Quadratics

A thought unexpectedly came into his head.
Unexpected because he almost never got those – thoughts, true thoughts: those apart from the mundane and humdrum. He knew this and the people around him knew this. It didn’t matter to him or, honestly, to them; it was simply something he realized when he was a child, when he was supposed to be living in an imaginary place, when he should have been building rocket ships rather than making cubes with his blocks; and it was something others knew within a short time of meeting him, but, then, they were much the same.

He recognized ideas and didn’t spurn them out of hand, but he just didn’t get them. Not that it mattered, really, for this was a world that did not need fresh things or creativity, and he was able to make a good life for himself quite well enough. He had a life that mattered as much as anyone’s were people to judge it from most angles save the interior. And even then they would have to search, but no one cared to because it all added up as it should in twenty-four ninety-degree angles. Contentedness was stupefaction with the obvious.

So this was a surprise and he didn’t know what to make of it. He wasn’t sure if it was random inspiration or the result of a secret process that had been fomenting somewhere deep for who knows how long. He pulled on the idea but it ended abruptly and cleanly, as if it sprang into existence mere moments ago.

The sudden winking to life was troublesome. Existence had been reflexive. He had worries and emotions like everybody else, but they were like everybody else’s. This was new.

Who could he tell?

He wasn’t even sure what the idea was: it was insubstantial essence that he did not have a language for. To tell he might need to create a language of sorts, and that meant more ideas, which he was ill-equipped both to produce and to use.

But it was most definitely there, and try as he might he couldn’t quite rid himself of it. He couldn’t ignore it; that again required tools he did not have. He couldn’t bundle it up in daily inanities. How does one move something essential both immensely dense and absurdly vacuous?

The idea did go away but it always returned the same, never stronger, never weaker. It was there in the morning when he woke, when he drank his coffee and ate his cereal, when he talked to people, when he watched TV, when he read, when he went to bed. He was sure it was in his dreams.
He feared it, this thing that he had made. It seemed more powerful than he was, beyond his ken, which was absurd. He knew these things but the idea defied him impassively.

He was quite sure that no one knew his secret. How could someone guess he had an idea? There was nothing physical to note: no reddening of ears; no stickiness of tongue; no wavering of voice. It was abstraction and it did not manifest; he wasn’t crazy.

Time came and went and the idea stayed right where it was. What became of ideas never expressed?

The Far from Wild Borneo

I am on vacation in Borneo, which is no longer that wild given that I can sit at a lovely restaurant ostensibly in the jungle and write this. I had been a bit trepidatious of this journey after my trip to Kuta, and the like-sounding Kota Kinabalu where I would be spending a few days didn’t inspire confidence. The last thing I wanted on this emergency escape from the dragon’s lair – which had been particularly smokey over the past two weeks – was a party town.

I had checked out Air Asia flights from nearby Shenzhen and was stunned at the cheapness of flights to Kota Kinabalu, where I had wanted to go before I ended up at Bali. Other travel plans with friends who were fleeing GZ for the week fizzled. So I booked in on Wednesday, found a great looking place in the jungle outside of the Sepilok Jungle Reserve on Thursday, and headed off on Monday, December 24.

KK ended up fitting the bill perfectly. It was lovely. I walked down the streets without people chiming out the tourist troika of taxi, t-shirt, tchotchkes. There were markets busy with people; everyone was friendly; children approached with curiosity and smiles, not designs on money; and there was no sense of hurry anywhere.

Merry Christmases were called out and despite the equatorial weather, it felt somewhat like a Christmas. And not a bad one like I had been dreading for a week or so. A dread that even baking hadn’t eliminated.

I ate at a cafeteria I had passed, which KK has in abundance – all bright plastic and food in bins. It wasn’t bad, but I should have waited for as I strolled about I found a fantastic night market, blazing away incandescently near the ocean. It was nicely divided into areas – seafood, then satay, then vegetables and such. The seafood looked fantastic. And I know what I will have when I return to KK tomorrow.

On Christmas day I headed off to Sepilok, which I will describe later.

I also got some more photos that make me very happy.

A girl in a morning market in Kota Kinabalu

The night market food trolley storage area during the day.

