talking about.
LIORA: Forget Dickens; you're more the Cyrano type.
ME: I did Cyrano in the middle of 9th Avenue too, remember?
LIORA: "Death is all I need now! To die now!"
ME: Because we'd both just seen it.
LIORA: Derek Jacobi--
ME: Sinead Cusack --
LIORA: And then we went to Barrymore's.
ME: [a sigh] Barrymore's.
LIORA: Where you got so drunk you DID Barrymore.
ME: I miss Barrymore's.

LIORA: Which speech was it again?
ME: "Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I."
LIORA: Do it now.
ME: I don't remember it any more.
LIORA: Loser.
ME: [to the bartender at Barrio Chino] Hi--I'll be talking to myself for the next 90 minutes--can I have a double shot of Petron so it'll make sense to no one but me? Thanks.

So I sit and drink tequila and I write. I also give the hairy eyeball to three different people who immediately recognize that I am That Guy You Tell Your Life Story To At The Bar. I am in no mood for that tonight. It makes me feel the way Spencer Tracy felt when he always got second billing to Gable in the films they made together. Fuck Clark Gable, I say to myself, and then I make a list of all the actresses who did. An hour later I have to go buy a new notebook because I've run out of paper. I imagine all of Gable's lovers in the same room together. I imagine all of them in the same room with Carole Lombard, who tells every single one of them what to go do to herself, and how. Especially Grace Kelly, that stuck-up bitch. Then Lombard tells Gable about her marriage to William Powell, which makes Gable unable to watch My Man Godfrey for the rest of his life. She tells Gable about her affair with Gary Cooper, after which Coop and Gable never again go fishing together. She tells Gable about her affair with George Raft, which makes Gable think she not only has lousy taste in men, but shitty taste in actors. And then she dies in a stupid plane crash. All of which I am not just imagining, but saying out loud, until I have the bar to myself.

In the end, I wind up writing a really really good final scene for my Spencer Tracy writer in Seven Ten Split, and then stagger back to Edgewater Road while declaiming the Peter O'Toole version of Cyrano's Roxane speech from What's New, Pussycat? ("Your name, is like a bell, that hangs in my heart! Lefebvre! Lefebvre!")--all thanks to a bouquet of tequila shots, only five of which I remember. Four hours later I wake up stone cold sober to face (a) the credit card bill detailing (b) exactly how much I drank last night, which makes me financially glad that today is (c) my last full day in Sydney.

I said your face, is like the pale autumn moon--are ye deef?

Australia 10: Koala be praised

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:11:00 +0000

There are five people ahead of me to get their picture taken while holding a koala, and by the time I’m next in line, the koala who’s been their hug-honey has just about had it with humans. She’s cranky, irritable, and refuses to pose--like a fashion model whose contract doesn’t include overtime, she just glanced at the clock and said, “I’m off as of now.” The trainer coaxes her into sitting still long enough for the woman in front of me to get her picture taken, and then, when I step into the painted footprints on the floor of the little photo enclosure, the trainer says, “I think she’s a little tired; we’ll get somebody else,” and heads off to find a little cutie who’s a little less of a diva.

It’s my third day in Brisbane, and thanks to Ava, I am spending the afternoon at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, a wildlife preserve about 30 minutes upriver from the city. The ferry ride passed by a lot of remnants of the recent flooding, which the pre-recorded guide's speech pointed out as we sailed by them, a marvel of timing and technology. The Sanctuary itself is on higher ground; we have to climb up a set of stairs to get to it from the river. Once we do, there are animals everywhere--all of them poisonous, because, y’know, Australia--and some of them running around loose, like lizards and brush turkeys and redheads (the most poisonous species of all). Later in the afternoon we’ll be surrounded by kangaroos, which the Aussie incarnation of Mother Nature somehow overlooked when she was handing out venom. Although, of course, koalas don’t have venom, either. But they are far from cute and cuddly. And the grunting noise they make? If you close your eyes, you'd swear it was coming out of some cigar-smoking boxing manager with a bad toupee.

When the trainer comes back, she’s carrying a koala who looks, to my untrained eyes, exactly like the previous one.

TRAINER: This is Violet.

ME: Hello, Violet.

I cradle my arms in the same position everyone before me has used, and the trainer reaches in and first adjusts them, and then tests them.

TRAINER: Violet doesn’t like it when you don’t hold her firmly.

ME: [tongue-tied trying not to make “she hates it when I’m not firm” jokes]

TRAINER: Here she comes.

ME: [even more tongue-tied trying not to make come puns]

The trainer delivers Violet onto my folded arms, and when her paws reach out and grab at my chest, the trainer murmurs little endearments as she takes Violet’s (incredibly sharp) claws and positions them just right for the picture to come. I lean back a little and give Ava a bemused look. Since she has my camera, she takes a picture.