Behind a craft market in the morning

Super Collider

When sitting he never knows what he wants; when he stands it becomes clear; when he paces it is like he is always walking towards it, seeing it get clearer and closer. He decides without reaching the end, when the image passes from shadow to fluoresced, shimmering outline. It never becomes distinct so at that time he never knows if it is the right one, but he is secure in his reading of the nebulous and doesn’t doubt anymore; his is patient; he is beyond patient. He decides and he waits.

As with all things, it is through the vibrations of time that the truth falls. With the decision made, his part is finished. He knows that any actions past this may affect the outcome. The act is all he needs. Anymore might tilt the whirl and he will never know if the decision was the right one.

It must seem like inaction, passiveness, to those outside. His process demands it. The purity of the experiment, the reduction of his influence to a single, easily identifiable, quantifiable, knowable point.

This is where it begins.

From here it wends out as it wonts. From here he cannot observe the ripples. From here he knows when the effects reach him. From here he is both stone and shore.

It has been difficult. He began by interfering after, by manipulating things, trying to get the anticipated, desired ending. But it didn’t turn out that way, and he didn’t know which decision was the right one and which the wrong. It was like tossing in a handful of pebbles and tracing the interference.

So he began again. Simply this time. Work things never took long to resolve. An hour or so at first. And his concentration gave his work new strength, clarity, and precision.

Then he began with personal things, and there, too, his patience seemed to work. Women took his silence as a kind of brooding desire and odd respect.

A year and a half ago he started to record it in his notebook. Observation can be benign, but recording it is a decision and an action; he was afraid that this might affect things.

Which they did.

When his girlfriend found his book and the records of his decisions towards here, chronologically ordered, indexed, and cross-referenced To her they weren’t simply things done and watched: they were a strategy, not the tracings of a hypothesis working itself through a complicated by finite system.

That was a year ago.

Nine months ago he made his last decision.

Somewhere inside he can feel the resonances, distant echoes coming back from past the horizon.

He gave up his notes. Waiting is now all there is.

Mark it with a T

It’s the unfortunate Christmas season, and as in all prior Christmases that I can remember, I long for my mom’s baking: shortbread, Russian teacakes, mincemeat, and pies. Last week it came to a head and on a whim – I am a follower of many whims and though many of them have turned out badly some have turned out wonderfully for a time – I bought a toaster oven on Friday.

That night I went to the IKEA and got the mixing bowls, rolling pin, measuring cup, and other knick-knacks I could find. I stopped off at the western foods place for flour and such things. And I emailed for my mom’s recipes. I got them the next day.

Saturday afternoon I began by making the first peanut butter cookies I had made in probably over 30 years. My mom had brought my brother and me up right, teaching us to cook when we were barely in school, or possibly before. Peanut butter cookies, though, were what I remember best. My brother took to it a little more than me, making a Black Forest cake that I still get insulin convulsions over when he was 10?, and becoming a pastry chef at a fancy hotel. I let it slide.

But not this year. It was going to be a rough enough Christmas (the first one after a break-up is always hard, and the first one in a far-away land is going to be extra tough) and I needed to soften the blow.

My friend Enid called up just before I was going to get started. Being Singaporean, she had probably never had a homemade cookie, let alone helped, so she was excited to come over. I made up the dough and refrained from gobbling more than a taste down, and waited. She showed up and we began putting the cookies on the pans and forking them down.

Cooking with a toaster oven involves a lot of pan swapping, so there were plenty of chances to get the timing right, get the rustiness out, and sample the results. And, lo and behold, they turned out like my memory expected, but perhaps a little less sugary since I used real peanut butter, not that crapulous processed stuff.

I really wanted to make shortbread next, but lacked the cookie cutters. Enid, being the resourceful person she is, found a place on some internet site, got the address, found the bus route that went from my place there, and off we went. Love the GZ buses. RMB2 for a forty minute ride without a transfer.

It wasn’t the easiest place to find. I was expecting some wooden-floored and shiny-steel-shelved store, with pots, pans, and all the kitchen gadgets. What we found was a tiny apartment in a strange apartment complex that had an open square on the second floor. But the store had plenty of little cutters, the pans I needed, some cinnamon (for a spice that was currency at one point, it’s remarkably hard to find here), and odds and sods. For RMB77. I was happy.

So on Sunday I made shortbread. I had never made it before, and the thickness of the dough was hard to get at first, but it all worked out in the end, and with the tiny shapes I was using I ended up baking over forty cookies. And they were pretty good. Not quite as good as mom’s, but I’ll keep trying.

On Monday I came in laden with treats. I was training so my students all got a cookie at the first break. On I went up to the Tax department where I know quite a few lovely people deserving of cookies. I made the rounds, feeling wonderful handing them out. There was general surprise that not only was I passing out cookies, I was the person who had baked them.

I was expecting this. Men are not expected to be able to do much domestic, certainly not cook anything edible, and baking is an unknown art here where the oven is a strange appliance.

Monday night I made brownies. Burned the bottom a bit but that didn’t seem to matter to the people I gave some to. They gobbled them down greedily; one even skarfing down right in front of me one which I had asked her to take to someone else.

Tonight it looks like chocolate chip cookies.

I like giving presents, which is what makes this year hard because I have no one special to surprise with the perfect thing, the thing I hunted down, the thing I gleaned from glances and things said months previously, the thing I thought she could use, the thing that would make her eyes shine.

Cookies given to my new acquaintances and friends will have to do.

 

UPDATE: I gave out more brownies at the Christmas party and some people said I should give a baking class.

Get the White Guy

That’s me dressed vaguely as Elvis. I chose neither the wig nor the jacket, but here in GZ it’s close enough. And that’s Susie as Madonna doing her best Chinese picture-taking pose. The things you get asked to do when you are the only white people in an office of 700.

I read somewhere that statistically speaking, there would come a time where everyone will have been be an Elvis impersonator. My time came last Friday at the company’s annual dinner.

Susie and I were asked to be presenters. I wasn’t supposed to be the King. I had been asked to be Michael Jackson, a proposition which I choked at and quite firmly said no. I wanted to remain in the same species.

So I needed a substitute: Someone famous that most of the audience would know. Despite what we think in the West, not all world famous pop stars are world famous. Nowadays it’s more common, what with the evaporative celebrities that fuel the interent, but a long-lasting star?

But I figured Elvis was a shoe-in and would be a lot of fun. I dug up a few pictures of post-revival King in the white jumpsuit with little cape. It was a good compromise between the cool Elvis and the dead Elvis. And he was better than John Denver, who oddly popular here but kinda boring on stage.

So I said “Elvis” after checking to make sure my colleagues knew him, and the amazing team here got to work, dredging up a huge, towering wig, and having a jacket made. Not exactly Elvis style, but it worked. I chose “All Shook Up” and had but 25 scant seconds with which to bring the King alive.

I had been a bit nervous beforehand, as you would expect having to perform in front of 1000 people. Rehearsed twice and it was all fine, except for nearly pulling my left calf muscle since I hadn’t warmed up. Ehh… at least my hips didn’t give out; that’s the important part. I was worried about my right buckling and ending up doing a header off of the stage.

They had got this enormous tower of black hair to squeeze onto my head. As you can see, it wasn’t quite the King’s pompadour, but it sufficed, I guess. A pair of borrowed sunglasses was the other prop I needed, and slowly but surely any trepidations dissolved.

It was remarkable as estrangement set in, and the person in the mirror grew apart from me. I can understand the attraction of performing, now. Although I had acted a few times and I perform when I train, it’s not quite on the same level of character.

When the time came and Susie had finished “Lucky Star” she called me out and I strutted out there, gave a signal, grabbed the mike, and it was all over before I knew it. Too soon for my tastes. I had no fear when I was out there, just this strange elation. I have no idea what I looked like performing. Odd, since there were more cameras than people, and I finally got this photo from Susie.

I felt like I had rocked it pretty solid.

I guess I had. Some people actually thought I had sung the number, not merely lip-synched, and the rest who have talked to me have been quite complimentary, and Chinese people are generally restrained in praise.

I can’t wait for next time.

Missed Monkeys

I carry my Canon with me just about everywhere. I bought a great messenger type bag for it a few weeks ago, and so there are few times I am without it.