Evidently the claws have to be just right, because the trainer leans in and starts splaying Violet’s paws across my chest. Either that or it’s against a local law to let koalas make a fist. (It is, by the way, against the law in New South Wales for anyone to hold a koala. Thank God we’re in Queensland.)

“So how did the koala feel?” I’ll get asked when I return to the United States. “Was it soft or bristly?”

Answer: soft, very soft. Surprisingly heavy for such a small creature. She didn’t feel like fat heavy, if you know what I mean; she felt solid heavy, like a koala who works out and avoids alcohol.

The trainer finally gets Violet positioned and steps back:

--only it’s not quite the right position, because (a) I'm looking her in the eye, and that sets the trainer off enough to warn me against looking at her in the eye, like she's That Crazy Person On The Subway; and (b) Violet is staring straight ahead like a bored piece of eye candy at an opening, wondering who she has to vamp to get a God damn glass of champagne. The trainer immediately whips out some eucalyptus and waves it in Violet’s face, which is the koala equivalent of handing a spliv to a Jamaican.

That does the trick. She tilts her head ever-so slightly to her left, so the camera can get a good three-quarter shot of her, and like the true professional she is (or maybe the true drug-addict), she holds it while Ava takes a couple of quick shots of the two of us.

Pictures done, I take my life in my hands and look into Violet’s eyes as I thank her for letting me hold her. The look on her face tells me that polite males are a rarity in her life. I get that look a lot, usually right before a complete stranger is about to tell me the story of her life. Unfortunately (or thankfully) I don’t speak koala, although I bet I can make a decent stab at it after an afternoon of chewing eucalyptus.

ME: So thanks again. And if you're ever in New York, look me up.
VIOLET: I bet you say that to all the girls.
AVA: Honey, if you wrote all their names down, an hour later you'd have to buy a new notebook because you'd run out of paper.

When bad things happen to good friends: five thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:29:00 +0000

Neediness. My response to tragedy is pretty consistent: I get grabbier than a lonely octopus. This grabbiness totally ruined a relationship I was in when my mother passed away, and last year, when my brother died, it deluded me into thinking that someone was actually considering me as a destination and not a road. (Cue Shaw’s final stage direction in Man and Superman, thank you very much.) And the same weed is popping up all over the place now, continually sprouting afresh somewhere else whenever I yank it away by the roots. Which makes it impossible to be around or in touch with anyone who might serve as a vessel for that neediness. (Cue the final song from Bernstein’s Candide.)

Condolences. When something bad happens to a friend of mine, I feel more than a little dishonest and unworthy when people express their sorrow to me personally, as if it were a first-degree loss. It’s not--it’s second-degree at best--and my initial reaction is to hand them a phone number or an e-mail address and say, “Here--get in touch with the person who really needs to hear what you just said.” Which is the wrong reaction. Because I am the person my friends see, and (because they are my friends) they see how I am affected (even when I don’t), the condolences are honest. And yet, at the same time, they should never be taken personally, because that way leads to pride and vanity. I cannot treat them as a crutch to lean on, but as a comforter, to pass on.

Support. All true friendships are located on a seesaw which is poised between Sympathy and Advice. ("Do you want me to just listen, or do you want to hear what I think?") Tragedy changes those two drop points to Dwelling and Escaping--or (since I’ve been harping on this for a while now and it totally fits) Destination and Road. (“Do you want me to dwell, or do you want to go somewhere else?”)

Reflection. Which is my personal (yup) destination, and since it shares its Zip Code with Wallowing, I have to be very careful about how long I stay there. If it results in an activity, then I’m okay. But if it doesn’t, then it’s like quicksand.

Perspective. There are very few personal life-or-death issues that don’t become trivial when confronted by real tragedy. One does not realize how often one indulges in the sweet self-delusion that this or that feeling or desire is all-important, until one is either sideswiped or head-on’d by Life in all its senselessness. Which at one and the same time reaffirms how unimportant mortal concerns are, and galvanizes every concerned mortal soul into a response that can affirm the opposite. With the right perspective, quicksand becomes dishwater, weeds wither into dust, and that which is truly important--the community of mortality--takes precedence over everything trivial, and points us (if I can be allowed to paraphrase myself) down a road to the only destination that matters:

All we can do is our best

To candle against the night --

To swear by each morning sun

That all of us come from light,

So it's all of us or none.

Fun facts: Spencer Tracy Edition

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 22:42:00 +0000

Middle name: Bonaventure. Now THERE'S a trivia question.

And according to IMDB:

Tracy was offered the role of The Penguin in the TV series "Batman" (1966) before Burgess Meredith. He said he would only accept the role if he was allowed to kill Batman.

How awesome would THAT have been?