Last Saturday was one of those times.

I was heading to the gym and since I had a bag with me, I decided I didn’t need to lug the camera bag. Too bad. As I passed a bus stop I saw a man walking three macaque monkeys.

Three.

Monkeys on a long leash, tethering each to others. The last one had a wee baby clinging to her stomach and was unbearably cute.

I have no idea where the old man had come from or what he was doing on such a trek. A few people paused and stared, but, generally, it was the usual reaction of abject apathy. The level of diffidence would make New Yorkers envious.

Sadly, I forgot about the fact that my mobile has a pretty decent camera on it. It was one of the reasons I bought it. I was just so stunned and amused.

Stendhal’s Newest

Last week I went to a local bar, C:Union, which features live music. There was a mini-music festival going on, and that night was supposed to be folk music. I had no idea what to expect, which is the best feeling for a festival. A festival should be about discovering the new, not repeating the familiar.

My friends were all busy, so I went alone, and arrived early to make sure I got a table, which I did without problem. Apparently, music is not the biggest draw here, which is the same everywhere unfortunately.

Video screens were set up when I arrived, showing some nice charcoal sketches.

Soon the night got underway, with the folk artist playing a traditional Chinese stringed instrument. He sang in one of the ethereal voices of much ethnic folk. He was joined by a percussionist on a small African drum. And it was great.

Then the night began in earnest.

The two were joined by a bassist, a keyboardist, a guitarist, an occasional flautist/saxophonist, and a sound person who worked with loops and such. They began to merge a solid reggae beat into the folk music, the singer’s other-wordly tones without recognizable words soaring out over it all.

The artist joined them, sketching these wonderful images as the band played, blending one image into the next as you can see from the lead video. By the end of a sequence, the picture was unrecognizable. And like a Zen sand mandala, he would destroy it by layering the charcoal over it all.

The band was amazing, jamming away and taking things this way then that in a way that never ceases to amaze and impress. I danced my heart out at the back of the room in the few feet available to me. My new friend, Kevin, whom I met there, was about the only other person doing the same.

The hair on my arms didn’t stand, but at one point tears started.

It was one of the best nights in the past while.

Power to the Pop

I love power pop.

I think if it makes you smile uncontrollably while wanting to dance, it’s power pop.

Three chords. Fun as hell.

Ramones? Sure, why not.

The Modern Lovers? Oh yeah.

 

I have no idea what it is about the Japanese and music, but man, I remember looking at Tokyo listing of bands one time and I swear Captain Beefheart was playing, and I was sure everyone from that band was dead. I plan on a pilgrimage sometime this year solely to see some music. Tokyo is mad for music and though a lot is just bad boy/band pop you get some gems in that mix.

I read something somewhere about Puffy (Puffy AmiYumi in North America, which is like that whole Charlatans UK and Braindead/Dead Alive thing) and checked out some of their music. Power pop of the highest frackin’ (love Battlestar Galactica. Watch it already.) order. My face hurt from smiling, just like when I saw Jonathan Richman or the Ramones.

 

Coasting around YouTube, I came across this song by Puffy and I can’t get it or the video out of my head. It has the power pop necessities: a wonderful, heavy but simple guitar riff; a basic metronomic hard thumping drum bit; and a solid bass line. You think you could play like that after a few months. And unlike so many pre-programmed videos, Ami and Yumi, aren’t doing any choreographed dance moves (or too many). They are just rockin’ out, having fun, and looking damn great doing it. Plus, making tartan pants look good with yellow shoes deserves an award.

If you don’t smile watching this you need help.

 

 

And I included this, their Teen Titan theme song, because at the end Guitar Wolf makes an appearance for a solo. He looks the way I would love to look playing guitar and so few people can: like he popped out of the womb in black leather, guitar slung low at the hips, and landed on the floor in a rock god pose, pick hand raised, ready to flail out yet another power chord.

 

Guitar Wolf’s Fujiyama Attack is one of the greatest rock and roll songs. It is unbelievably loud, forcing me to adjust the volume on my mp3 player when I am in the gym. And they are the definition of rock and roll cool. Watch “Wild Zero”. See Bass Wolf, Billy (RIP) combing his hair as Drum Wolf fires off a shoulder rocket. It’s up there with Joe Strummer dipping his comb into a can of gas and slicking back his hair in “Straight to Hell”.

Litanies 2

Things to Love about Guangzhou

Shopping

As I mentioned in another piece, they make things here – lots of things for lots of people. Fancy things for fancy people who still think that clothes by Italian, Parisian, or British designers are made in Italy, Paris or England by trained artisans, carefully stitching the fine fabrics in cozy little shops, surrounded by mounds of fabric, lit by dusty skylights, every piece bearing the imprimatur of artists and their calloused but delicate fingers. Ha. Suckers. Nope. Designer clothes, like designer bags are made here by people in a factory the size of an aircraft hanger burning bright in shadowless halogen lights, churning them out like rabbits poop and procreate. And thank God.

Because that means I can go to a local discount store and find the coolest single-button, narrow lapel, Armani jacket in blue, velvet-like material that sparkles in the sun; an Armani suit in dark blue with a fine herringbone and pin stripes; and a fantastic Paul Smith shirt (I love Paul Smith) that I would never wear a t-shirt with because the material feels so damn good, for about $100 US. There was a Ferre suit but it was a little short.

Sure you have to wade through piles of clothes all twisted and wadded up on tables from the shoppers who had already crab-clawed their ways through, but that’s part of the fun.

And one store had socks, and I have a thing for socks

Now there are these Paul Smith trousers…

Food

People in Hong Kong salivate when they talk of GZ. Open mouthed gastronomic awe. That’s in Hong Kong, which is not exactly a bad place to find food. So I arrived expecting miracles. And it has delivered in spades.

I did not expect the diversity. Not only in the Western (well, Eastern too, if you count all the Arabic and other Muslim restaurants), but in the Chinese food itself. Sure, I knew of Szechuan and Hunan and Canton and Shanghai food, but not really of XinJiang or Uighur food, or even northern Chinese cuisine.

My favourite Chinese restaurant back in Edmonton was the Islam Noodle House, a name that had confused me since I had been unaware of China even having Muslims. It was run by this lovely older guy with a fantastic white beard and a smile larger than his face. He made the noodles by hand, and I was fascinated. One of my best-loved dishes was this innocent cucumber dish that had fire to burn your intestines. And it was cheap.

So my first week here, traipsing down the block from the hotel to a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant, and getting a bowl of noodles for about 75 cents made with hand-pulled noodles, was a revelation. It was like reclaiming a forgotten paradise. I learned that smiley beard had been from XinJiang province, and that these restaurants were everywhere in GZ, bowling out these noodles – Niu Riu La Mian – at all hours.

This weekend was a great experience.

Friday I went to a north-eastern Chinese restaurant that is famous here, and part of a chain, though I was told the one by the new office in Tian He was better than most. Had to wait which is par for the course for famous restaurants in the East. Got some fantastic tea made with wheat, and a dish of sunflower seeds to munch on and spit onto the floor. That was a hoot.

Headed up after about half-an-hour which wasn’t too bad. Ordered the donkey meat, which is a renowned dish, but they were out – sigh – so had to settle for some beef. And lots of delicious flat bread and stuffed bread. Plus they had my favourite vegetable from Taiwan – Longshu Cai (Dragon whisker vegetable) which I think is the stalk of the pea plant. And dumplings. Lots of dumplings. I ate till I could eat no more and, like all good things here, it was super cheap – less than $20.

Saturday went out with some work people and we went to a Uighur restaurant. The Uighurs are not ethnic Chinese, but look Turkish or Eastern European (not surprising since they are next to Kazakhstan), and the food is a mix of stuff. Again, flat bread, but topped with a lamb stew (also a Muslim culture); a baked fish; a salad of tomato, cucumber, and onion; and some other things. It was my fourth time. Still, they have never had the lamb-stuffed flat pie, so I will have to go back.

And I haven’t even made the smallest, tiniest, dent in the eating scene here. There are these restaurants around the corner from my apartment that seem to start going at about midnight and serve a variety of seafood. Always crowds of people when I drive by in a taxi late night.