Australia 9: All Kinds of Phobias

noreply@blogger.com (Horvendile) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:42:00 +0000

10/24 Monday is a reflective day. I spend most of it revisiting peaceful places in the city before I head off to Brisbane with Ava. I sit in Rushcutters Bay Park with a pound of grapes, which costs me the equivalent of a filet mignon in New York. I go to the Botanical Gardens and dare the flying foxes to poop on me. I sit on a bench at the edge of the Gardens overlooking Sydney Harbor, then stroll to the Opera House Bar, where I have a beer and, on a lark, scribble out dialogue for a very funny and (because it’s totally based on reality) very libelous one-act play version of Saturday’s Bar Drama, entitled The Second Mrs. Campbell (1 actor, 5 actresses).

THE REST OF THE WORLD: [looking over my shoulder] This is hilarious!

ME: Yeah--too bad it can’t be produced till after I’m dead.

THE REST OF THE WORLD: Why not?

ME: Because if it’s done while I’m still alive, at least six people will kill me.

THE REST OF THE WORLD: So what? You can only die once, right?

ME: No, you don’t understand. At least four of these people are more than capable of digging me up and killing me all over again.

THE REST OF THE WORLD: Ah--so it’s like the RA Lafferty line. “If he can kill you, I can kill you worse.”

ME: Exactly.

THE REST OF THE WORLD: Damn.

ME: Yeah.

THE REST OF THE WORLD: You should write that one too, while you’re at it. Cuz y’know, if you’re gonna get killed anyway, it might as well be for something big.

Something big, huh? Now what could that be, I wonder? During lunch (and my second and third beers) I stare off at the biggest thing near me, which happens to be the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

ME: I should really climb that before I leave.

ACROPHOBIC ME: Are you out of your copulating mind? You have a fear of heights!

ME: And fears are made to be conquered.

ACROPHOBIC ME: Two words, idiot: No. Handrails.

ME: Oh yeah.

Because it’s not just a fear of heights with me--it’s a fear of heights combined with a fear of openness, a phobia that’s half acro- and half agora-. If I can grab onto a handrail or stand behind a wire fence while I’m looking down from a tall building, I’m fine. But if there’s nothing to hang onto, The Great God Panic lightnings down into my soul and I start leaning at a-a-a-all the wrong angles. If I were to climb Sydney Harbor Bridge, they would have to get me off with a helicopter, after prying my arms away from the nearest girder. Or the nearest guide. And you can multiply all that by about 50 if I ever did something like, oh, skydiving.

I go back to the apartment to pack a few days worth of clothes in an overnight bag that Eva’s lending me, then walk back to Rushcutters Bay and lie on the grass, letting my mind wander. Could I live here? Sure. But I’d have to get work as a writer. No sense doing the boring day job thing in a different city. Plus I only know 10 people in the entire country. Which is nine more people than I knew in New York when I moved there, half a lifetime ago.

FATHER TIME: Literally.

ME: Don’t remind me.

When I return to the apartment, Eva is there folding laundry. We have a long catch-up conversation while I obsessively re-pack and she expertly shakes out her clothes and bedsheets and folds them.

ME: Why are you shaking everything out like that?

EVA: In case of spiders.

ME: The, uhm, --

EVA: Poisonous kind?

ME: Yup.

EVA: Yup.

ME: Crikey.

EVA: So if you see anything fall to the floor and start scuttling away, stomp on its head.

ME: It’s head?!?

EVA: Sure--it’s easy--just think of that crazy ex-girlfriend of yours--what’s her name again? Liora?

ME: [Reflexively stomping on the floor] Liora! Slowly I turned--step by step, inch by inch--

EVA: Comedy bits later. Help me fold now.

ME: Yes, dear.

After this little frisson of arachnophobia, we say au revoir, not adieu (Eva will be flying to Brisbane Thursday night), and I go off to Fenelli’s for dinner with Ava and Nicola, who is driving us to the airport. Where security is--well--let me see--I could say that it makes USA airport security look like the fascist overreaction of a growing police state the way pepper tastes mild compared to tobasco, except that tobasco doesn’t pat you down like a pervert poking around for condoms full of cocaine.

Seriously: checking into Sydney Airport is like stepping back into the Kennedy administration. You even get to walk onto the field and up a rolling ladder to get into the plane, just like in early James Bond movies. But then, in a way, the entire country is stuck in the Kennedy administration, when everybody was kinder, more civilized, and spoke in a thick accent.

In the airport bar, as we’re waiting for our flight, I find myself going on and on about my non-existent social life, a monologue which Ava endures with remarkable patience, until she finally, as is her wont, points out the one obvious thing which I am totally ignoring.

AVA: Don’t mistake the weed for the flower.

ME: Huh?

AVA: [pointing] What do you have in front of you?

ME: A notebook and a pen.

AVA: Exactly.

Exactly. And is this something I don’t know?

THE REAL ME: Please.

Okay--is this something I pretend I don’t know because I don’t want to be (a) alone or (b) different?

THE REAL ME: You’re getting warmer.

And as we finish our drinks and get ready to board the plane, I open the notebook and add another fear to my current list. Gnotheseautophobia--fear of self-knowledge.