Litanies

Lists of things from my holiday in Bali

 

Lists of small injuries that add up to major annoyances

• Two small blisters on the second-largest toe of each foot caused by my scuba booties. Very annoying and hurt like hell the last dive. Salt water didn’t really help, but it did stop them from infecting, until I was out of the water. It was some time before they got nice and scabby, so my socks stuck to the top of my feet if I was wearing socks, or they just plain hurt if I was in sandals.

 

• Ruts on the sides of my big toes from my Merrell sandals which I was finally forced to ditch for some cheap flip-flops. Those sandals were only comfortable for a day at a time, and were harder to break in than a pair of hiking boots. Now I have to face the worn ruts between my toes from the damn flip flops. I just wasn’t made to wear sandals.

 

• Worn skin on my knees and palms from the surfboard. Yeah, I had board shorts, but they rode up a bit before they almost fell off – make up your damn mind! Had a nice little hole just below the base of my right thumb. And to top it off, the salt water erased all the lovely calluses I had from guitar playing and the gym. My hands looked like some corpses when I got out of the water. They scared me.

 

• Pulled left and right groin – though not at the same time – from surfing. Why can’t both legs go the same direction when you slip? But no, one goes one the other the opposite. I guess I should be thankful the board didn’t overturn and I landed on the thrusters (that surf talk for the rudder fins – do they really thrust?). That’s for next time, I am sure.

 

• Being sick in general from the sun, the food, and other sundry nasties, I guess. I did manage to dump (I mean that literally) a few kilos and I am sure my colon is pristine at the moment. Waking up in Jakarta with the chills was oh so bloody nice.

 

But would do it again. This isn’t that bad. At least I didn’t put myself in the hospital with a major sunburn like the time in Taiwan when I burned my lower legs and they looked like swollen, crispy, purple sausages for a week or so.

 

List of Stupid things

• Remembering the underwater case for my Sony W7 digital camera but forgetting the Sony. Yeah. Realized that at the GZ airport so I had to live with my stupidity as I flew. Bonus.

 

• Thinking one night in Jakarta would be fun. Ha. Worst traffic jam of my life due to a flood that threatened to float the bloody car. Fever. Chills. At least the naked guy on the highway the next morning made up for that. Well, almost. A naked hot woman giving out ibuprofen would have done that a whole lot more. Oh, and my visa overran because the Indonesian government has a special way of counting; ie, they cheat you.

 

• Thinking upon leaving the Jakarta hotel room (which was nice at least) that I had lost my camera bag with ticket and passport, alerting all the staff in a total panic, searching the room again with a bellhop (do they still use that word?) and finding it on the window sill behind the curtains I had closed. Oh, yeah, public idiocy is the best kind.

 

List of things I realized.

• Australians are the new fatties. I mean, holy cows. If I saw a generously spread out person pushing the clothing seems, I could expect a “g’day” or “no worries” to come out of the maw. People talk about North Americans, but I saw fewer truly fat people in New York. Of course, maybe Bali attracts them like some kind of glazed donut or whatever deep-fried delectables the antipodean land whales prefer.

 

• Foreign beer shirts are preferred by idiots of all nations. Yep, nothing says quality travel like returning from Bali with a BinTang beer shirt, preferably with no sleeves. Australians liked to wear them with Australian flag board shorts. This might count as two observations.

 

• Dependance on tourism is the biggest impetus to language learning. Sure, it’s survival English of the highest order – “taxi, boss” “Massage” “sex, just for fun” “transport, boss” etc… but as I learned in Cambodia, it’s a lot more effective that classroom lessons. I think I could market this for people (hell, I could use it) trying to learn a language. Just make them have to earn their living in some kind of makeshift tourist hell, like Fantasy Island but with more barbed wire and pain.

 

Yes, traveling gives you new perspectives and teaches you new ways of self-loathing and, better, misanthropy. At least the sexual tourism was mercifully out of sight, unlike Sabang in the Philippines where truly disgusting and vile men prided themselves on scoring with 20 year-old Philippinas. That’s enough to make you want to carry napalm or some kind of castration robot ninja (that would be cool).